Before they leave the campus, Pablo has an idea for the rest of the season:

"My love, since LQBA Winter Invitational South made everyone in town believe that it's realistic to have a second squad qualify for the HSNCT, better get started now! We're going to beg money at church!" Pablo tells her about how they're going to fund the quiz bowl team getting VA B to the HSNCT.

Audrey then proceeds to email Warren, who's busy grading AP Biology finals, about her begging at church, while she's open to implementing more ideas. Also, she attaches her remaining schedule of basketball games.

Upon receipt of the email, the quiz bowl coach starts formulating plans in his mind. The math team is probably not going to go very deep in the playoffs this year. If we want to schedule quiz bowl exhibition games during either math games or basketball games, we need to ensure that we can charge higher prices, and secure our opponents. However, the math team is essentially paying the bills of all academic teams, and the funding priority goes to the first squad at the HSNCT, then the MSNCT, and then a second HSNCT squad. I guess I could always try scheduling DCC if possible...

"Since you're Catholic and I am not, we will be attending different masses at different churches" Audrey points out to him. "Double the begging, double the money. And we shall attend the HSNCT together"

"Our best bet is going to be the ESA Cade Cane Classic. Operation Holy Begging is go"

At the same time, they ask their respective teammates which holiday masses they will attend, if any, with instructions for begging money at church.

Upon returning home from the basketball game, Pablo asks his parents about which Christmas mass they plan on attending.

"Since my teammate is attending the midnight mass at Our Lady Help of Christians, is it possible to go to Immaculate Conception, or to attend the ten PM one if you still want to go to Our Lady Help of Christians?" Pablo asks his parents about Christmas mass attendance.

"Why do you want us not to attend the same mass as your other teammates?" Pablo's dad asks him.

"It's for quiz bowl fundraising. Since it became realistic for us to get a second squad at the HSNCT, we estimated it would cost about three grand to go, but we need to rotate the beggars. Myriam already picked the midnight mass at Our Lady Help of Christians" Pablo explains to his parents.

And he realizes that Audrey is Pentecostal, Lilina is Baptist, and, for most people on the quiz bowl team, attending Christmas mass is mostly a convenient venue for begging, er, raising money for them to go to the MSNCT or HSNCT. Even if I put all remaining spending money into the HSNCT fund, it's still a lot of money to beg, Pablo starts thinking about being a beggar at mass, which he knew was the only time where begging at church made any sense. For which he hastily labels a piggy bank HSNCT money and the piggy bank is carried in his mother's handbag.

"Wait a minute... are you saying the B-team could attend the HSNCT?" Pablo's mom asks him about his role on the quiz bowl team.

"To be fair, the linchpins of the B-team are Nadine and Gerard... I scored about in the high-teens at LQBA Winter Invitational South, in which we finished fourth" Pablo explains to his parents as they get to the 10 PM mass.

"Don't discount Lilina. She might be a ninth-grader, the same as Gerard, but she has good upside" Pablo's father advises him on his way to the Christmas mass.

At church, he only has a few minutes to go beg money according to his plan. Upon arrival at the church, Pablo's mom hands the piggy bank to him so that he can start begging for money to attend the HSNCT.

"Please, parishioners, can you spare loose change for the glory of God?" Pablo hollers in front of churchgoers, piggy bank in hand. "God wants the Venomous Agendas to field two teams at the HSNCT!"

Churchgoers line up to give a few pennies, nickels, dimes and even quarters, but few gave more than a few dollars' worth of loose change. As the mass starts, he then circulates the piggy bank around the pews, and the family is seated at the very back of the church. Some of them simply have no loose change at all, others empty their loose change, as the Reverend Father delivers his sermon.

Nearly two hours later, Myriam arrives at church to take over the duties of begging for HSNCT money. A few moments before the midnight bell tolls:

"Please, let me be clear, Pablo. I accepted to take part in Operation Holy Begging only because betting on horse races is too volatile for me to use for fundraising!" Myriam explains herself, whispering in his ears, so that no one else would know about her gambling habits.

"Amen" Pablo prays before leaving the church with a full piggy bank in tow.

Knowing Myriam, she will card and read old quiz bowl sets between two wagers on horse races, or solve math problems from older tournaments during that span, Pablo feels like he should pay attention to his mom as she carries the much heavier piggy bank in her handbag.

He then receives a text message from another A-team player: "Holy Beggar, just because you pull your weight outside the game doesn't mean squat if you can't play well"

What's the meaning of this? Am I nicknamed Holy Beggar like Audrey would be called Ballista in basketball games? This is making my head spin... Pablo seems to be more confused before he can even think of counting the money in the piggy bank. I might have improved some at Winter, but apparently my role in Operation Holy Begging is not enough to earn their respect.

But then Lilina sends another text message about Boxing Day. "We should be begging for money during Boxing Day around the main shops of the town. But not inside the shops themselves unless you want to be bagging"

"That piggy bank is heavy! Let's count how much money there really is" Pablo's mother starts emptying the piggy bank and sorting coins by denomination.

Meanwhile, Audrey begs for money at the First Pentecostal Church, also passing off the VAs qualification to the HSNCT as the work of God, but rather than to mention anything about quiz bowl directly, she just begs for money "to continue the unfinished works of God". As with Pablo, she, too, mostly collects small, loose change. However, she is too busy with the mass to realize that Lilina wants to proceed with phase 2 of Operation Holy Begging during Boxing Day. Until the end of the mass anyway. And because the First Pentecostal Church is much smaller than Our Lady Help of Christians, the basketball player doesn't actually collect a whole lot of money. And neither do her teammates at other Christmas masses.

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At dawn, it becomes all too clear to Pablo as well as Myriam just how little does phase I of Operation Holy Begging actually netted the quiz bowl team, after they ask everyone else about how much they collected by begging money during Christmas mass.

"Myriam, we were only able to get $600 of loose change by begging at church last night" Pablo texts Myriam.

"What to do next?" Myriam asks him.

"Either we keep begging money around shops tomorrow or you bet on horse races to fund the remainder"

Oh boy, already that, since my dad is in prison for embezzling money to buy Lacassine a thoroughbred, mom made me bet on horse races to supplement her income and, since, to the eyes of the law, mom is the one betting... Pablo seems to make me feel like I should bankroll the quiz bowl team as well? Myriam sighs, as she doubles down on a wager before it's placed. Without her mother noticing anything about Myriam betting $600 on a daily double taking place at a hippodrome on the other side of the world. If I win this daily double, maybe I can get Lilina to call off the second phase of Operation Holy Begging! An ecstatic Myriam starts daydreaming about what winning the daily double would imply, before being cut short by a painful reminder of the suspicions that suddenly being able to bankroll a second HSNCT squad would arouse while reading a practice set from an old. No, but let the other 11 execute Operation Holy Begging!

During Christmas, however, they start doing what they couldn't when school is in session. Such as Audrey playing the emulator Pablo gave her after LQBA Fall Invitational. And Pablo doing the same, too. Or Myriam intensifying her betting activities.

But by noon, Pablo calls Audrey to discuss her involvement in phase 2 of Operation Holy Begging.

"Lilina believes that we can beg outside of certain shops, such as the supermarkets, Wal-Mart and the town's strip malls on LA-26" Pablo lays out what Lilina has in store, in a tone that .

"Lilina believes we can beg for money while everyone else is going to spend theirs?" Audrey gasps, upon hearing about Lilina's idea. "If we're going to be begging during Boxing Day for HSNCT money, we may as well do it together; it will be more bearable"

What a brazen wench! If she was even more brazen, she would probably auction off the rights to cheat on her on a per-test basis. However, I think I have a better idea than begging outside of shops on Boxing Day: a GoFundMe page that we will keep open until, well, the opening day of the HSNCT, Pablo then starts reading about how to start a GoFundMe for getting the VAs at the HSNCT.

"I think starting a GoFundMe page is more appropriate to beg for HSNCT money than begging outside shops, and then we'll use our own social media to share the link to it across town" Pablo explains to his girlfriend, while reading the instructions.

"Not even a GoFundMe page would suffice. We can't rely on a single source of funding" Audrey points out while Pablo is busy setting up the GoFundMe page for the VAs' quiz bowl team.

Their coach, on the other hand, feels like he should coordinate with the math team to get the quiz bowl team to host their games either before or after the math games (depending on when potential opponents can play them) on the same night. And field "cold calls" to schedule opponents for such online games, starting with schools VA played against in past HSNCTs. In Warren's mind, if he could successfully schedule opponents, then the math team can charge an extra dollar per ticket for a doubleheader.

However, the Math Madness spring season starts in mid-February, so if they want to play before then, the arrangements might change. And also that quiz bowl would be subordinate to mathletics, since the math team won't know for more than a week in advance who or when they will play.

And that proves to be a major headache for him, even when his players are busy begging money across town, some of them even attempt to get local businesses to sponsor quiz bowl. Presumably some of the very shops they have been begging outside of.

Speaking of begging, Lilina decides to bag groceries and place a piggy bank of her own next to the supervisory station of the self-service cashier island of that grocery. As with Pablo before, she clearly labels it HSNCT money. But this time around, Lilina nets more than mostly loose change.

"Could you please spare some change to help Venomous Agendas quiz bowl?" Lilina's hollers are heard across the self-service cashier island, while she bags a customer's groceries.

"Quiz bowl? Did you guys qualify for the HSNCT already?" the customer asks her.

"Yes, we earned our berth at Tal Atkins in October. And the middle school squad earned its MSNCT berth at LQBA Fall Invitational South. You thought we needed to place at a certain level at State, did you?"

"I just didn't expect it to be this early in the season"

Lilina receives a link on mobile to Pablo's brand-new GoFundMe page, which is also shared on the football and basketball teams' social media pages (both genders in basketball's case) by Pablo and Audrey respectively. The Holy Beggar must be led to think that there are too many beggars at masses for phase 1 to be viable in the long run, so he takes to online begging once he realized that he couldn't keep begging at masses, Lilina seems to think upon receipt of the link.

And yet, the football team, in Pablo's eyes, is simply an advertising platform for begging, as far as Operation Holy Begging is concerned. No quiz bowler actually expected much from parents of football players to donate much towards quiz bowl. However, they know about how long it might take, as well as how far afield they might be able to get donations from.

Speaking of which, the first GoFundMe donation arrives via some ghost from VA's quiz bowl past. Marcia. A past collegiate quiz bowler for the UPenn Quakers, and also the top scorer on the first VA squad competing at the HSNCT, and she donates $200. And also, because the VAs are the only team across southwest Louisiana to even compete at the HSNCT, much less the MSNCT, a handful of donors from other SWLA parishes even donate a few dollars.

So while the pair is posted outside the CVS pharmacy, wearing the VAs' purple-and-green uniforms of their respective sports, bagging for the customers, they do so with the blessing of the owner. And with an eye on the GoFundMe campaign. That's a lot of cosmetics being shopped today! Pablo can't help but notice the sheer number of customers buying cosmetics on Boxing Day. One of these customers recognizes him from the Christmas mass he attended two days ago.

"Holy Beggar, what drives you to beg at the pharmacy today?" one of these customers asks him. "Don't you have any shame in begging money on Boxing Day?"

"And yet when you are spending money left and right, you seem to have forgotten that this year, we are going to carry the entire region's hopes in quiz bowl!" Pablo retorts to the accusations of what seems to be a parent of a football player. "Football only lasts for a third of a year, quiz bowl is year-round"

"I don't have any loose change left, and that's a shame..." the offensive guard's mother tells him, before she passes in front of Audrey, two cashier stations away.

"Here's your chance to support VA quiz bowl, larger than life!" Audrey hollers in the direction of the next customer at her cashier station.

Hours pass and a handful of customers ask the same old questions about VA quiz bowl. About where VA stands, both regionally and state-wide, or even about what quiz bowl even is to some.

At the end of what they deem to be a shift of begging money in a pharmacy, they leave it with their respective piggy banks being much heavier than when they arrived.

"Begging around town is one thing, but we need to train to do what we beg all this money for..." Audrey sighs, feeling a little tired of begging money by bagging, before they return home. "And, on top of that, I have another basketball game in two days"

"Yeah, I did enough begging for the last three days to make me hold off on further begging until New Year" Pablo also sighs, while putting the piggy bank in his backpack.