Marianne took her cell phone light and pointed it at Skyla’s house.

No response, of course. The shades were shut, anyway.

Oh, Mr. Rochester … competed with Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.”

“Could you quiet down? I’m trying to study!” she hollered toward Lillian’s room.

They must not have heard her.

Marianne turned off her music and picked up her flash cards.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe, all died on July 4, the card read. For some reason, that made her feel sad.

She texted Vi.

study?

Her phone lit up right away.

always

On their last practice before Regionals, Vi told the group that they had one more area they had to address.

“Mr. Garcia said we need ‘cohesion as a team,’ if I’m remembering right,” she said.

“Yeah, that was it,” Nina confirmed.

“Yes!” Marianne cheered. She’d been waiting for this.

“So we all have to work better together.” She looked at each one of them before saying, “Okay? Like, no fighting. Not on game day. Got it?”

“Um … That’s it?” Dan said quietly.

A clipped “no fighting” was not going to be enough to fix what she’d seen in practices and in the unforgettable Einsteins scrimmage.

“I mean, we get along fine when we watch Infinity Galaxy,” Marianne said. “Just … maybe we should think of competition time as an Infinity Galaxy binge watch, yeah?”

They didn’t stand a chance if they bickered on the day of Regionals. Nina would freak out and Vi would be too sour to band them all together and Dan would zone out in defiance. They had to get along. They had to work as one.

Outside the class door they heard some wild laughter and the skid of sneakers, then nothing but the awkward silence of their group.

Vi just nodded, with a closed-mouth attempt at an encouraging smile.

“But I do think that TV fundamentally wastes time,” Vi couldn’t stop herself from saying. “I’m just reiterating that, but it’s fine.”

“Oh my lord,” Dan groaned, throwing his head back in frustration.

“It’s all said and done now, though, anyway!” Vi tried to smooth over her misstep and move on. “So let’s begin!” She pulled out her folder with scrimmage questions for the day.

But Nina wouldn’t drop it. “Would you just stop?” she said.

“What?” Vi asked askance.

“You put so much pressure on us, geez,” Nina squeaked. She fiddled with the edges of her long sleeves. “Guilting us for watching TV? I thought you said you were going to be positive now!”

“I’m not just working us hard for me, you know!” Vi insisted. “Marianne has to win. And I thought you guys wanted to win!”

“Seems like we’re setting ourselves up for a real Simone Biles situation here,” Dan added calmly. “Trying to be the best and then the stress kills us on the big jump.”

“I don’t think you understand the mechanics of gymnastics or mental health,” Vi hissed.

“Simone Biles is the greatest athlete of all time, Dan, can you not use her as an example here? Agh!” Nina did one of her near-daily facepalms.