The third time happened after he had already begun shaking with nerves. He had gone to find a quiet bathroom and passed two boys from a prestigious school talking at the sinks. One noticed his shirt and the participant badge hanging crooked against it. "They're really stretching the definition of youth researcher," the boy remarked, and his friend answered with a joke about scholarships and public relations. Elijah waited in a stall until they left, staring at the inside of the door as though it might give him instructions.
Okonkwo found him a few minutes later, seated on a bench near the auditorium. He was holding his notebook so tightly the cardboard cover had begun to curl. "Did something happen?" she asked. Elijah shook his head, then nodded, then said he wanted to go back to the hotel. She sat beside him and let the silence settle rather than demanding that he be brave immediately.
"I thought this would be the part where people liked math," Elijah said finally.
"It is," she answered. "Some of them have just forgotten that liking mathematics isn't the same as liking only people who look and talk like they do." She paused, choosing her words carefully. "You do not have to make these people love you, Elijah. Your only job is to explain what you found. Afterward, we'll get lunch, whether they clap or not."
Danielle wanted to accompany him to the backstage waiting area, but the event permitted only registered mentors. She crouched in front of him to straighten his collar and smoothed the stubborn fold at the edge of his borrowed sleeve. Her eyes were bright, and Elijah wondered whether she was frightened, too. "Whatever happens in there," she whispered, "I'm still your mother and you're still my boy. Nobody in that room gets to change either one."
Inside the auditorium, the main screen displayed the names of researchers from schools Elijah recognized only from websites. Some young presenters had slick animated slides and polished introductions. One teenager introduced his project with a joke that brought immediate laughter, and another mentioned a laboratory internship that had begun when he was twelve. Elijah watched from the curtain with growing uncertainty, comparing their confidence to the wobbly diagrams he had drawn beside his grandmother's kitchen sink.
Dr. Helen Park, the symposium director, passed him in the backstage corridor and checked his badge. She was in her early sixties, brisk, careful, and more concerned about schedules than atmospheres. "Presentation forty-seven," she said.
"Your supervising mentor is Dr. Okonkwo?" Elijah nodded. Park reviewed the running order and told him he would have five minutes, plus whatever questions the judges chose to ask. She seemed pleased that he understood the rules, then hurried away to solve a microphone problem.