The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

Lucy, now 12, lives with her grandmother, Nana. Sometimes Nana’s son Paul, a Marine, visits. He gives her a lightning-bolt charm on a necklace. She loves it. Lucy is homeschooled, just earned her high school GED, and got a perfect score on the math SAT. Already she’s taking college classes online, but Nana wants her to go to a regular school first.

Lucy says she already has friends, four of them, whom she chats with in online math forums. Paul and Nana believe she should have in-person friends, but Lucy remembers how her do-everything-three-times-only habit always got in the way. She thinks her life is “perfectly balanced. Nana + Uncle Paul + Math = Happiness” (15).

After a three-day visit, Paul leaves. Nana grabs Lucy, and they go in the car to nearby East Hamlin Middle School, where Nana intends to enroll Lucy: “You need to work on some of your soft skills before I send you off to MIT” (18). Lucy balks, saying she at least should be going to high school.

She remembers second grade and her constant need to do math. Kids asked her how many days were left if they died at 80, and Lucy glanced at the board where everyone’s birthday was and called it out for each of them, and the teacher sent her to the principal’s office. After this sort of thing happened many times, Nana pulled Lucy from school. Lucy was happy learning at home for “1,508 days” (20), but now that’s over.

They get a brief tour of the school, then visit the principal. Lucy sits down three times; if she doesn’t, in her head “The digits of pi will take over like an infection” (21). Nana dominates the conversation but makes note of the date and time of the first class of school. The principal welcomes Lucy to seventh grade and holds out his hand to shake. Lucy refuses: She’s worried about germs.

On the first day of school, Nana asks Lucy to give it one year; then she can go to college. Nana also asks that Lucy make one friend, do one activity outside the house, and read one book that’s not about math or economics.

Lucy takes the school bus to school. A girl larger than her age sits next to her. She has spiky hair and a backpack covered with environmental and justice stickers. They agree that middle school is awful. The girl says her name is Windy, and she blows on Lucy’s face. Lucy complains that this isn’t sanitary because of the cloud of microbes it releases. The girl interrupts with “Microbiomes!” and talks about malaria and mosquito nets.

At school, Windy scampers off the bus, but Lucy waits till last so she doesn’t bump into anyone’s germs.

Lucy’s homeroom teacher is Mr. Stoker. He greets every kid by shaking their hand, and Lucy hesitates at the door, but he seems to know about her germ fear and refrains from the handshake. Inside, Mr. Stoker has posters that show equations and number sequences; Lucy is enchanted.

Her assigned seat is in the second row; she must sit and tries to do it only once, but the numbers of pi start to flood her head, so she stands and sits twice more. Kids turn and watch.

She wipes down her desk with a Clorox wipe. The kid next to her, Levi, stares; she shows him the wipe, now dark with grime, and he winces in disgust, either at the dirt or at her.

Lucy’s first class is in the same room. Mr. Stoker spends the entire period talking about classroom rules. Her second period is Spanish. She’s already done six semesters online but still isn’t good at it. She’s memorized a great number of Spanish words, though.

After science class is lunch. Lucy cleans her place, then sits down three times. Another girl, Maddie, makes merciless fun of her and calls her a “freak.” Windy arrives with a cafeteria lunch and asks what she missed; Lucy says, “Nothing.” Windy describes the nearby kids, telling Lucy one good and one bad thing about each.

She says she was friends with Maddie in 5th grade, and the girl is “wicked smart,” but Levi chimes in that Maddie’s just “wicked.” Levi also says Windy loves “charity cases” (43)—he glances at Lucy—and that she’s opinionated, nosy, and bossy; Windy agrees on all points but says it’s because she’s a leader.

It’s Lucy’s turn. She says, “I’m good at math,” and, “You already know my…um…routine” (44). Windy seems disappointed; Lucy insists she’s just “ordinary” (44).

Nana meets her at the bus. This is embarrassing, but Lucy’s glad to be home. She tells Nana that school is torture; Nana says she’s not the first kid to think so. She has Lucy call Paul, who listens to his niece’s complaint and tells her to “Fake it till you make it” (47).

While Nana is away, working at a restaurant, Lucy goes online to a favorite math chat room, where she’s in demand as a problem solver. Some of her online friends still don’t know she’s only a kid: “Maddie may rule at East Hamlin. Windy might know everything about everyone. But here, I’m queen” (48).

The kids get their lockers during the second day’s homeroom. Cleaning hers, Lucy runs short of wipes. In math class, Mr. Stoker hands out a quick test, an assessment to learn the students’ progress up to 6th grade. Lucy has all the answers within seconds. She watches Levi make mistakes then decides she can hide her math ability by deliberately entering a few wrong answers.

That afternoon, Nana gets a call from Mr. Stoker saying Lucy got a zero on a math quiz. Lucy protests: “I got an 82 […] He made a mistake” (57). She says she just wants to be thought normal, not some genius cleaning lady. Mr. Stoker wants to see her after school tomorrow.

She goes online to her math chat room, where the leaders ask her to think up the next day’s practice question. No one could figure out her last one, so they ask that she aim lower. Lucy replies, “that’s my new motto” (59).

After school, Lucy learns she and Levi flunked the math quiz because they didn’t show their work. Mr. Stoker says the path to the answer is as important as the solution. Lucy disagrees but says nothing. Mr. Stoker shows them their test papers; most of the answers are the same. Lucy realizes she’d copied Levi’s wrong answer on the first question, but that Levi had copied the rest of her answers. She considers her lack of caution a miscalculation.

They both deny cheating. Mr. Stoker steps outside so the two kids can wrangle. Levi says she left her test face-up, so he thought she was “sharing.” He’s annoyed because he assumed she was good at math. He takes a picture of her with his phone, saying it’s for his “angry” collection. She demands that he confess; she doesn’t want the one class she likes to be ruined by the teacher’s mistrust.

When Mr. Stoker returns, they both refuse to confess. He lectures them about honesty and lets them go. Until now, Lucy has only plotted points on a graph; now, she’s “plotting revenge.”

Lucy tries to ignore Levi for a couple of days. At lunch, Windy asks to visit Lucy at her apartment so they can listen to musicals—Windy loves musicals—and, when Lucy agrees, tries to high-five her. Reflexively, Lucy backs away and knocks Levi’s chocolate milk all over the table. Everyone helps clean it up. Levi pretends to eat invisible food, and kids laugh. Maddie forces a couple of dollars into his hands; he buys more chocolate milk and some Doritos and quietly thanks Maddie. He doesn’t look at Lucy.

Lucy and Windy go to Lucy’s house. Nana is away doing a day shift at a restaurant. They work their way through a one-pound bag of Twizzlers while Lucy explains how her sit-stand-sit-stand-sit routine prevents number strings from invading her head. Windy says Lucy has obsessive-compulsive disorder and talks about an aunt with OCD who must touch doorways 10 times or bad things will happen to her children. She adds that Lucy at least has a way to stop the number invasion.

They grab cookies and soft drinks and watch TV. Windy appreciates all the sugary treats: “I may never leave” (71). Windy mentions her upcoming birthday party at a water park; Lucy asks when her birthday is, and when Windy says “November 10th,” Lucy automatically replies that it’s 71 days away. Windy is impressed, but Lucy regrets letting her genius leak out, so she insists it’s just part of a guessing game that she and Nana sometimes play.

Lucy hurries upstairs and logs onto the MathWhiz forum to see if anyone figured out the subtle trick hidden in her practice question. The fourth answer is correct; Lucy’s a bit disappointed that someone got it so easily. She congratulates him, and dozens of posts chime in, arguing about the answer.

Windy’s sister arrives to take her home. Windy gives Lucy a brief hug and invites her to visit her house next time, and please to smuggle some Twizzlers. Lucy hates the hug, and she thinks Windy merely likes her for the treats, but she’s glad: “Nana told me to make 1 friend. And I guess I have” (74).