Numbers! Out of her head!

Note: Pinhole Poetry has posted an interview with me to go alongside my poem ‘Verb, which can also be found through Pinhole.

I had the nugget of an idea for a children’s story, about a girl who has, well, numbers, coming out of her head. As I am going over the stories I started but never finished last year, I came across it again. I also have a related, somewhat scary nugget about a boy who is attacked by musical notes as he tries to practice the violin, but that one hasn’t expanded further than a couple of lines.

If anyone (human) wishes to borrow these ideas, please, go ahead. I seem to have been inventing an entire world where numbers, tools, musical notes, and other objects, when pondered sufficiently, start spilling out of people’s brains, or maybe it’s a rather unique problem for a rather unique family — anyway, I don’t think this is something I’ll be able to wrangle into a concise enough shape to be useful as a short children’s story, and I am therefore, setting it free.

Here is the best of the beginning I have recovered, I think I started to go wrong when the mom starts to mom and I start to try to explain this weird numbers phenomena.

Sofia first noticed them when she leaned over to tie up her shoes.

Numbers! Where were they coming from?

She looked up at the ceiling. Nope. No numbers there.

Weird. She leaned over again to finish doing up her shoes.

More numbers! Wet and squishy numbers.

She put her hand up to her head.

Numbers!

Numbers were coming out of her head!

This did not seem normal.

She left one of her shoes untied and carefully walked over to where her Dad was working in the kitchen. She didn’t want more numbers to fall out of her head.

“Um,” Sofia said, “Something’s going on. I don’t want to alarm you, but…”

Her dad put the garlic press down and said, “Are those numbers? Coming out of your head?”

“They don’t hurt,” she said.

Her dad sighed. “We’ve talked about this. You need to stop thinking about numbers.”

“I’m trying!” she said. “I’m going out to play soccer! I’m not thinking about numbers at all!”

She crossed her fingers behind her back.

“Did you just cross your fingers behind you back?” Her dad asked.

“No,” she said, fingers still crossed. “I am not thinking this will be the seventh game we’ve played in nine days and that I need to find at least four more kids to play with me and how we should play for about one hour. I’m not thinking about numbers at all. Anyway,” she said, uncrossing her fingers so she could point at her dad, “You never said I would have numbers coming out of my head!”

“Don’t point at people.” her dad said. Then he said, “I think we need to talk with Mom, I need to ask how much garlic goes in this paprikash anyway.”

It was Sofia’s turn to sigh. “How much longer are you going to be staying home, again?”

“Rude,” dad said, as he dialed her Mom, “Don’t you like having me home?”

“I don’t know why you can’t just make potato salad,” she said, “I like potato salad.”

Dad waved at her to be quiet as mom came up on their screen.

“I’m a bit busy,” mom said, “Is everything all right?”

Sofia shook her head and a number flew off and splotched against a cupboard.

“There are numbers coming out of my head!” Sofia shouted.

Mom winced and adjusted her earpiece.

“Sorry,” Sofia added.

“Well. There’s nothing wrong with numbers, sweetie, but if you spend too much time thinking about them, and not thinking about anything else, this is what happens.”

“I’m trying!” Sofia said. “But numbers are the best!”

Mom made a sympathetic face. “You know, your Dad and I and your teachers are a bit worried about your reading. You’re very good at numbers, but you’re not as good at reading as you could be.”

Sofia rolled her eyes. “That’s because letters aren’t as interesting as numbers,” she explained for the one hundred thirty seventh time. “They’re harder, too.”

“Life isn’t all easy,” her Mom said. “Look at me. I’m here selling new gadgets to people, when I really want to tell them they can fix the old ones. I can’t spend all my time thinking about how to fix equipment, I’d never get anything else done.”

Sofia squinted. Was that a little silver screwdriver on mom’s shoulder?