Friday morning before Memorial Day. After weeks of not doing a whole lot other than studying, be it for coursework or for quiz bowl, in the early morning, Olivia, wearing her game day cheer uniform, trembles at VA’s parking lot. Not even going to the weight room during the morning was enough to stop thinking about the HSNCT, which I promised I would see through!

  Also, several people in town are present to the yearly send-off ritual for VAs going to the HSNCT, held in Atlanta since pre-pandemic times. The most prominent ones being Warren, Monika and Anna. And, of course, Ned.

  “I… I’m nervous!” Olivia starts crying. “I worked so hard for months, and everyone and their dogs see in me the second coming of Imélie! They count on me to accomplish what all these girls couldn’t!”

  “Olivia, don’t forget: your opponents at the HSNCT will include some of the best schools in the nation. The only way we could even punch above our weight in quiz bowl was because most of these opponents have more stressors on hand, and often stretched thinner in extracurriculars!” Warren tells her.

  “I get it, we never won it all” Anna, the town’s redhead youth therapist, adds. “But you’re not much different from other clients I see, or saw: a lot of them struggle with performance pressure. Sure, the spotlight is on you because of how well you played in your debut, but this makes me feel like you can’t be compared to Imélie as a quiz bowler!”

  “Is this regret I feel from you?” Monika asks.

  “This whole quiz bowl thing changed me as a person. There are times when I feel like I really shouldn’t have played quiz bowl and stuck to cheer! Cheer doesn’t face nearly as much pressure!” Olivia keeps crying. “It makes me feel like my brain is stronger than it really is!”

  Thomas, the faithful bus driver who drove VA teams from and to the HSNCT for years, makes his final stop in Jennings after having picked up the teams from both Lacassine and Hathaway, in that order. And, of course, there’s a whole crowd of townsfolk wanting to catch one last glimpse at their beloved quiz bowlers before they leave for Atlanta.

  “You’re smart, Olivia, the same as your teammates, and your opponents, too!”

  “It’s not that I’m not smart. For a while now, I might be adored because of quiz bowl, it’s just that people bring it up more often than I would like! And not only people seem to worship a false image of me as a mega-genius who happens to do cheer, it made me max out on APs for next year!”

  “It’s too expensive for me to be there with you in Atlanta. So I guess I should get started on studying geometry…” Ned sighs. “Let’s have one last kiss before we leave!”

  They have one last kiss in front of dozens, maybe hundreds of townsfolk. Which is heart-warming to so many in the parking lot. Once the kiss ends:

  “Why are you taking Geometry this summer?” Olivia asks the centerfielder.

  “I’m taking Geometry this summer because it would help my football teammates, and not because I want to keep the option of taking calculus senior year open!”

  “The time has come to face your destiny. That which you promised me to see through three months ago!” Flo exclaims, as the players board the bus.

  Once on the bus, the players from the other two schools are fast asleep, because the bus came to pick them up in the early hours of the morning. As much as they could be fast asleep in a bus, which made it so that their sleep quality wouldn’t be very good.

  And, of course, since Olivia is seated just behind Lacassine’s quiz bowl coach, she overhears that person talking about how “in the dark” they are.

  “We all booked the morning session so it would make our lives easier in Atlanta. Sure, we might field the best Lacassine quiz bowl team in ten years, but we don’t know what to expect…”

  “You want to know what to expect at the HSNCT?” Flo tries to keep her calm. “It’s not at all like the regular season; here they try getting you to play against opponents with the same records as you!”

  I’m not deluding myself. It may well be the best Lacassine quiz bowl team since Susan ten years ago, who led a 3-player team to a 3-6 record at State. But we don’t expect much in our HSNCT debut. Especially since we struggled for years to field a quiz bowl team, the Lacassine Cardinals’ quiz bowl coach starts thinking about what that implies for Lacassine’s performance going into the HSNCT.

  But then Flo’s words about how the HSNCT rings in her head with the implications for later games on day 1, and, on day 2. This means that earlier games in the day could be breathers for us. This makes me feel like the jump between State and the HSNCT is massive. And yet, it’s in times like these when I wonder if quiz bowl really is for me. To be fair, I was thrown into the deep end near the tail end of the season. As a player, Flo might have had it better than I did because she was much better-established as an intellectual to the town’s eyes…

  They arrive at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, at night. The coaches pool their respective teams before getting to their hotel rooms when Flo gets keys to all four rooms booked in the parish’s name at the lobby:

  “We’re all over the place in this hotel because we booked our rooms after State. The captain is going to be responsible for the players’ rooms’ keys, and the adults will be in one room. Good luck tomorrow, we’re all going to need it!” Flo gives her instructions to all 3 Jeff Davis Parish teams.

  “So which team will get which room?” the Lacassine captain asks Flo.

  “We’ll draw rooms by lot”

  By some cruel trick of fate, the VAs land a room in the hotel’s upper levels.

  After they eat dinner around the hotel, but not inside, they take the elevator to their room in the upper levels. That was much better than Ned’s cooking, but much less healthy. But not even that might be enough to allay my fears.

  Her tremors intensify once in bed, making her turn. She almost collides with Cindy.

  Here Olivia was on the stage of the Grand Ballroom of the Marriott Marquis. Four players were circling around her, the first representing Amador Valley, and the other three were from VA’s remaining quiz bowl out-of-state rivals.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “What if, despite having studied from collegiate packets for the past two months, you fail to perform as you had at State?” the Amador Valley player asked her while leering her.

  “The pressure will ratchet up on you, especially if you win!” the DCC player taunted her from his seat.

  “Don’t answer in my stead!” Olivia shouted at the DCC player.

  “If you want VA to win, you need to contribute at every turn!” the female TJHSST player, wearing a navy blue and red cheer uniform, yelled at her while she started prancing around. “Has your agenda’s venom made you too dumb to play? If not, I hope that you are the smartest cheerleader in the world!”

  “I’m not dumb, I’m just not “smartest-cheerleader-in-the-world” material! On top of that, my hometown is one of the most rabid quiz bowl places in the world!” Olivia retorted.

  Boston Latin’s player turned to TJHSST’s cheerleader. “You guys lost so many times to VA without their cheer team’s intervention! What makes you think that she’s dumber than you? Or why would she make VA worse?”

  I must score some tomorrow and on Sunday, for Ned! Not necessarily, like, 40-something points per game, but at least enough to pull some semblance of weight! I didn’t come here to be dead weight, nor to be yelled at by my opponents! Olivia froze in place, when their opponents kept quarreling between each other.

  “It’s not that she’s too dumb to qualify, but her nerves can and will get in the way! Performing when you’re not the main event vs when you are in it just doesn’t feel the same on your nerves!” the Colonial (i.e. TJHSST student) answered.

  As she awakens, Olivia is made to feel like she had a bad dream. Does TJHSST really have a cheerleader playing quiz bowl, too? Also, when I began playing quiz bowl, I was full of confidence, especially socially. Now it seems that, since I began playing it, I’m putting on an outward fa?ade of confidence, but, deep down, it seems like my confidence is shattered.

  But when she tries to get a little sleep, she tries not to think about quiz bowl, nor about what it implies for her.

  When, early in the morning, all teams gather their cards, in search of their first game room, Olivia feels her bodily tremors intensify, as if she’s a new flyer performing a cheer routine for the first time.

  Little do they know is that their first preliminary game also takes place at a relatively high level of the hotel. Both teams get seated, and Olivia is about to be surprised when they see each other being in the hot seat for their opening game in a hotel room:

  “This is round one of the morning prelims of the 2041 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament. From Louisiana, we have Lacassine and Venomous Agendas. Best of luck to both teams, and here’s tossup one:”

  Lacassine? How the hell did Lacassine, of all teams, get to play us as a first game? Olivia struggles to contain her surprise, even when her body shakes. We spent all day in the bus with them, and now we are opponents?

  “This novel begins and ends with how all previous summers led to the present day” the moderator reads the first clue.

  Olivia buzzes in. “The Summer I Turned Pretty!”

  “Fifteen. For ten points each…”

  Don’t delude yourself, Olivia. This is just the first question, Olivia muses while she listens to the bonus they earn. And her body still shakes. Then again, do I always get this nervous before quiz bowl tournaments?

  However, Lacassine couldn’t score as much as even against Hathaway at State, and this game turns into a clear VA victory. Sure, more often than not, the other three answered the tossups, but she’s still able to contribute some on the bonuses.

  “And that’s the game. VA five hundred ten, Lacassine one hundred forty!” the moderator announces the result after Olivia “converts” a bonus part (i.e. answers it correctly).

  “Way to go, Olivia! You powered your first tossup at the HSNCT!” Cindy tries to encourage her.

  “Once you have tasted the HSNCT, all other quiz bowl tournaments you attend until graduation will feel a lot more approachable!” Joaquin comments on how her future as a quiz bowler will play out.

  Phew! At least quiz bowl isn’t going to cause me as much headaches, going forward, as it used to! Olivia muses as Joaquin’s statement sinks in her mind.

  “Don’t fool yourself: future opponents won’t be like Lacassine or even Vandebilt Catholic!” Jim warns the cheerleader. “Then again, I began playing in middle school, and I had a relatively good idea of what to expect here based upon my experience of the MSNCT!”

  “Sure middle school quiz bowl gets morning announcements, but it seems like no one in town cares about middle school quiz bowl!” Olivia retorts.

  “Yet you’ll find that most VAs at the HSNCT cut their teeth in middle school! You were thrown into the deep end!”

  The Middle School National Championship Tournament. Middle school quiz bowl flies under the radar at home, at least relative to HS quiz bowl, but the MSNCT is structured very much like this tournament, Jim’s memories of the MSNCT resurfaces, on his way to the second game of the day.

  Here VA follows up on their victory over Lacassine with more wins against Ysleta, William Fremd B, and Advanced Technologies, in that order, but the margins of victory get narrower and narrower.

  Going into the fifth game, VA is up 4-0 and has yet to face its biggest challenge of the day. But unlike the previous 4 games, which all took place in various hotel rooms, their fifth game takes place in a basement’s conference room.

  “This is round five of the morning prelims of the 2041 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament. This game pits the twenty card against the twenty-seven card. From Louisiana we have Venomous Agendas, and, from Russia, we have Moscow number two hundred sixty-three A!” the moderator working that game announces.

  More than any other game she played thus far in her life as a quiz bowler, Olivia shakes in her seat. She’s made to feel that, at this point of the tournament, any bad move on her part can cost both her and her team. And same holds of her opponents, too.

  But one of these nerve-wracking moments happen near the tail end of the game. With one tossup left to go, the VAs are trailing by 30 points, and both teams’ players shake in their seats.

  Olivia starts sweating in her seat. This is it! I won’t let these Russians beat us in this game!

  “Tossup number twenty-four: This type of matter was theorized to be responsible for the formation of cosmic structures”

  Her nerve-induced tremors make her buzz in prematurely, but there is no buzzer race just yet. Shivers are sent down her spine as the 3-second window to answer opens:

  “Gravity!” an unsure Olivia answers, feeling like she’s committed to answer.

  “Neg five”

  What the? I cost VA this game! Should I even keep playing quiz bowl after this HSNCT ends? Olivia starts to ruminate after this humiliating tossup, which is read in its entirety.

  “For ten points, name the type of matter responsible for the acceleration of the universe’s expansion”

  The Moscow #263 science player buzzes in. “Dark matter!” he answers in a Russian accent.

  “Ten. For ten points each…”

  In the end, VA loses by 60 points. But Olivia starts crying when going from this game to the next.

  “I caused VA to lose this game... Never did I, as a cheerleader, cause VA to lose a football or basketball game!” Olivia starts moping.

  “Quiz bowl forced you to face your insecurities. We all neg once in a while, and you made me nervous!” Cindy refrains from telling her about how the game could have gone differently.

  “It seems like quiz bowl gave you anxiety. You worked so hard for, like, three months, and now you get so worked up over causing your first loss as a quiz bowler!” Jim points out. “Negs happen all the time; it’s just poor timing...”

  “I might have scored the winning tossup at State, but I’m still a bad quiz bowler!” Olivia keeps crying. “Maybe Becky or Lexie might have been a better fit!”

  “We still have two games to win, but even with you, I feel like we can win three or four more games!” Flo discusses the VAs’ odds of getting to the HSNCT playoffs.

  “Why two more games?” Olivia asks.

  “We finish with a six-and-four record, we get into the playoffs. Seven and three, we go into the winners’ bracket. Eight and two, we get a first-round bye” Joaquin explains to her.

  “I must play better than I did against Moscow number two hundred sixty-three to get us into the playoffs!”