There were only two practices left before Quiz Bowl regionals, a thought that terrified everyone on the team. We had no idea what kind of competition we would be facing, and we didn't have much time to prepare. However, that fear didn't stop Tanner from writing "T-Rex vs. Polar Bear" on the board and then creating elaborate drawings of dinosaurs fighting bears. It didn't stop Devon from making sure that the desks were in a perfect line before starting the game, and it definitely didn't stop Madeline from chatting endlessly about Blake.

"Blake asked me out!" she exclaimed right as the game was about to start.

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah," Madeline said. "I went to his house this weekend, and he said that he was in love with me and that he wanted nothing more than to go out with me. It was so sweet."

"What did you say?" I asked.

"I said yes, obviously. Why wouldn't I go out with Blake Pinkerton?"

I could think of a million reasons not to go out with him, but I wasn't Madeline. "Do you know when you two are going to go on your first date?"

"Yeah, we're going to see the new Avengers movie tomorrow night," Madeline said. "I'm so nervous. What if something goes wrong?"

"You'll be fine, Madeline."

"I hope so. Can you come over to my house before the date? Maybe you can help me."

I wasn't sure why Madeline thought that I would be able to give her any useful romantic advice when I had never been in a relationship, but I said yes anyways. Madeline was about to say something when Tanner suddenly handed a packet to Mrs. Welch, and she started reading the first question.

"What T.S. Eliot poem contains such lines as 'This is the dead land. This is cactus land,' and concludes with the line 'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper?'" Mrs. Welch asked.

"The Hollow Men!" Madeline exclaimed, as if she had just been reading classic poetry instead of gushing over her new boyfriend.

The next day, I went to Madeline's house right away after school. I played with her brother's pet snakes, letting them wrap around my arms while Madeline stood in front of her closet, trying to decide what to wear. "Dani!" she eventually called. "Should I wear this dress, or is it too formal?" She held up a long, black dress, and then explained, "I usually wear it for orchestra concerts."

"Madeline, you're going on a date with a boy, not a cello."

Madeline sighed and then said, "You're right," as she rifled through her closet. "I just don't know what to wear. I don't want to be overdressed, since we're just going to the movies, but I want Blake to notice me. What about this?"

She pulled a light pink blouse and a black skirt out of her closet, and I said, "That would probably be fine."

Madeline changed into the outfit that she had picked out and then spent a ridiculous amount of time putting on makeup. Once she was finally satisfied, she turned to me and asked, "Do you think Blake will like this?"

"I think you look gorgeous," I said.

"That's not what I asked. Will Blake like it?"

I sighed and said, "I'm sure Blake will love it."

All of a sudden, the doorbell rang, and Madeline rushed to open it. Blake was there, and he was carrying a bouquet of flowers. He gave the bouquet to Madeline, and as she gushed over how romantic this was, our eyes met. I couldn't find anything to say to Blake: the words that had once come so easily to us were gone. Soon, Madeline and Blake had left the house, off to see the new Avengers movie together, and I went home again, off to study for Quiz Bowl and hope that everything would go back to the way it was before.

Our last Quiz Bowl practice before regionals, and our last of the year if we didn't make it to state, was the next day. As usual, Madeline told me all about Blake as we set up the buzzer system. Before I could ask how the date went, she said, "Dani, the date was amazing. He drove me to the movie theater, and he played this super romantic song in the car. I don't know what song it was, but it was kind of loud, with a lot of guitars and the same couple of chords all over again, but the lyrics were so sweet and poetic, and he asked me if I liked the flowers, and he told me that I meant everything to him, and then he smiled at me. I thought that I was going to melt into a puddle, but it gets even better. He asked me what my sign was, and I said that I was an Aquarius, and he said that we were meant to be together! Then, we finally got to the movie theater..."

I tuned her out, uninterested in a play-by-play of her date with Blake. Sometimes, I wondered what she saw in him, but it wasn't my business. I set up the buzzer system while Tanner wrote "Quiz Bowl Members Who Have Read The Greatest Book of All Time vs. The Peasants Who Have Not" on the board.

"What's the greatest book of all time?" I asked Tanner.

"If you don't know, I'm not telling you," Tanner said.

"The Song of Achilles, obviously," Madeline said. "Anyways, Dani, were you listening to me? I said that Blake asked me to prom!"

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah! It was after we went out for ice cream."

"You went out for ice cream?"

"Were you listening to me at all? Blake and I went out for ice cream, and then as we drove back to his house, he asked me if I would go to prom with him. Of course, I still have to get a guest pass, since he's not a McKinley student anymore, but we're going to prom together! It's going to be so great!"

"That sounds nice. I'm sure you two will have a lot of fun."

"Are you going to prom?"

"I don't really want to go. It's not my thing."

"I didn't think that prom was my thing either until Blake asked me to go. Maybe you just need the right person to go with," Madeline said. She turned to Devon. "Are you going?" she asked him.

"No," Devon replied, barely looking up from his phone. "I'm still a sophomore, so I can't go unless a junior or senior invites me. I'm not sure that I would want to go anyways. My time would be better spent trying to beat some of the video games that I got for my birthday."

"How about you, Tanner?" Madeline said. "Are you and Sean going?"

"Of course not," Tanner said.

"You were the one who was complaining about the prom ticket policies!" I exclaimed.

"It was the principle of the thing," Tanner said. "I don't actually want to go to prom."

Madeline frowned and then said, "Come on, Tanner. Don't leave me all alone."

"You could come to my house and play D&D instead of going to prom," Tanner suggested.

"Is that why you won't go?" Madeline said. "Because you refuse to move your roleplaying session?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much it," Tanner said. "By the way, Devon and Dani, you two are more than welcome to come over on prom night."

Madeline rolled her eyes, but Tanner handed the question packet to Mrs. Welch, and the game began. However, as soon as it was over, Madeline was back to talking about how wonderful Blake was. It was like he had taken over her brain, and now she was completely incapable of any sort of rational thought. I briefly wondered if I would act like that if I ever got a girlfriend. Hopefully, I would be a little bit more sensible.

While she was gushing over Blake, Madeline said, "I can't wait for the concert tomorrow. I'll get to see Blake again!"

I had nearly forgotten that the Green Day concert was the next day. I should have been looking forward to it, excited to see an incredible band in such an intimate setting, but I couldn't do that when Sydney wasn't going. It was even worse now that I had to be the awkward third wheel friend for Madeline and Blake. I wondered if there was some sort of way to switch Madeline and Sydney at the last second, but I soon realized that it was impossible. Besides, as Blake had put it, Madeline and I were friends. I should have been happy that she was going, even if she didn't know anything about Green Day.

Blake picked Madeline and I up in his red Mazda after school the next day, and we drove into the city. "Can I have the AUX cord?" I asked Blake as soon as we were on the road.

"Sure," Blake said, and he handed me the cord. I plugged my phone in, and I started to play Dookie. Loud, ferocious guitar noises poured out of Blake's speakers, and Blake and I started to sing along. Madeline didn't know the words, but she occasionally threw in some air guitar as we headed down the highway toward the House of Blues.

The album ended just as we got stuck in traffic. "It's no Beethoven symphony, but for a rock album, that was pretty good," Madeline admitted, which was the closest she ever came to liking anything written in the last century.

"Do you want to listen to American Idiot?" I asked, but my heart sank when I thought of how Sydney wouldn't be here to listen to her all-time favorite album live.

"What's an American Idiot?" Madeline asked.

"It's a Green Day album," I said, irritated. I started playing 21st Century Breakdown, well aware that Madeline wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and American Idiot. If Blake noticed, he didn't say anything.

We finally arrived at the venue, and after spending far too much money on T-shirts, we found a spot right next to the stage. I looked around at our fellow fans: there was a middle-aged woman behind me wearing a Kerplunk! T-shirt, and there was a boy a little bit younger than Sydney standing with his mother a few rows behind me, both of whom had apparently gone to see Green Day on their last tour. A curly-haired young man was standing next to me, wearing a vest with a Joker patch on the back. Sydney would have felt at home among these people, but Madeline seemed out of place. "When's the show going to start?" she asked.

"I don't know," Blake said. "It's supposed to start at eight, but sometimes, they start late."

"I've gone to classical concerts before, and they always start on time," Madeline said.

As it turned out, the show did start on time. The opening act was okay, but before long, Green Day took the stage. However, they weren't really Green Day. The man behind the drum set wasn't Tré Cool, and the words on the drumhead said "Sweet Children." They suddenly launched into a song that I didn't recognize, but Sydney would have known it. The woman in the Kerplunk! T-shirt was going crazy. "They haven't played this live since I saw them in '91!" she shouted.

"I don't get it," Madeline said. "I thought we were seeing Green Day."

"Sweet Children was their band name before they got big," Blake explained.

Madeline didn't seem all that interested in what was happening onstage, but I was having fun. It was cool to hear some of Green Day's early material live, and there were some epic guitar solos. Sydney would have loved it.

After about a dozen Sweet Children tunes, the band walked offstage, but they soon came back, this time as Green Day. They burst into 99 Revolutions, quickly followed by Holiday and Boulevard of Broken Dreams. The whole show was a blast, and I was soon exhausted from jumping around and screaming every lyric. Every time I thought about how Sydney deserved to be here, or how Madeline and Blake seemed more interested in each other than in Green Day, I pushed those thoughts away and focused on how incredible the music was. There was nothing better than watching Green Day playing some of their very best songs.

In the middle of Longview, Billie Joe Armstrong asked for a fan to come onstage. Blake jumped around eagerly, hoping to get a chance to show off his guitar skills, but Billie chose the guy with the Joker patch instead. He got up on stage, sang the third verse and chorus, kissed Billie Joe Armstrong, and then dove back into the crowd. Blake seemed kind of annoyed that he hadn't been picked, but when Green Day played the opening riff for When I Come Around, he grabbed Madeline's hand and screamed, "That's my favorite song!" as if nothing had happened at all.

It got even better. Green Day brought Tim Armstrong onstage, and they did an Operation Ivy cover and a Rancid cover. It was like all of my (and Sydney's) favorite bands had showed up here, at the House of Blues. "Who is that?" I heard Madeline ask as she gestured toward Tim Armstrong. Blake explained it to her, but she didn't appreciate how amazing this concert was.

I never wanted it to end, and clearly, neither did my fellow fans. After they played their last song, the entire crowd shouted for an encore. A few minutes later, Billie, Mike, and Tré walked back onstage and played the opening to American Idiot. Billie pointed his microphone to the audience, and everyone sang the first verse. Madeline was probably the only person in the whole venue who didn't know every single lyric to that song.

They ended the night with Jesus of Suburbia, but even that didn't feel like enough. I could have listened to Green Day all night, and I could already feel the post-concert depression setting in as the three of us headed outside. Blake and Madeline were constantly stopping to kiss, and once we got in the car, they only wanted to talk to each other. I stared out the window as they talked about their plans for prom, wishing that I had gone home with someone else. As it was, I was the third wheel to their relationship, an intruder who preferred television dreams of tomorrow over their love story.

When I got home, Sydney was still awake. She was in her room, blasting the Green Day songs that she hadn't gotten the opportunity to hear live. "How was the concert?" she asked me as she suddenly turned off the music.

I told her everything, from the Sweet Children set to the fan who got to go onstage to Tim Armstrong and Billie Joe Armstrong playing together. She asked me a million questions that I had already forgotten the answer to, like whether or not they had played 409 In Your Coffeemaker or what Mike Dirnt was wearing during King For A Day. "I'm so jealous!" Sydney exclaimed several times as I told her about the show.

"Yeah, I wish you could have been there," I said. "You would have liked it a lot." I didn't tell her that she should have gone to the show, and she would have if it wasn't for Blake. Even though the concert was over now, I didn't want to upset her.

"It's not fair!" Sydney exclaimed. "That concert sounds like it was so awesome."

"We'll see Green Day together someday," I said. "It'll be just you and me."

"Do you promise?"

"I promise."

Sydney and I both went to bed: it was a school night, after all. As I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep, I felt awful about leaving Sydney behind. Blake, Madeline, and I had all had a great time, and I felt guilty, seeing my sister's favorite band and having fun without her. There was nothing that I could do now, but I wished that I had fought harder to get her to come. I should have convinced Blake to give Sydney the third ticket, or even better, I should have bought the tickets in the first place. I hated Blake for excluding her, especially since he had bought the tickets in her name. He had no excuse for leaving her out, but more than anything, I felt like an awful sister.

I didn't get nearly enough sleep that night, especially considering that Quiz Bowl regionals were that afternoon. I studied during most of my classes, desperate to memorize as many random facts as I could before the tournament. I saw Devon and Tanner during lunch, and they were both doing the exact same thing. Devon was busy with math problems, and Tanner had a huge American history textbook in front of him as he tried to memorize every US President. Madeline spent most of lunch texting Blake, but when she wasn't doing that, she was studying too. We had to make sure that we did our best in the regional tournament.

After school was over, we met in Mrs. Welch's classroom, and once everyone was there, we took a bus to Arrow Point High School. It was kind of a long drive, and we took the opportunity to chat and practice. Madeline and Devon cracked obscure jokes about classical music, while Tanner asked us about a whole bunch of random facts that I was fairly certain he had taken from Wikipedia. I alternated between answering questions and putting my headphones on and tuning out everything that was happening around me.

It was a long day - we played seven different games, meaning that we were at Arrow Point well into the evening. By the end of the third round, all of us were exhausted. "I don't think my brain's ever worked this hard," Devon complained.

"Yeah, I feel like I'm going to fall asleep," Madeline said as she ate a snack, hoping to make it through four more rounds.

Despite our exhaustion, we kept on playing, winning by smaller and smaller margins with each game. Even though we had to use some of the tiebreaker questions in the sixth round, we managed to make it through every game without losing a single one, so we got to play in the final round.

"This is it," Tanner told us right before the seventh round. "It doesn't matter how we do in this game, because we're going to state." He smiled and then added, "I don't think McKinley's ever made it this far. I'm so proud of you three."

"What is this, a motivational speech?" Devon snarked.

"Yeah," Tanner said, and he would have kept going if Mrs. Welch hadn't reminded us that we needed to be in Room 42.

All four of us entered the room a few minutes later, and we saw the team that we were playing against. There must have been thirty kids on that team, and every single one of them had their nose in a book. They were lucky enough to have more than enough kids for substitutions, while we just had four nerdy misfits with a penchant for trivia.

We sat down, and Tanner introduced himself and our "ultracrepidarian" coach, Mrs. Welch. The other team did the same, and then the match began.

The other team got the first toss-up question, along with the second, third, and fourth. I managed to get the biology toss-up, and Madeline got the world literature toss-up, but it wasn't enough. By the start of the final round, we were hopelessly behind. We lost the final match, but nobody on the McKinley High School team was overly sad about it.

"We're going to state!" Tanner exclaimed as soon as we were done with the match. "Mrs. Welch, have we ever been to state before?"

"I don't think so," Mrs. Welch said.

"I hope they put this on the announcements, like they did for the football team," Devon said.

"They won't do that," Madeline said. "This is Quiz Bowl."

"When's the state tournament?" I asked.

Tanner pulled out his phone, did a quick Google search, and then answered, "It's in two weeks."

"It's not too close to prom, is it?" Madeline said.

Tanner rolled his eyes and said, "It's five days after prom. You'll have lots of time to prepare for state after it's over."

"Since when did you care so much about prom?" Devon asked.

"Since I met Blake!" Madeline exclaimed.

They didn't put the McKinley Quiz Bowl team's second place finish at regionals on the announcements, but that didn't stop us from studying for the state tournament right away. We scheduled a few more practices, even though Mrs. Welch was clearly annoyed that we were still in season. "There aren't any more tournaments after state, right?" she asked Tanner one day, exasperated.

"We'll be done with Quiz Bowl as soon as the state tournament is over," he told her, but we could have gone on with Quiz Bowl forever if the school let us. I knew that I would miss our meetings as soon as they were over. It was always a good excuse to hang out with some of my closest friends.

As much as I wished that I could just hang out with my Quiz Bowl friends and keep giving Blake the cold shoulder, I still had to play with the Love Martyrs. That weekend, we were playing at a small club in the city. Blake and I were supposed to meet at my house at three o'clock, and then we would drive to the venue. However, he didn't show up. I waited around for a little bit, assuming that he had gotten stuck in traffic, but after twenty minutes had gone by and there was still no sign of Blake, I ran out of my house with my bass, shoved it into the trunk of my car, and drove to Blake's house.

I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. I heard a few strange noises coming from inside the house, but I couldn't quite identify them. Sometimes, it sounded like he sawing something; other times, it sounded like low-pitched moaning or screeching. "Blake!" I shouted, but there was no answer.

That was when I realized that the door was unlocked. I opened the door, and as the strange noises continued, I headed into the basement. The sounds grew louder and louder, and when I reached the bottom of the staircase, I figured out where it was coming from.

Blake was playing the cello. The instrument was resting on his body while he tightly gripped the end of the bow in one hand. He was playing random notes, and of course, it sounded awful. It hardly even sounded like a cello.

Blake didn't see me: he was concentrating on his music. I took the opportunity to glance toward the case, and I saw that there was a tag on it that said, "Madeline Fujita." I had no idea where he had gotten her cello, but it felt wrong to for him to play it. Madeline loved that instrument more than anything.

As Blake made more rough, obnoxious sawing noises, I suddenly shouted, "Stop!" Blake dropped the bow on the floor. "Why are you playing Madeline's cello?" I asked.

"She left it here yesterday," Blake said.

"That's not an excuse."

"I want to be a real musician, like her. I want to know how she feels when she picks up a bow." He sniffed the instrument and then added, "It even smells like her."

"We have to give this back to her," I said. I picked the bow up off of the floor and put in back into the case. I then took the cello from Blake, gently laid it down, and closed the case. "This isn't okay, you know," I told Blake as I dragged the cello upstairs. "You need to have a little bit more respect for Madeline." I stopped in the middle of the staircase, panting. "This thing is a lot heavier than I thought it would be."

"Do you need any help?" Blake asked. "Pretty girls like you shouldn't have to work so hard..."

"Shut up," I said as I dragged the cello the rest of the way. "I'm fine." I hauled Madeline's cello into the back of my car. "I'll meet you at the venue," I said to Blake as I climbed into the driver's seat, not wanting to spend another minute with him.

I drove to Madeline's house, and unlike Blake, she answered the door right away. "Dani!" she exclaimed. "I've been looking for this!" She took the cello and then asked, "Where did you find it?"

"It was in Blake's basement," I said.

She gave me a skeptical look and then shrugged. "Thanks for giving it back. I don't know what I would have done without my cello."

"No problem."

She took the cello inside and shut the door, and I headed back to the car. As I drove toward the city, I worried about Blake. Madeline treasured her cello more than anything else in the world - why would Blake even think about touching it? I couldn't even bear thinking about how Madeline would feel if she knew that Blake had tried to play it. Hopefully, she would never know.

Then again, she didn't even believe that I had found the cello in Blake's basement. To her, he could do no wrong. She wouldn't have believed me if I had told her that he had tried to play it. Madeline loved Blake, although perhaps not in the same way that she loved her cello.

As I approached the venue, I spotted a red Mazda speeding by, and when I got there, Blake was already backstage tuning his guitar. I quickly pulled out my bass guitar and got ready to play, and when we walked on stage a little while later, there was a crowd of adoring teenage girls, every single one of them pushing to get to the front row.

"Dani, turn on the fog machine," Blake whispered to me.

I turned on the fog machine, and the girls in the front row disappeared. A fierce, electric backing track started to play, and Blake and I played along. He screamed into the microphone, and the audience cheered back. Blake looked back and smiled at me, as if to tell me that it would be a great night.

Little did we know that this would be our last show together.