“You are not a joke,” Vi said.

And with that, she let go of Marianne.

“Losing’s not an option!” Vi hollered as she sped off, past Nina and Dan, the first one out the door and out of their sight by the time they exited the school.

8

ONE WEEK INTO HER tutoring sessions with Nina, Dan, and Vi, and her family dinners had morphed into review sessions.

“Did you know there’s an island called Brain Island?” she asked them. “It’s in Georgia. Not the state, though! Georgia is also the name of a country. And did you know that the rain that falls today is the exact same water that dinosaurs drank?”

“That one I knew,” her dad said, scooping the mujadara he’d made onto their plates.

“I wonder if a triceratops drank this black cherry seltzer,” Marianne examined, as if the can would have the answer.

“I don’t think it works quite like that, bud.” Lillian’s seltzer was gone, so she grabbed Marianne’s and took a swig.

“Oh, and did you know that one time, Napoleon was attacked by bunnies? Like … that’s a thing that happened. In history!” Marianne squealed with delight. “Why didn’t they teach me that in school before?”

“That’s a fact for Quiz Quest?” her mom asked. “C’est bizarre.”

“Well, no, it’s not, it’s just something my friend Dan told me to help me memorize some dates about Napoleon,” she explained.

“Which dates?” Her mom lit up. She loved French history. French had been the first language she’d “fallen in love with.”

Marianne paused. “I can’t remember. But I’ll review,” she promised.

“If I were you, I’d remember bunnies over dates, too,” her dad admitted. “You know, I wasn’t such a great student myself. Not naturally, anyway,” he said, starting on the speech he’d given them a billion times.

“We know,” Lillian and Marianne said at the same time.

That didn’t stop him.

“But I got by. Because I knew, to achieve what I wanted, I had to. I didn’t have to like it, but if I wanted to make a career in a symphony in New York or elsewhere, I’d have to learn how to work the system to get there. I’d have to earn a certain GPA to get into certain music programs, right? That didn’t mean I liked it. But I did it. So, for example, learning the dates may not be interesting, but school is a system, just like everything else in life, and—”

“You have to ‘master the system,’” Marianne and Lillian recited together once again, before falling into giggles at how well they knew their dad.

“Okay, okay, so I’ve said it a few times, but it’s true.” He took a sip of wine and patted his lips with a napkin.

“Dan and Vi say it’s easier to memorize something if you really make it ‘come to life’ for yourself first,” she told her dad, ignoring his lecture.

“Hence, the bunnies,” her mom said.

“Oh yeah, I remember!” Marianne perked up. “The date was 1812! Napoleon marched to Russia in 1812.” She grabbed some more cucumbers and piled them atop her lentils. “System mastered!” she added toward her dad, who grinned at her.