Dan looked back to Marianne. “Go on,” he said. “I want to hear more from her,” he told Vi, nodding to Marianne.

“I’m really sorry things turned out this way,” Marianne said, and oh man, was she … “But Addison is gone. She’s not going to Ann Arbor. You’re stuck with me, right? And you’re stuck with each other. So…” She searched her brain for anything she knew about bonding.

Daisy Troop 23098. The violet petal. “Be a sister to every scout.”

She and Skyla had run that meeting with Marianne’s mom in first grade. They’d taped papers on one another’s backs and had to go around writing nice things about one another on the paper. Then each girl took the paper off at the end and saw what girls had written. Pretty much everybody’s said “nice,” “fun,” “pretty,” and random descriptions like “brown hair” or “tall.” But it felt good. Marianne smiled at the thought.

“Yes?” Vi interrupted her daydreaming. Or was it strategizing?

“Everyone? Say one thing you like about each other,” Marianne declared. “Right now.”

She stomped her foot to show she meant business.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mr. Garcia return, standing just outside the window frame of the door.

“Ridiculous,” Vi groused.

“I don’t think that’s the answer here…” Dan mumbled.

“Just do it. Just be nice! Just stop fighting over who is bad or why and give each other a break!” Marianne said. “Just—”

“Dan, you have the widest frame of reference of anyone I know.” The words tumbled out of Nina in a rush.

Marianne only sort of knew what a wide frame of reference meant, but it sounded like a way of saying he was extra smart, which he was.

“Out of any of us, you’d probably do the best on Jeopardy!,” Nina clarified. “And I really believe that.”

Dan took a beat and said, “Why, thank you.” He stepped further back into the room. “And you have one of the best memories on the planet. Once you hear something, you know it. I envy that. I have to study lists of Best Picture Oscar winners for days to really get anywhere. I’m building a hundred memory castles. The battles of the Civil War took me an embarrassing amount of time. Andy mocks me relentlessly for it.”

Nina seemed to turn inside herself out of embarrassment. “Thanks. I’ve always been like that. I don’t know why.”

Marianne nodded toward Vi.

To Nina and Dan, she mouthed, “Vi.”

They hesitated.

“Vi, you’re like … the most organized person I’ve ever met?” Nina said, taking a step or two toward her.

“That’s what I was going to say,” Dan agreed. “My mom should probably hire you to go through the stuff in our basement. She’s got hoarding issues.”

Vi didn’t say a word. She took off her glasses and wiped the lenses on her shirt.

“Are we done?” Vi said.

Marianne heard a grunt from Dan.

“I didn’t hear you say anything,” he said. “And I like this game,” he added, sounding surprised.