“Nice!” Dan said, perking up a little in his chair. “What do you play?”

Marianne forced herself to grin her signature everything-is-just-peachy grin. “Nothing. Quit piano a few years ago. So much practice.”

Her dad had been beyond disappointed.

But the way he’d lingered over her while she practiced, the way he made her repeat every last thing the teacher said from the lesson and then critiqued the teaching style … She couldn’t take it anymore.

“It’s just a shame,” he’d said after her mom had agreed she could stop. “You were quite good.”

“I keep thinking about starting up with something else,” she said, surprising herself with something she hadn’t even known she felt. But it was true, she realized. She felt like some instrument was out there for her, but she hadn’t found it yet.

“I didn’t see you answer the Brandenburg question the other day, though,” Vi said, putting down her pencil and eyeing Marianne like a detective.

Marianne took a breath. “Whoops,” she said in her breeziest voice, and gave a shrug. Why was Vi trying to humiliate her?

It wouldn’t work.

“Andy plays French horn,” Dan groused. “Whereas I’m content on the kazoo,” he added.

“Andy is…?” Marianne asked.

“His evil twin,” Nina told her matter-of-factly.

“‘Evil’ is too strong a word,” Dan said. “It’s more like … he has the potential for evil.”

“He’s always trying to know more than Dan. He got into Greenfield Prep and Dan didn’t, so…” Nina explained.

“Hey, hey, no—I would’ve gotten into Greenfield, too, if I had been able to study all day instead of PT, OT, all the extra stuff my parents insist on … Anyway, I’m glad I don’t go there because it turns kids into snobs!” Dan punctuated the air with his pencil point.

“Hear, hear!” Marianne repeated his gesture with her pen.

“I play violin?” Nina chimed in. “Yeah, there’s lots of practice. I don’t mind. So would you say you’re particularly interested in music history?”

Marianne’s instincts kicked in. Avoid. Delay. Laugh at yourself.

“How about I observe for a bit?” she said. That sounded like something a super-smart kid would do. Scientists observed, right? “Could I see how you guys practice?”

Vi paused, perhaps suspicious, then handed out stacks of flash cards to everyone. She motioned for Marianne to move closer to the group, so Marianne took the seat next to Dan.

“Just do your best,” he whispered to her.

Within a second, a rapid-fire fact-a-thon commenced.

Marianne could hardly hear a thing. They read the cards with such speed that the words seemed to whirl around the room, facts bouncing off the walls.

She watched them closely.

Vi and Nina each leaned forward on their elbows and jiggled a leg.

Marianne tried it. She even added in a lip bite, which seemed to fit.

Maybe if she could mimic their behavior she would fit in, and she could wrong-answer her way through Quiz Quest with no one the wiser.

She tried to send Skyla a telepathic message. Skyla, do you hear me? I’m making a great thinking face. I’ll show you later.