“What do you mean?”

“It’s iceberg lettuce and some old shredded carrot.”

“I mean about working it out. You think it’s a good thing for you? Maybe it’ll teach you how to study!” Skyla’s hopeful tone frustrated Marianne a little.

“No, no, no, you’re way off base. Listen…” She liked having Skyla’s attention. Skyla wasn’t looking back at Julie to see if she’d left the salad bar and moved on to the warm stuff. She was finally really listening to Marianne. “I don’t have to answer correctly! It’s incredible! Mr. Garcia thinks a ‘review of basics’ is ‘exactly what I need,’” she said in her best Mr. Garcia impression, “and even if I get only a little bit better than normal-me grades, I can at least pass if I get the extra credit. He says I need to give him ‘proof of effort,’ whatever that means, but guess what? Even though you do need to answer a certain amount of the questions in a competition, you don’t have to answer correctly! Amazing, right? I can be wrong! It doesn’t matter! And if I look like I’m studying, and I answer enough questions, I’ll get the points I need to pass his class! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before!” For a moment, Marianne felt like her bubbly self again. That person had been missing the past couple of days.

Skyla had gone icy. “You probably didn’t think of it before because Addison Schuler was on their team and she’s, like, amazing, and they were doing really well. And you didn’t know there’d be extra credit until I told you.”

“That’s a weird thing to say. But … okay?”

Skyla turned her head slightly and scanned the cafeteria for her friends once again. There it was. Marianne had lost her already. “I’m really hungry. I got to go.”

“Whoa, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing! I’m starved.”

“Your face is like a mood ring and it’s on maroon. I know you. What did I say wrong?”

“Well, Mar, you just…”

Marianne saw Skyla gauging whether she should say it.

Then she said, “That’s a really awful thing to do.”

Marianne knew what Skyla meant. And heat rushed through her from head to toe, almost like the sensation she felt when she didn’t know an answer. The old, reliable voice that said “bad.”

“Huh?” Marianne said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Dishonesty. That was bad, too.

“Vi Cross may be a little extreme, but this matters to her. And I don’t know the other kids on the team very well, but I’m sure this matters a lot to them, too. They’ve worked hard. And you’re going to waltz in there—for your own benefit—and not try to really help them win? Probably make them lose? I just … It’s…”

What word was Skyla not saying?

“Would it kill you to try?” Skyla admonished her.

Marianne had no response.

“I love you, but I gotta go.” And Skyla walked away.

Marianne watched Skyla meet up with her friends and smile like nothing had happened.