Chapter 1
In the city of Angel, on Sunday mornings children in glad rags run up and down chasing their kites.
An old woman, her hair gathered in a grey bun and her red round face kissed by freezing wind, sits with grace and poise on a soft broken chair.
She is always there, on the corner of Wood Street and Barnyard, opposite the Red Wall with her huge wicker basket full of brownish pearls.
Kids call her the Chickpea Lady. They love her crispy roasted chickpeas, delicious and perfectly round, but all different!
“One cone. No, no, two cones, please.” She uses a strange cup to fill in the cones and then she says: “Thirty-one for you, my princess! And twenty-nine for you, my lord”.
Children enjoy counting them. “How many in your cone?” “Thirty-one!” “And in yours?” “Twenty-nine!” “Hooray!”
One chickpea, two chickpeas, three chickpeas, …
The Chickpea Lady makes maths her piece of cake and children know that “Numbers don’t bite, and they are everywhere” as their teachers say.
They add chickpeas, they subtract chickpeas, they multiply chickpeas, but…
their favourite affair is dividing chickpeas.
One for you, one for me
Two for you, two for me… Let’s share our chickpeas!
