“Ya know, I dunno?” Marianne took some lip gloss out of her pocket and doused her mouth with it. “But, like, we can just pick any point? Any number? Sooo … how ’bout seven ’cause it’s lucky.”

“Yes! Blume is back!” Lucas hollered from the back.

“Mr. Hayes…” Mr. Garcia warned.

Several different reactions trickled throughout the classroom—some whispers, a handful of cackles, a sigh or two.

Marianne figured the sigh was from Vi, seated behind her, probably just thinking about how all this would affect Quiz Quest.

He had to move on to another kid now. This was a distraction, she didn’t know the answer or how to get it, and time was ticking. She decided to act like he’d left her already and check her hair for split ends.

Mr. Garcia cleared his throat. “No, actually, it’s not a pick-your-own-number scenario. Marked on the graph are our two intercepts.” He waited for a second, maybe hoping she’d respond. She didn’t. “So we have (-4, 0) and (0, 8). So…” he lectured on and on.

How could he do this? Hadn’t he seen she was doing her best in Quiz Quest? Why couldn’t he comprehend that this math thing was over? That Regionals was a fluke and there was no way she could win States? Why couldn’t he give up on her?

Marianne would end it herself. For good.

She took out her gum and tossed a stick into her mouth.

Mr. Garcia halted in his tracks.

“Excuse me, gum is not allowed in class,” he scolded her.

Marianne crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, chewing.

He returned to his Smart Board, writing out some other type of equation she didn’t recognize. “Now, Ms. Blume…” he went on, still going after her.

And the question she’d been holding inside all year shot out.

“Why do you hate me?” she asked him.

The class hushed.

“Excuse me?” He froze, his writing hand in midair. It was his turn to act like he hadn’t heard or understood, she saw.

“Nothing,” she groused. “Never mind.”

“Now…” He wrote some more numbers and ideas and markings onto the screen.

And Marianne unwrapped another stick of gum.

When he looked up again, she blew a bubble. It popped, and she pulled the sticky remnants off her nose.

Mr. Garcia nearly ripped a tissue out of the box on his desk, marched two feet over to her, and held it out. “Enough.”

She let her artificial strawberry lip glossed smiling pretense fall away entirely.

“No,” she said.

He looked at her. She looked at him.

Then she lurched her head further toward his, so they almost touched, blew another bubble, and let it grow bigger and bigger, until it popped.

She grabbed her bag, walked out the door, and headed home.

When she entered the house, she could hear the melody upstairs of her mom speaking Italian to someone on the phone. She sounded happy, so she must have been working on a translation project she really loved.