In the weeks to follow, Olivia ramps up her quiz bowl practice intensity, playing practice games on QB Reader against players from across the world, but mostly sticking to high school questions. She’s still on edge at times during practices, but it’s clear that the work she put in has borne some measure of fruit.
On the Friday prior to quiz bowl-State, Monika meets with Olivia for the first time since the former’s departure from the quiz bowl team, during lunchtime.
“I wish we could have met earlier, but I was barely able to function in the past few months” Monika confesses to Olivia. “Nausea, and my hair thinning out were the signs I needed to stop playing quiz bowl!”
“In the past few weeks, I trained like crazy in quiz bowl because almost everyone, except for a select few, underestimated me, a blonde-haired cheerleader, of all people!”
“Oh sure, I believe in you, Olivia. Here’s your chance to show that your cheer background makes you a better player!”
“Really? It made me faster on the buzzer all right…” Olivia sighs.
“You play quiz bowl because you know things. You’re smart enough to make it work”
Yet Jim mostly stayed away from me outside of quiz bowl practices. To him, I’m still unproven. However, Monika sounds like she was an anxious train wreck before she left the team, so she could then take care of herself, Olivia thinks before she texts the people who promised to join her at quiz bowl-State, asking whether they could come sleep at her place tonight.
After the quiz bowl practice ends, where Jim preferred not to talk to Olivia unless needed, her parents come back from the grocery store, having bought the Danish pastries she requested for lunch at quiz bowl-State.
As she arrives with her friends in tow, dinner is being prepared, and Adriana asks the first question around the dinner table:
“Please forgive my lack of familiarity with quiz bowl’s regular season, since, for my family, VA quiz bowl is all about the postseason, but first, how do you qualify for State?” Adriana asks her.
“Win one game in a LQBA-sanctioned tournament, which was already done way back in October” Olivia’s dad answers Adriana. “There just aren’t a whole lot of schools playing at State!”
Even with such lax standards, not every team qualifying for State actually attend, Olivia’s dad tries to keep quiet about the cold, hard truth about qualifying for quiz bowl-State.
“I apologize for having underestimated you last month” Olivia’s mom pleads with her daughter. “I saw you practice, you should do well at State tomorrow!”
Olivia turns to Adriana and Lexie. “Just keep quiet and stand still during games tomorrow, will you?”
“Why?” Lexie asks.
“Even if you knew the answer, it’s about maintaining the tournament’s integrity. I don’t want any of you accidentally blurting out answers!” Olivia makes her expectations clear.
“I understand the appeal of watching game shows is often about answering the questions on air, but I read some questions you used for practice, and…” Ned pauses. “Some of these are on stuff I just wouldn’t be able to answer!”
“Don’t worry about that. Me too, I read some of these questions at times” Becky retorts, after re-reading a question packet Olivia texted her a while ago. “Now I have a better idea of how brave you really are!”
After dinner, before they all go to bed, Ned and Olivia are about to have one more kiss.
“Tomorrow is a big day for you. I know you worked hard for it in the past month, that’s why we didn’t do much together outside of the social studies rehearsals and maybe the weight room” Ned harangues Olivia, as if he wanted to apologize for something.
“You’re also busy with baseball on your end! I know baseball is important to you, so I respect the sacrifices you make for it. This means we must cherish what little time we have together”
From what I saw of her cheer teammates, some of them, while nice to whoever they date, tend to frequently ask their boyfriends out. Olivia, in contrast, is relatively low-maintenance as a girlfriend, Ned thinks while playing with her blonde hair, before kissing her. We already spent much of the first third of the year at home games and in the weight room together.
The kiss proper isn’t the best by any stretch, but once the kiss ends, he shows her his report card for the third quarter.
“I’m satisfied with where I’m headed. Not perfect, but good enough for what I want out of TOPS, state financial aid, if you will” Ned shows him, with Algebra I being his weakness.
“I’m not worried about TOPS either” Olivia then shows him her report card for the third quarter. As across the board.
“Now that you have a straight A quarter, I know you can do it, and in quiz bowl, too!”
“At my first quiz bowl practice, Flo told me about how quiz bowl wasn’t school, and I believe she also told me about quiz bowl teams that relied on grades too much for scouting didn’t always perform so hot!”
Becky, having heard about the conversation from the neighboring room, comes in. “Don’t worry, Olivia. Remember when I said that cheerleaders were students like any other?”
“You probably know by now about how quiz bowlers come from a wide range of cliques, despite leaning top-heavy academically...” Olivia responds to her friend.
“Becky! VA isn’t very cliquey, even though cheer is the activity that people harbor the most stereotypes about here!” Ned tells the two girls.
“The same can’t always be said of our opponents, sports or quiz bowl!” Becky retorts.
I am smart enough to make it work, and into the HSNCT! But it takes more than brains and fast reflexes to win in quiz bowl! Team cohesion is key, or so I was told, Olivia then watches as the final field at State is released by the LQBA, or Louisiana Quiz Bowl Association, just before going to sleep. As is the case since the pandemic, the quiz bowl state championship is split into small and large high schools, with VA being in the large high school division.
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When the time comes for the five students to go to campus to catch their bus to State, and Olivia’s parents to go to Southside with them, but in their own car, the students are in the parking lot with a minibus carrying both the middle school team and the high school one, along with select supporters. Olivia herself wears the purple and green, game-day cheer uniform to play quiz bowl, while the other three wear different outfits.
“Jim, it’s Olivia’s first tournament. We all wish that she started playing under different circumstances, but she earned her spot on the team. Please be advised that I won’t tolerate making fun of her during the tournament, understood?” Flo sermons Jim.
“Yeah, here I’m just a player like any other!” Olivia adds before Becky can even think of an intervention.
Don’t worry about making fun of Olivia, coach. Our opponents will do it in my stead! Jim muses as all players prepare their homework for the journey to Southside.
Flo then turns to Olivia. “At State, as with most regular season tournaments, should you keep playing next year, quiz bowl tournaments take place in two stages. There’s the prelim, or morning round, whose results are used to re-seed teams for the afternoon, or playoff round. However, the prelim pool won’t be released until we arrive”
So it seems like designated guests brought in tow by other quiz bowlers also do homework in the bus unless they finished theirs the previous day. Much like the players, who treat homework as a warmup before the tournament under the same stipulation.
When they arrive, VA checks in and their prelim pool assignment is made known. While her teammates have a good idea of who’s good and who isn’t, Olivia doesn’t, and asks her teammates for help. Cindy seems to be the most willing to answer:
“I wonder who I should watch out for...” Olivia sighs.
“The only team that can pose a real threat to us in this group is Benjamin-Franklin. Minden, Eunice and the like, we have nothing to fear, and neither should you”
When the tournament starts, Olivia and the rest of the team gets to their designated game room, an English classroom. Once there, Olivia’s seated at the far edge of the section devoted to VA for their first game. As both teams get seated for their game, with Olivia’s fans and parents at the back, the moderator starts the game:
“This is round one of the 2041 LQBA State Championship, large schools division, From Webster Parish, we have the Minden Crimson Tide, from Jefferson Davis Parish, we have the Venomous Agendas. Best of luck to both teams and here’s tossup one: In the nineteenth century, philosopher John Stuart Mill recommended taxing that practice as a means to counter it”
To this very first clue, everyone rolls their eyes. Not even Jim or Joaquin are able to answer, much less Olivia. The moderator (or referee as is sometimes called) then reads the second clue:
“According to Duesenberry, a person’s engagement with this practice depends on both absolute and relative levels of spending”
Olivia buzzes in. “Consumption”
“Prompt”
What kind of consumption could depend on both absolute and relative levels of spending? Olivia mentally runs through the packets she read in her first month on the team, but at the same time, feels the clock ticking in on her. When the 3-second delay is about to run out, she finally produces an answer…
“Conspicuous consumption!” Olivia shouts.
“Fifteen” the moderator rules based on Olivia answering before an asterisk in the question’s wording. “For ten points each, answer these questions about population genetics”
The other Venomous Agenda players answer the first two bonus parts correctly, netting them another 20 points. When the final bonus part rolls around, they all listen to the question:
“This consequence of genetic drift results in an entire population having a particular allele”
This time around, while the entire team has the possibility to buzz in, Jim and Joaquin both give up on answering. However, Cindy and Olivia are both locked into a buzzer race, in hopes that either one will net them 10 points. Once again, both girls call upon their memories to find something that correspond to the statement. Whereas Cindy simply has more memories of past quiz bowl questions, as well as knowledge more generally, to comb through, Olivia, on the other hand, wracks her brain in the five seconds allotted to hazard a guess.
What happens to an allele if everyone in a population ends up having it? Olivia starts thinking of what alleles even are, based on past readings of quiz bowl packets, causing her brain’s temperature to rise. It gets fixated… her sweaty hand slips on the buzzer:
“Fixation?” Olivia seems to betray her hesitation in her voice.
“Thirty on the bonus…”
This girl is on fire! Ned starts thinking, while it becomes clear that the first cycle may as well be a beginner quiz bowler’s dream come true: being able to power the very first tossup they hear in an actual game. However, all four of Olivia’s friends present in that room realize that there’s a difference between hearing about quiz bowl results in the abstract and watching the quiz bowl games they refer to.
However, the Crimson Tide players don’t seem able to keep up with VA as they appear unable to answer much of anything. And feel like they need to wait for the VAs to slip up to even get a shot at answering, well, anything. They managed to answer one… one! tossup correctly right before half-time.
“And that’s the half-game. Crimson Tide thirty, Venomous Agendas three hundred and five!” the moderator announces the score after the Crimson Tide answers the final tossup correctly.
Now that’s what I call sweet revenge for the boys’ basketball loss… Adriana muses as Olivia attempts to seal the Crimson Tide’s deal with several questions to go.
“The titular character of one of Tay Marley’s books…” the moderator reads, as Joaquin and Olivia are both locked into a buzzer race on this tossup.
Olivia buzzes in a split-second before Joaquin does. “Bad boy!”
“Fifteen. For ten points each…”
Yay, my second power in this game! I can now say I’m for real as a quiz bowler! Olivia muses while the moderator reads the bonus attached to this question.
However, because VA blows out the Crimson Tide, Lexie appears to be dozing off for the rest of the game. Once the game ends, after 20 tossup-bonus cycles, the moderator announces its score:
“And that’s the game. Crimson Tide seventy-five, Venomous Agendas five hundred eighty!”
“Way to go, Olivia!” Ned encourages her while her parents are about to leave Southside’s campus to go shop elsewhere in the greater Lafayette while the prelims are underway.
“Now that’s a first quiz bowl game to remember for our daughter! We were wrong to be so hard on you while you were training for this moment!” Olivia’s mom starts crying.
“You scored two powers in this game, will you forgive us for being unduly harsh on you when you started out as a quiz bowler?” Olivia’s dad begs for her forgiveness.
“Only if you remain more supportive of me going into the HSNCT!” Olivia imposes her conditions to accept her parents’ forgiveness.
“You had a good first game, Olivia. However, especially now, don’t expect to always be able to perform consistently in games, nor to expect progress to be steady!” Jim warns Olivia before her parents leave the premises.
“Stop it, Jim, leave her alone!” Flo scolds her player before the team leaves the game room to go to their next game.
She scored a third tossup during the “garbage time”, but didn’t power it. I wonder how Olivia compares to Monika, the player she’s there to replace going into the HSNCT, because one game is too small a sample size, Olivia’s dad muses as he gets to the family car.
And yet, as Cindy predicted, the only prelim game that’s somewhat close for VA ended up being the game against the Benjamin-Franklin Falcons. As such, VA is in the top bracket for the afternoon and hence has a shot to win it all.
“I didn’t want to ask it until the prelims end, but now that you have a taste of quiz bowl, how do you feel about playing it?” Becky asks the blonde cheerleader.
“There are definitely times when I feel like my forehead is about to heat up, especially when buzzer races happen” Olivia answers her basketball-playing friend. “But I now have a better idea of what it means to be the thick of it. I might be able to give a better answer during the afternoon"