An animal shelter spends $3.00 per day to care for each bird and $7.00 per day to care for each cat. Skylar noticed that the shelter spent $111.00 caring for birds and cats on Wednesday. Skylar found a record showing that there were a total of 21 birds and cats on Wednesday. How many birds were at the shelter on Wednesday?

Look, when you want to do something like put it like x^2. x2 could mean x² or x₂. so to clear confusion, know the notation. to find the product multiply the x's and you get -8x and the y's and you get 6y. since it's all being multiplied it is just -8x6y, or answer a. although the better answer is -48xy(combining -8 and 6) because you should multiply constants whenever you can.