Chapter 10: Losing on Purpose

Failing on purpose is harder than it sounds.

For three days we practiced it in the math lab with the door shut.

Hannah was terrible at it at first.

"I can't look sad," she said. "My face does the opposite. I look like a pleased hamster."

"Then look scared," said the physics junior.

"I am scared. That's the problem. It looks fake because it's real."

Chase sat on a table and watched us with his arms folded and an expression I was starting to love.

"It's a scrimmage, not a trial," he said. "The Foundation holds one before every semifinal. Peyton's whole team will be in the front row."

"Good," I said. "That's who it's for."

The scrimmage was held on Thursday afternoon in the same auditorium.

Peyton's team sat in the front row in matching white scarves.

They looked like people who had already won.

The problem was a hard one, about routing power across a network during a storm.

We had solved a version of it two nights earlier.

I gave Hannah a nod, and she began to sweat on cue.

I wrote a model on the board in my cleanest handwriting.

In the middle of it, in a constant I had checked three times, I wrote a seven where the nine belonged.

Anyone who knew the problem would see it in a second.

Peyton's team saw it in a second.

I felt the energy shift in the first row, a ripple of delight.

I stopped.

I stared at the board for a long moment.

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