Read The Cinderella Theorem for Free Online Page B

Obviously the woman went, I mean, I’m here, for
crying out loud. There’s no need for all this suspense. Writers.
    “Well,
he just helped me realize that I wanted to go and this was the only way to get
there.”
    “Oh,”
I said, wondering if she planned to try the same thing with me. The variable
she and my kingly father hadn’t counted on was the fact that I didn’t want to go. That considerably damaged their equation.
    “Lily,
I know you don’t want to go. You don’t want to accept the possibility of things
working outside of your well-crafted world of math. But this is important. You
cannot change what you were born to. It is your destiny to go to E. G. Smythe’s
Salty Fire Land. It is your destiny to become the next Protector.” She smiled,
“It won’t be so bad. You haven’t considered all the possible outcomes of this
equation. You might even like some of them.”
    She
was talking math to me, trying to trick me into accepting her scheme, but I
wasn’t ready to give in. What if I did like this fairy tale land? That’s
not normal or mathematical.
    But…I
do have that marble in my pocket. As unmathematical as it is to have a dead
father reappear in your life and as unmathematical as it is to want to get to
know this absentee man, it is something you wish for an awful lot when your
father is killed in a train wreck two days before you were born, but really spirits
away to a hidden kingdom in your bathtub. I could create a whole series of
algebraic equations for the number of times I have wished on a birthday candle
or a star for my father to be alive. (However, it is a little unlikely that I’d
be running around making up equations about something as unmathematical as
wishes.)
    What
would a mathematician do? I don’t know. Their biographies lean toward the
mathematical. But I can’t imagine Newton, the man who discovered calculus and
the laws of motion, would pass up an opportunity to portal into an unknown
dimension. And even if he did say, “You know, why don’t we let that
young Descartes figure it out?” I don’t think he’d ignore an opportunity to get
to know his formerly dead father. Could it be unmathematical to miss a
chance to get to know your king-of-another-world father?
    “Lily?”
    “All
right. I’ll go,” I said. “But I’m still going to do pure mathematics research
or be a codebreaker for the National Security Agency.”
    “Fair
enough,” Mom agreed. “I’m still a writer.”
    I
picked up my bag, thinking briefly and happily about how Newton’s forces were
working as I exerted a force upon the bag and the bag exerted a force upon me. For
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is normal–a
beautiful blend of math and science.
    I
got into the tub first. Mom followed. “Do you remember what your dad was
telling you about what you’re supposed to do?” she asked.
    “Well,
up until he disappeared.”
    “Oh
right. He was at ‘close your eyes and think E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land.’”
    “Yeah.
Then he vanished.”
    “He
was probably about to say that you should never think just ‘Smythe’s SFL’ or ‘Salt’
or ‘Fire.’ It will make for a very messy arrival if you do. You’ve got to use
the whole name.”
    “Okay.”
What did she mean by messy ? “Umm, exactly how long does it take to get
there? Am I going to be portaling through time and space trying to think the
full name of the kingdom for an hour?”
    “Of
course not. It’s an instantaneous portal. Well…unless you think the wrong
thing.”
    Mom
hugged me and said, “Don’t look so worried, Lily! You won’t think the wrong
name, so you’ll arrive fine.”
    I
tried to shake off the feeling that she had hugged me in case it was the last
time she ever saw me; then, I took the blue marble out of my pocket and moved
toward the faucet. I put the marble in, took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and
thought, E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land .
    I
felt absolutely nothing. I was