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Mia finds a Superpower, but whose is it?
Alex was in Year 4 at Oakwood Primary School. He had special educational needs, and the hardest thing for him was writing. His handwriting wobbled across the page, spelling took ages, and trying to get his thoughts down on paper felt like wading through thick sticky treacle. (Though he did love treacle toffee pudding a lot). In English lessons his best friend Mia often sat beside him and wrote down the brilliant stories Alex told her out loud.
“Your ideas are amazing, Alex,” she would say. The rest of the class were just as kind. No one laughed when he needed help. They simply helped. Because that is what friends do and because helping someone with schoolwork also makes you learn more.
Maths, though… maths was different.
Alex could do numbers in his head the way most people breathe. Big numbers, tricky multiplications, long divisions, they just clicked. He never needed paper or a calculator. But because almost every maths lesson involved copying problems from the board and writing out working, nobody had ever noticed how fast and accurate he really was. Mrs Patel, their teacher, knew Alex was good at maths, but she had no idea just how good.
One rainy Thursday afternoon the classroom lights suddenly flickered and went out. A huge clap of thunder shook the windows. The power had gone. The room became gloomy and the big blackboard at the front turned into a dark shadow. Nobody could read what Mrs Patel had written on it.
“Oh dear,” Mrs Patel said, trying the light switch again. “Power cut. We can’t see the board at all. I suppose we’ll have to stop for now.”
The class groaned. They had been looking forward to the challenge Mrs Patel had prepared.
Then Alex’s quiet voice came from the middle of the room.
“I can still do them.”
Mrs Patel frowned. “Do what, Alex?”
“The problems on the board. I don’t need to see them. You can just tell me the numbers and I’ll work them out.”
A few children turned to look at him, curious. Mia gave him an encouraging smile.
Mrs Patel thought for a moment, then smiled too. “All right. Let’s try. Problem one: 456 multiplied by 123.”
Alex didn’t even pause. “Fifty-six thousand and eighty-eight.”
Mrs Patel quickly checked on her phone. Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s exactly right.”
The class started to murmur.
“Problem two,” Mrs Patel said, a little faster now. “2,345 multiplied by 67.”
“One hundred and fifty seven thousand, one hundred and fifteen,” Alex answered at once.
Gasps rippled around the room.
“Problem three: 7,892 multiplied by 456.”
“Three million, five hundred and ninety-eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two,” came the calm reply.
By the fifth problem — a really tricky one with a four-digit number — the whole class had gone completely silent, listening in wonder. Every single answer Alex gave was correct.
When Mrs Patel confirmed the last one, the classroom exploded with cheers and clapping.
“Alex, you’re a genius!”
“How did you do that so fast?”
“You didn’t even need the board!”
Mia threw her arms around him. “That was incredible! You’re like a human calculator!”
Mrs Patel walked over to Alex’s table, her face glowing with pride. “Alex, I had no idea you could work things out so quickly and accurately in your head. That was truly extraordinary. You didn’t need to see the blackboard at all.”
Alex’s cheeks went pink, but he was smiling the biggest smile anyone had ever seen on him.
“I just… sort of see the numbers in my head,” he said shyly. “Writing them down is the hard bit.”
From that day on, everything changed a little. Mrs Patel started giving the class more mental maths challenges and oral questions so Alex could show what he could really do. She also made sure he had extra time and help with any writing he needed, and sometimes let him explain his answers out loud instead of writing them all down.
The other children never stopped being kind, but now they were proud of him in a new way too. Whenever anyone struggled with a sum, they turned to Alex.
“Hey Alex, can you do this one in your head?”
And Alex would grin, close his eyes for a second, and give them the answer.
Because even though writing would always be tricky for him, Alex had discovered something wonderful: his brain had its own special superpower. And on the day the lights went out, the whole class finally got to see it shine.
©2026 Sarnia de la Mare / Tale Teller Kids
