Puzzle Puzzle

Pedro Vicente Maldonado fetches his maps.

Here, says Pedro, is Ibarra, capital of Imbabura. Here is Quito. Here is Riobamba.

Simon frowns.

Let me see, says Gaius. Jupiter's balls! Are we to travel back in the direction we came?

Looks like it, says Simon. About three hundred k's.

Three hundred and seventeen precisely, says Pedro Vicente Maldonado. Perhaps you could get in touch with the team and meet them somewhere closer. You already have a collection of tadpoles.

Yes! says Lydia. Maybe we don't need to go there. We've got the tadpoles.

We'll see, says Simon. The thing is.....no, perhaps it won't matter.

Terence is finishing his second colada morada.

It's non alcoholic. It's made with black cornflour and flavoured with naranjillas and blueberries.

Cherry is watching him drink it.

Times twice, says Cherry.

Times twice what? asks Terence.

Is two, says Cherry.

Yes! says Mariposa. Very good Cherry.

That was rubbish, says Terence. What's the square root of pie?

But Cherry has forgotten.

Give her a puzzle, says Pescado.

Pedro gets out a pencil. (He always has one).

He draws a square, on a blank section of map.

He draws a straight line, from the square's top left corner to the bottom right corner.

He draws a second line from the centre point of the top of the square to the lower left corner.

He shades in the triangle formed on the base line.

What fraction is shaded? asks Pedro. Anyone?

The bottom fraction, says Terence.

I need you to be more specific, says Pedro.

Gaius likes the idea of the puzzle. But his head is full of  travelling tadpoles. So is Simon's.

I LOVE geometry puzzles, says Pescado.

I don't LOVE them, says Mariposa.

One third, says Pescado.

Try again, says his father.

Sweezus was okay at geometry, at school. Until it got harder.

He bites the head off his bread child, and sucks out the jam.

Five twelfths? says Sweezus.

Explain how you got it, says Pedro.

Gotta be less than half, says Sweezus. And more than a third.

Why? asks Pedro.

Looks like it, says Sweezus.

That's not proper geometry, is it dad?  says Pescado. What it looks like?

No it isn't, says Pedro. I'm sure someone can come up with a better answer.

Cherry?

Pie! says Cherry. A slice of.

But that too, is just what it looks like.