Woah this is weird. Only answer that works is a negative value, "-9"

14 - 23 = -9

'There are -9 more pears than apples' sounds ridiculous though.
Unsure if it's a typo in the question or not... but if negative answers have been common so far then they're probably just testing the concept.

Exactly that's what my answer too maybe typo but definite can't be negative 9 right?

I guess it really depends on the teacher. They might be intentionally trying to test the student on calculation of negative values and thus forced it into the "apples and pears" context even though it doesn't make sense in reality.

Perhaps just write the negative answer and if it's marked wrong, then get the student to ask the teacher if it was a typo in the qn. :)