Weeks later, when the real STAAR test arrived, Mia didn’t fear the dragon. She had her laminated card, her practice book memories, and the most important thing: the confidence that she could figure it out herself.

“Six,” Mia whispered.

“Let’s check the back,” he said, flipping to the final pages. But there was nothing. Just a blank, white page with a tiny, cruel note: “Answer Key available to educators only.”

Mia counted: 2, 4, 6, 8. “Eight!”

“The real answer key,” Mrs. Alvarez said, “isn’t a list of numbers. It’s knowing how to think.”

Every night, Mia did her pages. She wrestled with fractions of a pizza, drew arrays for multiplication, and stared at graphs about how many books her classmates read. But there was a problem. Page 34, question 7: "A playground has 4 swings. Each swing can hold 2 children. How many children can swing at once?" Mia wrote “6.” Her dad, who helped her, wasn't sure.

“Show me how,” Mrs. Alvarez said gently.

Mia erased her 6 and wrote 8. She didn’t need to peek at the red book. She had learned why the answer was 8.