“Oh, now you tell me,” she said.

“Yes, I’m telling you.” Vi gave so many instructions Marianne assumed even Dan and Nina tuned out.

Finally, Vi pled with them. “Think of Lansing. Think of it! Picture beyond Ann Arbor. Think of leaving Etheridge Middle School with this team being the one everyone wants to join.”

In the last minute of practice, Nina raised a hand and requested they do “that handshake bit again, like Dan said.”

Vi relented.

“Hands in!” Marianne cheered.

They gathered in a circle, hands atop one another’s.

“Gooooooo, Ermines!” she hollered as they echoed her.

“Vi’s freaking out,” Nina whispered to her as they left for the door.

“Can I give you a ride?” Marianne yelled out to Vi as she hustled toward the school exit.

“Gonna walk, thanks,” she said with her face forward as she practically ran out.

“Dan doesn’t think we have a chance,” Nina confessed to her as they passed by other groups and clubs ending their days and moseying out of the building. It was such a different energy than the wild fleeing that occurred at the end of the last class. Marianne found she liked this quieter, slower version of the school hallways.

“Ugh, please don’t tell me that,” Marianne begged her.

“Sorry, he’s totally wrong,” Nina amended.

Nina waved goodbye to so many people from her other activities—kids from German club, Black Student Union, and the Town Cleanup Project.

That whole idea that Marianne and Jalilah had that kids in Quiz Quest didn’t have friends? They were clearly way off base.

“How do you do it all?” Marianne asked Nina, who was once again wearing that sunray yellow, this time complemented by bumblebee earrings.

Instinctively, Marianne reached for her own ears to remind herself what earrings she’d put on that day. They were her dangly moonstones she’d bought in Traverse City. Skyla had chosen the moonstone bracelet instead. They sort of matched but sort of didn’t, and that had felt perfect. She could still hear the waves of the lake and see the glow of the creamy stones under the bright sky and feel Skyla seated next to her on the sand. If any cliché in life was true, it was that with best friends you could have fun in silence.

“I don’t do all the groups at once,” Nina explained to Marianne. “Depends on the semester.”

“Are you always in ballet, though?” Marianne asked.

They reached the outdoors and saw their respective dads waiting for them in cars parked one right in front of the other.

“What? Oh, yes, for now, but—I’m not good enough to do it professionally. I may not keep it up,” Nina told her as she waved at her dad.

“Yeah, but what about just for fun?” Marianne suggested.

“Ha,” Nina laughed, but Marianne didn’t see why that was funny.

They stood together outside the school, not yet ready to drive home.

“So is Dan’s fear all about Remington?” Marianne pictured Remington as broad-shouldered, tough football players.