Maths with Mr Fibonacci

by Rose Wakefield

"Three, two, one", said Mr Fibonacci, "the test may commence!" Mr Fibonacci is our maths teacher and he is completely and utterly obsessed with maths. I sometimes imagine him sprinkling calculus on his cornflakes and insisting on his sandwiches being symmetrical. It's even rumoured he has *dodecagon shaped dinner plates.

Today was the day that the school inspector was visiting, and to make things worse, I had a maths test...and I hadn't revised. My palms were sweating; butterflies were dancing in my tummy. I needed air, quickly. "Please sir, may I open the window?" I asked politely. "Yes pupil six, you may open the window" he said. Mr Fibonacci called us by numbers because he couldn't remember our names.

So, I opened the window, but before I could sit down, a HUGE gust of wind sucked all of the test papers out of the window like a giant vacuum cleaner. They tossed and turned, swirled and scuttled, and Mr Fibonacci cried, "Pupils one to nine chase the nine papers heading east westerly. You are all facing south, how many degrees clockwise will you have to turn to face the right direction?

Without pausing for breath, he hollered, "All remaining odds chase the five papers heading towards the pond which is one hundred metres away. You run at an average speed of ten kilometres per hour, the papers are travelling at approximately seven kilometres per hour, how long will it take you to retrieve the papers?

Desperately, Mr Fibonacci continued "All remaining numbers proceed toward the big oak tree. I can see eight papers at a height of five metres. How high will the tallest boy in your group need to climb to reach them?"

We all looked around (panting) and saw that there were no papers left. I was slightly disappointed that we had retrieved all of the papers as I had really enjoyed the search. "Hurry, hurry" ushered Mr Fibonacci, but because he was obsessed with maths, he just couldn't resist saying, "We have wasted 25 minutes of this lesson catching papers. The lesson is 45 minutes long,-how many minutes of this lesson remain?" We all replied (without hesitation), "20 minutes sir!"

At that exact moment, the door burst open and in marched the school inspector. He was as tall as a giraffe and pencil thin. He was an official looking man, wearing a black suit and a blood red tie. He peered over his clipboard which was glued tightly to his chest. His beady little eyes stared at us over his rectangular glasses; he turned 360 degrees around the classroom, and then stood stock still.

He stayed in that frightening position for five seconds before he exclaimed, "That was the best maths lesson EVER. I never knew that a maths lesson could be so creative!" A wave of relief swept across the room. Mr Fibonacci fainted - we estimated for about ten seconds!