Chapter 4

On the day of the competition, the organizers double-checked the roster to make sure there were no issues. The buzzers were also inspected on the spot by teachers from every school for defects or problems.

Hugo sat at the station next to ours and lazily glanced my way. "Oh, you actually came."

I nodded. "Yeah."

"I heard you usually sleep in till 8:30 am. Aren't you tired, being up this early today?"

"A little."

"Do you even know how to use the buzzer?"

"I just press the option I want, right?"

He laughed. "More or less."

Several of Greenwood's teachers sighed in frustration. Meanwhile, I asked seriously, "Can I reapply sunscreen during the competition?"

"You can't leave your seat once the round starts."

"What about lip gloss?"

"No."

Sasha cut in, her voice firm. "That's enough."

As if she were afraid she might change her mind, she simply took my makeup bag away. "I'll hold on to this. You can put on whatever you want after the competition."

I lowered my head and didn't argue.

The first three rounds began soon after. In round one, Joe buzzed in first on three questions in a row. On the fourth, he got too aggressive trying to close the gap, missed twice in succession, and was eliminated.

Chris managed to earn 20 points back for Greenwood, but Brookstone deliberately snatched up the math questions he was strongest at, forcing him to buzz in on a biology question outside his comfort zone.

The light flashed red, and Greenwood lost another contestant. That left only Sasha and me.

Before she went up, Sasha handed me a bottle of room-temperature water. "Don't be nervous. Just sit here. That's all you have to do."

I looked down at my seat—my neatly pressed school blazer, a compact mirror, a hydrating face mist, and even a white school cap to block the glare from the stage lights.

Everyone thought I was a pain, but they'd still remembered every one of my ridiculous habits.

I flipped the mirror facedown on the desk. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Are you scared?"

Sasha paused. "Yeah."

She looked up at Greenwood's crest. "I've spent three years here. I don't wanna graduate and come back someday to find my school gone."

With that, she walked onto the competition stage.

The final round began, and Brookstone took nine questions in a row.

Joe and Chris were already out; Sasha stood alone onstage, three full pages of scratch work spread in front of her. She still couldn't solve the final ten challenge problems. Greenwood was 90 points behind, so the only way for the school to make a comeback was to get all ten right.

Hugo took off his headset and leaned back in his chair. "Stop trying. Even with 30 minutes, you probably wouldn't be able to solve all ten questions."

Sasha ignored him. She stared hard at her scratch paper, gripping her pen so tightly that her hand had started to shake.

Below the stage, the foundation representative pulled out the funding termination agreement. Mr. Brown clutched the school charter, his knuckles white.

Mr. White's eyes were red-rimmed as he asked, "Can't you give us one more chance?"

The representative shook his head. "Ten years was the deadline. The agreement takes effect the moment the competition ends."

Muffled sobs started coming from the audience. Evie clamped a hand over her mouth, tears streaming down her face.

At last, Sasha entered an answer for the first question. A harsh red light flashed—she was wrong. Greenwood had lost another ten points.

She stood in the middle of the stage, her shoulders trembling. "I'm sorry. I promised everyone I'd win this, but… I can't."

Hugo glanced at the countdown. "One minute to go. You've already lost, Sasha."

Then he deliberately turned toward me. "Greenwood still has its school belle, right? Send her up. You're gonna lose anyway. Might as well do it while looking pretty."

The Brookstone section erupted in laughter.

"Go on up, Geraldine!"

"There are four choices per question. You're bound to guess one right!"

"Maybe if she touches up her makeup first, the answers will magically appear!"

Sasha whipped around. "Shut up!"

She defended me, her eyes red as she glared at Hugo. "Whether she can answer the questions or not, you don't get to humiliate her."

He laughed. "Then admit defeat."

The countdown on the big screen kept dropping.

30, 29, 28…

Mr. Brown shut his eyes. "Forget it. You guys did your best."

Mr. White moved to stand in front of me. "Don't let them bait you. You lose ten points for every wrong answer. If even Sasha can't solve them, there's no point in you going up there. It won't change anything."

I looked at the ten questions filling the screen. There were words and numbers everywhere, and honestly, they looked intimidating. But it only took me a few seconds to scan from the first to the last.

The first question could be solved just by changing the order of operations. The second practically gave away the answer in the wording. The third looked even more familiar—I'd solved the original version when I was 12. They'd only changed a couple of numbers.

The rest weren't much harder. And when I looked at the three pages of calculations Sasha had written, they just felt needlessly complicated.

Hugo was still laughing. "Why aren't you looking in your mirror anymore? Don't tell me you actually wanna attempt the questions."

I hadn't planned on giving him the satisfaction, but the Brookstone section was getting louder and louder. The noise was giving me a headache. At this rate, they were going to ruin the bangs I'd just fixed.

I set down my mirror, slipped the pink hair tie off my wrist, and pulled my hair into a quick ponytail. Then I stepped around Mr. White and took the buzzer from Sasha. "Lemme borrow this."

"Geraldine, you—"

She didn't get to finish speaking. I looked at the screen and casually tapped in a few answers. A second later, chimes rang out as the silent scoreboard came alive.

One by one, all ten challenge questions lit up green. Every answer was correct. Not a single point was missed.