Seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow was disturbed, just a little, but to her, just a little was a lot.
“But how do we use algebra to increase safety and snugglecouragement in the world?” she said to her big brother ten-year-old Andrew.
Andrew considered this for a long time.
“Well,” he said, “we can use it in business to figure out how to make enough money so everyone can get a fair amount, and that will make the world a safer place if we could get everyone to do it. But that's exactly where math stops and life and public speaking starts.”
“Whaddya mean?” Amanda said.
“There are two ways that you tell a bunch of folks about good things,” he said. “You gotta live it, and you gotta be ready to proclaim it when people ask what you are up to.”
“Do you think I will make a good speaker someday?” Amanda said. “I'm kinda shy, but, this is important – our fellow Ludlows have been on Uppity Foolery Watch way too much, and that makes Glendella unhappy. She's real brave, but, it hurts her that Grumps and Bad Grandma and her biological parents don't have their lives together, and that some of her big cousins are just running back and forth to prison.”
“Yeah, she's in a different version of the same mess we're in,” Andrew said. “We have one set of good grandparents, and parents that chose their addictions over us, so, yeah, I totally get that. There's no math for that kind of stuff, but, we can live what we need with each other.”
“Yeah,” Amanda said as her big brother put his arms around her. “Let's go find Glendella and snugglecourage her too!”
“Great idea,” Andrew said. “Maybe we just need to count, snugglecouraging one person at a time.”
“Yeah!” Amanda said.