Chapter 77: The Troubles of Being Popular
Ms. Crawford closed the folder and looked at Mike with the direct, unhurried attention of someone who had made up her mind about something and was presenting the conclusion rather than the argument.
"Bottom line," she said. "The UIL Math Olympiad competition is in late December. Regional qualifiers in November, state in December. This year's rules change allows juniors to compete for the first time, which is why you're sitting in this chair." She folded her hands on the desk. "The team needs at least one female competitor under the new rules — which is why Cady is also sitting in that chair." She looked between them. "I'm not going to oversell it. It's a serious time commitment and the problems at state level are genuinely hard. But if you're good enough to get there, it looks like nothing else on a college application."
She looked at Mike.
"I also know you're still in the Summer League," she said. "Top ten, which means potentially four more games — probably done by mid-October at the latest. I'm not asking you to choose. You join the team now, you attend what you can, and you're fully available for practice once the football season closes out." She paused. "That's a real concession and I want you to know it is."
Mike looked at the folder, the whiteboard, the two chairs arranged at their precise angle.
He thought about the Olympiad problems Ingram had mentioned — genuinely hard, she'd said. Above what the class could offer.
"I'm in," he said.
Ms. Crawford's expression didn't change dramatically, but something in it settled — the specific quality of someone who had wanted a particular answer and had received it.
She looked at Cady.
Cady had been watching the conversation with the focused, lateral attention she brought to things she was still deciding. She glanced at Mike once — not for permission, just the quick check of someone confirming something they'd already worked out — and then looked back at Ms. Crawford.
"I'm in too," she said.
Ms. Crawford looked between them with the brief, perceptive attention of a woman who had been teaching long enough to read rooms accurately.
She chose not to say whatever she'd noticed.
"Good," she said. "Welcome to the team." She looked at Kevin, who had been sitting slightly forward in his chair throughout the entire conversation with the energy of someone watching a sporting event and trying not to narrate it. "Kevin, they're yours. Take them to the study room, walk them through the schedule."
Kevin stood up with the specific enthusiasm of someone who had been given an official task and intended to execute it thoroughly.
"On it," he said.
The math team's study room was on the second floor of the academic wing, past the science labs and around a corner that most of the student body apparently never had reason to visit. Kevin led them there with the confident pace of someone who knew every route in the building, talking continuously as he went.
"So the team's been to regionals three years running," he said, "but we haven't made state since 2019, which was before I was on the team, obviously, but I've read all the records and I think this year is genuinely different because of the rule change letting juniors in, which means we have access to people who—" He glanced at Mike. "By the way, I watched all your Summer League games. Every one. The Oher thing in the fourth quarter — I've been running the biomechanics of it in my head since Monday, and I think what you did was essentially apply a third-class lever principle to redirect the kinetic energy instead of absorbing it, which is actually the correct solution that most people's instincts get wrong—"
"Kevin," Cady said.
"Right, yeah, sorry." He didn't slow down. "You're from Kenya, right? I read your profile on the school website. The research your parents do with the elephant migration patterns is legitimately fascinating — there was a paper in Nature two years ago about behavioral signature tracking in large mammals that I think might actually be your dad's work?"
Cady looked at him. "That's my dad's paper."
Kevin pointed at her. "I knew it. I cited it in my freshman science fair project." He looked at Mike. "I also want to say — and I mean this genuinely — that face is genuinely unfair to the rest of us. Like, statistically, the correlation between physical symmetry and social outcomes is documented, and you are operating at a significant advantage that has nothing to do with merit, and I say that with complete respect and zero resentment."
Mike looked at him.
"Thank you," Mike said, which was the only honest response.
"I've made peace with my own situation," Kevin said, cheerfully and apparently sincerely. "I'm five-foot-six, I have exactly one distinct facial feature which is my ears, and I have the social energy of a golden retriever who has had coffee. I've learned to work with what I have."
Cady, walking behind them, had been slowly losing the battle against a smile for the past forty seconds.
Mike glanced back at her.
She shook her head slightly — don't encourage him.
The study room was clean, well-lit, and had the specific organized quality of a space that was used regularly by people who took what they did seriously. A long table with eight chairs. A whiteboard covered in problems from a previous session. A shelf of competition prep books and past UIL exam archives. A small printer in the corner.
Three other team members were already there — two seniors and a junior — who looked up when Kevin brought the newcomers in with the alert, assessing attention of people who had been waiting to see who the new additions were.
Kevin ran through introductions, explained the practice schedule — Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, four to six, with optional Saturday morning sessions before competition season — and outlined the team's ranking system for assigning problems during practice.
It was, Mike noted, actually well-organized. Kevin's social presentation suggested someone who ran on enthusiasm and talked too fast, but the team structure he'd built was thoughtful. The practice problems were organized by difficulty tier, the schedule had flexibility built in, the competition prep calendar was already mapped to the November regional dates.
Kevin was, underneath the surface noise, genuinely good at this.
When he'd finished the overview, he turned to Mike and Cady. "Questions?"
"None right now," Mike said.
"Same," Cady said. "It's a good setup."
Kevin looked pleased in the specific way people looked pleased when they'd been told something they'd worked hard on was good. "Okay. Practice starts Tuesday. You're going to fit in well here." He looked between them. "Both of you."
They were halfway out the door when Kevin said, "Mike — actually, one more thing."
Mike turned.
Kevin had produced a photograph from his jacket pocket with the slightly sheepish energy of someone who had been waiting for the right moment and had decided this was it. He held it out.
It was a printed photo — the local news segment still, the one from Jack's first piece, Mike mid-stride on the Summer League field with the number 20 jersey clear.
"Would you sign this?" Kevin said.
Mike looked at the photo. Looked at Kevin.
"Sure," he said. He took the pen Kevin offered and signed the back.
Kevin took it back with the careful handling of someone who had decided the object mattered.
"Is this for you?" Mike asked.
Kevin hesitated for approximately one second. "It's for a purpose," he said. "Strategic deployment."
Mike looked at him.
"There's a girl in my AP Chemistry class," Kevin said, with the candid openness of someone who had decided that honesty was more efficient than dignity, "who is a significant football fan and has mentioned your name specifically on three separate occasions. I have calculated that presenting her with a signed photo of you, framed as something I obtained through my personal connections to the team, meaningfully improves my conversational standing."
Cady made a sound that was not quite a laugh and was trying not to be.
Mike looked at Kevin for a long moment.
"That's either going to work really well or backfire completely," he said.
"I've modeled both outcomes," Kevin said. "The expected value still favors the attempt."
Mike handed back the pen.
"Good luck," he said, and meant it.
Kevin held up the photo in a small salute and went back into the study room.
Mike and Cady walked the hallway back toward the junior wing in the comfortable quiet of people who had just shared an experience and were still inside it.
After a moment, Cady said, "He cited my dad's paper at his science fair."
"I heard," Mike said.
"In ninth grade."
"He's a specific kind of person," Mike said.
"I like him," Cady said, with the directness she used when she'd decided something.
They walked a few more steps.
"I talked to Janis last night," Cady said. The subject change had the particular quality of something she'd been carrying and had decided to put down now that the moment was available. "Or — I texted her. She texted back." She paused. "I'm going to see her this weekend. Properly. Not through a screen."
"Good," Mike said.
"I'm going to apologize," she said. "Not explain. Just apologize."
"There's a difference," Mike said.
"Yeah," Cady said. "I know there is. That's why I'm doing it the second way."
They'd reached the point in the hallway where their paths diverged — her senior wing, his junior corridor.
She stopped.
"Thanks for the push on the Olympiad thing," she said. "And the Janis thing. And the—" She made a small gesture that covered the general territory of several conversations. "All of it."
"You made the decisions," Mike said. "I just asked the questions."
She looked at him for a moment.
"That's actually a useful skill," she said. "The question-asking."
"I learned it from someone," Mike said.
She smiled — the real one — and went toward her wing.
Mike went toward his.
He came back into the classroom to find Ms. Ingram finishing the test review — she'd worked through the solutions to the last two problems on the board, including the calculus approach, and had been explaining the derivation while Mike was out.
He slid into his seat.
Sheldon was beside him, and whatever had been working behind Sheldon's expression for the past hour had apparently arrived at a destination.
"Mike," Sheldon said, with the focused composure of someone delivering a prepared statement. "I want you to know that I now understand the calculus approach to both problems. Ms. Ingram's explanation was sufficient, and I've already identified three additional solution methods she didn't cover." He looked at Mike directly. "The next assessment will have a different outcome."
Mike looked at him.
Sheldon at full competitive activation was, genuinely, something to witness. The nine-year-old version of him had the specific, compressed energy of a person who had decided to be better at something and was treating that decision as final.
"I look forward to it," Mike said. And meant it.
Sheldon turned back to his notebook, where he had apparently already begun working through problems that didn't exist on any current assignment.
Mike looked at the front of the room, then at his own notebook.
Two months until the end of football season. Then Math Olympiad prep.
Kevin's chemistry girl situation, which had a genuinely uncertain expected value.
Cady and Janis, which had better odds than Cady currently believed.
Sheldon Cooper, who was going to make the next test significantly more interesting.
He opened his notebook.
The morning continued.
(End of Chapter 77)
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