"You boys both ready?" asked Mr. Pony, in a strange voice.

"I've been ready," stated Jeremy.

"Yeah," I said meekly, cracking my knuckles, neckles, backles, and ankles. Now I was ready. Ready to spell, that is.

"Okay, Jeremy, since you were so eager to get started, you get the first word. Family."

"F-a-m-i-l-y."

"Correct. Jordan, your word is Expert."

Using Randy's knowledge, I broke the word down, like an amino acid, in my brain. The letters connected like the neurons in my brain, creating harmonic chords as they hit the corresponding notes on the xylophone. In my brain. I wielded my velvety mallet. Eureka.

"E-x-p-e-r-t." Upon spelling the word, I felt the velvety mallet evolve into a gigantic toothbrush in the palm of my hand.

"Correct," smirked Mr. Pony. "Control."

"C-o-n-t-r-o-l."

"Correct, Aviation."

"A-v-i-a-t-i-o-n."

"Correct. Baseball."

"B-a-s-e-b-a-l-l."

"Correct. Substance."

I was rotating prefixes and suffixes around in my head like a combination lock. "S-u-b-s-t-a-n-c-e.

"Correct. Vegetable."

"V-e-g-e-t-a-b-l-e."

"Correct. Biography."

"B-i-o-g-r-a-p-h-y."

"Correct. Phoenix."

"P-h-o-e-n-i-x."

"Correct." Was that really how you spelled that? I would have missed it. I could feel Jeremy's velvety mallet evolve into a telescoping lacrosse stick. Were we gonna have a sword fight? "Delicious."

I couldn't let my thoughts distract me. "D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s."

"Correct. Appendage."

"A-p-p-e-n-d-a-g-e."

"Correct. Rendezvous."

"R-o-n-d-e-v-o-u?," I spelled.

"Incorrect. I recoiled as if I had failed to defend myself and suffered a blow from Jeremy's lacrosse stick. "Jeremy, can you spell Rendezvous?"

"R-a-n-d-e-v-u?" he also sounded unsure of his answer. I took the opportunity to land a metaphorical strike against him with my metaphorical toothbrush.

"Also incorrect," stated Mr. Pony, flipping the index card around. "This is how it's spelled."

"What the heck kind of word is that?" asked Jeremy. "That's spelled nothing like it sounds."

"It's French," answered Mr. Pony. "A lot of foreign words aren't spelled like they sound in, uh, English. They'll trip you up, so be careful."

"Yeah," I giggled nervously. "Good thing it tripped up both of us."

Jeremy looked at me sullenly. He was right, now that we had both lost our momentum, this was now a contest of whomst could bounce back from that. I buckled down and focused my toothbrush on his lacrosse stick.

"Jeremy, your next word is pineapple."

"P-i-n-e-a-p-p-l-e." He was coming out swinging, his metaphorical lacrosse stick that is.

"Correct. Dividend."

"D-i-v-i-d-e-n-d."

"Correct. Helicopter."

"H-e-l-i-c-o-p-t-e-r."

"Correct. Laceration."

"L-a-c-e-r-a-t-i-o-n."

"Correct. Albuquerque."

"A-l-b-u-q-u-e-r-q-u-e."

"Correct. I felt the lacrosse stick whiz past my head millimeters from my skin like the close shave from a lightsaber. That was another word I would have 100% gotten wrong, so I was glad Jeremy had gotten it first. "Entertainment."

"E-n-t-e-r-t-a-i-n-m-e-n-t." Taking advantage of the cooldown from his swing, I jabbed him backwards with my toothbrush to space myself.

"Correct. Responsible."

"R-e-s-p-o-n-s-a-b-l-e."

"Incorrect." Now out of range of even the defence mode of Jeremy's lacrosse stick, I took the chance to charge up the toothbrush, evolving it into an electric toothbrush. "Jordan, can you spell responsible?"

I brandished the electric toothbrush above my head and stepped into a mighty downward swing. All Jeremy had time to do was raise the lacrosse stick to cross check the toothbrush. "R-e-s-p-o-n-s-i-b-l-e."

The two sword-like tools clashed head on. Sparks flew, it's like electricity. The screen zoomed in close to Mr. Pony's mouth, as they delivered the final verdict. "Correct." Just like that, the electric toothbrush smashed through the telescoping mechanism of the lacrosse stick, breaking it in half. Jeremy's eyes widened an instant before my attack connected, creating an electric giga impact that devastated the ground around me and left Jeremy in a Dragonball-Z-style crater. All metaphorically, of course; I had only really out-spelled him. "Jordan is the winner for this group."

"Yes!" I cheered, excited to see Randy's tutoring paying off. "Good game, Jeremy."

"Yeah, good game," he agreed briefly, before heading back to his seat. I thought I heard him mutter something about being a tryhard, but I decided to ignore it.

"Okay, time for the last group of Round 2," advanced Mr. Pony. "Jenny and Jacques." I stepped back into the group with Eli and Kristy as Jenny and Jacques took my place front and center.

Though I wanted to zone back out until I had to spell again, I had to pay attention to what was happening, so I wasn't taken off guard like I was last time. I decided to compromise, zoning half in and half out. The letters from the alphabet cards I had been reading earlier swirled around me like equations in the matrix, allowing me permissions, albeit read-only, to their data. Like Rachel, I observed.

"Ready?" asked Mr. Pony. "Jenny, your first word is smoke."

"S-m-o-k-e." Jenny's pronunciation was clear and accurate, her gaze steady and attentive.

"Correct. Jacques, your first word is ocean."

"O-c-e-a-n." barked Jacques. Both his posture and his speech seemed extra stiff. Could he be nervous? I didn't remember if he had ever made it this far before.

"Correct. Present."

"P-r-e-s-e-n-t."

"Correct. Connect."

"C-o-n-n-e-c-t."

"Correct. Handicap."

"H-a-n-d-i-c-a-p."

"Correct. Rotation."

"R-o-t-a-t-i-o-n."

"Correct. Schedule."

"S-c-h-e-d-u-l-e."

"Correct. Panoramic."

"P-a-n-o-r-a-m-i-c."

"Correct. Telephone."

"T-e-l-e-p-h-o-n-e."

"Correct. Boulevard."

"B-o-u-l-e-v-a-r-d."

"Correct. Scientific."

"S-c-i-e-n-t-i-f-i-c."

"Correct. Itinerary."

"I-t-e-n-e-r-a-r-y."

"Incorrect." Jacques was in shock. The fires blazing in his unblinking eyes wavered slightly, but he mustn't show any signs of weakness. "Jenny, can you spell itinerary?"

"I-t-i-n-e-r-a-r-y." Jenny remained focused on the mission.

"Correct. Jenny is the winner! And we're done with the second round, too. Everyone, thank you for cooperating to speed this along."

While Jenny walked back, and Mr. Pony decided the groups for the next round, I leaned in to Kristy and whispered hoarsely "Wait, so I wasn't paying attention. What happened between you and Owen?"

"What do you mean?" asked Kristy.

I frowned a little. Did I word that wrong? "Like, how did you beat him."

"Oh, he got out on the first word. I think he did it on purpose."

"What are you two gossiping about?" asked Jenny jokingly as she rejoined us.

"N-nothing! I wasn't gossiping!" replied Kristy stiffly. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

I closed my eyes, exhaling disappointedly. "That just makes you sound more suspicious. And that's coming from me."

"Hey g-guys," inputted Eli. "I t-think Mr. Pony is w-waiting on us."

We all turned to look at Mr. Pony's seated, emotionless figure. It was very hard to tell what they were thinking. "Ahem, so in the third round, there's only two groups. Jordan and Eli, and Jenny and Kristy." Eli again, I thought, a twinge of nervousness entering my body. He eliminated me the first time. "Who wants to go first?"

The four of us exchanged uncertain glances. "Um, n-now that there's t-two boys and two g-girls, we can do l-ladies first?" suggested Eli.

"I'm okay with that, if you want," agreed Jenny, "but I went just now, so I think you and Jordan should go first."

"That's fair," I agreed.

"I wanted to go last anyways," commented Kristy. "So that works out perfect then!"

"So Eli and I should probably go first, then," I concluded. "Eli, is that okay with you?"

Eli cleared his throat. "Yeah." It seemed like he was getting a bit more used to the pressure of the late-game rounds. Well, if he was, I probably should too. I expelled the twinge of nervousness from my body. I wasn't the same ⍰ I had been in the first spelling bee, and this time I was going to win. And with that, we headed on up to the front of the rug, where Mr. Pony was at.

"You boys both ready?" asked Mr. Pony, in a strange voice. I felt like a hamburger.

"Yes," I responded, as Eli nodded his trembling, helmeted head. There was no turning back now.

"Alrighty then! Eli, your first word is access."

"A-c-c-e-s-s." In my mind, Eli began building a wall of bricks.

"Correct. Jordan, your first word is mirror."

"M-i-r-r-o-r." I deployed my gigantic toothbrush.

"Correct. Parking."

"P-a-r-k-i-n-g."

"Correct. Reverse."

"R-e-v-e-r-s-e."

"Correct. Ridicule."

"R-i-d-i-c-u-l-e."

"Correct. Sensible."

"S-e-n-s-i-b-l-e." I began spinning up my toothbrush as I charged Eli's Fortnite wall. I felt like a combination of Darth Maul and a member of the Wu-Tang Clan.

"Correct. Omelette."

"A-u-m-l-e-t."

"Incorrect." I smacked the bottom of the wall with my toothbrush, causing it to explode into hundreds of bricks. He jumped backward to avoid the brick spray, backflipped, and landed on top of a cement mixer. "Jordan, can you spell omelette?"

"O-m-l-e-t-t-e."

"Incorrect." I jumped on top of the cement mixer as Eli climbed into the cab and started fiddling with the controls. The cement mixer began moving and the barrel spun, flipping me off the side. In real life, Mr. Pony flipped around the card. "The correct spelling is this, but I also would have accepted O-m-e-l-e-t. Jordan, your next word is effect."

I had to roll away to avoid being crushed by the slow-moving vehicle. "Is it a-ffect or e-ffect?"

"E-ffect. My bad for not specifying."

"E-f-f-e-c-t." Skrrting quickly across the ground, I exited the path of the cement mixer to face off against Eli again.

"Correct. Theater."

"T-h-e-a-t-e-r."

"Correct." Eli was now inside a large crane equipped with a wrecking ball, like Miley Cyrus. "Manifest."

I didn't know what that word meant, but that didn't matter, since I had already figured out how to spell it. I had entered an I-love-it-when-your-hair-blow state, which is like a flow state, but for people whose natural, baseline state is already a flow state. "M-a-n-i-f-e-s-t."

"Correct. Rebellion."

"R-e-b-e-l-l-i-o-n."

"Correct. Especially."

"E-s-p-e-c-i-a-l-l-y."

"Correct. Trebuchet."

"T-r-e-b-u-c-h-e-t." Eli swung on me with the wrecking ball.

"Correct." I leapt backwards like a gazelle, and the ball barely grazed me – if I had gotten that word first, it would have been curtains for me. "Strawberry."

"S-t-r-a-w-b-e-r-r-y."

"Correct. Recommended."

"R-e-c-o-m-m-e-n-d-e-d."

"Correct. Amalgam."

I charged up to the electric toothbrush, spun it around, and ran towards the crane. "A-m-a-l-g-a-m."

"Correct. Electricity."

"E-l-e-c-t-r-i-c-i-t-y." Eli took another swing.

"Correct." DONG! I swung the electric toothbrush like a baseball bat into the oncoming wrecking ball. "Supplement."

"S-u-p-l-e-m-e-n-t."

"Incorrect." The impact sent shockwaves and reverberations recoiling through my bone structure, and vibrated my muscles so I lost my grip on the toothbrush. It went flying out of my hands far off into the distance. I guess it was more of a toothbruh now. "Eli, can you spell supplement?"

"S-u-p-p-l-y-m-e-n-t?"

"Incorrect." At least I had reversed the swing of the ball. Mr. Pony showed us the correct spelling before addressing Eli once more. "Your next word is levitation."

"L-e-v-i-t-a-t-i-o-n." Surprisingly, Eli began rotating the crane the other way.

"Correct. Momentous."

"M-o-m-e-n-t-o-u-s."

"Correct. Privilege."

"P-r-i-v-i-l-e-g-e." With a whole 360 windup, the wrecking ball smashed into my still vibrating body, sending it flying. Was this the end for me?

"Correct." I slammed into something gray and hard. As my body dropped to the ground, my head looked around to see a convex concrete wall. "Sanctuary."

"S-a-n-c-t-u-a-r-y." My lazy, wandering eyes flitted around quickly, only to find the source of the concrete – it was being poured by that cement mixer from earlier.

"Correct. Radioactive."

"R-a-d-i-o-a-c-t-i-v-e."

"Correct." The cement mixer was almost back to its original position, and it was only then I realized Eli's dastardly plot: By setting the cement mixer to drive in a circle on autopilot, and knocking me into the circle right before it was complete, Eli had trapped me inside a wall of concrete. "Renaissance."

"R-e-n-o-s-a-n-c-e," I mumbled, muttered, and murmured, my head spinning and the walls closing in.

"Incorrect." This was the end, wasn't it. "Eli, can you spell renaissance?"

In my dark, concrete prison, all I could hear was the words spoken by myself, Eli, and Mr. Pony, and the drumming of the rain on the ceiling. "R-e-n-n-a-i-s-a-n-c-e?"

"Um," Mr. Pony took a second look at the card. "Incorrect. You were close, though." I opened my eyes to see them revealing the correct spelling. Did I still have a chance somehow? A twinge of hope entered my body. Unlike the nervousness I had felt earlier, I allowed it to fill me up and spread around inside me like marmalade, refilling my bruised, battered, broken body with energy and causing it to stand up. That was right. I still had one more trick up my sleeve. "All right then, your next word is mischievous."

"M-i-s-c-h-e-v-i-o-u-s." I pulled a attaché case out of my tender, sophisticated black cardigan, opened it up, and began assembling the device inside.

"Incorrect." The device now fully assembled, I pointed my dental drill at the wall and flipped the 'on' switch, causing it to begin turning. "Jordan, can you spell mischievous?"

I only had one shot at this. I braced myself as the drill spun up to a megatonic angular momentum and launched myself forward with all my might. "M-i-s-c-h-i-e-v-o-u-s." I connected with the far side of the wall.

Mr. Pony paused dramatically. I burrowed and burrowed. Eli looked out from under his helmet nervously. "Correct!" I busted through the wall, both moving and rotating faster than a speeding bullet. "Heeeee!" cried Eli, abandoning ship and hopping out the side of the crane. As he tucked and rolled mid-jump, his helmet flew off his head, revealing his luscious locks of red hair. I pierced the side of the crane, performing a root canal on its internal machinery before emerging out the other side, connecting with the still airborne helmet, and shattering it to pieces. "Jordan is the winner!" The crane exploded in the background, and like a cool guy, I didn't look at it. All metaphorically, of course; I had only really out-spelled him.

I let out the breath I didn't realize I had been holding. "Whew," I sighed in relief, still feeling a bit lightheaded.

Eli had the thousand-yard-stare beneath his still assuredly very existent helmet. "Good game, man," I said, offering a handshake.

"A-ah? Yeah. Sorry." Eli snapped out of it and shook my hand. Since I wasn't very secure about my masculinity, I noticed that his handshake was relatively limp. "Good game."

"What's up?" I asked.

"Oh, n-nothing," he replied, averting his gaze for a second... before looking back to me. "This is j-just the, the… I didn't even make it to the final round. I r-really thought I would win this time."

That was true, I realized. Though Eli had never won a practice round, he had always been the runner-up. He was probably disappointed to have done worse, not better, now that his toughest competition was gone. "Yeah, I understand," I said, patting him on his overalled back softly as my train of thought continued. "Sometimes it's just tough luck, y'know? You get a word you just don't know, and the other person does." A realization dawned on me, giving me a rush. If Julia and Randy were gone, and I had just beaten Eli… wouldn't that make me third best then? Whoa, I'm actually going to win this!

The warmth began to return to Eli's eyes. "T-that's true," he said. "I was lucky that y-you got 'amalgam' and not me, I w-would have gotten that one wrong for sure. What even is that?"

"It's a type of metal filling used for cavities," I explained excitedly, raising my hand halfway as if to offer an alternative point of view, before sweating and blushing slightly. "I, uh, only know that because I want to be a dentist when I grow up."

"A dentist?" he asked. "I thought you wanted to be a stamp collector?"

I continued sweating, like Chuck. "It's… kind of a long story."

"Which means that it would be best saved for after class," inputted Mr. Pony. "…is what I'd like to say, but we're already scretching our time pretty thin here. School ends in about a minute."

"A minute?" asked Kristy, making a shocked expression as if she were throwing salt over her shoulder. "How are we gonna get the last two groups done in time? That one took, like, forever!"

"I think that we won't," answered Julia from her seat, tuning back into the conversation now that it involved her possible competition in the main event. "Probably, we are going to do a random pick like Mr. Pony said earlier, yes?"

"That's right!" said Mr. Pony. "Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

"Let's go with the easy way!" answered Kristy immediately.

"Please wait," commented Jenny. "We don't even know what the ways are yet."

"Yeah, Jenny's right," I added. "Mr. Pony, what are our options?"

"So, basically," explained Mr. Pony, as the WATCH Tower bell tolled in the background, "There are three of you left, Jordan, Jenny, and Kristy. Normally, we'd do the last group for the third round, Jenny and Kristy, and then have the winner of that compete against Jordan." That made sense so far.

"If we do a random pick, we could do it in the same order as normal, so we'd have one for the third round and one for the final round," continued Mr. Pony.

"So Kristy or I would need to win twice in order to win the whole thing," thought Jenny out loud.

"Or," conditioned Mr. Pony, "We could just do one big random pick between all three of you at once, winner take all."

I weighed my options carefully. Either way, I only had to win once, but if I made them do their random pick first, I'd have a one in two chance of winning the second one, compared to the one in three chance with everyone all at once.

"Let's just do all at once," inputted Jenny before I could speak. "The bell's already rung, and we need to get this done."

"Wait, hold on," I insisted, holding up my hands like I had just dropped something and making a surprised expression. "Shouldn't we do it the other way? You two still haven't gone yet, but I had to beat Eli just now."

"Nah, I agree with Jenny," said Kristy, closing one of her eyes, putting her hand to her chin, looking to the side, and raising one of her eyebrows like Jack Black. "It's fairer if all of us go at once. That way we all have an equal chance!"

"Oof," emitted Mr. Pony with a little chuckle. "Looks like you're outnumbered, Jordan." I felt like the impostor from Among Us. "Very well, we'll do one random pick with all three of you. Now hold up, let me bring up my nifty teaching tool." Mr. Pony scooted over to their computer and started clicking the mouse and typing. While they were getting that set up, I turned back to Eli real quick.

"I guess I don't have time to explain the dentist thing now," I said, "But we can talk tomorrow if you want."

"Yeah," he agreed. "See you then, J-jordan." He left the rug and headed back to his cubby to collect his belongings.

"Isn't that the thing that chose our pen-pals?" Jenny's voice brought my attention back to Mr. Pony's computer screen.

"Yep!" the teacher answered. "It's a little random picker program that one of the first graders, Tim, wrote for me. You can use it to split people into randomized groups, or select an individual from a group." I had a feeling this was an important detail, so I made sure to make a mental note of it for later.

"Tim… programmed this himself?" I asked. From the little I had talked to Tim, I knew that he acted really smart, but I was a bit surprised to learn that he actually was smart.

"Oh yeah, he's a real whiz kid," responded Mr. Pony, before striking the enter key. The names and photos of myself, Jenny, and Kristy appeared on the screen. "He's participating in the main spelling bee tomorrow too, you know. Okay, are you three ready?"

"Yeah," I answered, and Jenny nodded.

"Pull the switch, brother!" encouraged Kristy.

"You got it!" Mr. Pony struck the enter key again, and the three named photos disappeared, replaced by a loading circle. When that was full, only one of the photos reappeared. My eyes widened as I recognized the long, ponytailed brown hair, reverse widow's peak, purple hoodie, and carefree grin in an instant. It was none other than the photo of Kristy.

"YEE-HAW!" exclaimed Kristy, though it sounded more like 'It's time to cross the streams!'. "How do you like that? I'm the spelling bee champ!" Her shouting attracted the attention of the rest of the class.

"Congrats," said Jenny, with a thin smile. "You did great today, Kristy."

"How rich," commented Julia, adjusting her glasses with one hand.

I was dumbstruck. Although I had told Eli that I understood how he felt earlier, I didn't truly understand how he, or William even, felt until just now. All of the effort I had put into studying and learning how to be a better speller, totally squandered away by an unlucky random pick. Like them, I was still coming to grips, specifically Death Grips, with the reality that I would need to wait a whole year before getting another chance.

As Mr. Pony provided some closing announcements and everyone else was getting ready to leave, I trudged back to the first table. Jenny was still with Kristy, so only Kathleen and Kiki were there.

"Jordan! You did great out there," said Kathleen.

"Huh?" I asked in surprise. "I just lost miserably."

"That's not important," she canceled. "What matters is that you did the best you could. It's not like you can do any better than your best, right?"

I sweated a little embarrassedly. "Ah. Well, if you put it that way, I guess that's true."

"Plus, you looked super cool out there," added Kiki. "Eli was all like 'construction!' and you were all like 'dentist!'" I... had no idea what she was talking about.

"I just wish I actually could have won," I confessed, looking down disheartenedly. "I kind of wanted to be in the spelling bee."

"And we'll all be there, tomorrow," insisted Kathleen. "Even if you're not in it, you'll still be in the audience, right? You can cheer on Julia, and Randy, and Kristy, and everyone else! It'll be fun!"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's right," I admitted. Leave it to Kathleen to put a positive spin on the situation. Though her words didn't completely fix my mood, they at least put me in a better headspace as I gathered my things and lined up to leave with everyone else. I didn't qualify for the spelling bee, and there was nothing I could do to change that, but the day was done, and I had to accept it. All I could do now was look forward to seeing everyone compete tomorrow and give them my support.