“About to make an epic mistake,” Curtis interrupted.
Well, he would know. I glared at him.
“Hi,” Merri said again. “We’re here to try out. Fielding said you could use more players.”
“Fielding.” Bartlett scoffed, “He quit the team because it interfered with fencing practice. Like fencing’s going to get him anywhere.”
“Well, he’s nationally ranked and being recruited by Ivies, so . . .” Merri shrugged. “He’s also my boyfriend, so maybe rethink whatever you’re going to say next.” She paired this with a smile while boosting herself to sit on a lab table. It was a low-key Campbell superpower—Merri and Lilly could simultaneously correct you and defuse a situation.
He dropped a buzzer back into the bin. “I’m Bartlett Ashcroft. I’ll be your team captain if you make it. I’m good at history. And Fielding’s a lucky guy.”
“I think so.” Merri’s voice always went a little dreamy when she talked about Fielding, but she blinked a few times and added, “Merrilee Campbell. That’s Eliza.”
“Is there a test or something you need us to take?” The getting-to-know-you time-wasting portion of the afternoon was over. I needed to be on the team, not know his life story.
“Sure, but let’s talk specialties. I told you mine. The questions in competition tend to fall into broad categories we need covered: literature, science, history, geography, mathematics, fine arts, religion . . . and they throw in a few on popular culture.”
“Literature and mathematics,” Merri said.
“If that’s true, that’s excellent. We need support in both. Especially lit.”
“If it’s true?” I sharpened my gaze on Bartlett. “Merri finishes books more often than you brush your teeth.”
“I hope not; my mom’s a dentist.” He grinned, revealing a shiny, perfect smile. “But people usually aren’t as smart as they think they are. What are your specialties? Pop culture?”
I swallowed back a lecture on the way society evaluated the worth of knowledge, and the problematic bias in terms like “smart” and “intelligence.” A lecture that would make me a hypocrite since I’d just aimed those words at Merri, Curtis, and myself. “Science.”
He glanced at Curtis with his eyebrows up. I swear he was one second away from making a blonde joke. In which case I’d be one second away from eviscerating him. Curtis shook his head in warning, and Bartlett turned back to me. “We don’t need a science person. How’s your fine arts knowledge? Musicians, painters, philosophers?”
I took a step back, my hip hitting the table where Merri was sitting. My family didn’t do fine arts. While my parents never directly stated they thought these were wastes of time, Mom frequently said things like, “Rory’s artistic talent would be useful for making field sketches; it’s a shame she has no inclination for botany or biology.”
“Just give them the test,” said Curtis.
Bartlett picked up two stapled packets. “So you know how this works: quiz bowls are on weekends a couple times a month—we go against other schools in the area, then after we beat them, we’ll progress to the state, regional, and national competitions.”
Merri was digging in her satchel for a pencil, but I kept my eyes and chin up. This guy could underestimate us all he wanted; he’d lose the condescension when he saw our scores.
“The test is long. You have twenty minutes, and that won’t be enough time to finish. I’ll warn you when you have ten minutes left.”
Merri was still elbow deep in her bag; she’d rejected at least four writing implements, so she must’ve been searching for some lucky one. I wished she could take her nervous energy and weaponize it. Or that there was a way to kick both guys out of the room so I could give her a lecture on owning her abilities and not allowing others to project their biases onto her emotional state.
Since I couldn’t do either, I offered her my pencil. It was a plain yellow #2, but well sharpened, and maybe she could tell it was imbued with my faith in her, because she grasped it like a life vest and smiled.
“Then I’ll correct them and we’ll see if you made it.” Bartlett dropped a packet next to Merri and handed one to me. “Any questions?”
“Is the team all male?” I asked. “How many of you are there?”
“No, and five. Ideally we’d have six. We need to cover the subjects I mentioned, and there’s no room for redundancies.”
“Lynnie went home with a migraine,” Curtis said. “André’s visiting Howard University.”
“Lynnie? Boy Byron’s twin?” asked Merri.
Curtis nodded. Apparently he knew the story of Merri’s parents owning a dog named Byron, and thus her giving our classmate a nickname to designate him the human version. “There’s also Norman—but I don’t know where he is.”
“I told him to go home.” Bartlett was setting a timer on his phone. Curtis had picked up a buzzer and was clicking the top like a pen. That was going to get old fast. “He doesn’t need to watch these two take a test.”
“Can you not?” I pointed to Curtis’s hand. He dropped the buzzer back in the bin and switched to tapping his foot. Ugh. I turned to Bartlett. “So we need to score better than one player to both make the team?” It was a necessarily obnoxious question, because Merri looked peaked, and I didn’t want her to have what she called a “nervous puking episode.”
“But if we beat them, do they lose their spot?” she squeaked.
Bartlett chuckled. “Worry about scoring high enough first. If you earn a spot, you earn it.” He pointed to a table across from Merri’s. Curtis held out a pencil that I accepted only for expediency. The sooner this was over, the sooner Merri could relax. If she didn’t make it, I wasn’t joining. If we both made it and she found it stressful, then we’d quit. There was no part of her well-being that I was willing to sacrifice to this new demand of my parents.
I nodded a thank-you to Curtis for the pencil—see, I could be civil. I should get bonus points for that. Not that they’d be necessary.
Bartlett tapped his phone screen and said, “Begin.” Curtis called out, “Good luck.”
Ugh. Like luck was real. Like we needed it.
I worked through the packet in order, glancing over at Merri every few minutes to check that she wasn’t too green. Science was first. I didn’t bother wasting time guessing on the ones I wasn’t sure of. I’d rather leave them blank than be wrong. I peeked at Merri again—her head was bent over scratch paper, her fingers flying through calculations. Knowing her, I was pretty certain she would’ve started with her favorites. Good. She’d nail them, and that would calm her down.
With five minutes remaining I reached the math portion. If I’d had more time, I could’ve solved all the problems on the page, but I’d answered enough questions across all the sections that my cumulative score had to be more than sufficient.
I smiled smugly when Bartlett called out, “Time. Pencils down.”
5
Bartlett handed Merri’s packet to Curtis, and the two of them bent over an answer key. I tried to distract her by asking about her work schedule at Haute Dog.
“It’s not bad lately,” she said. “Lilly’s picking up a lot of shifts because she misses being around and next year she won’t be. I already hate law school and—”
Bartlett cleared his throat. “Well, I have good news for one of you.”
Merri’s bottom lip was between her teeth. Would it be inexcusably rude to grab her arm and leave right now? Did I care if it was? I wasn’t joining without her.
“Congratulations.” Bartlett held his hand out . . . to Merri. She looked as confused as I did, blinking at him until he dropped his arm.
She pointed at me. “She’s Eliza. I’m Merrilee.”
“I know. You got eighteen out of twenty on lit and a decent thirteen on math too. We need you on the team.”
Merri shook her head. Her words tumbled over themselves. “But—how? Eliza—”
“Didn’t make it.” Bartlett turned to me. “Y
ou missed our team’s high score in science by one. It’s laudable, but I told you we can’t have redundancies. You don’t bring enough to the table.”
“But Eliza’s smarter than me,” Merri protested. “She’s smarter than anyone.”
“I answered thirty-nine questions,” I stated, not sure how to point out that this was higher than Merri’s thirty-one without making it look like I wanted to beat her.
“Cumulative score doesn’t matter—it’s about the individual sections and team needs.”
“You might have told us that.” My voice was still level but growing tighter.
Curtis had been unusually quiet. I glanced over to see him paging through my test and wanted to swipe it from his hands. I hadn’t made the team. I was going to have to tell my parents. My hand clenched around his pencil. How was this even happening?
“Barty—you gotta look at this test again. She nailed everything she answered.”
I winced. Curtis was sticking up for me. I shoved the pencil in my backpack and grabbed my coat. One of my gloves fell out of the pocket, but I didn’t stop.
I needed to run. Miles and miles and miles until I was able to make sense of this.
“I don’t know what’s so hard about ‘Don’t call me Barty.’” He fumed. “Fourteen in science is good, but she had to beat fifteen.”
“Fourteen?” I froze with my coat gathered in a jumble. “I answered fifteen science questions.”
“You got one wrong.”
“Not possible.” I’d answered only things I knew with complete certainty. I snatched the packet from Curtis. There was an X through question three: An organ is composed of two tissues, is self-contained, and performs a specific function. What is the largest organ within the human body?
I checked my answer. It was legible, and more importantly—“This is correct.”
Bartlett rolled his eyes. “Don’t be one of those people. You can try out again next year.”
I pressed on. “What answer is on the key? Because the liver is the largest organ in the human body.”
“You’re wro—”
“Just check, Barty,” Curtis said. “I’m curious too.”
He sighed like I’d assigned him a Sisyphean task, but ran his finger down the answer key before smiling smugly. “It’s not the liver. It’s skin.”
My answering smile was equally smug. “That’s wrong. It can’t be.”
“Give it up.” Bartlett’s ears were red, but Curtis was looking at me with raised eyebrows.
“Why can’t it?” he asked.
“What is the largest organ within the human body?” I read from my test. “The skin is the largest organ, but it’s not internal. The liver is the largest organ within.”
Curtis whistled. “She’s right.”
I shot him a piercing glare. “Of course I am.” Merri was sitting on the tabletop. She’d taken grapes out of her lunch bag and was popping them in her mouth as she watched us, eyes wide.
“I remember answering ‘skin,’ so I got that wrong,” Curtis added.
I rolled my eyes at the walls, trying to summon extra patience from a poster of the water cycle. “No offense, Curtis, but who cares?”
He drummed his fingers on the lab bench. “I had fifteen right, and now I have fourteen. You had fourteen and now have fifteen. Your score is higher than mine.”
My jaw dropped. “You? You’re the highest science scorer? I assumed you were pop culture or fine arts.” I winced as those words came out of my mouth. They sounded like something my mom would say.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bartlett protested. “You gave the answer that would’ve been accepted during a match.”
“If she gave her answer with her explanation—which is correct—it would’ve been accepted on appeal.” I hated that Curtis was defending me, but I didn’t know enough about the rules to make my own arguments.
“Still, you’re our top math scorer too. She’d be redundant.”
“Math?” My world was spinning. No. Curtis was a class clown. He was the one who avoided answering teacher’s questions through any antic possible. Last week he’d juggled whiteboard markers instead of solving a problem. The only times he raised his hand in math were to ask to go to the bathroom or if we could work with partners. I’d assumed the first was escapist and the second was because he couldn’t do the work by himself. I scrutinized him, trying to see beyond the ever-present goofy grin. If he was capable, why would he put so much energy into masking it?
I stared at him until he ducked his head, running a hand over his tousled black hair and grasping the back of his neck.
“Eliza.” While I’d been studying Curtis, Merri had slipped off the table and come to stand beside me. She had her coat on and she’d picked up my glove. “I peeked at his paper. He got the A on the math test,” she whispered. Except Merri couldn’t whisper, and her words hit Curtis like a dart to the spine. He stiffened and ducked his head further. I tried to close my mouth. He was the reason for my parents’ call and why I was here?
“Bartlett, thanks for letting us try out. I’m sorry it was a waste of time, but I’m not joining without Eliza. And not accepting her—that’s a huge mistake. Also, explain the rules better next time. Have a good night.” Merri smiled at him and grasped my sleeve, towing me out of the room. I hoped my silent exit seemed triumphant, but truthfully I was gobsmacked.
“I didn’t make it.” The freezing air snapped me out of my stupor and I shoved my arms in my coat. “I strategized that completely wrong. I was thinking total points, not the sections independently. If I’d known the scores I needed to beat—or if I hadn’t skipped—I could’ve—”
“It’s okay,” Merri said.
I shook my head. No part of what just happened was okay.
“Eliza!”
Merri turned and waved to Curtis, but I refused to acknowledge his shout. Not even when he added, “Wait up! Please.”
“Eliza Marie Gordon-Fergus.” My best friend yanked my arm. “Do not be rude to Curtis again. He’s our friend. It’s not his fault.”
“He’s your friend. I tolerate him for your sake.” But I stopped walking and turned to watch Curtis take a shortcut across the grass and splash through a slush puddle before skidding to a stop near us.
“Bartlett is an ignoramus.” His breath came out in puffs that fogged in the cold air.
“Did you just want to state the obvious?” I asked. “Also, you’re standing outside in twenty-degree temperatures in a school blazer, so let’s maybe not cast too many aspersions on other people.”
Merri kicked my shoe, but Curtis laughed. “Fair point.” He shoved his hands in his blazer pockets, pulling it tight against his shoulders. They weren’t broad like Lance’s, but they weren’t narrow either. I noticed, then decided to ignore, the way they strained against the seams of his jacket. “Listen, can we talk for a sec? You’re on the team—both of you—if you want to be. I’m hoping I can convince you.”
My stomach sank. “Did you tell Bartlett who my parents are?”
Merri’s eyes went conflict-avoidant wide. She muttered, “Oh, geez,” and then gave me a fake smile. “I’m going to . . . um, walk over to the headmaster’s house and see if Fielding and Sera are there. I’ll get him to drive me home, so . . . talk to you later!”
“Traitor,” I said.
“Play nice,” she answered.
I watched Merri scamper down the path, her satchel bumping against her leg and her purple gloves held slightly out to her sides to keep her balanced when she hit an icy patch.
“How scared should I be that question made your best friend run away?” Curtis asked.
I gripped the straps of my backpack tighter; 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 . . . I reached 132 before I responded. “I don’t want special treatment. I want to achieve things on my merit, not theirs.”
“If Bartlett wanted you to focus only on one section, he should’ve told you that. You strategized based on the information given, and he’s too stubborn to admit he
screwed up.”
“Just like that, he’s cool with me being on the team? You mentioned I’m related to Nobel Prize winners, and I’m no longer redundant?” I tilted my head, daring him to lie to me. Because there was no way an ego like Bartlett’s would make a one-eighty that quickly.
“No.” Curtis shuffled his feet, but he didn’t look away. “He’s giving you a probationary offer. We’ve got a couple of weeks until our first competition. You can prove yourself during practices. You’re not a redundancy.”
But I was. I was an unnecessary repetition of my parents. A weaker copy. So redundant that I had no place in their daily lives. I’d seen each of the Campbells cry because they missed Lilly since she’d gotten married and moved across town—and she saw them daily at the store and family dinners and Sunday brunch. My parents didn’t hesitate to leave me behind when they went to different continents. “I don’t need your pity.”
“Well, that’s good, because you don’t have it.” Curtis reached out to cup my shoulder. “The team needs you.”
I looked at his hand and raised my eyebrows. He pulled away and held it up in a gesture Merri called I come in peace. I stepped back. “And I’m just supposed to accept that you’re secretly smart?”
Ugh. I hated the imprecision of that word, but I was too frustrated to come up with an alternative.
“Accept it or don’t.” He shrugged and tapped his head. “Your evaluation has no actual impact on what’s up here.”
I exhaled for 8, 16, 24, 32, 40. Why would anyone choose to play ignorant? What could be the benefit? I couldn’t tell if I was angrier that he was an intelligent person masquerading as a fool or that I hadn’t noticed he was intelligent. Did everyone know but me? My cheeks burned. “Why should I join?”
“You tried out for a reason. I’m assuming you want to be on the team.”
The sky was starting to darken, and my cheeks were getting cold. My fingers were too, even through my gloves, so Curtis had to be miserable. “Who’s the adviser?” If he said “Gregoire,” I was bailing.
“Badawi.”
I grimaced. Dr. Badawi was almost as bad.
“Please?” Curtis took his hands out of his pockets and held up crossed fingers. “I saw Dr. B on the way out, and when I filled her in, she looked like she’d won a Wolf Prize. Are you going to deny an old woman such happiness?”
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