“You didn’t!” This was not happening.

“Oh, I love that video. You were so cute,” Mom said, cupping my chin in her palm.

I swiped her hand away. “Mom! Focus! Jeanine went behind my back when she knew I didn’t want this. It’s just…wrong and…messed up!” I was so angry I could barely speak.

“The only reason you didn’t want to try is because you were afraid they wouldn’t want you, but they do,” Jeanine said between licks of Popsicle.

“Look, we get it,” Dad said. “She shouldn’t have done this without your permission.”

“You think?” I said.

“But—” Dad added.

“But what?”

“But regardless of how it happened, it’s a great opportunity as long as you don’t take it too seriously.”

“And you’re so perfect for it!” Mom said, still way too loud.

“And.…” Jeanine raised her Popsicle to make her point. “It’s great publicity for Petersville and The Doughnut St—”

“No!” I stood up. “Why aren’t any of you listening? It’s my choice, and I’m not doing it.”

Then I got out of there before they could say anything else.

• • •

I had just flopped onto my bed when Jeanine climbed out of the hole in the floor where the ladder leads up to my room.

“Go. Away.” I put a pillow over my head.

“Have you even thought about the prize money? You could use it for your doughnut machine.”

I threw the pillow at her. “Doughnut robot, not doughnut machine.”

“Whatever. If you win, you could buy it.”

“The chances I’d win—”

“But you could. You know you’re as good as those kids, better even.”

I definitely never would have messed up the finger test like Jackson, but cooking skills weren’t my problem.

I sat up. “Look, I just can’t do it.”

Jeanine dropped onto the bed next to me. “Is this like prime buzz?”

I pulled my knees up to my chest. “No.”

It totally was.

“You know, nobody believed you were sick all those times.”

“What’s prime buzz?” Zoe asked, her head popping up through the hole in the floor.

“It’s a math game you play in school,” Jeanine said. “You go around the room counting. The first person is one, then the next is two, like that, but if your number is prime, you say, ‘buzz,’ instead of the number.”

Zoe ran across the room and jumped onto the bed. “What’s prime?”

“A number divisible only by itself and one,” Jeanine said.

“What’s ‘divisible’?”

Jeanine rolled her eyes. “I’ll show you tomorrow. The point is, Tris doesn’t like to play.”

“No, the point is, nobody likes to play except Jeanine,” I said.

“Whatever, nobody but Tris pretends to get sick just so they don’t have to play.”

“I wasn’t pretending.”

Playing that stupid game actually made me sick. There was something about having to figure something out with everyone watching that made my brain feel like it was churning through chewing gum. And Jeanine was right. Can You Cut It? was exactly the same. No matter how much prep you did, you’d have to come up with recipes on the spot in front of everybody, and when you failed, you’d do it in front of Chef JJ, the other kids, and millions of TV viewers. “Why don’t you do it? It’s just like your Solve-a-Thons and Geography Bees, and you rock those.”