Do the Math #2: The Writing on the Wall

In this follow-up to Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra, Tess learns that life, like algebra, sometimes has no solutions. Sometimes you just have to take a risk and figure out your own answers.

The spring semester of eighth grade, like algebra, has become even more complicated for math-lover Tess. There’s the new girl at school, whom Tess is not quite sure is a friend. There’s bully Richard, who keeps playing mean pranks on her—but if she tells on him, he can finally call her a snitch, so she’s not sure she should.

There’s mysterious graffiti on the wall that seems to be a math code. Is it meant for Tess to understand? Could it have anything to do with the fire set in evil Mr. Z’s classroom?

Finally, Damien seems to be hanging around more than ever, but she’s not sure why— is it because he likes her, or is it just a “coincidental system” like the one she learned about in algebra class?

In the end, Tess figures out that sometimes life doesn’t offer formulas to figuring out the answers. Sometimes you have to take a risk and create your own formulas and discover your own solutions, even if you make a few mistakes along the way.

Wendy Lichtman writes personal essays for the Washington Post, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Good Housekeeping, among other national publications. She has also written four previous young adult novels, including Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra. She holds a degree in mathematics and has tutored public-school students in algebra for several years. When she decided to write about a teenage girl who realizes that some questions have more than one right answer, algebra, with its unknowns and variables, seemed a perfect metaphor. Wendy Lichtman lives in Berkeley, California.