I took the page to my room, along with one of the books. The rest of the things kept their place on the floor in the hall.

I sat down at my desk and started writing out the steps I had done in my head. I didn’t have a fancy calculator, just a simple one that was handed out for free at the electronics fair at the mall. I did what I could using the calculator, working out the rest the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper. I opened the book, flipping to the back to where the answers were, only to see that I was correct with my answer.

With a feverish sort of diligence, I started doing the rest of my mother’s homework. With each problem I started to think faster and started seeing more and more shortcuts. Soon I hardly had to write down any steps at all. The assignment took me 45 minutes to complete. I put the page back into the book, put the books in the study and went to bed.

This went on for the next two years until my mother’s graduation. Neither my mother nor I ever said anything about it.