“He thinks it’ll be the perfect thing for me.” Marianne tried to sound as bubbly as possible.

Lillian came up behind Marianne and took the knife out of her hand. “Like this.” She began a rapid chop-chop-chop and in less than a minute the onion sat before them in perfect little squares.

“I was doing it fine,” Marianne groaned.

“Mm-hmm,” Lillian humored her. “Sure, Mar.”

Their mom bounded into the kitchen with a notebook in one hand and a strap of Marianne’s backpack in the other. “Ready?”

Her mom’s bun held only a slim fraction of her graying brown hair. The rest of it stuck out around her temples and fell in strands onto her neck. Her glasses overtook her face.

A rush of sympathy for her mom overwhelmed Marianne. Her mom didn’t want this either—homework, a failing daughter, the fights that always happened …

She wanted to work on her translations all day, enjoy dinner with the family, and then learn a dead language or something. But instead, she was stuck with Marianne.

“Why can’t I keep helping with cooking?” Marianne heard herself saying in a harsher tone than she meant to use. “Isn’t cooking actually more of a skill than whatever we’re learning about the genes system?”

“Ah, the age-old street smarts versus school smarts debate…” her dad said as he crushed the garlic.

“The genome,” Lillian corrected her.

“If society falls apart and Hunger Games happens or hurricanes take over or whatever people are always freaking out about, then I’ll need to know how to cook, not find out which grandpa Lillian got her blue eyes from.” Marianne wiped her hands on a kitchen towel.

“You’re right! It was from Grandpa!” Lillian cheered. “See? You know a lot more than you think you do. You’re so ready to quest.”

“Quest?” her mom asked, walking further into the kitchen.

“Wait, right, so what is this about Quest?” her dad asked, strolling over to the scene of the onion crime. “Mr. Garcia is okay with this? I don’t know if—”

Marianne tried to break it down. She told them the good parts, not the part where Mr. Garcia saw right through her. She reported that they needed another team member for Regionals and no one else was joining and how Mr. Garcia thought a review of materials was exactly what she needed. And then she went too far. “So I think probably tonight isn’t a great time for us to start our study sessions,” she said to her mom. “I really need to get to know the new flash cards they gave me and stuff.”

“If it interrupts this study time, you’re not doing it,” her dad snapped. Why did he have to immediately get stern with her? Couldn’t he just have a calm conversation?

“Dad, you don’t get it,” Marianne groaned.

“You’re right, I don’t.” He locked eyes with her mom for a moment and then went back to cooking.

“Dad, Mr. Garcia and Ms. Clarke are going to come up with some kind of deal about attendance or something and grades and if I mess up even once I’m off the team. Okay?”