Math City

Math City

by

Ahmad Amani

Copyright 2011 Ahmad Amani

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for getting this book. Especially thanks to RLB Hartmann and Dodo Kaipdodo.

Author: Ahmad Amani

E-mail

Editor: RLB Hartmann

Illustrator: Mehdi Anoshirvani

Publisher:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/94427

Chapter 1

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The Horizontal Line was crawling and said to himself, Oh, what a wonderful dream. How I wish it were true. The Horizontal Line had dreamed that he was a friend of the children, and they all liked him. Here is why. Whenever a child was punished, the Horizontal Line intervened. For example, if a teacher told one of his students, You must stand on one foot for ten minutes, the Horizontal Line would reduce it to five. It was his job to reduce. Children hid the Horizontal Line from their mothers because they were afraid it might make their allowances smaller.

But it was just a dream about the children, and now the Horizontal Line was alone.

Maybe you would like to know more about the Horizontal Line. I know everything about the Horizontal Line, and I will tell you about it. Here is the picture of the Horizontal Line.

The Horizontal Line is a long line that lies on the ground and slithers on the floor, like a caterpillar. Many sharp points have grown on his body, like thorns on the stem of a rose. He uses these thorns to subtract something from someone. The Horizontal Line also plows the soil with his thorns as he crawls on the ground. It comes from the Minus family.

When the Horizontal Line was only eleven, his father died fighting to defend himself, but his mother survived. She went on to marry another man and abandoned Math City forever.

Now, you may wonder what he feeds on. Well, the Horizontal Line cuts a piece of a number’s body with his thorns when he gets hungry. Excessive hunger makes him lose control of his own body and draw numbers into himself, like a magnet, making them lighten up. The most important thing about him is, the Horizontal Line has four eyes, two heads, and two mouths with 64 teeth. He does not have a tail; instead, he has another head.

The Horizontal Line lives in Math City. Math City is a place within a Math book, and the pages of the book are the streets of Math City. Math City has many resources of multiplication, division, and numbers; the city is very rich and has earned a lot of money, but people of the world do not find it important, except for money. Of course, Math City does not attach any importance to UN laws, either.

One day the Horizontal Line was awakened by what felt like an ant bite on his cheek, but he was surprised to find a frozen tear. The Horizontal Line looked around; it was already morning.

The sun shone beautifully, but the Horizontal Line was all alone in the world. He got up and went to Math City. It walked the streets. On one of the streets, a warning grabbed his attention. It was 35th street, I think.

Warning:

To all dear numbers of the city:

Beware! A minus, called Horizontal Line, is prowling about. Avoid him! You will change to zero if he finds you! Oh yes, being a zero is equal to your death. This minus is armed with cold and hot weapons, including a sharp knife and a loaded gun!

The Horizontal Line saw his picture on the warning. He felt embarrassed and continued sadly on his way.

As he entered the center of Math