“William Faulkner,” the hoodie kid said.

Marianne almost leapt out of her chair. He was wrong. He was wrong, and she knew the right answer.

“Incorrect. Etheridge…” Ms. Ruhl repeated the question, and before she finished Marianne shouted, “Mark Twain!”

Marianne saw both of her parents quietly celebrate.

She couldn’t hide her huge smile.

Moments later, like a miracle, Ms. Ruhl asked, “Which Italian composer wrote the classic operas La Traviata, Aida, and—”

Buzz.

“Giuseppe Verdi!” Marianne bellowed. “And he was such a woman hater,” she added under her breath.

She saw her dad laugh and look around like “Isn’t my kid so funny?”

She waved at him.

But Ms. Ruhl was not amused and reminded everyone that Quiz Quest involved no commentary.

Marianne answered six more questions, four of them correctly.

Vi, Nina, and Dan split the rest.

They were unstoppable.

And they won.

“Hooray!” Nina hugged each of them.

“Well done, compatriots,” Dan said, slowly pulling himself up. “Take that, Andy! Can they do that at your fancy school?”

“We can do it,” Nina sang. “We can really do it!”

Vi reached across the two other kids and put out a hand for a high five to Marianne.

“Two down,” Vi said to her.

“Marianne, you were fantastic!” Her dad enveloped her in a huge embrace, lifting her off her feet. “This is really exciting. Do they show this on ESPN, like with the Spelling Bee? They should show it on ESPN. I mean, only at the highest levels, of course…” He went on and on, but Marianne couldn’t hear him over all the cheeriness bubbling inside her.

“Gotta go to the next match, Dad!” She skipped off toward her friends, who were following Mr. Garcia to find out their next assignment.

As they walked to their next match, Marianne reminded them of their goals. “Dan, that leaning forward and never going back really helps you. So does whatever you were visualizing … Wow. Amazing work. Stay in it. Nina, were you trying the hello-goodbye trick I taught you along with first-position stuff? I could tell.”

They talked strategy until the next round, and with that energy in place they won again.

And they took a break and ate some sandwiches, chatting with one another while their parents chatted nearby, and they won once more. Marianne only answered a couple correctly, but still—a couple was more than zero.

As the moderator called “time,” Mr. Garcia jumped out of his seat.

“You did it!” he exclaimed. “You did it!”

Whichever team won the next match won Regionals.

“We’ll be in the auditorium next,” he said, scurrying them out of the room to huddle by the door. “Half an hour. Don’t lose momentum now. Take ten, get a snack, I’ll find out who we’re playing for the final match.”

But another kid in the hall told them the news first.

“It’s you and Remington, guys,” an unusually tall kid said, bending his knees to give out fist bumps. “Good luck. You’ll need it.”