Okay. Focus. X minus fourteen equals twelve. Solve for x.

Focusing, although she desperately tried, was not a skill Lynn Loud prided herself upon.

Why did she have to solve for x anyways? Since when were letters a part of math?

Pre-algebra was stupid.

Math was stupid.

X squared minus...

What number was it again?

Lynn tapped the end of her red pencil up against her face, at first very slowly and then speeding up. It started to hurt after a while, and she stopped, then tapping the pencil up against her paper.

Do I subtract the twelve or the fourteen? Do I not subtract them? Do I add them? Do I take the square root of X squared?

This is so stupid. Who put numbers in math anyways?

Lynn looked around the classroom. All of her friends seemed to be doing just fine. Some of them had already finished the test.

And yet here she was stuck on problem three. Out of twenty-five. She was never going to finish.

For a split second she actually considered looking at Carla Matthews' test.

No. No no no no no. She was not cheating. They might suspend her, or kick her off of a sports team!

She couldn't risk it.

X minus twelve...no, that's not right. X squared minus four...? No.

Lynn looked down at her math. Why did she have a twenty-six multiplied by x squared? How the hell had she gotten here anyways? She probably wasn't even solving this right.

She looked down at the problem in exasperation. This was officially the worst day of her life.

And then...something in her brain clicked.

She wrote down a few numbers, somehow getting the square root of twelve minus fourteen and then trying to divide it by x, then multiply it by y and z.

Lynn furrowed her eyebrows.

Crap.

That wasn't even close. The answer bubbles proudly displayed simple numbers, like x=31 or x=5. And here she was, with about four extra variables.

She looked at the initial problem, trying to figure out how she'd gotten herself into this convoluted mess.

Had she over-complicated it?

Her soccer coach said she had a tendency to make things harder than they actually were. But he may have just been referring to her staggered method of playing keep-away with the ball.

She couldn't fail. All of her older sisters would find out and they'd make a massive deal out of it. Among the older girls, she was the baby, and they took it upon themselves to get overly involved in her personal life.

Lynn put her head down on her desk, looking at the problem in front of her and seriously wanting to cry. She never cried.

Math...was...so...stupid.

Lynn took a deep breath, deciding to accept that she had no idea, circling a random answer and moving on.

Okay. If x-4=3-1, what is x?

Six, her brain called out.

Where did that even come from?

Was that an option?

Sure enough, it was.

Maybe she was finally getting this!

And then she saw the second part of the question.

Show your work.

Lynn wanted to scream. She didn't know how she'd gotten six. She didn't know how to show her work! How was she supposed to prove the answer was six if she didn't even know how she got six?

Lynn rewrote the problem on the paper, and tapped her pencil up against her desk.

Well, she knew that 3-1 was two. She was pretty sure even Lily knew that. Maybe it'd be easier now.

Hold on, Lisa told her something when she was doing her homework. She said something about sports, right? Sports...chloroform?

Metaphors!

"Okay." she whispered to herself. "Loud has t-4 seconds to get to the goal, and the clock is counting down from three. If the clock is at two seconds...add a four-second penalty shot...six! YES! Loud makes the shot, and the crowd goes wi-"Lynn shouted, and covered her mouth as the teacher glared at her. "-ld..."

She wrote down what she'd mumbled to herself, hoping that was a good enough explanation.

Maybe she really did have a shot at passing this.