Long Division

Grandma’s friend Ufa D visits with an armful of DVDs on Friday. He, City, and Grandma watch movies and eat together. City stuffs himself because he’s still upset about what happened with Sooo Sad. He falls asleep on the couch and Grandma wakes him up to go to bed. City lies in bed listening to Grandma and Ufa in the other room. He gets up and sees them kissing on the porch. Grandma catches him and scolds him for being nosy.

The next day, Uncle Relle takes City to the library. City looks up Long Division on the computer but still can’t figure out who wrote it. Then he looks up the YouTube videos of himself from the competition. There are countless clips of him online, and City feels strange but also famous watching himself. He reads some of the comments, and Uncle Relle encourages him not to get upset, as he’s going to be even more famous soon. City looks up the word he was given in the competition and starts wondering whether it was an intentional slight; moreover, he is dismayed to find himself associated with a word that means “stingy.” He wishes he could post his own ideas about what happened online.