“Oh, sorry. It was nothing!” Jalilah jumped in.

“Did you have something to add about linear equations? Tips for your fellow scholars? Other ways to envision the problem?”

They all stammered various forms of “no” and “sorry.”

Mr. Garcia froze again. Then he closed his eyes for a moment and lifted his chin toward the ceiling like he was praying.

“How dare you?” he said.

No one spoke. There was no silence like that of a class that had angered a teacher.

“Truly,” he said to them. “How dare you mock a fellow student for the pursuit of knowledge?”

Was this the guy who was raising the bar for her and her only? Suddenly so sympathetic? It must have been about disrespecting Quiz Quest. No one should ever mess with Mr. Garcia and his Quiz Quest. What was Lucas thinking?

Teachers had told kids to stop making jokes about Marianne before, but they’d never stopped class entirely to do it. It was kind of miraculous.

Marianne wanted to break out into a little dance, but she held it inside.

“Do you think Luke Skywalker would do that?” Mr. Garcia asked.

Marianne, confused by the reference, took a peek toward the back and saw that Lucas wore a Star Wars shirt.

“Do you think Luke Skywalker would be a … a bully? That he’d mock others in the Rebellion?” He shook his head. “Han Solo, maybe. But Leia would set him straight.” Then he turned his attention to the whole class. “I don’t ever want to hear someone put down for trying to learn ever again. Not in this classroom. Not in the hallways. Not ever. Understood?”

Then he spoke to Marianne but kept his eyes fixed on the math problem. “Nice effort, Ms. Blume. Thank you,” he said.

And he went through the rest of the problem without making Marianne say anything else, and she tried to take notes whenever Kylie did. They were largely meaningless to her, but her mom would be happy to see them.

Had Mr. Garcia really stood up for her?

At the ring of the bell, she grabbed for her phone to text Skyla “Guess what Mr. G. did to Lucas today?” but before her thumbs hit the letters she put it down. Skyla probably wouldn’t care.

Marianne waited until she was the second to last one left in the classroom. She wanted to say something to Mr. Garcia, but she didn’t know what. And Kylie had so many questions for him. And she’d be late for Ms. James.

So she left, but not before she hollered, “Go, Ermines!” on her way out the door.

Marianne arrived a few minutes early to Quiz Quest. Dan and Nina were already there, going through flash cards.

“Come do a few with us?” Nina asked. “We have, like, five minutes.”

What is …

Who is …

Where is …

After not getting any for a couple of minutes, Marianne checked out. It wasn’t even time to start yet. She needed some relief. She looked at the seventh-grade social studies projects up on the wall, posters on figures in Michigan history, like Henry Ford, Francis Ford Coppola, Berry Gordy Jr.…