Olivia’s parents return to Southside during lunch break, with the Danish pastries Olivia bought the previous day, as promised several weeks ago. When the three packs of pastries are opened in front of them:

  “As promised, the Danish pastries! There’s enough for everyone, but you can have only one!” Olivia tells the quiz bowlers, both middle and high school, along with the four fans she brought in tow.

  Everyone goes after the pastries, with Olivia having the last pastry, which is an apple one. Sweet, and not just because I know by now how I can make quiz bowl work.

  As Olivia eats the pastry, as previously promised to her friends, the blonde cheerleader feels something is amiss. She hears an opponent say something that doesn’t sit well with her, behind her back:

  “Oh: the VAs ended first in their prelim pool only because you made the opponents underestimate VA!” an opponent in a different prelim pool taunts Olivia.

  See? See! I knew the opponents would ridicule Olivia in my stead! Jim could hardly contain his “told-you-so” before Olivia starts talking back.

  “I had my share of good games, too!” Olivia responds to the opponent.

  “Your best game was definitely the first game. In the prelims, you were good for about twenty-something points per game. It’s not... bad by any stretch, just that the elims are another game altogether, and we played only one of the teams in the top bracket!” Jim harangues his teammate, pastry in hand.

  “Yeah, the hardest is yet to come!” a player on an opposing team in the top bracket tells both players.

  “Olivia, put aside the HSNCT, put cheer aside, here you’re just a player like any other” Flo tells Olivia, who just feels a little worried about what awaits her next. “Some of our opponents know they won’t win State, despite qualifying for the HSNCT”

  “Speaking of the HSNCT, how did we qualify for it?” a clueless Olivia asks the coach.

  “By placing in the top fifteen percent of a NAQT-sanctioned tournament, with at least three schools in the tournament’s field. Same goes for the MSNCT, its middle school counterpart, as well”

  “For us, that meant winning at Tal Atkins as far back as October!” Joaquin points out.

  A bulb flashes in Adriana’s mind upon learning about how teams qualify for the HSNCT. So it seems like quiz bowl gets postseason qualification out of the way early, and spends the rest of the season up to this point relatively stress-free.

  “Because everyone in our pool qualified for the HSNCT, you’ll have a better idea of how the HSNCT will be like by the end of the afternoon” Cindy explains to the new player. “Or more specifically the first day of the HSNCT prelims; I don’t think it’s time to talk more about it in more detail”

  Obviously, because Olivia’s the new girl on the block, she gets some requests for contact info from other players. I guess, they want to stay in touch with me. Much like how athletes can sometimes get contact info from their opponents, athletes or cheerleaders.

  When the room assignments for the afternoon are released for the large high school division, along with the elim pools, the team goes to their assigned room for the first elim game. Which is a little tight for all seven people who came to support VA after the teams in play are seated. The referee for the game arrives:

  “This is round six, the first playoff round of the 2041 LQBA State Championship, large high school division. From Jefferson Davis Parish, we have the Venomous Agendas, from East Baton-Rouge Parish, we have the Catholic Bears!”

  Relax. Just playing here means a lot to me. If I could do it against Benjamin-Franklin, I can do so again against Catholic, Olivia ruminates as the first game starts. But, as the game goes on, it seems like the Bears have underperformed.

  On this tossup, seeking to take advantage of their opponents’ tendency to underestimate female players, the VAs listen intently to the following tossup, as they sense an opportunity to seal the game’s issue, here and now.

  “Tossup fourteen: Two classes of these celestial bodies are referred to as near-Earth and trans-Neptunian” the moderator reads.

  What kind of celestial body could even be called near-Earth? A befuddled Olivia muses, wondering what that is, and clueless as to what trans-Neptunian means. Sounds like something dangerous...

  “These celestial bodies are theorized to be remnants of a protoplanetary disk” the mod working the game keeps reading.

  Here Cindy and Olivia are locked into a buzzer race, that the latter hopes to win, using the speed of her reflexes to win the tossup over. However, because Olivia somehow takes longer to comb through her mind for the answer, Cindy beats her to the question by a split-second.

  Cindy buzzes in. “Asteroids!”

  “Fifteen. For ten points each…”

  Shoot! I lost this buzzer race! It’s not enough to know the answer, you must be faster on the buzzer than your opponents! Olivia seems to blank out for a few seconds after she lost the buzzer race.

  At the end of the game, Olivia’s face shows signs that some expectation of hers hasn’t been met. Or at least not yet.

  “And that’s the game. Catholic two hundred thirty, VA four hundred ten!” the moderator announces the score.

  “Is that… how the HSNCT will feel?” Olivia questions her entire experience of State. “Catholic seemed to be only marginally better than Minden earlier today!”

  “Marginally?” Jim furrows a brow.

  “Don’t be fooled by your inexperience of the game! You play well enough for a rookie, but it shows that you’re a rookie!” Flo then herds the team towards the next game room.

  Over the next 3 games, they play, in that order, Benjamin-Franklin, Neville and Caddo Magnet, winning over all of them.

  The final VA game in the round-robin pits, as with last year, the best 2 teams, so much so that Flo seems to feel like LQBA has deliberately ensured that the highest 2 seeds would meet last. However, their last opponent isn’t South Lafourche, since South Lafourche is in the middle bracket this year.

  And, before they get seated, it seems like Olivia’s friends and family got joined by the other teams in the parish in rooting for VA, as much as they could do so quietly and without otherwise blurting the answers out. The room is now full.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  “This is round ten, the fifth playoff round of the 2041 LQBA State Championship, large high school division. From Terrebonne Parish, we have the Vandebilt Catholic Terriers, from Jefferson Davis Parish, we have the Venomous Agendas. Best of luck to both teams…”

  The Terriers appear to be motivated to win their first state title, and they prove the fiercest opponents VA played thus far. Both teams remain neck-and-neck for much of the game, and also went into this game with identical 4-0 records in the playoff pool. Therefore, whoever wins the game, wins the state title.

  However, when the end of the regulation time comes around, the VAs are somehow trailing by 30 points. Because of that, the pressure is ratcheting up on them, and Olivia’s forehead heats up like crazy. Must drink cold drinks once this is all over. Stay strong, Olivia, one more tossup and this is the end.

  Undaunted, the moderator reads the last tossup in regulation time. “Tossup number twenty: In the third season of this TV series, the popularity of Starcourt Mall forced many local businesses to close”

  Neither side appears willing to buzz in just yet, and Olivia’s headaches continue to intensify. Because she visibly has headaches from playing quiz bowl, the Terriers start smelling the proverbial blood in the water. However, they fail to buzz in after the first clue, so the second one is read:

  “An entity called Vecna starts killing the residents of this series’ main town during its fourth season” the moderator reads the tossup’s second clue.

  Joaquin buzzes in after the power mark has been exhausted. “Stranger Things!”

  “Ten. For ten points each, answer these questions about the Greco-Persian Wars. This battle was the namesake of a long-distance running event”

  Jim buzzes in immediately after the end of the statement. “Marathon”

  “This naval battle marked a turning point in the second Achaemenid invasion of Greece”

  “Salamis”

  “This queen of Caria was an Achaemenid admiral at Salamis”

  To the final bonus part, everyone draws a blank. Not even Jim could dare provide an answer to this bonus part. And certainly not Olivia, whose headaches become so intense that she feels like she could catch fire if she doesn’t drink cold water soon. Especially when her head threatens to burn her.

  The moderator reads the answer after the five seconds elapse on the final part. “Artemisia I, twenty on the bonus, and that’s the game. Vandebilt Catholic three hundred thirty, Venomous Agendas three hundred thirty. This game goes in overtime!”

  Not only does Olivia’s head grows hotter, but it also feels heavier than ever. Yet the pause between the end of regulation time and overtime is a little short to drink what she deems is needed. When overtime begins:

  “Overtime tossup one: The Lebesgue form of this operation allows it to be performed on functions with an infinite number of discontinuities”

  While Olivia’s headaches seem to peak, and then prevent her from even listening to the question, everyone else draws a blank on this clue while rolling their eyes.

  “Fubini’s theorem states that, in multiple variables…” the moderator reads the clue.

  I SHOULD know this because Fubini’s Theorem was part of the Vans Math Contest’s final last year! I was one of the non-senior female perfect scorers at the VMC final, and hence won the Lasedri Prize! Cindy muses, as the VAs’ resident mathlete on the quiz bowl team, as she interrupts the moderator by buzzing in halfway through the second clue.

  “Integration!” Cindy exclaims.

  “Fifteen. Overtime tossup two: Certain Christian denominations only recognize the earliest ecumenical instances of this event” the moderator gets interrupted by a Terrier player buzzing in.

  “Council!” the Terrier exclaims.

  “Fifteen” the moderator rules. “Overtime tossup three: this faction forged alliances with China to fight the Hephthalites”

  These words make everyone in this room squirm, especially when both teams are back to the proverbial square one, only with 15 more points than they began overtime with. They already feel the pressure reaching a peak, especially when neither team has any room for error anymore.

  When no one buzzes in on that clue, the moderator reads a second clue, again with both sides being hesitant to buzz in.

  “Its artistic legacy survived primarily into early medieval Islamic art”

  It seems like most ancient art questions in quiz bowl tend to be centered on Western art. I sure didn’t read a whole lot about non-Western ancient art, Joaquin seems a little hesitant to buzz in on this clue.

  Then again, the Terriers also balk at answering this tossup at this stage. Once the power mark is exhausted, the moderator reads a third clue:

  “This faction captured Roman Emperor Valerian at the Battle of Edessa”

  It’s then that Olivia’s headaches seem to have subsided enough for her to be able to even make heads of the clues given. However, she still has lingering pains that make her mind not work as she would have liked. Yet, even when her buzzer hand still shakes, she’s locked in a buzzer race against Jim.

  “Persia…” Olivia answers in an exhausted tone of voice.

  “Prompt!”

  Time is short. I can’t let my team down at this critical moment! I don’t want to have this on my conscience for the rest of the year! Olivia starts sweating, as if her head is about to catch fire. Especially since her brain goes into a burst of speed to comb through her knowledge. At the end of the 3 seconds the prompt buys her:

  “Sassanid… Persia?” Olivia makes a last-ditch attempt to answer the question.

  “Ten, and that’s the game. Vandebilt Catholic three hundred forty-five, Venomous Agendas three hundred fifty-five!”

  “This girl is on fire!” Ned exclaims after hearing the game-winning tossup from Olivia.

  More like a season-winning tossup. But once the game ends, Olivia goes out to look for a fountain to drink cold water before the awards ceremony, held in the school’s auditorium. Much to her relief, Olivia feels her head’s temperature decreasing after drinking from the nearest fountain. And, of course, kissing each other as the ceremony is about to start.

  “On behalf of the LQBA Board, I would like to thank Southside for hosting this edition of the state championship. Without further ado, the middle school awards ceremony!” Warren, the former quiz bowl coach at VA, harangues the attendees as he calls on middle school teams.

  Of course, VA is, once again, coming out on top. However, as soon as the middle school teams get their medals and trophies, the small high schools division gets theirs. With a footnote from Warren when the silver medalists are announced:

  “Lacassine, by virtue of winning the silver medal, and hence finishing in the top fifteen percent of the small high schools division, has earned its first HSNCT berth in history!”

  Last year, Lacassine was struggling to find its quiz bowl footing. This year, they’re HSNCT-bound? Flo struggles to contain her surprise upon seeing Lacassine finish second only to cross-parish rival Hathaway.

  When the large high schools division’s turn arrives, the LQBA president is straightforward:

  “And our repeat large high school state champions, the Venomous Agendas!”

  Flo and her players then step forward, awaiting the receipt of their gold medals, as well as the trophy.

  I’m the one who made this possible, I scored the OT winner, how would others at school treat me upon return? Olivia is left wondering how would her contributions to winning State change the perception of her.

  And especially whether people will believe cheerleaders really are students like any other, going forward. After the top individual players are recognized, with the power prize winners getting their traditional bulb packs, and top scorers have chosen their free books, the season-wide awards are distributed:

  “And the inaugural recipient of the Anna Tessier Prize, awarded to the female high school revelation of the year, goes to…” one of the moderators who worked games at State rolls a drum. “Olivia Palmer, from VA!”

  I’m so going to nominate VA as the NAQT High School Team of the Week! In VA history, VA never won it, and only once a VA ever won NAQT HS Player of the Week: Imélie, Warren makes a mental note to nominate VA for its strong performance at State, which was much more convincing than Vandebilt Catholic’s. Let’s say that Anna was perhaps a more fitting person to name a female high school revelation award after than Imélie, and not simply because LQBA already had another award named after her. After being unremarkable as a quiz bowler for almost two years, Anna revealed herself at the HSNCT. Especially against DCC.

  But Olivia doesn’t hesitate to post on her social media about how she answered the winning tossup at State, hoping that it will put to rest her critics in town.

  “Good job, Olivia!” Lexie congratulates her.

  “Our parish might have swept State, but we need to coordinate with Hathaway and Lacassine to sort out the logistics of the HSNCT!” Flo then starts meeting with their respective coaches, especially since Lacassine’s HSNCT berth is now confirmed. “I propose that we use the same bus to carry all three teams to Atlanta. However, I believe the HSNCT’s hotels are fully booked by now”

  “Just the HSNCT’s entry fee costs as much as our entire quiz bowl budget for the year up to today!” Lacassine’s quiz bowl coach whines about the cost of attendance. “How are we to pony up the money for the tournament, as well as room and board?”