Although Mr. Hartfield had promised results in an hour, an hour stretched toward two hours.

“My dad always says ‘no news is good news,’” Emma said, trying to cheer up Jackson. He looked as if he were at the end of his rope—and Mr. Carter was doing nothing to help the situation.

“How long can they take?” their coach asked, loosening his tie. “This is torture!”

Finally, Mr. Hartfield approached the podium and asked everyone in the ballroom to take a seat. “We have the results,” he announced. “Thank you for bearing with us. It was a very difficult decision this year.”

Emma sat up straight in her seat, crossing her fingers and toes, as Mr. Hartfield read the finalists “in no particular order.” He cleared his throat: “Holden Mann Academy, Michigan . . .” A cheer sounded in the room as the two students from the school jumped up and down. “Bayberry Middle from Ohio . . .”

Mr. Hartfield continued, “Mountainview Middle School, Kansas. Benjamin Franklin Middle School, Maryland.” He paused and Emma thought her heart was going to leap out of her chest—the suspense was unbearable!

“Columbus Preparatory, New York . . .”

She looked at Jackson. He was shaking his head in disbelief. All around the room, kids were rejoicing, crying, or waiting tensely, hoping for the last spot. She held her breath waiting to find out which she would be.

Mr. Hartfield looked at his fellow judges, who were nodding approvingly. “And finally, Austen Middle School, Pennsylvania.”

“Yaaaaaas!” shouted a voice from the back of the room. “Go, Emma!”

She knew that voice anywhere—it belonged to Harriet. Emma turned to see her friend standing on a chair in the middle of the audience, screaming her head off. Next to her, Izzy, her parents, and Mr. and Mrs. Knight were standing and cheering too.

Emma couldn’t tell if Jackson was stunned to see their friends and family in the ballroom or if he was still trying to absorb Mr. Hartfield’s announcement. He stood frozen like the Lincoln monument to his spot.

“I don’t believe it,” he told her finally. “We did it.”

“Yeah, no biggie,” she teased him.

Harriet was the first one to rush up and congratulate them. “I knew you’d make the finals,” she told Emma. “Which is why we decided to drive to DC at the crack of dawn to surprise you. So we could see you kick butt.”

“Bravo!” Emma’s dad added. “Now we can hear your final argument in person.”

Emma noticed that her mom was wiping away tears. “Mom,” Emma said. “Really?”

“I’m so proud of you,” her mom replied. “We all are.”

Jackson looked at his parents. His dad was beaming and his mother was snapping photos of him on her iPhone.

“My future attorney, following in his father’s footsteps,” his father said, patting Jackson on the back.

“Oh no,” Emma piped up. “Jax has much bigger plans than that. He’s going to be president one day—just you wait and see.”

“President?” Mrs. Knight asked. “Would that make me First Mom?”

“I hate to break up the reunion, but we are wanted onstage for the final round,” Mr. Carter said.

“Gotta run!” Emma said, waving. “We have a Student Congress to win.”

Jackson grabbed her arm as they were walking back to the stage. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said. “I think we’re going to be up against Columbus Prep.” He pointed to a tall girl in a navy turtleneck seated by the podium.

“You know her?” Emma asked.

“She’s hard to miss,” Jackson replied. “She’s the smartest girl in the school and she’s only in the seventh grade. Her name’s Aubrey Whitehead and she won two state spelling bees, a worldwide Latin contest, and she’s president of their student government association. Seriously.”

“Whoa.” The word tumbled out of Emma’s mouth before she could stop it. The last thing she wanted to do was discourage Jackson, but how could they possibly compete with someone that brilliant?

“Well, she doesn’t have her own blog—so I’m not that impressed,” Emma said.

Jackson rolled his eyes. “If we have to argue against Aubrey, we are doomed, doomed, doomed,” he insisted. “She’s a walking Google search engine.”

“Don’t let her intimidate you, Jax,” she warned him. “Facts are important, but you’ve got to have finesse.”

Jackson shook his head. “Em, all the finesse in the world couldn’t beat Aubrey. But I know you’ll try.”

“I will,” she insisted. “And you will too. No giving up when we’ve come this far.”

Emma and Jackson took their seats, and Emma held the envelope in her hands. “I have a good feeling about this one too,” she told her teammate. But her fingertips weren’t tingling this time—and it made her a little worried.

“All right, students, open your envelopes,” Mr. Hartfield instructed.

Emma tore it open and pulled out the card inside. She read aloud, “Students should have a say in the way their school is run. Austen Middle: PRO; Columbus Prep: CON.”

“Doomed”—she heard Jackson muttering under his breath—“doomed.”

With only thirty minutes to come up with an argument that would beat the Columbus Prep team, there was no time to waste.

“Oh no,” Jackson said, noticing who Aubrey’s teammate was.

“Do you know him?” she asked Jackson. “Did he win some worldwide something too?”

Jackson shook his head. “No, worse. That’s Tyler Martinez. He’s editor in chief of the school newspaper, the Columbus Prep Pen and Ink. He’s really opinionated, and he writes these ‘Letter from the Editor’ columns in every issue. He’s all about trying to right wrongs and stir things up.”

Editor? Column? Opinionated? Right wrongs? Emma was trying to take in everything Jackson said. This Tyler kid sounded, well, a little like her.

“Yeah, he’s definitely a guy who writes what’s on his mind,” Jackson recalled. “Like when they decided to cut back on school library hours. He wrote this long editorial saying how unfair it was and how students should demand their rights to more study time. He said kids should camp out in front of the library doors and refuse to leave until they reopened them for an extra hour. He brought a sleeping bag to school and everything.”

“You don’t say,” Emma replied. Not only was this boy persuasive, he was creative.

“They’re going to be impossible to beat.” Jackson frowned. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Emma took a deep breath and shook off any doubt she was feeling. “I do, we begin at the beginning. What are we trying to say?”

“Students should have a say in their school,” Jackson repeated.

“Of course students should have a say in school. It’s our lives, isn’t it?”

Jackson shook his head. “Not good enough. Aubrey’s going to say that adults know better. And Tyler’s going to say schools create rules that are meant to help kids learn and grow and be safe.”

“So, how do we fight that?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know,” Jackson said.

Just then, Emma had a thought. “Well, I do. Ask me a question.”

Jackson scratched his head. “What do you mean, ‘ask a question’?”

“I mean, I think best when I’m writing an Ask Emma post. So ask me! Dear Emma . . .”

Jackson shrugged. “Fine. Dear Emma, my principal wants to make all the rules in school and doesn’t want our opinions on anything. It makes me really mad. What can I do to convince her we should have a say?”

Emma grabbed a pen and pad and started writing frantically.

“Tell me you have something,” Jackson pleaded with her.

Emma nodded. “Oh, I do.”

She tore out a sheet and handed it to him. “This is what you say,” she instructed. “Keep it simple and clear. I’ll close.”

Jackson read it over. “Okay—if you really think this will work.”

“It has to,” she told him. “Make sure you get the short straw and go first before Aubrey or Tyler has a chance to say anything.”

Two of the other teams were up first, tearing each other apart over the topic “Cell phones should be allowed in school.”

Emma and Jackson’s turn was next.

“Remember,” Emma cautioned, as Jackson walked toward the podium. “The shorter straw!”