Henry had never had a dream like that before. What did it mean? He had dreamed of numbers ever since he could remember learning what they were. For him they weren’t just shapes on a page that stood for amounts or quantities. They were characters with personalities who could talk. But when he tried to explain that to other people he got such funny looks he quit talking about it.

Still, one of the reasons he was good at math in school was because the numbers came to him in dreams and helped him with his understanding of math. They’d been especially helpful when he was learning the multiplication tables in the third grade. When his teachers praised his math skills, he knew better than to tell them where those skills came from. His number friends had helped him so many times, maybe it was time for him to return the favor … if he could.