Stephen and the Calculating Machine

A boy by the window shuddered as the door to the darkened room creaked.

“Young man, you should have been sleeping long ago, his mother said in a somewhat reproachful voice. “It’s nearly midnight and you’ve got school tomorrow.”

Stephen unwillingly put down the homemade binoculars he was holding, and his notepad. “Don’t they understand that you can’t look at the stars during the daylight?” he asked himself. A little offended, he pulled the duvet over his head. However, he knew in his heart that his mother was right. It would be a shame to yawn through his favourite maths lesson tomorrow.

Space and mathematics were the things Stephen loved most. From childhood he had a love for numbers. He felt at home among them. Although his father imagined that the boy would become a doctor like him, Stephen always just laughed it off. The human body seemed boring to him. But space, distance, infinity... that was a different story.

In the morning, Stephen didn’t feel like getting up. He felt the tingling in his right leg again. Sometimes it happened when he didn’t sleep well. But he always managed to move it. He stretched a bit and set off for school.

When the class ended, the mathematician pointed to Stephen and his two friends: “You, you, and you. Come to my office after the last class,” was the only thing he said. He said goodbye to the class and left.
Stephen was tense and couldn't focus on anything for the rest of the day. What would his favourite teacher want from him? The rest of the classes seemed endless.

“Boys, you're my best students. I’ve got an interesting task for you that you might like,” Mr Tahta said to them in his office.…