“Tatum O’Neal for Paper Moon?” she answered in her singsongy way.

“Correct,” Mr. Garcia said. “Extension round.”

“What?!” Dan whisper-screamed.

“I didn’t like it,” Kylie announced to everybody. “A lot of overacting, in my opinion.”

“Go, Kylie! Go, Kylie! Go, Kylie!” Lucas cheered.

The four of them stood up and shook side to side in a victory dance.

“Extension round!” Mr. Garcia repeated.

And Kylie knew them all, every single one. She didn’t confer with a single teammate, just buzzed right in. And she had loads of “commentary.”

Delroy Lindo “was robbed and it’s an actual crime.” Sofia Coppola “just had a famous dad and that’s not fair.” And all movies were “better in the old days.”

The “Go, Kylie” chants resumed.

Marianne must have looked shocked, because Kylie said, “What? I want to be a screenwriter. You don’t need school for that.”

“Everyone! Focus!” Mr. Garcia snapped.

And the Ermines continued to lose.

If they couldn’t beat a few classmates from Etheridge, how could they beat the mythical Remington?

Not only that, Marianne had to answer 10 percent of the questions. Ten percent!

Vi seemed to realize this at the same time as her, because during a victory celebration over Ava acing a few math problems, Vi seethed, “You have to answer some!”

“Okay, okay.” Marianne nodded. “But I’ve only learned a few facts!” she added. “But okay!”

Marianne used her hands to physically push her ears out and forward to force herself to take in every word Mr. Garcia said.

She tried to ignore the muffled laughter a few feet across from her.

“The Grand Canyon National Park is in which state?”

Nina buzzed in immediately, but she was so nervous that she had to hit the buzzer several times to make an actual buzz sound, and then she said, “Oops, oops, oops,” over and over again, to whispers and hidden giggles from the other side.

“Arizona?” she answered, her voice a peep.

“Correct.”

“Finally,” she heard Vi grumble.

If Vi kept talking to Nina like that, it would make Nina’s stress so much worse.

As the Ermines worked through the extension round, Marianne wondered if she’d even know a single answer. Out of thousands of trivia answers, how could she think the few she knew would come up?

“What is the largest organ in the bod—”

“The skin,” Jalilah said, waving her arms in the air to emphasize her win. Kylie clapped. They got every anatomy question, working as a team and cheering after each “correct.” They laughed and high-fived and made up funny Team Einstein victory rituals, and when Marianne looked over at the Ermines, all she saw was … well, misery.

Vi glowered. Nina whispered something to herself, her eyes closed. Dan drank some Gatorade and smacked his lips, angry.

The three of them had been doing fine at first. But they were thrown off so easily. They just didn’t seem like a team.

And Marianne knew … they were going to lose.

“This is, like, actually not that bad!” Jalilah sang to Mr. Garcia and the rest of them as they achieved more correct answers.