She re-did the problem herself. Let Tom = T. Jerry = (5/6)T. After Tom loses 24: (5/6)T = 2(T – 24). Multiply both sides by 6: 5T = 12(T – 24) → 5T = 12T – 288 → 288 = 7T → T = 41.142… That wasn’t a whole number. Stickers couldn’t be fractions. The problem itself was flawed.
That night, she couldn’t sleep. The ghost of the problem haunted her. How did they get 80? She tossed, turned, then switched on her lamp. She opened the workbook again. And for the next forty-five minutes, she worked backward.
Her pencil hovered. Eraser shavings littered the table like snow. Her mother was on a work call, and her father was cooking dinner. No help was coming.