Chapter Text
It was a calm evening. But it was stressful for one little girl.
Catalina Rodriguez sat in her room completely confused. She looked at her math homework and was fuming angrily.
“2 + 18 that! 9 + 10 this! 4 x 9! This crap doesn’t make sense!!” Catalina muttered to herself as she continued on a rant. “The work that Mrs. Allison gives is so hard!” Catalina then proceeds to bang her head on the table. Then she gets an idea.
“Maybe mommy can help with this?” She says internally. Her dad was asleep. And she needed to ge this work done so she doesn’t have to sit inside Ms. Allison’s class during recess.
Catalina grabs her math assignment. But before leaving her room. She looks at her baby brother Akio just sleeping soundly in his crib. She slightly tugs his hair and tells him “Sleep well Doofus.”
Catalina leaves her room and goes downstairs. The lights are mostly off. And it’s just lamps illuminating the rooms and hallway. Before entering the living room. She overhears her mom on the phone
“I certainly hope you enjoyed going out to dinner with Basil. Well you just need to get some rest now since you got work tomorrow alright? I’ll talk to you tomorrow ok. Goodnight Sunny.”
And of course. It’s Uncle Sunny on the phone. I certainly can’t wait for him to come visit.
Catalina enters the living room to see her mom just reading a book with her reading glasses. She takes a deep breath before getting close and tapping her.
Mari puts down her book to see her daughter holding up her homework paper. Her facial expression shows that she needs help.
“Mommy. Can you help me?”
“Sure I can sweetheart.”
Mari and Catalina walked into the dining room and they sit down at the table. Mari adjusts her glasses and looks at Catalina’s homework.
“Ah. This is math i see.”
“Yes.. I don’t understand this!”
Mari looks at one problem and decides to help out
“So. Daniel has 2 apples And his friend Henry gives him 18 apples. How much apples does Daniel have?”
“Ummmmmmm… 12?”
“No Catalina. He has 20 apples.”
Catalina is confused. It reminds Mari of a childhood memory where she didn’t get math at all when she was a young child.
“An example of getting 18 is subtracting 2 from 20. And also you could write down the numbers as you count. So you can keep track.”
Catalina now has a way to do addition correctly. But she is still confused by the multiplication.
“What is 4 X 9?”
“I don’t know! I don’t understand this!”
Mari inquires on an easy way to do multiplication. “Well. You can do multiplication by adding by the first number. Which is 4. You do 4 + 4 nine times and you get 36. Which is your answer.”
Catalina sorta gets it. But is still confused on Multiplication.
And the last one..
“Ok Catalina. This is the last one. What is 9 + 10?”
“Uhhhh…. 21?” “No. It’s 19” Mari showcases another way on how to do addition.
“So you see here. You can count with your fingers. Let’s start from 10 shall we?” Mari counts to 19 using her fingers. “Another way of doing 9 + 10 is doing 10 + 9. They both have the same answers but they are laid out differently.”
Catalina is getting the concept of addition. But still is confused on multiplication. But the thing is. Her homework was done and now she had no worries being forced to sit inside Ms. Allison’s class during recess and having to do it.
“Ok so.. that’s it. Ok now time for bed.” Mari yawns as she said that.
“Aww man… can I stay up for just 30 minutes!?”
“No Catalina. Time for bed..”
“Ok…”
Mari takes Catalina up to her bedroom and tucks her into bed.
“Sleep tight my little spider. Good night.”
And with that. Mari kissed Catalina on the cheek and turned off the lights. She left her room but not before checking on Akio. And no surprise. He was still asleep.
Catalina fiddles with her thumbs before going to sleep. With the thoughts of Spiderman completely taking over her brain.