Geek Abroad (27 page)

“Why don’t we just tell him the truth,”Nicholas said.

We all stared at him. “The truth?”Leila asked.

But I nodded slowly. “He’s right. We just should tell Mr. Gupta the truth. Come on, I’m not doing this alone.”

I marched off the stage, the others trailing behind me. We made our way over to the front row, where Mr. Gupta had managed to wrangle a seat despite his late arrival. He was busily making adjustments to his tripod, and so he didn’t notice the four of us standing in front of him.

“Mr. Gupta, may we talk to you for a minute?”I asked.

He glanced up, blinking and Adam’s apple bobbing, looking in that moment exactly like his son.

“Hello, team,”he said. He looked around. “Where is Sanjiv?”

“He’s puking his guts out at the moment,”Kyle said baldly.

Mr. Gupta looked startled, so I hastened to reassure him.

“He’s going to be fine,”I said. “But you really have to go. When you’re in the audience, it makes Sanjiv too nervous to perform well.”

“This is nonsense,”Mr. Gupta said. His accent was heavy, and it gave his words a pecular importance.

“It’s true,”Leila chimed in. “He always does better when you’re not watching him.”

“Is this true?”Mr. Gupta asked. He looked at us, and we all nodded.

“It’s pretty obvious,”Nicholas said. “When you’re in the audience, he’s never able to answer any of the questions.”

“And this is going to be a tough competition for us,”I said, gesturing back at the stage, where the St. Pius team was congregating. “We need Sanjiv at his best if we’re going to win.”

“Well . . . all right, then,”Mr. Gupta said, looking crestfallen. “I just wanted to watch Sanjiv win.”

“I have an idea,”I said. “Here, give me your camcorder. I’ll give it to my dad, and he can tape the competition for you. That way, you’ll still be able to see the whole competition. . . . Just not live.”

“Well . . . all right,”Mr. Gupta said hesitantly. He didn’t seem especially eager to hand over his camcorder. I had to give it a little tug to free it from his grasp.

“Thank you, Mr. Gupta,”I said, turning before he could change his mind. I hurried off to give the camcorder to my dad, who was sitting uneasily next to Sadie.

“Shouldn’t you be up on stage?”Sadie asked, frowning.

“Yeah, I should,”I said. Then I launched into the explanation about Sanjiv’s nervousness, and how Mr. Gupta had agreed to leave, and finished up by showing my dad how to work the camcorder.

“So I just hold it up like this, and push this button here?”Dad asked. “That’s all there is to it?”

“That’s it,”I said. I glanced up at the stage, where the rest of the Geek High team, including Sanjiv, had regrouped. They were all taking their seats. “Oops, I’d better get up there.”

“Good luck!”Sadie and my dad chorused together.

I started to hurry back through the crowd when I heard someone calling my name.

“Miranda!”

I turned, my eyes scanning the crowd. It took several long beats before I saw who was calling me: It was
Charlie
. She stepped forward, looking nervous but smiling. Her hair was purple today, the color of a grape lollipop, and she was wearing a pink T-shirt with FRANKIE SAYS RELAX on the front in big black letters.

“Charlie? What are you doing here?”I asked.

“I came to watch you win,”Charlie said.

“Oh. Thanks,”I said.

“And also to tell you . . .well, I’m sorry,”Charlie said. “For how I’ve been acting lately. And for your birthday. For everything.”

“I’m sorry, too,”I said quickly. “I should have been more supportive.”

“No! You were right, I was acting like an idiot!”

I shook my head. “You weren’t being an idiot. You’re in love. I should have understood.”

Charlie winced, and her eyes darkened. “I’m not in love,”she said flatly. “Mitch and I broke up.”

I gasped. “You did? Why? When?”

“A week ago . . . and, I don’t want to get into the details right now,”Charlie said. She suddenly looked shy and hopeful. “But I’d really like to talk to you about it. You know, later, when you have time.”

“I’d like that, too,”I said. Then I had an idea. “What are you doing later on?”

Charlie shook her head. “Nothing. Why?”

“Do you want to go to a lacrosse game with me?”

“A lacrosse game? Since when do you watch lacrosse?”Charlie asked. “It hasn’t been that long since we’ve talked, has it?”

I laughed. “No. It’ll be my first game.”

The moderator’s voice blared out from the speakers set up around the perimeter of the room: “The final round of the Mu Alpha Theta state championship will begin in two minutes. All competitors should now be on stage and in their seats.”

“Go,”Charlie said. She reached forward and squeezed my hand. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,”I said. And then, on impulse, I gave her a quick hug. “Thanks for being here. It really means a lot to me.”

We sat in the same seat positions we had all day: Leila was first, then Kyle, Sanjiv, Nicholas, and, finally, me. I leaned forward, craning my neck to look at the St. Pius table. Austin Strong also sat in the fifth seat, opposite me. He met my gaze for a moment, and for a change, he didn’t smirk. He just nodded gravely, almost nervously, and I nodded back. I noticed Qin Gang had moved to sit in the third seat, opposite Sanjiv.

The moderator, a tall man with a ruddy face and short, snowy white hair, began to speak, his voice magnified to fill the room. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the finals of the Mu Alpha Theta state championship. The two teams you see before you—St. Pius to my left, and Notting Hill Independent School to my right—have faced tough competition to make it here. In fact, St. Pius has an unblemished record, having won every match they’ve competed in this season.”The audience clapped politely. A few of the rowdier St. Pius parents threw in some whistles and hoots. The moderator waited for a moment until the crowd settled down before continuing. “Round one will now commence.”

As the moderator posed the first question, which Leila answered correctly, earning our team the first five points, I suddenly realized how nervous I was. My palms were sweaty, my mouth was dry, and there was an uncomfortable fluttering sensation in my stomach. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how much I wanted our team to win. And not just to show up Austin Strong and his smug teammates, or to see Sanjiv overcome his nerves. I wanted to win just for the sake of winning. I wanted to bring home the big trophy on display at the back of the room for Geek High’s trophy case.

Unfortunately, we weren’t off to a strong start. Although Leila and I both answered our first-round questions correctly, Nicholas, Kyle, and Sanjiv all lost theirs, putting the score at ten for Geek High, fifteen for St. Pius. We didn’t fare much better in the second round. This time, only Nicholas and I won our questions, which brought the score to thirty to forty-five, with St. Pius in the lead.

“We’re only fifteen points behind,”I told the others during the break before the final round. “That’s nothing. We can still win. We’ve done it before.”

“She’s right,”Sanjiv said unexpectedly. We all looked at him. Normally at this point in the competition, he looked miserable—shoulders slumped, chin down, an air of misery clinging to him. But now he looked determined. “Fifteen points is one round-three question. We can still win.”

“
If
we can win three questions,”Kyle said dubiously. “I haven’t gotten the chance to answer one yet. That girl I’m up against is a quick draw on her buzzer. She keeps managing to hit it just as the moderator finishes the question.”

“Look, Kyle, rather than complaining, why don’t you just try harder?”Sanjiv snapped. Which was so unlike him, we all stared at him. “What?”Sanjiv said, rather aggressively.

“You just seem a little . . .”Leila grappled for the right word. “Intense,”she finished.

“I’m just sick of it. I’m sick of being a loser,”Sanjiv said.

“You’re not a loser,”I said.

“Yes, I am. And I’m not going to put up with it anymore. It stops right here, right now. From this moment on, I’m going to play like a champion,”Sanjiv said. He looked around at us, his expression fierce. “We’re all going to play like champions. We know we can win this thing. So let’s go do it.”

With that, Sanjiv turned smartly and marched back to the table to take his seat.

“Wow. He’s on fire,”Kyle said.

I just grinned. It was Sanjiv’s first pep talk of the season, and it had been a doozy.

As our team sat back down, everyone did seem energized. The Geek High team members were all sitting on the edges of their seats, looking focused. When the moderator started the third round, I was suddenly hopeful. We
could
do this. We
could
win.

The first question went to St. Pius. It wasn’t Leila’s fault—the girl she was up against hit the buzzer too quickly out of nerves, and then made a lucky correct guess when called upon. Kyle was up next, and this time, he was primed and ready to go. He managed to hit his buzzer a microsecond before his St. Pius competitor.

“Question to Notting Hill,”the moderator said.

Kyle was silent for what seemed like a very long time, but really could only have been a few seconds.

Oh, no,
I thought, chewing my lip nervously.
He doesn’t know the answer.

“Geek High, you must answer, or the question goes to St. Pius.”

There was an excited murmur in the audience. If St. Pius won this question, they’d have forty-five points. We’d have to win all the remaining questions just to tie.

Come on
, I silently urged Kyle.
Come on. Get it right. Please just get it right.

“Twenty-two,”Kyle said unexpectedly.

The moderator paused for a long moment. “That is correct,”he said.

A relieved cheer went up from our spectators in the audience; we were now only fifteen points behind again . . . which meant we still had a fighting chance of winning this thing.

It was now Sanjiv’s turn. I said a silent prayer up to the gods of math that it wouldn’t be a question about square roots, Sanjiv’s biggest weakness.

“This question is for players number three. What is the square root of 1,369?”the moderator asked.

My stomach felt like it was dropping out of my body.
Even if he gets this wrong, we can still tie and win in the tiebreaker
, I told myself.
Nicholas and I would both have to get our questions right, but it would at least be possible
.

I leaned over to look at Qin Gang, who was quickly computing the square root on a piece of scrap paper. He straightened suddenly and slapped the buzzer. My heart sank.

“The question goes to Notting Hill,”the moderator said.

Surprised, I glanced back at our table. I had been so busy watching Qin Gang’s progress, I hadn’t noticed Sanjiv putting down his pencil and hitting his buzzer before Qin Gang had hit his. Now I held my breath. Sanjiv inhaled deeply and leaned forward into his microphone.

“Thirty-seven,”he said.

“Correct!”the moderator said.

The audience cheered again, and Sanjiv beamed. I let out my breath, shaking my head. We were tied. It was now up to Nicholas and me. If we got both of our questions right, we’d win. If we won one and lost one, we’d tie. If we lost both . . . then St. Pius would take the state championship.

I was suddenly so nervous, I couldn’t focus on what the moderator was saying, so I had no idea when Nicholas suddenly hit his buzzer and said, “The answer is x equals seventeen,”whether or not he’d gotten it right.

“That is correct. The score is now seventy-five to sixty, with Notting Hill in the lead,”the moderator said.

This was it. It all came down to me. I glanced over at Austin Strong. He was sitting up straight in his seat, leaning forward a little, hand poised over his buzzer. I quickly did the same thing.

“And here’s the final question of regular tournament play,”the moderator said. “Water flows into a tank at a rate of one gallon per second. Water leaves the tank at a rate of one gallon per second for each one hundred gallons in the tank. The tank is initially empty. How long will it take for the tank to fill with fifty gallons of water?”

It was a partial differential equation. I picked up my pencil and quickly jotted down the calculation.

Sixty-nine-point-three seconds
, I thought excitedly, and went to hit the buzzer. But instead of calling on me, the moderator said, “St. Pius, to tie.”

I gasped. Austin Strong had beaten me to the buzzer! We’d come so close to a victory—so very close—and now, if Austin answered this question correctly, we’d be stuck in a sudden-death tiebreaker. And who knew what would happen then?

“St. Pius,”the moderator said again.

Austin opened his mouth and then closed it. . . . And with a swell of hope, I suddenly realized . . .
he didn’t know the answer!
He’d only hit the buzzer in a last-ditch effort to try and beat me!

“I need your answer, St. Pius,”the moderator said again.

“Seventy-two seconds,”Austin said.

“That is incorrect. Notting Hill, you have one minute to give the correct answer.”