White Rose: Bone Computer
(from Chapter 22: "Bone Computer; The Weirder Brother")
Credit: Saschas Traum (Twitter / Twitch)
White Rose: Bone Computer [https://i.postimg.cc/ss3XhyRC/White-Rose.png]
A Glimpse From Chapter 22
As Rum stared into Amez’s eyes, and Amez stared into Rum’s eyes, Rum understood something that Amez did not. Finally, after several seconds of silence, Amez’s big brother urged him on with a question: “How many fingers and toes do you have Amez?”
Amez took on a weirded out face. “Where are you going with this Rum?”
“Don’t worry–” Rum smiled and laughed a little, “–we’re not going to count your ribs. But how many fingers and toes do you have?”
“20” Amez responded, cautiously.
“And how many do I have?”
“20” Amez responded again.
“Together we have 40 more limbs for White Rose to count. Ze already has 44 easily countable limbs. If ze counts us, ze can answer the question!”
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Amez just stood there, not sure what to say. Rum meanwhile began undressing his feet, which were currently covered with simple but comfortable sandals and silken socks. “Come on” he smiled, “undress your feet for my skeleton! Ze needs to learn math!”
Unable to really put up a defence against Rum’s logic, Amez dragged a hand against his defeated face, and then bowed down to take off socks and boots. As Amez finished up, Rum stood next to him, facing White Rose. Together the brothers now formed a row of 20 toes and 20 fingers, Rum putting his hands forward for White Rose, while elbowing Amez to do the same.
“Now you have enough to count, right?” Rum eagerly asked White Rose. Ze put zes head to one side again. However, the curious head gesture didn’t last long. Ze took a step forward. Then two steps. Then looked over the new toes and fingers on display, as if ascertaining their countability.
“Now – let’s try again!” Rum said with academic enthusiasm. “What is 100 minus 20, White Rose?” He gave a little smile to Amez, before pressing the skeleton: “How many pieces of skeleton and man is that?”
White Rose hesitated, or at least so it seemed to Amez. Zes fingers swayed and moved around, as if trying to come up with a computational plan in zes head. After a little while ze began counting. First zes bone fingers, right hand to left hand. Then ze put zes right leg up, moving zes bone toes again, counting them. Ribs next, and ze went through each and every one. First the right ribs, bottom to top. Then the left ribs, top to bottom. Ze stepped forward, pausing for just a second before bumping zes fist into one of Rum’s fingers, then two of his fingers. Ze continued on, bending down to count Rum’s toes. Moving over to Amez nothing was said, Amez just watched White Rose with silent fascination and a neutral patient expression. Ze did every one of his fingers, before bending down again, bumping every single one of his left foot toes, which of course were on zes right side. Finally, ze gently bumped Amez’ right foot big toe, then paused. Zes fist hovered over the rest of the toes for but a second, until ze straightened up, looking Rum in the face. But Rum wasn’t the first to comment.
“80” Amez whispered to himself.
“Yes 80” Rum nodded, looking over at his little brother. “100 limbs, minus 20 limbs. That’s 10 bone toes, 10 bone fingers, 24 ribs, 10 Rum fingers, 10 Rum toes, 10 Amez fingers, but only 6 Amez toes. Exactly 80.”
Rum looked back at White Rose again. “Good skeleton – learning so quickly!” Rum gently clapped a hand on White Rose’s cheekbone, praising ze. “Have you ever known anyone, Amez, to learn to count to a 100, let alone do addition and subtraction with the same number, in just 2 days?”