“That felt aggressive.” He used the end of his crutch to pull the bag toward him.

Vi groaned a long, low groan. She pulled her hair out of her ponytail and let it fall all around her face and back. It was wavier and longer than Marianne had thought.

“Help us out, Marianne,” Vi said from under her mane.

“Who? Huh?” Marianne looked around for another Marianne.

Vi lifted her head. She held back tears. “Your specialization is people stuff. Do you have any ideas for the team?”

Marianne grabbed a tissue from a box on the teacher’s desk. She handed it to Vi.

People stuff. Marianne didn’t know if she was good at “people stuff,” but she did like people. Actually, people were the only good part of school. Until Mr. Garcia, she had liked every teacher she’d had, even when they were failing her.

Vi was right that to Marianne, people were more interesting to figure out than intercepts on a graph.

And, if she was being honest, she was pretty sure she had these kids figured out.

“Okay.” Marianne spoke carefully, checking in with Vi after every other word. “So, um … Vi, I think you have a lot of good ideas about the team. But sometimes it’s hard for you to say it?”

“So true,” Nina agreed.

“So…” Should she just go for it? Was she allowed to take Vi’s spot and … be the captain for a little bit? “Let’s think about what Vi would say, and then do what my mom does—translate. Dan. Vi would say, ‘You’re delaying on the buzzer, Dan!’” She employed her best Vi impression. “‘You’re better than this! Stop being so lazy!’ she’d say. Right?”

Vi nodded sadly, her face still behind her hair.

“So … what she really means and what’s really going on is this: Dan, you’re so nice, and I’m so grateful for that. But … you need to care more. And hope more. Like, you just let me on the team. And that was nice, but … maybe you shouldn’t have just let me waltz onto your team? Like … Vi and Nina had a point. I didn’t know anything. Why wasn’t Quiz Quest important enough to you to fight for it? Ya know, you do something I do, in a way, so I get it. You pretend not to care about stuff very much. But it’s weird because you’re, like, amazing at it. So … I don’t know, maybe your brother makes you feel bad about yourself sometimes, so you’d rather not try than do super bad and have him feel like he was proved right?”

Dan’s jaw dropped. “You’re right,” he said. “I can’t believe I never thought of that.”

“But I think you really do care,” Marianne continued, her speech speeding up now, her passion kicking in, “or you wouldn’t have tried so hard to teach me and to practice. Right? So … instead of focusing on facts today, maybe focus on caring. Yeah?” As she said it, she knew that was the right advice. And it felt good to be correct. “Don’t shrug if you don’t hit the buzzer. Instead, decide that you’ll go for the buzzer the next time like it’s … life or death. In fact … Oh, I know! I want you to pretend that every kid on that other team is your twin brother. See his face.”