Before the end of the day, Olivia finally receives an answer from Annette about whether she can attend quiz bowl practices. Just before the quiz bowl practice is about to start: The cheer season will last for maybe two more weeks at most, and future practices are reserved for cheerleaders who volunteer for road games.

  As she meets in the room where the quiz bowl team practices, Olivia trembles when the coach introduces her to the other players:

  “We’ve been looking for reinforcements for weeks, and help has finally arrived. Could you please say your name?” Florence asks Olivia in front of the rest of the team.

  “Olivia. I’m a freshman”

  “Some of you may know her as a cheerleader so I ask you to please treat her with respect. Also, as I go over the core rules of quiz bowl with Olivia, please undergo some drills” Flo then takes Olivia to a different corner of the room.

  “If you thought a football player playing quiz bowl was already a mismatch as it is… a cheerleader doing the same is perhaps the weirdest combination I heard about in my quiz bowling life!” Jim, the other freshman on the team, blathers, referring to Oleg and Olivia respectively.

  “But if Oleg made it work last year, Olivia might be able to” Cindy retorts, in a little Chinese accent.

  Last I heard about Oleg, he made Russia’s U20 national football team. Might be their second-string free safety, but since he came here through the international student exchange markets, I knew he was a high achiever. Olivia, on the other hand, is a domestic cheerleader, so I’m not convinced yet that she’s high-achieving enough to defy the stereotypes of cheerleading, a train of thoughts crosses Jim’s mind, while Olivia is lectured about the rules of quiz bowl. Olivia was a little too comfortable with her academic inconsistency earlier this year.

  But beyond what constitutes a power or a neg, scoring, and the number of tossup-bonus cycles in a game, Olivia is told about what her role on the team is going to be.

  “On this team, you’re going to be the special topics player”

  “What’s a special topics player? What does that mean for me?” a confused Olivia rolls her eyes while asking.

  “In quiz bowl, a special topics player isn’t tied to a particular subject. In contrast, a specialist, while knowing a few things outside of their area of specialty, will primarily seek to answer questions in a set of related areas” Flo explains to the newcomer.

  “I’m Joaquin, our arts and literature player, and Cindy’s our science player. Jim might be a little closed-minded sometimes, but he’s our history player”

  “All right, high school team, I’m going to have you run this practice round in pairs, and make sure that you give Olivia a chance to answer!” Flo warns the other three.

  For the first drill round, Olivia plays with Cindy. Flo simply asks a question from a Red Army set that was recently “declassified”, that is, cleared for practice. As neither side could answer on the first clue:

  “Under the provisions of this bill, Maine’s admission to the Union was conditional to the admission of its titular state as a slave state”

  But it’s then that both Jim and Olivia are locked into a buzzer race. Damn… I just covered this topic in class a few days ago! Olivia muses as she believes her faster reflexes might carry the day here. As she presses the buzzer:

  “Missouri Compromise!”

  “Fifteen. For ten points each...”

  The rest of the practice sees an Olivia a little dumbfounded by topics that are covered later in high school than ninth grade, and hence fails to even attempt to buzz in at all. Which makes her teammates react:

  “If you want to play at State, and, from there, at the HSNCT, you need to learn beyond what’s covered in class! Don’t go around thinking that quick reflexes are everything in quiz bowl!” Cindy points out.

  “In addition, you’ll get a head start in future years in class by studying from quiz bowl packets!” Joaquin tries to play nice with her. “At this point in the season, we start using collegiate packets to practice, but for now, just stick to high school packets!”

  “Hold on. Why do you guys use college packets for practicing?” Olivia asks her new teammates.

  “High school packets have their limits, even Red Army ones. That, even though it’s widely acknowledged that Red Army packets are harder than even NAQT for a given level. That said, if a Red Army packet is declassified, you’ll find it on QB Reader” Cindy explains to her.

  “You still have a long way to go to even contribute at the HSNCT, Olivia!” Jim jeers at her. “Get ready to read practice packets, and ramp up the difficulty of your readings! Also, you, as a cheerleader, shouldn’t play quiz bowl! You’re too dumb to play that game!”

  “Really? You think that dancing and tumbling make our brains prone to malfunction? Also, I’m a freshman, so please cut me some slack if questions involve material I didn’t learn yet!” Olivia retorts, her face about to go red.

  Flo then turns to Olivia. “Olivia, there are things we need to discuss about your future as a quiz bowler”

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  Once again, at the end of the practice, Flo takes her time with Olivia on her own, after her teammates left.

  “Olivia, I was once in your shoes, too, albeit later in high school. Like you, I began playing quiz bowl late in the season, as did one Imélie the same year. It seems like your teammates expect you to become the next Imélie, the missing piece we could need to go deep at the HSNCT with Monika gone”

  “How so?” the newcomer asks. “Jim told me I’m too dumb for quiz bowl because of cheer!”

  “The main difference was that, as a senior, I was the best player on the debate team at the time and as such, the rest of the team readily accepted me. It’s painful to be in your position even with a background on a different academic team. But everyone has to start somewhere. Sure you’ll feel the need that you actually belong on the team, and prepare accordingly, but I can assure you that some opponents, especially at smaller schools, might be even worse than you as a student. Quiz bowl is not school!”

  “Who’s Imélie?”

  “Imélie was one of the early legends of VA quiz bowl. She burst onto the national stage as a junior the way I didn’t, even when I was playing with her, and also began playing quiz bowl late in the season. The kind of girl you only meet a handful of in a lifetime”

  Something’s not right. People around here still believe that stereotype of cheerleaders being dumb and using their athleticism for getting popularity! That, even though they watched opponents bring in some cheerleaders when they play VA! They didn’t believe we were mean girls, though, Olivia is a little troubled by Jim’s actions while she starts reading the first packet in the latest declassified Red Army set on mobile. But perhaps Jim had a bad experience with another cheerleader outside of quiz bowl...

  Even as she reads the first packet, she’s made to feel like she needs to read a lot more sets from various sources. Housewrites, Red Army or otherwise.

  “Also, what do you mean, quiz bowl isn’t school? I know there’s a lot to learn to even function in quiz bowl, but I feel like, if I use past sets properly, I can make it work, I can contribute as a special topics player!”

  “I get it, Olivia. Promise me that you’ll see the HSNCT through”

  “Promise. I just need to notify my parents of when the HSNCT is”

  “I’m willing to take a chance on you because we can’t wait any longer to find help if you give up on quiz bowl!”

  “And, of course, cheerleading doesn’t make me dumb. If what it takes to prove that cheerleaders can be good quiz bowlers is me pulling the weight at State and the HSNCT...” Olivia sighs.

  “Speaking of which, there’s no dress code beyond ours at quiz bowl tournaments. If your good-luck charm is your game-day cheer uniform, so be it. I’ll send you the schedule and location of State”

  Oh, Olivia will definitely stand out as I did at State; however, I wore the same suit I did for debate tournaments, rather than a cheer uniform, Florence has flashbacks of her own experience of playing at quiz bowl-State as she emails the logistical information to the new player.

  Olivia returns home and then starts reading about the abolitionist movement, feeling like she needs to get started on the social studies group project. But now she has more motivation to study than she had before. A different reason to want to get good grades, more than simply for college or some other long-term goal. Staying afloat socially.

  Officially, it's my first day as a quiz bowler for VA, but already I feel the burden to study more and harder than ever before, as well as work harder in other schoolwork, Olivia feels crushed by said burdens as she not only reads about the socioeconomic context, about how the largely agrarian Southern economy was more labor-intensive than the industrialized North. And about how some wanted immediate abolition, and others preferred a gradual phase-out.

  Of course, how could she forget about the racial aspect of abolitionism, as well as the gendered aspect? Which made it even more daunting, since she also believes other aspects of the turbulent 40 years before the Civil War would find their way into quiz bowl.

  And Ned just started a Google Docs page so that everyone could contribute their parts away from each other. In which Olivia starts copy-pasting what she wrote at this point. It’s then that her parents see her take schoolwork more seriously than she used to.

  “Honey, what happened? Why do you see fit to spend Friday night working on slavery in antebellum America?” Olivia’s mom asks her.

  “We were given our group project in social studies, and it’s my starting point to study for quiz bowl, too! I know the road is long to the HSNCT, I need to get started now! The quiz bowl practice was a wake-up call for me!”

  “How so?” Olivia’s dad asks her.

  “My background in cheer was made fun of, and one of my teammates told me outright that cheerleaders have no place in quiz bowl!” Olivia starts crying when she mentions how Jim treated her during practice. “To that I told him that he needed to cut me some slack”

  “To be fair, it seems like you were thrown into the deep end. The coach acts as if you’re already confirmed at the HSNCT, even though only VA’s participation is”

  Her mom then brandishes the HSNCT Participation Agreement, which Flo called the release form. She then herds Olivia to the living room to go through it together, as well as read through the logistics information provided by NAQT for the HSNCT, which is held, for decades now, in Atlanta during Memorial Day weekend.

  “So let’s set the record straight. You’re going to spend Memorial Day in Atlanta, and there’s a box asking not to be recorded by tournament staff unless absolutely necessary. Do you accept to be recorded at the HSNCT or not?”

  “Yes”

  But before Olivia could sign the participation agreement, and then photograph it via mobile, her dad intervenes:

  “You understand that, by attending the HSNCT, you do more than just representing VA. The whole parish has its eyes on VA during Memorial Day, and also that VA’s quiz bowl season is considered a failure if the VAs don’t win State first”

  “I know, dad! VA’s a quiz bowl powerhouse for as long as I can remember, could you please let me study, and do schoolwork, in peace?”

  “Yes. I trust you know how to study for quiz bowl, and how much studying you need. But I accept to let you attend the HSNCT on the condition that you do whatever is within your power to prepare for both State and the HSNCT”

  Olivia’s mom asks her husband. “Is it me, or it seems like you treat State as a formality, as far as our daughter’s concerned?”

  “No. While State is an easier tournament than the HSNCT, time is a little short to get up to speed!” Olivia’s dad turns to his daughter. “Once you’re done, study whatever quiz bowl packets you can!”

  Meanwhile, Ned notices that Olivia’s part is much further along than his part, or really, anyone else’s part. What made Olivia rush so much to get her part done? It seems like the quiz bowl team made her work harder and more diligently, pushing her towards more depth than she was used to.

  And, shortly thereafter, Todd adds a few paragraphs about the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the doctrine of “popular sovereignty” that effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, except for Maine’s and Missouri’s admission to the Union. And how Kansas-Nebraska, along with the Lincoln-Douglas debates, stoked tensons that ultimately led to the Civil War.

  Ned suggests to both Olivia and Todd to meet on Monday night, knowing that Becky’s big game is held then, at his place.

  Todd: I accept; the faster I can get this over with, the better

  Olivia: Yes!