(2)...The Jungle of Maths

These were horrible looking, stinking, nasty and huge giants who ate up Numbers for their food. No one knew where they had come from. But one day suddenly they were there, chasing the Numbers left, right, up, down, inside, outside and everywhere else. They gobbled up all the Numbers they could catch, stuffing them into their mouths with both hands. They stuffed a whole lot into their huge pockets. The Numbers screamed and yelled and twisted and turned and jumped and ran and spit and bit, but the giants were too strong and hungry. They had no pity for the Numbers.

When children came to play in the forest, the Numbers screamed “Go away children! There are giants in the forest!”

Some children still went into the forest to see what was going on. But when they saw the giants gobbling up their beloved friends, they were also frightened.

They saw on huge giant called Al Gebra, who went around gibbering and muttering to himself. He had thick, long arms with which he swept a lot of Numbers towards himself. Then he crushed them together and mixed them up with a’s, b’s, x’s, y’s and z’s, and ate them up with his fingers, licking his chops. Al Gebra could also change his shape from big to small, and he could find the Numbers hiding in trees and houses with his long fingers.

They saw Statis Ticks, a tall, fat and hairy giant, with a bald head and shifty eyes. He could uproot trees with on hand ! He ate everything he could lay his hands on along with the Numbers. He could eat leaves and wood and brackets and everything. He kept mumbling “Data! Data! More Data!” And whenever he caught a lot of Numbers together, he would make an omelette out of them, which he called an Average. Statis Ticks was full of ticks, and he loved Averages.

They saw a tall, thin, angular giant, with a triangular head that could turn quickly in all directions. With his thin arms bent at various angles, he would not let any Number escape his clutches. This was Ge O’Metry, the most crooked of the lot. He always had a nasty smile on his face, and even beckoned to the children with his crooked fingers. The children screamed and ran away in fear.

The worst of all was the blind old woman who was called Trign O’Metry, the sister of Ge O’Metry. She could not see at all, and so was constantly groping, poking, snatching, grabbing and pouncing with her big hands. She had a sweet voice to call the unsuspecting Numbers to her, and they fell under her spell and came in big crowds. She would lie as quiet as a log, and then, when the Numbers climbed up on her hands, she would roar with delight and swallow them alive.

The children went away and told their parents, asking them to help. But the giants were so powerful that they had simply taken over the forest, and the parents really did not know enough magic even to enter the forest. They told their children never to go back to the forest again as it had become an evil place.

The giants went stomping all over the huge forest, ruining all the plants and beautiful flowers, rooting up trees to find the Numbers hiding in them. Soon the forest became cluttered and filthy. The streams were blocked with fallen trees and water swamped large areas of the land. Wild bushes and thick, thorny plants started growing everywhere, and even sunlight could not come through. Butterflies went away for ever, and the flowers faded into the darkness. Birds stopped nesting there. The Numbers no longer played out in the open, but hid all the time in their small houses. Some even made holes underground and crept in them. The forest became a stinking, dark and evil place, where the only sounds you could hear was the growling and roaring of the four giants. A thick green mist came out of the forest and covered it completely, making it impossible to enter it.

After some years the people forgot all the nice things about the forest.