"Who am I?" asked the judge, reading from his note card. "In my youth, I read alchemists like Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus—"
A buzzer sounded. All the eyes in the room sought the source.
"Victor Frankenstein," said the auburn-haired girl in the far left chair of the Lawndale table. Like the rest of her team, she wore a navy-blue blazer. Her eyes were implacable behind her spectacles, her voice uninflected. She might have been sewing corpses together herself.
"... Correct," said the judge, visibly not wanting to look spooked at the early jump. "Ten points to Lawndale."
The audience in the lecture hall murmured. First blood.
"Next question," said the judge. "Who am I? Goya painted me eat—"
Another buzzer. The girl with raven-black hair and eyes like sapphires spoke into her microphone. "Saturn. Chronus, if you're nasty."
"Correct. Ten points to Lawndale."
The murmur was louder.
"Next question. What function am I? My second derivative is my own negative—"
A buzzer sounded. The audience looked first to the Lawndale table and then to Fielding's.
"The sine," said the Fielding team captain.
"Incorrect. Finishing the question for Lawndale. My second derivative is my own negative. I appear in a formula called the most remarkable in all mathematics, named for Leo—"
Lawndale's buzzer activated.
"The complex exponential," said the auburn-haired girl. "Often written e to the i theta."
The judge called up a woman from the front row of the audience and had a brief whispered conference. She sat down again and smoothed her tweed blazer.
"Having conferred with our math expert, I will accept that. The answer as written here," he waved his index card slightly, "was the imaginary exponential. Any dispute from Fielding?"
The Fielding team captain conferred briefly with the other three at his table and then leaned into his microphone. "No dispute. We got what we wanted when they gave us a day off school to come here. Everything else is candy." The Lawndale team captain smiled agreeably at this, as though recognizing a kindred spirit. "Let's play."
* * *
The Lawndale team captain looked even smaller in her poolside deck chair than she did on a dais in front of the families and teachers of the most cut-throat brains in the state. "That was more fun than I expected," Tom said.
"Hmm? Oh, hello. Yes. I thought you were going to catch up with us in the second round after I choked."
"Ah, we all do that. Back at regionals, I said that Lord of the Flies was by William Spaulding. My team," he quickly nodded in their direction, indicating the umbrella-shaded table that they had claimed, "has been razzing me about that ever since. When we flew to the Vance tournament, they called the airport to page a William Spaulding to meet his party at baggage claim."
"Bit unfair," said the Lawndale captain. "Since you're carrying them."
"Hmm?"
"You're head-and-shoulders above them. Your team gets all its wins by you personally jumping in as soon as possible. You never delegate. I've never seen you lean back and know that your teammate has got this one. By yourself, you can beat most teams in the state. But..."
"One hundred sixty to ninety-five," Tom said. "Yeah. You're not wrong."
"Hey, Daria!"
"Mack," Daria said, straightening up a little. "What's up? Oh, this is Tom."
"Pleasure," Tom said, offering his hand. "Let me think. You're the one she trusts for..." He thought back. "Chemistry?"
Mack laughed. "And the math problems that need the gnarly arithmetic. And sports history."
"At the Longfellow Tech tournament," Daria recalled fondly, "the one where they let college kids write the questions, he was the only one who knew how to kill Ganon in the original Zelda. Saved our collective ass by five points."
Daria and Mack launched into a complicated handshake and a rhythmic chant to go with it. "Scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, diced, peppered, capped and topped!"
"Wanna join us for pizza?" Tom asked. "We were gonna order a bunch to our hotel room. Prove that prep school doesn't make one a sore loser?"
"One data point hardly constitutes proof," Daria said. "But we'd be amenable. Wouldn't we?"
"Seems like Fielding can at least speak our language," Mack agreed. "Ted can eat pizza, right?"
"He won't tell his parents if we won't," Daria observed. "And on the subject of pizza, have you seen Jane?"
"Cannonball!" A force of nature leapt into motion on the far side of the pool, springing into the air, splashing into the deep end and rising to the surface to brush her drenched hair out of her eyes. She was still wearing her tournament outfit, up to and including her blue blazer.
Daria stood and walked to the pool's edge. She offered a hand.
"And that," Mack whispered to Tom, "is why you haven't a prayer. Well, half of the reason."