Mia the Meek (21 page)

I quickly improvised.

“Cassie’s life isn’t what she says it is because her dad was once an FBI agent. He worked on all the top secret cases, but in the end, he gave up his promising career to stay at home with Cassie. . .”

Cassie was waiting for me in the hallway after English class.

“I bet you think you’re so much better than me now,” she said.

“Can’t we just end this fight?” I asked.

“One of these days, Mia the Freak, Jake will find out who you really are, and then he’ll come running back to me.”

“Relying on my leftovers now?” I said. “My, how the mighty have fallen. Why don’t you get a life and leave mine alone?”

I left Cassie standing alone in the hall.

A
fter a tortuous month of trivia tedium, the Friday afternoon before the Quiz Bowl finally arrived. I only had to survive math class, and then I could focus all my energy on winning. Mercifully, the bell finally rang and I jumped out of my desk.

“Ms. Fullerton,” Mr. Grizzling said as I made a break for the door, “I would like a word with you.”

“Yes, sir?” I hung back hesitantly while my classmates emptied the room.

“Your mother tells me you’re nervous about the math questions at tomorrow’s tournament.”

“Yes, sir.”
Couldn’t my mom keep anything secret?

“While math may not be your strongest subject, I believe it is your timidity in the subject that is holding you back, not lack of aptitude. If you think you can succeed, then half the battle will be won.”

“Yes, sir.” I was beginning to sound like a parrot.

“Good luck tomorrow, Ms. Fullerton.” Mr. Grizzling extended his hand and I shook it. Maybe there really were such things as miracles.

“I have just been informed that there will be sixty-four teams competing tomorrow,” Ms. Jackson said. Tim pretended to shoot a basketball.

“Just like March Madness,” he said. “We’re going to the Big Dance.”

“Sweet Sixteen, here we come,” I said, rebounding the imaginary ball and pretending to dribble it around the room.

“We’re headed to the Final Four,” said Mike, swooshing the ball into an imaginary net.

“Where we’ll win a touchdown!” Lisa said excitedly.

We dropped our imaginary balls and looked at her.

“What?” she asked. “Isn’t that what you need to win in basketball?”

Ms. Jackson shook her head. “As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by your basketball metaphors, there are sixty-four teams, and there will be six rounds of competition. Each round starts at the top of the hour, with an hour break for lunch. Round one begins at nine a.m., so we should meet at school at eight tomorrow morning. I’ll drive you all to the competition, so don’t be late.”

My mom shook me awake.

“Mia, get up! Its seven forty-five. We all overslept!”

I couldn’t believe it. The one night I wanted my roller coaster to crash me awake, it hadn’t. I jumped out of bed and after a frantic, chaotic rush to get ready, I hurled my body into St. Hilary’s at eight fifteen to find Lisa waiting at my locker, impatiently checking her watch.

“Where were you? We’re late!”

“I’m sorry. Just let me get my folder from my locker and I’ll meet you at Ms. Jackson’s car.”

“All right, just hurry! Our first round is in forty-five minutes.”

I opened my locker and rummaged around, trying to find my folder. After emptying the contents of the locker onto the floor, I finally found it under my gym clothes. Quickly throwing the rest of my books back inside, I slammed the locker door and turned to leave, but I saw something gleaming on the floor in front of my locker, and bent down to pick it up. It was the laminated quadratic formula Mr. Grizzling had given me. I was about to shove it back in my locker when Lisa shouted at me from down the hall.

“Come on, Mia! Ms. Jackson is waiting!”

I hastily put the formula in my pocket and raced after Lisa. “I’m coming!” I yelled.

When we entered the classroom for the first round, Ms. Jackson joined our parents in the back of the room. In the front of the classroom, there were two rows of four desks facing each other. Between the rows, there were two desks facing forward, where the moderator and the timekeeper would sit. The team from Grant High School was already seated on one side, so we took the seats on the other side and waited for the moderator to arrive. Soon, a tall woman and a man resembling a Keebler elf entered the room.

“Good morning,” the woman said, “and welcome to the first round of the Academic Quiz Bowl. My name is Mrs. Turner, and this is Mr. Potts. In this round, I will be reading the questions and Mr. Potts will be the timekeeper. I believe you know the rules, but I will remind you that you must answer the questions within ten seconds, and the team captain must give the answer for all bonus questions.”

Both teams sat silently, fearing that if either of us made a sound, it would be held against us.

“Team captains, please come forward and draw a number to see who will begin the round,” Mrs. Turner instructed.

Lisa and the team captain from Grant drew numbers from a bowl and handed them to Mrs. Turner.

“St. Hilary’s will go first in this round,” she said.

Lisa smiled broadly and sat down. Mrs. Turner pulled the first trivia card.

“Identify the command used in BASIC to tell the computer to jump to the specified statement number.”

“GOTO,” Lisa answered quickly.

“Correct. Ten points awarded to St. Hilary’s.” Mrs. Turner addressed the Grant team next. “Complete these lines taken from Martin Luther King’s tombstone: ‘Free at last/free at last/thank God almighty. . .’”

“I’m free at last,” Grant’s captain answered calmly.

“Ten points awarded to Grant High School.”

Mrs. Turner looked at Mike. “On which continent would you find the world’s largest tropical rain forest and the world’s driest place?”

“Um, Africa?”

“Incorrect. Any Grant team member may now answer this question for an additional ten points.”

A player from Grant hit her buzzer.

“South America,” she answered confidently.

“Correct. Ten more points awarded to the Grant team. Since that was the third question answered correctly, it has a bonus question attached. Your team may confer on this question to arrive at the correct answer. The bonus question is: what two states were created entirely out of other states?”

“Maine and Virginia,” Grant’s captain answered after his team had conferred.

“I’m sorry, but the correct answer is Maine, from Massachusetts, and West Virginia, split off from Virginia. No bonus points are awarded. The score is St. Hilary’s ten points, Grant twenty points. The question returns to Grant High School’s second team member. Your question is: Hemingway chose a verse from
Ecclesiastes
as the title of which of his novels?”

“
A Farewell to Arms
.”

“Incorrect. St. Hilary’s has a chance to steal.”

I hit my buzzer.

“
The Sun Also Rises
,” I said.

“Correct. St. Hilary’s and Grant each have twenty points.”

The rest of the round went swiftly. Every question was answered correctly, including the bonus questions. Lisa answered the seventeenth question correctly, which gave St. Hilary’s a score of 145 points. If the Grant team answered the eighteenth and final question correctly, it would have a chance at the last bonus question. If they answered that one correctly, the team from Grant High School would win. If they made any mistake,
we
would win.

“What percentage of the House of Representatives is elected every two years?” “One hundred percent,” Grant’s captain answered, smiling confidently. “Correct. The final bonus question is: since light cannot escape, how are black holes detected?” A Grant student hit his buzzer and yelled, “Radio or X-ray astronomy!”

“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Turner reminded him, “but you must let your team captain answer all bonus questions. I cannot give you the bonus points. St. Hilary’s advances to the second round!”

We jumped out of our seats and hugged each other. Our parents came over to congratulate us.

“Very nice, students,” Ms. Jackson said, “but you’re just at the beginning of the day. Don’t congratulate each other too much just yet. You need to hustle over to classroom 213 for your next round against Moore High School.”

By lunchtime, we’d made it past round three and into the Sweet Sixteen! We were so excited we could barely eat the lunch the competition had provided.

“You need to eat for brain power,” Ms. Jackson chided.

“I can’t stand this healthy stuff they packed for us,” Tim commented, looking in his lunch bag. “Does anybody have any money for the vending machine? I need some junk food.”

I reached into my pocket for some money and pulled out my quadratic formula instead.

“I totally forgot I put this in my pocket. Maybe it’s a sign from Mr. Grizzling.”

“If you mention his name again,” Tim groaned, “I won’t be hungry for junk food.”

I studied the card a little closer. “What does this formula even mean?”

“If I tell you,” Tim said, “will you give me five dollars?”

“If you can actually make this formula make any sense to me,” I said, “the money is yours.”

Tim pulled out a pen and started writing on the napkin from his lunch bag. “First of all, you need to understand the term ‘quadratic formula.’ To do that, you must understand what is meant by the terms ‘quadratic expression’ and ‘quadratic equation.’ A quadratic expression is a polynomial of this form,” Tim said, writing ax
²
+ bx + c on the napkin. I frowned and concentrated even harder as he continued.