Read A Wrinkle in Time Quintet for Free Online Page B

“All you have to remember is that every ordinary fraction canbe converted into an infinite periodic decimal fraction. See? So 3/7 is 0.428571.”
    “This is the craziest family.” Calvin grinned at her. “I suppose I should stop being surprised by now, but you’re supposed to be dumb in school, always being called up on the carpet.”
    “Oh, I am.”
    “The trouble with Meg and math,” Mrs. Murry said briskly, “is that Meg and her father used to play with numbers andMeg learned far too many shortcuts. So when they want her to do problems the long way around at school she gets sullen and stubborn and sets up a fine mental block for herself.”
    “Are there any more morons like Meg and Charles around?” Calvin asked. “If so, I should meet more of them.”
    “It might also help if Meg’s handwriting were legible,” Mrs. Murry said. “With a good deal of difficulty I canusually decipher it, but I doubt very much if her teachers can, or are willing to take the time. I’m planning on giving her a typewriter for Christmas. That may be a help.”
    “If I get anything right nobody’ll believe it’s me,” Meg said.
    “What’s a megaparsec?” Calvin asked.
    “One of Father’s nicknames for me,” Meg said. “It’s also 3.26 million light years.”
    “What’s E = mc 2 ?”
    “Einstein’s equation.”

    “What’s E stand for?”
    “Energy.”
    “m?”
    “Mass.”
    “c 2 ?”
    “The square of the velocity of light in centimeters per second.”
    “By what countries is Peru bounded?”
    “I haven’t the faintest idea. I think it’s in South America somewhere.”
    “What’s the capital of New York?”
    “Well, New York City, of course!”
    “Who wrote Boswell’s
Life of Johnson?
”
    “Oh, Calvin, I’m not any good at English.”
    Calvin groanedand turned to Mrs. Murry. “I see what you mean. Her I wouldn’t want to teach.”
    “She’s a little one-sided, I grant you,” Mrs. Murry said, “though I blame her father and myself for that. She still enjoys playing with her dolls’ house, though.”
    “Mother!”
Meg shrieked in agony.
    “Oh, darling, I’m sorry,” Mrs. Murry said swiftly. “But I’m sure Calvin understands what I mean.”
    With a sudden enthusiasticgesture Calvin flung his arms out wide, as though he were embracing Meg and her mother, the whole house. “How did all this happen? Isn’t it wonderful? I feel as though I were just being born! I’mnot alone anymore! Do you realize what that means to me?”
    “But you’re good at basketball and things,” Meg protested. “You’re good in school. Everybody likes you.”
    “For all the most unimportant reasons,”Calvin said. “There hasn’t been anybody, anybody in the world I could talk to. Sure, I can function on the same level as everybody else, I can hold myself down, but it isn’t me.”
    Meg took a batch of forks from the drawer and turned them over and over, looking at them. “I’m all confused again.”
    “Oh, so ’m I,” Calvin said gaily. “But now at least I know we’re going somewhere.”
     
    Meg was pleasedand a little surprised when the twins were excited at having Calvin for supper. They knew more about his athletic record and were far more impressed by it than she. Calvin ate five bowls of stew, three saucers of Jello, and a dozen cookies, and then Charles Wallace insisted that Calvin take him up to bed and read to him. The twins, who had finished their homework, were allowed to watch half anhour of TV. Meg helped her mother with the dishes and then sat at the table and struggled with her homework. But she could not concentrate.
    “Mother, are you upset?” she asked suddenly.
    Mrs. Murry looked up from a copy of an English scientific magazine through which she was leafing. For a moment she did not speak. Then, “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    Again Mrs. Murry paused. She held her hands out andlookedat them. They were long and strong and beautiful. She touched with the fingers of her right hand