Ooh la la. That was quite the elegant street. Marianne knew her mom was thinking the same thing.

“It must be nice to be so close to the school,” her mom said, talking to Vi through the rearview mirror.

“It’s definitely convenient.” Vi paused. “So you’re a doctor?” she asked.

Marianne’s mom playfully smacked Marianne’s leg for making it sound like she worked in a hospital or something. “No, I have a PhD in linguistics. I’m not saving any lives here!”

“Oh!” Vi perked up. “Are you a professor, or…?”

How did Vi know how to talk to adults about their careers like this?

“That didn’t really work out,” her mom said, slowing down as they neared Sycamore. “I’m doing translation work at the moment. I like it,” she added.

Vi directed them to pull up in front of a large brick house with a gazebo visible in the backyard. They looked like people who had gardeners. Every fall, Marianne and her mom spent hours uprooting their annuals, trimming the perennials, and planting bulbs, and each spring they spread wildflower seeds in new corners of their patch of land in the backyard. Marianne didn’t know people actually hired gardeners until her dad made a snide comment about it one day as they drove past the very area they were in right then. She had thought that only people in mansions or Hollywood did that.

The house had no lights on. Were her parents not home?

“Do you have siblings?” Marianne found herself asking.

“Just me,” Vi said. “Thank you so much for the ride, Norah.” Then she spoke to Marianne in her normal voice. “Talk to you tonight. And please look over what I send beforehand.” She seemed to take note of Marianne’s mom’s questioning look and added, “If you have time, of course.”

Vi hopped out of the car as quickly as she could and ran inside.

“Spill,” her mom commanded before driving off. “What’s the story?”

“So…” Marianne unwrapped a stick of Big Red and explained the complications of the absence of Addison, the tension between teammates, and the strange case of Violet Cross.

“Hmm,” her mom said as they pulled into their driveway. “It sounds like they really need a Marianne on the team.”

She found herself echoing Vi earlier with a disbelieving “Yeah right.” What on earth could she add to Quiz Quest besides wasting their time and cheerleading them against Remington? There was a reason schools didn’t have cheerleaders for trivia teams.

“Just my two cents,” her mom said, giving her knee a squeeze, which was her mom’s “I love you” code. “As long as you’re still able to do your schoolwork,” she added because, Marianne knew, she couldn’t help herself. “Ready?” she asked Marianne. “Run!”

They dashed for the door and got soaked.

After Marianne’s dinner and nightly homework marathon, Vi texted her that she couldn’t do one of their sessions that night.

Maybe Marianne had really hurt her feelings.

To Marianne’s utter shock, she sort of missed it. She found herself wondering what the next fact would be. They’d been like little surprises each night, things she’d missed along the school path. Maybe if she could start again somehow, if she could learn a fact at a time, one by one, she’d be able to have a fresh start. But, of course, that was impossible.