ST. LOUIS — Kennedy Stomps is throwing herself a party she isn't sure she wants to attend.

Her high school classmates want to tune in to watch her compete on a nationally broadcast episode of the "Jeopardy!" teen tournament. Her principal wants to celebrate. He offered the auditorium, says she can invite as many people as she wants, have snacks.

She didn't win "Jeopardy!" She finished last on the episode taped in September. She couldn't tell host Alex Trebek the languages spoken in Switzerland, or recognize a verse from the Book of Numbers.

But her friends don't know that. Game show rules bar her from divulging the results.

So on Tuesday afternoon, she spreads Cheez-Its, Oreos and pretzels on the edge of the auditorium stage at Metro High School and waits to see who will come to watch her lose on national television.

Kennedy, of St. Louis, is 15, with long, brown hair. She is a member of the Nerd Club at Metro, where she and other students play Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering. She is ebullient and excited, and talks quickly. She got interested in "Jeopardy!" from playing quiz-show-style trivia games in English class, but she never expected to make it all the way to Los Angeles to be on the show.

Her classmates at Metro High School are smart.

The kind of smart that can identify Scandinavian flags and ancient story characters while picking up pop culture references to "Battlestar Gallactica" and MTV's "Total Request Live." They can tell you key moments from the Spanish-American War and what Stalin was doing to help fund the Russian Revolution.

You do not want to lose a quiz show in front of these kids.

Above the auditorium stage and the spread of food, a screen is lowered and the episode beams from a projector.

Kennedy sits in the middle of the room, a few rows from the stage. Her friends pile around her, some sitting in front of her on the floor. They are the only ones Kennedy knew would stay after school to watch a game show.

By the time the episode starts at 3:30 p.m, the room is full with students, teachers and administrators.

About 10 minutes in, the game is not going well for Kennedy.

She misses questions about the childhoods of American presidents and is in the red before her interview with Alex Trebek.

She's up against Zach Blumenfeld of Lincolnshire, Ill., and Samantha Reback of Bethesda, Md.

Zach is running away with the episode. He's quick on the buzzer and seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of almost everything. Samantha is also playing well.

Midway through the show, Zach is up by several thousand dollars. Barring a stunning collapse, he's going to win.

But even now, if Kennedy reveals the outcome, she risks losing the $5,000 she won for making it on to the show.

Students shout out answers to questions she can't answer, about Beowulf and Iceland.

Trebek asks a complicated word problem about "a mouse-like animal in a chapeau." (Answer: What is a rat in a hat?). Kennedy gets it.

Everyone cheers.

Then she answers a question about McDonald's.

More cheering. No one is leaving.

The only movement is when a few students duck down to grab more Oreos without blocking the view.

It's time for Final Jeopardy, the last question of the show.

The category: "Numbers and Letters." The question: "It's the world's most common number system and the second most common alphabet."

Almost simultaneously, students in the room shout out, "Arabic!"

Kennedy answers it correctly and finishes with $6,800. But Zach takes in $51,999.

Still, everyone in the room cheers and applauds for Kennedy. A few teachers give her a standing ovation. Many line up to tell Kennedy how proud they are of her.

It takes almost 10 minutes for students to finally file out of the room. Kennedy's friends help her gather up the snacks. Two students come back to the auditorium with a vacuum to help clean up.

Kennedy is sitting on a chair on the stage and marvels that no one was disappointed in her.

"It was pretty incredible," she says. "It just felt good. I feel like there's a lot of people at school who care about me."