3- Luke TRANSCRIPTION (Because of Mr. Terupt)

I like school. I’m good at it. I get all As. So when Mr. Terupt announced our first math project, I was excited.

Dollar Words was crazy. Definitely not a worksheet problem, like all the others I’ve ever been given. Not even close! We had to assume that the letter a was worth one cent, b two cents, c three cents—and so on, making the letter z worth twenty-six cents. The challenge was to find words that equaled one dollar when you added up their letter values. Not ninety-nine cents or a dollar and one cent, but one dollar exactly.

Mr. Terupt gave us time to get started. He wanted to make sure we understood the project, and he said he wondered who would be the first one to find a dollar word.

I immediately made a data table of all the letters and their corresponding values. A quick reference for me. Then I started putting down any word that came to mind that had some of the bigger letters in it. Pretty = 104. Walnut = 91. Mister = 84. Then I thought, Hey, wait a minute, what if I just tack on the letter s? Misters = 103. No good, but very close. I figured this could still be a worthwhile strategy for other words.

So there I was cranking out words, trying to find the first dollar word of the year, when what do I hear? Peter and Alexia.

This is the fourth year Peter’s been in my class, and my third time with Alexia. Peter’s funny, but sometimes he gets to be too much. If I’m concentrating on my work and he just wants to joke around, it annoys me. But I like him. He’s fun, and he’s no stranger to trouble. Alexia, on the other hand, is always involved in some “girl war.” That stuff I don’t get. She loves to wear flashy clothes—dresses, skirts, fancy shoes—and she always has the accessories to go with them. And she says the word like way too much. Alexia isn’t a stranger to trouble, either. She and Peter are a good match.

Peter elbowed Alexia. Then I heard him whisper a word to her.

That’s not even close to a dollar, I thought.

“Fifty-three,” Alexia said. “No good. Try …”

Were they crazy? They were trying out rude words and giggling the whole time. I just knew they were going to get caught.

“That’s no good, either,” Peter said. “Maybe …”

What a butthead! As soon as I thought it, I knew it was a word worth calculating. Sure enough, butthead equaled 81. I tacked on the s. There wasn’t just one butthead but two buttheads (dollar word). I was just about to call out that I had found one when Peter beat me to it.

“I’ve got a word!” he yelled. “Buttocks!” He strutted to the board like he was the coolest thing since sliced bread and wrote it for the class. “Buttocks,” he said again. “B-U-T-T-O-C-S.” Peter went on to demonstrate how the word added up to a dollar. Mr. Terupt didn’t interrupt. Just as I was about to, the new girl did.

“Buttocks is spelled with a k in it, Peter,” Jessica said.

Peter looked to Mr. Terupt. “Sorry, Peter. She’s right. Better try again. And maybe you should choose a different type of word than the ones you’ve been coming up with.”

Peter slunk back to his seat. No surprise to me, Mr. Terupt knew what Peter was up to the whole time.

I raised my hand. “Mr. Terupt, I’ve got one.” I walked up to the board and wrote butthead. That was followed by a chorus of laughs. “Butthead,” I said. “B-U-T-T-H-E-A-D adds up to eighty-one cents, but if we have more than one, then we get buttheads. And buttheads is a dollar word. Just ask Peter and Alexia.”

Mr. Terupt snickered. “That’s enough, Luke. I must say, this isn’t a word I was expecting, but nonetheless, it’s our first dollar word. Congratulations.”

Dollar Words was the best math project ever. We started it on a Wednesday (dollar word) and worked for three weeks. Through trial and error, a few strategies that I learned along the way, and some helpful hints from Mr. Terupt, I broke the record for most dollar words. My final poster was covered with fifty-four of them.

Mr. Terupt looked at my work and smiled. “Luke, this is excellent.” (Dollar word.) “You are the dollar-word champ.”

Present

 * Luke
 * Mr. Terupt
 * Peter
 * Alexia

Locations

 * Snow Hill School
 * Room 202

Related
Previous Chapter: 2- Jessica TRANSCRIPTION (Because of Mr. Terupt)

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