The tiny girl groaned through her fingers, “This is a disaster.”

Marianne strolled into the room and sat down.

“You’re taking volunteers, right?” Marianne tried again.

Vi froze.

Marianne thought she may have caught the corner of the boy’s mouth rising slightly in a grin. The small girl looked toward Vi like she was awaiting instructions. Vi ignored Marianne and continued explaining a “science list.”

But the boy spoke to Marianne. “Do you have a pulse? Yes? Good. Then please join us.”

Vi didn’t acknowledge Marianne’s presence. She kept talking. “It’s not that we don’t know our basics, but we’re lacking in the expansion rounds.”

“I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure I’m alive,” Marianne joked.

“Fantastic. I’m Dan. Dan Griffin.” He spoke over Vi and held out a hand across their desks for a handshake. Nodding toward the petite girl, he said, “This is Nina Anderson. Geography extraordinaire. And that”—he motioned to Vi—“is Violet Cross. Our new team captain.”

“Oh, we know each other.” Vi kept her eyes on some papers in front of her.

“We have Mr. Garcia together,” Marianne explained. “Plus, everyone knows Vi, right?”

Vi hissed, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Marianne hadn’t meant to bring up the running-for-class-president debacle, but maybe Vi thought she had. That whole fiasco had made her somewhat famous.

“You’re, like, the smartest kid in school!” Marianne said, covering for herself. “So do I just sit with you guys or…? Do we wait for Mr. G? Do I need paper or anything?”

“Addison was the smartest kid in school,” Vi corrected her.

Dan sighed as if this were a refrain he’d heard before.

“It’s true,” Nina nearly whispered.

Vi grunted, then tossed a pencil onto the desk. “I knew extra credit was a terrible idea.”

Marianne leaned forward and whispered, “I can hear you.”

Dan covered his mouth with his hand, but she could still hear the smothered laugh.

“I’m sorry.” Vi finally acknowledged her directly. “It’s not personal. Truly. It’s just that … I mean, you know, you’re not—”

But before she could finish, Mr. Garcia walked in.

Even though he acted like an old man, Mr. Garcia was pretty young for a teacher. He only had one or two white whiskers in his short beard and none in his dark hair. And even though he dressed in button-ups and black pants, once in a while, she noticed, he wore a bright fuchsia or lime green tie, so maybe he wasn’t entirely boring. He also wasn’t entirely math. He always had a big brick of a novel on his desk. Marianne noticed that because one time it was the same book her mom was reading, some lady named Tana French, who her mom claimed “elevates the mystery genre,” whatever that meant.

She just couldn’t figure him out.

“Ms. Blume?” Mr. Garcia addressed her as he stood behind a table pulling folders and papers out of his bag and placing them into various stacks. “Can I help you?”

She’d had his class that day, but they hadn’t spoken. Not in person, anyway. His red pen spoke for him. It had written a large, circled F on the top of her math midterm. All of her tests that day held a similar mark. For the first time it had hit her that F stood for Fail. Or maybe FAILURE. Was that why there was no E and it just went from ABCD to F? E didn’t stand for anything but F did? Couldn’t they find a nicer way to show you failed? Or couldn’t they just be more honest about it instead and put the word—FAILURE—instead of an angry-looking letter?