MATH BLAST
🍄 THE GREAT SHARING

For the first time in living memory, all five villages stood together in the Grand Clearing. Branchwick. Fernmoss. Cascade Clearing. The Array Forest settlement. Split Ridge. Sixty Sprockets, shoulder to shoulder. Chief Pip at the front. Tangle at the back — enormous, still, watching.

The great feast was about to begin. But first — everything had to be shared. Fairly. Equally. The Sprocket way.

The first order of business: the food store. One thousand four hundred and forty items — berries, mushrooms, and nuts — to be sorted into eight equal baskets for the great feast.

With the main feast baskets sorted, each village needed to divide their share among their own families. Chief Pip pulled out the ledger.

Branchwick had six families. They received four hundred and fifty-six items from the feast baskets — berries, nuts, and dried fruit. Six families, four hundred and fifty-six items.

"Sharing means everyone gets the same," Chief Pip said quietly. "Inside every village, the same rule applies."

While the food was being shared, Tangle was already working. It had counted the broken bridges: eight in total, and it had collected exactly five hundred and thirty-six vines. Eight bridges, five hundred and thirty-six vines. Tangle set them down carefully.

Then the builders got organised. Three hundred and seventy-eight Sprockets volunteered to help carry the vine bundles. They would work in teams of nine — Tangle had insisted on perfect equal groups.

"You've been planning this," Blaze said, watching Tangle carry the vine bundles in perfect groups. It didn't answer. But it had.

The Dry Season was coming. Every Sprocket knew it — the weeks when the jungle went silent and the water pods were all that kept the tribe alive. Chief Pip pulled out the ledger.

One thousand five hundred and seventy-five water pods for seven villages. Then more good news: the Cascade Clearing had found a hidden store — one thousand two hundred and eighty-four extra pods to last six months. And the seed vault held one thousand three hundred and sixty-eight precious seeds, to be divided equally among eight shelters for safekeeping.

"Division keeps us alive," Chief Pip said. "It always has."

When the sharing was done, Chief Pip made a calculation. Blaze helped. Each of the seven villages had received two hundred and twenty-five water pods. Did that add up? Seven times two hundred and twenty-five. Every pod accounted for.

Then Tangle did something no one expected. It began arranging its vine sculptures — two thousand four hundred and thirty-six of them — into seven perfect rows. When it was finished, the sculptures formed a rectangle on the jungle floor. Seven rows, each one perfectly equal.

The sculptures caught the light — bioluminescent greens and blues rippling across the clearing. Every Sprocket stopped to watch. Even Doz went quiet.