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Mum was hitting the ___1___
again. She was mad with me for not being able to do
some Mathematics sums. Her ___2___
furrowing and her lips set in a tight line, mum was
a picture of stress itself. I really pitied her but
I also came to realize that I did have a problem
with Mathematics, ___3___
the topic on Time.
Mum banged her ruler for the ___4___
time. She was losing patience. I looked at her
pitifully. She was obviously more tortured with my
homework ___5___
I was. At last, unable to contain herself any
further, she pointed to our clock that was on the
wall and forced me to look at it.
I could see the clock clearly. However, Mum was
telling me to look at the numbers on the clock.
While I could make out the circular time indicator
glued on the wall, the same could not be said about
the numbers on its ___6___.
I kept quiet.
Mum took my ___7___
as ignorance. She started shouting as I tried hard
to make out the blurry numbers.
"From number 5 to 8, how many minutes are there
?" she practically hollered. I had no problem
hearing her but I did have a real problem counting
the little marks that were between the two numbers.
___8___ at
being yelled at and unable to see clearly, I grabbed
a chair and pulled it right to the wall before I
climbed up. Mum was clearly shocked. She looked on
in disbelief upon seeing her dear daughter peering
hard at the clock. For a moment, she wondered if I
was ___9___ with
some form of attention disorder.
"Twenty minutes !" I shouted triumphantly as I
finally finished counting the ___10___
marks. Mother breathed a sigh of relief. Then we
shifted to the next topic. I struggled on for an
hour more before I was finally allowed to go to bed.
Lessons were getting more difficult than ever and
I felt a ___11___
helpless. I looked out of the window. The blinking
yellow light from the nearby crossing looked
unnaturally ___12___
than before. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. To
my surprise, I suddenly realized that I was not
looking at just one yellow globe but a few globes
superimposed ___13___
one another. Suddenly, I new why lessons were hard.
"Mum ! I think I am short-sighted ! I need ___14___
!" I hollered.
"No way, we have no history of ___15___
in our family ! Don't give any excuses for your
laziness !" came the answer. |
