Gn 001 book-00023

When Angla walked into the Mathematics classroom, her new Math teacher Mrs.Hill rushed in front of her face quickly. Her eyes widened and Mrs Hill was so closed to her, their nose were almost touched each other.

Angla took a step back carefully, this woman said with a toothy smile:“Welcome, Angla!”

Angla was taken aback by this sudden enthusiasm. “She looked like Sybill Patricia Trelawney in Harry Potter......” Mrs Hill had a huge thick glasses on her oval face and flaxen split frizzy hair draped over the shoulders messily.

After Mrs Hill introduced herself to the whole class, she took out a set of A4 papers and handed them with a smirk.

The students around Angla began to complain loudly. Actually Angla was also perturbed, her math score was not outstanding in China and she was not at all familiar with Canadian math problem types.

She was still reading questions when others calculate by using a calculation. “It’s not that hard.” Angla has gone through the rigors of Chinese mathematics, Canadian mathematics meant nothing in her eyes. She secretly rejoices, these could be called “review” at best for her.

“Why don’t you start to write, Angla? Do you have a coculation?” Asked by Mrs Hill.

With the attention of his classmates, she took out a small stack of draft paper from the pencilcase in silence. Angla didn't know that how many timest she had attracted the attention of the whole class. She tried not to let this look affect herself. 

This small quiz didn’t take her too long, she was the first one to finish it. Mrs Hill just done half of a page when Angla handed that quiz paper back to her. Her tiny light blue eyes full of surprised.

A few days later, Angla had been asked for go to Mrs Hill’s classroom alone. 

“Hey Angla? Please sit.” Mrs Hill was polited to her.

“Remember the quiz you did on Tuesday? Here is your grades.” She passed her quiz paper back to Angla, “You did a good job. But not perfect yet, just because of some small tiny word problem…That’s actually okay……But you can be better…and your way to solving the problem is kinda new for me, whatever, your answers are all correct…”

Angla explained to her for a long time, but to be honest, even Angla herself didn’t think Mrs HIll could understand her choppy words clearly. 

Finally, Mrs Hill said and frown: “Uh…It sounds like you omitted lots of steps…Probably that the reason why can not comprehend so well…”

“You are better not skip so many steps~ you know…Math…the most important part is process.” There had a smirk on her face.

“But why…I mean, don’t you think mine is more concise?” Angla had a little dissatisfied, most of her answers are correct, is not enough? Mrs Hill looked like she was deliberately looking for her mistakes. 

“No, no!” Mrs HIll was anxious to explain, “think about it, if you wrote like this, I’m pretty sure when you are in a exam, those making teachers won’t understand you. They may think that you can answer these questions correctly because of coincidence. You need to let others understand your logic. ”

“What if I answer all the questions correct, is there really have so many coincidences in the world?”

Mrs Hill’s face was pale, and suddenly turned to red, staring at Angla, “oh wow…you are so confident.” Outraged she said. 

She turned and left, without saying anything. Angla regretted for her disrespectful and rude in the moment that she walked out of the classroom door, but her self-esteem didn’t allow her to turn back and said sorry to Mrs Hill.

Mrs Hill wasn’t a good provoking as it turns out, her ability to “revenge” made Angla startled. She gave Angla more and more difficult word problem in private, every time when Angla looked distressed or confused, she would be close tightly his mouth to titter, then spelt out for her with a snicker. Mrs Hill even let her to do some grade 12 works, and Angla has to solving it even if she stays up all night. 

There had a race between them, none of them ever think to give in.