I’m lousy at math. When I’m at the supermarket, I can do a simple pennies-per-ounce cost evaluation, but that’s about it. An accountant does my taxes, I don’t balance my checkbook, and I don’t do Sudoku. Where’s the fun if there’s no words?
So whatever possessed me to put numbers into Zero Gravity Outcasts, I don’t know. Maybe I thought the math would be simple enough. If there’s 10 warships threatening the peace conference, and 4 leave to fight my heroine, and she disables 2 of those, then how many warships are left?
“I think the numbers are wrong,” came the note from my fabulous editor, Lynne Anderson. “How many warships end up at the peace conference?”
Um, there were 10. Take away 4. Six are left.
“Except on page 15 it says 8. Right?”
Well, yes, it does say 8. I need those odds to be overwhelming! Readers must be worried! I need 8 warships threatening the peace conference!
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Lynne says. “So what happened to the other 2 warships?”
Okay, reasonable question, what did happen to those other 2 warships? Perhaps they needed to have an extrasensory outer-space tune-up and oil change. On their way to the fabulous Macy’s one-day clearance sale. Because people just had to get those fringed, pink leather boots.
“Maybe the heroine disables four warships,” Lynne says cheerfully.
Yeah, the heroine doesn’t have any weapons. Disabling four warships would be tough, even for those superheroine-type people who can make nuclear bombs from paper clips, which my heroine makes no claims to be able to do. Although she’s handy. But nuclear-bombs-from-paper-clips handy, no.
“Actually, you don’t really say exactly how many warships start out threatening the peace conference,” Lynne says. “Maybe there’s just 8 to begin with? And then…”
I could see that my math problems were transferring to Lynne. Not good.
“How about this?” Lynne says. She’s sounding desperate, but I know she’s better at math than I am. I see a solution coming!
“There’s 10 warships threatening the peace conference,” she says. “Four leave to fight the heroine. She disables 2. The other 2—”
“Go back to the peace conference!” we exclaim simultaneously.
The warships probably would have had more fun going to the Macy’s one-day clearance sale than getting shot at in the battle at the peace conference. On the other hand, this way they didn’t have to do any math figuring out what 35 percent more off the last 25 percent markdown was, either. Although those fringed, pink leather boots would have been worth the effort. At any price.
And next time, there’s going to be 10 warships threatening the peace conference, and they’re all going to stay put. Because only a dope messes with outer space math.
(And a final note to readers: this story is true, but I’m sure the numbers are way, way off.)


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