“I know all about that one!” Marianne jumped in.

“Let’s do some.” Skyla handed her half the stack.

They began to study.

And Skyla knew so many. Almost all of them, in fact, except for a handful of the literature ones. If she were in Quiz Quest her specialties would have been history, science, math, and social studies. Skyla had always been a good student, but when had she gotten this amazing? Where had she picked up all this knowledge? Vi would have been overjoyed if Skyla had entered that room instead of her. No wonder Nina had tried to recruit her.

Strange.

When the nachos were ready and they dug in, Skyla told Marianne, “When you joined Quiz Quest I got kind of curious about Jeopardy!. I’ve been watching it a lot, actually.”

“Is that how you know so many of the flash cards?” Marianne asked, scooping up some sour cream.

“No, watching a few episodes wouldn’t teach me all those flash cards, right?” She laughed, and Marianne couldn’t help but feel that Skyla was laughing at her, not with her, like she did with Julie. “I dunno. You just pick things up in school and from reading.”

“Not me,” Marianne said with a full mouth.

“Yeah, well, come on, Mar, we both know you didn’t really do much of the reading.” Skyla’s phone buzzed. “Zara has been driving me a little crazy recently. So much drama,” she said, but then she proceeded to text with her nonstop.

Once home, even though Marianne just wanted to take a nap, she began her new habit of pulling out her homework, talking it over with her mom, and then calling Vi to help her through it.

Marianne knocked on her bedroom wall to signal to Lillian to quit it with the singing practice. It was starting to get pretty annoying.

“My sister doesn’t just want to win a gold medal, she wants to be Olivia Rodrigo, too,” Marianne complained instead of saying “Hi.”

“I would kill to have an older sister,” Vi groused. “Do you know how boring it is to be alone all the time? I spent my childhood playing dress-up with my nanny Raina, who mostly just took videos of it and posted it on her social media page. Fun, right?”

“Wow, sorry,” Marianne mumbled. “But, like, I’m glad you shared that with me?”

Vi rolled her eyes and said, “Okay, let’s start.”

“Hey, I honestly don’t know if I have this in me tonight,” Marianne told her.

“Too bad,” Vi said, just harsh enough for Marianne to hunker down and complete the page with her. “Think of States. Don’t you want that glory again?”

“It’s not about glory for me,” Marianne muttered.

“Right,” Vi said. “Yeah, I know. It’s about high school.” Vi paused and her gaze lingered somewhere offscreen. “I wouldn’t want to have to repeat a year either,” she said. “I get it.”

“It’s not something you have to worry about, Ms. Cross.” Marianne said her name in Mr. Garcia’s voice.