The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

Windy is busy with her dad on Saturday. Lucy gets Levi to go with her to The Pet Hut so she can continue working on their paperwork. Nana will drive them, and she’s delighted: She thinks they’re on some sort of date. Lucy insists it’s for the team project.

They go to Levi’s house, a really nice place, and meet him and one of his moms, Gina Boyd, at the door. Like Levi, Gina is tall, slender, and brown-skinned, except she has very short hair; she’s a cardio instructor, and “probably could be a model” (137). Gina is very nice, and she offers to pick them up, but Nana says she’s happy to do the driving. Levi greets Nana very courteously, which impresses her. Lucy is relieved that Nana doesn’t gush about him.

At the shelter, they head for the office. Something brushes against her leg and she jumps: It’s Cutie Pi. She asks Levi to remove the dog. Claire walks in and thanks Lucy for helping out. She gives Levi permission to walk the dog, then shows Lucy how to enter the adoption form information into the old computer. Lucy writes down statistics as she goes.

An hour later, Levi returns with Cutie Pi. He grabs a page from Lucy’s calculations and demands to know what she’s doing. He holds it away from her while she tries to snatch it back. Cutie Pi barks and growls at Levi, then sits at Lucy’s feet, leaning against her leg. Lucy hates this but doesn’t want the dog growling at her, too. Levi tells her to pet the dog; she protests, saying Cutie Pi is dirty. She does like his eyes, and finally she pets him three times, then a few more times, and then she loses count.

Levi asks again about her notes; she explains that they’re statistics on the time it takes for dogs to get adopted, based on variables like age or the color of their fur. She really wants someone to understand her, so she plunges ahead and explains her math expertise. He looks doubtful, so she hands him a calculator, and Levi enters numbers while she calculates the answers in her head.

Levi says, “You’re a freak” (145), but he’s smiling. She makes him promise to keep it a secret. She also offers to tutor him in math. He thanks her and calls her “Mighty Math Genius,” but she says she prefers “Lightning Girl” (146). They can study online if he’s embarrassed to be seen with her, but he asks why he’d be embarrassed. He helps her with the data entry while the dog naps on her feet. It’s her best day ever.

Lucy trusts Levi to keep her secret because he doesn’t talk much about others. Lucy doesn’t want to hurt Windy’s feelings by hiding from her the truth about her math ability, but Windy blabs everything she knows.

Cutie Pi still can’t lodge with the other dogs, so Lucy brings him an old shirt to sleep on under the desk. When Lucy’s there, Cutie Pi prefers to sleep on her lap, which she finds “gross and adorable” (148).

The team decides to upgrade the shelter’s website and display the dogs that, based on Lucy’s calculations, have a hard time getting homes. Levi will take pictures of the canines while one of his moms, who owns a public relations firm, will help get the word out.

Ms. Fleming breaks her pact with Lucy and tells her to read something she hasn’t yet seen. She can’t do it; Ms. Fleming presses; Windy and Levi both pipe up and tell the teacher to stop it. She threatens them; Windy calls her a bully. Ms. Fleming kicks all three of them out. They go to the office, but the principal is busy, so they head for their next class.

That evening, Nana announces she’s discovered a high school for bright math and science students—the “North Carolina Academy of Science, Math, and Engineering” (157), or NCASME—but Lucy resists. Her friends backed her up at school, and it’s the first day she feels like she belongs there.

Mr. Stoker likes the team’s idea to write about shelter dogs, and so does Claire. At The Pet Hut, Lucy walks everyone through the dog room, and, for each dog, she gives an estimate of how long it’ll take to get adopted. The average is 12 days, but it takes longer for certain dogs to get adopted, such as those who are large, older, or a pit bull, shepherd, or chihuahua. The only subtraction is for dogs younger than one year: They get adopted about four days sooner.

One dog, Murphy, is a black-furred, 110-pound shepherd, six years old, with differently colored eyes. Lucy has him pegged at 26 days before adoption. He also jumps up on people. The kids take Murphy out to the fenced-in play yard, where Levi puts a bow tie on the dog and takes photos of him while Lucy stands on the relative safety of a side bench and holds up a blue-green backdrop sheet.

Back inside, Windy writes Murphy’s description while Levi uploads his photos to the shelter’s website. Claire loves the resulting page.

A day later, Murphy gets adopted. Windy’s ecstatic; Levi downplays it but agrees to go with her that evening to the shelter for another doggie photo shoot. Privately, he admits to Lucy that, at her suggestion, he went onto the MathWhiz website and got all his math questions answered.

Paul visits, and he drives Lucy and Nana to the science high school. It’s nearly two hours away. There, Lucy takes an entrance exam, which she aces. There’s an opening in January; everyone’s excited for her except Lucy: “I just started a new school. It was awful, and now it’s not so awful. I don’t know if I’m ready to do it all over again” (176).

Lucy tries to fill out the application for the science school but gets stuck. She tells Nana she doesn’t have leadership experience or much volunteering to write about.

Halloween looms. Lucy hasn’t gone trick-or-treating since she was seven and doesn’t want to now, but Windy insists and offers her costumes based on musicals. Lucy decides to wear her uncle’s old military fatigues, pinned up to fit her. She applies camouflage makeup to her face; it’s her first makeup ever.

Nana drives her to Windy’s. Levi’s there; He reports that their seventh photo-dog, a 10-year-old bulldog mix named Jesse who might have taken four weeks to find a home, got adopted half a day after they put his story online. Lucy thinks about Cutie Pi, who’s not yet up for adoption. She’s taught the dog three tricks and would adopt him herself, except “Nana’s not a dog person, and our lease doesn’t allow pets” (180).

Windy descends the stairs dressed in the white jumpsuit, mask, and orange gloves of an oppressed shrimp worker. She’ll hand out postcards showing the brands with abused workers. They start trick-or-treating, and by the end of the block Lucy counts 30 pieces of candy for her and Levi. Windy has 29, maybe on account of the postcards.

Windy comments on how often Lucy counts things. Lucy takes a deep breath and tells her about the math-genius thing. Levi asks her to compute the circumference of a circle with a radius of eight yards; she instantly gives the answer in yards and feet, plus the circle’s area, all of it to thousandths of a unit. Windy says, “I guess you’ve been doing more than counting stuff” (183).

Windy is mad—not at Lucy but at herself for not seeing it sooner. Lucy points out that Windy was suspicious about it at the shelter. Windy senses that Levi knows about it already, and she wants to know why Lucy didn’t tell her before. Levi says Lucy’s a nervous chihuahua, and he’s “a golden retriever. Very trustworthy.” Windy wants to know what kind of dog she is; Lucy says, “A mutt” because they’re the best dogs, “Friendly and unique” (184).

On the bus the next morning, Lucy apologizes for not telling Windy about her math ability sooner. Windy says Lucy doesn’t trust her to keep a secret, but she promises to stay silent about it.

At day’s end, all students receive their report cards in sealed envelopes. They’re to get them signed and returned promptly. On the way home, Lucy doesn’t want to look, so Windy grabs her envelope, opens it, and hands her the report. Lucy gets four A’s, a B in Ms. Fleming’s class, and an Incomplete in Math. Mr. Stoker has added a note requesting a parent meeting. Windy gets straight-A’s, which means she can have her overnight birthday party at a water park hotel. She’s inviting all 13 girls from homeroom, but she especially wants Lucy to go. Lucy privately isn’t so eager.

Nana looks at the grades and is happy. She asks about the B; Lucy says it’s her first ever. As to the Incomplete, Nana says, “Are you still pretending to be dumb?” and Lucy replies, “Not dumb. Normal” (190). Nana says it isn’t smart to hide herself; Lucy stomps off.

At the shelter, Lucy enters more adoption papers while Windy and Levi take a picture of a dog catching a frisbee. Cutie Pi isn’t in the office, but Claire returns from the vet with him, and he leaps into Lucy’s lap. Claire announces sadly that Cutie Pi has brain cancer. Windy and Levi enter, and Claire tells them that animal control will take Cutie Pi away tomorrow. Lucy argues that Claire promised to keep Cutie Pi if they did their volunteer work. Lucy says she’ll adopt the dog.

Claire and Lucy go for a walk. Claire knows Lucy can’t adopt; she tries to explain that life sometimes isn’t fair. Lucy understands; they both get teary-eyed. Lucy wants to put Cutie Pi on the website: They can offer him for free. Claire insists they tell the whole truth about Cutie Pi’s condition; Claire agrees.

Lucy writes the online entry for Cutie Pi that offers the dog for free to a good home. Levi puts up eight pictures of him, double the usual number. Lucy asks Nana to pray for the dog.