Nina made Marianne memorize geography songs on YouTube, and they cracked up together at the goofy cartoons that went along with them. Knowing the name of each little spot in the world somehow made the globe feel much larger and smaller at the exact same time. But learning the names of countries was different from memorizing them, and she could only get through one-third of most of the songs until she got lost. Still, Nina assured her she was doing great. “Why didn’t you learn this before?” she asked her once.

Marianne didn’t quite know.

Marianne jokingly called herself Nina’s “blow-off-steam advisor.” Obviously, Nina couldn’t compete at her best if she was stressing so much. So in order to relax between study sessions, they started FaceTiming while watching Infinity Galaxy together, a show about a group of the last survivors of an intergalactic war forced to live together on a single spaceship that was destined to self-destruct in five years. When Dan found out they’d watched it without him, he joked that he was “deeply hurt” and insisted on joining in the binge.

“I’m the sci-fi guy!” he said, and he caught up in one night, joining them for episode five.

But Marianne knew that in order to have even a chance at winning, they couldn’t just include three members in the blowing-off-steam club. They had to have all four. So soon enough, Vi was calling in with them to finish up the season.

“This is highly unrealistic,” was Vi’s first commentary, which elicited hoots of laughter from the rest of the Ermines.

In almost every tutoring session, Dan liked to show off his knowledge to them.

“I just finished my Best Actor Oscar memory palace,” he told them. “Test me.”

“Nineteen twenty-two,” Nina spat out as fast as she could.

“Whoops, sorry, no Oscars back then,” he said. “Try again.”

“Nineteen seventy-eight,” Marianne joined in.

“Richard Dreyfuss, The Goodbye Girl,” he answered immediately. “I prefer him in Jaws,” he added.

“When you talk about ‘memory palaces,’” Marianne told him, “I think of, like … a castle filled with all my old memories. Sounds kind of nice … But also awful?”

She imagined walking into a glimmering, Disney World–like palace, where when she entered the dining room, she could relive the first day of sixth grade—Skyla grasping her hand on the way in, convinced Marianne would ditch her for all the kids she’d chatted with at orientation. Skyla whispering to her, “You can’t leave me,” and Skyla beaming every time Marianne said to the other kids, “Oh, hey, you have to meet my best friend, Skyla. She’s the best person in the world.” Eventually Skyla had loosened her grip on Marianne’s palm.

Dan told her all about the history of memory palaces.

“A whole bunch of smart people figuring out ways to be smarter,” she said to him. “My mom would love it.”

“I think you’re confusing ‘smart’ with ‘enjoys sitting around and memorizing lists.’” Dan brushed his floppy ginger hair out of his eyes.