Ari read the problem, thought into her tape-knowing, and asked maman: "Does it matter how many are boys and how many are girls?"
Maman thought a moment. "Actually it does. But you can work it as if it doesn't."
"Why?"
"Because, and this is important to know, certain things are less important in certain problems; and when you're just learning how to work the problem, leaving out the things that don't matter as much helps you to remember what things are the most important in figuring it. Everything in the world is important in that problem—boys and girls, the weather, whether or not they can get enough food, whether there are things that eat them—but right now just tile genes are going to matter. When you can work all those problems, then they'll tell you how to work in all the other things. One other thing. They'd hate to tell you you knew everything. There might be something else no one thought of. And if you thought they'd told you everything, that could trick you. So they start out simple and then start adding in whether they're boys and girls. All right?"
"It does matter," Ari said doggedly, "because the boy fish fight each other. But there's going to be twenty-four blue ones if nobody gets eaten. But they will, because blue ones are easy to see, and they can't hide. And if you put them with big fish there won't be any blue fish at all."
"Do you know whether a fish sees colors?"
"Do they?"
"Let's leave that for a moment. What if the females like blue males better?"
"Why should they?"
"Just figure it. Carry it another generation."
"How much better?"
"Twenty-five percent."
"All those blue ones are just going to make the big fish fatter and they'll have lots of babies. This is getting complicated."
Maman got this funny look like she was going to sneeze or laugh or get mad. And then she got a very funny look that was not funny at all. And gathered her up against her and hugged her.
Maman did that a lot lately. Ari thought that she ought to feel happier than she was. She had never had maman spend so much time with her. Ollie too.
But there was a danger-feeling. Maman wasn't happy. Ollie wasn't. Ollie was being azi as hard as he could, and maman and Ollie didn't shout at each other anymore. Maman didn't shout at anybody. Nelly just looked confused a lot of the time. Phaedra went around being azi too.
Ari was scared and she wanted to ask maman why, but she was afraid maman would cry. Maman always had that look lately. And it hurt when maman cried.
She just held on to maman.
Next morning she went to playschool. She was big enough to go by herself now. Maman hugged her at the door. Ollie came and hugged her too. He had not done that in a long time.
She looked back and the door was shut. She thought that was funny. But she went on to school.