Ember the dragon unrolled his chalkboard scroll across the cave floor. His claws tapped the stone as a tiny spark popped from his nose.
He whispered, "The answers are hiding in there somewhere," and grabbed a handful of counting stones to arrange in neat rows.
Ember lined up twenty-seven piles of ten stones each, then ten more piles of nine. But the pile kept growing and growing.
The mountain of stones spilled over his knees. Ember groaned and pushed it aside with a frustrated huff.
The counting stones clattered across the cave floor, rolling toward the entrance. A tiny spark popped from Ember's nose.
A friend tumbled into the cave on a wave of stones, giggling with a counting stone stuck to their forehead. "I came for the rolling stones!"
Ember pointed to the numbers on his scroll. The little dragon companion peeled a stone off their head and traced the digits with a sticky fingertip.
The little dragon dragged a fresh chalkboard down and started drawing grids. Groups of groups snapped together like building blocks.
Ember gasped as the second problem's answer began to form. The digits wiggled and danced in shimmering white chalk.
Both dragons leaned in so close their snouts almost touched. The answer spelled out 24,309,811 in shimmering white chalk.
They high-fived, leaving smudged chalk prints on each other's scales, then collapsed into a pile of counting stones laughing.
The chalkboards glowed faintly in the dark cave. Ember already had three more scrolls unrolled for tomorrow.