After the holidays end, and the VAs return to class, one of the sophomore football players meets with Pablo before class in the locker room.

"Fuck! Tomorrow is the deadline for the World History extra credit, and it has to do with the consequences of the French and Indian War in North America" George, an offensive guard, complains after the end of the morning weight training session. "Since you're playing quiz bowl, Holy Beggar, surely you understand what to do" George starts begging to help him, and then sobs. "Can you please help me?"

"I didn't do it either. I think we can get it done tonight, but we're going to need every footballer taking World History to get this done" Pablo breaks the news to the offensive guard. "We will need to stay after school. However, as helpful my own girlfriend could have been, she is away at a basketball game tonight"

The problem is that Pablo grew distant from the football team after the season ended. He did next to nothing with us, not even academically, forcing us to rely on our girlfriends to get academic help in a pinch, George reflects on the consequences of Pablo playing quiz bowl on his football teammates. And obviously, some of us struggle to hold on to a girlfriend.

In the meantime, since Pablo is reminded of the VAs playing on the road today, he first asks Audrey by text whether he can get Nadine to help him with World History extra credit.

Audrey's answer comes quickly. "I trust you can work with Nadine without turning it to an opportunity to cheat on her" she texts with an implicit subtitle of romantically or academically.

"That sucks; your girlfriend is clearly a brain" George sighs.

"There's about a dozen of us taking World History on the football team and I can't do everything alone" Pablo retorts. "If you rely solely on AI to get the paper done, you won't understand anything"

"What do you mean, I won't understand anything if I just use AI to get the paper done?" George asks him.

"If you just enter the question as a prompt in ChatGPT, you might get a serviceable paper, but AI is otherwise a black box, especially if you use the output as-is. There's a reason why the French and Indian War was chosen for the extra credit"

"Why?" another user of the weight room, also taking World History, asks both footballers.

"Because of its importance in understanding what led to the American Revolution" Pablo explains to the other two. "I won't go into detail right now, though I am doing this because I did next to nothing with the football team after the season ended"

And Louisiana, during the French and Indian War, saw next to no fighting, but I have the impression that we need to talk a little bit about the French and Indian War in Louisiana as well, Pablo starts thinking about the paper as it relates to the writing. He then contacts the other footballers in the World History course about whether, and who they could bring as well, to get the extra credit done. And boy did some of them need it.

He then realizes that a few of them already finished it, namely, Ethan. And those who need the extra credit most accepted to come, since some of them need to keep an eye on the no-pass, no-play, or any other GPA target. 2.5, 3.25 or 3.5 typically. Not many of that subgroup even plan on having other people in tow. Of these people, he knew most of them are in a relationship, but their love interests are often unremarkable academically or otherwise in no position to help them on this assignment.

And it turns out that Nadine already submitted the World History extra credit as well, so she won't go to this meeting over it.

"Nadine can't come, damn it! Time for plan B: Lilina" Pablo then texts Lilina about asking for help on homework about the French and Indian War and later turns to George. "Don't go around thinking that I'd be cheating on Audrey for Lilina!"

Technically, I wouldn't be cheating on Lilina since she isn't enrolled in the course. Fingers crossed that Lilina will accept, since it's right up her quiz bowling alley, Pablo muses as he gets ready for his first course of the day.

When the teammates who need most the extra credit are assembled, with Lilina and a footballer's girlfriend being present.

"Before we begin, I would like to apologize for me being absent for the football team during the past two months. Even during the finals season, when you needed me most" Pablo harangues his teammates.

"Hi, I'm Lilina, a teammate of Pablo in quiz bowl, you might not know about me because I'm a freshman here, but some freshmen on the football team could know about me" Lilina introduces herself to the others.

"We still had our tutors and other friends" George points out to him. "I forgive you"

"The starting point for all of us for the holidays' extra credit in World History is the loss of New France by, well, France during the French and Indian War" Pablo lectures his teammates, while Lilina takes it from him later.

"Yet, even though New France surrendered in 1760, the portion of New France west of the Mississippi River was ceded to Spain in 1762, and the rest to Great Britain in 1763. While this split had consequences for Louisiana up until the Louisiana Purchase, the Spanish needed to be mindful of the influx of Acadian refugees" Lilina adds to this lecture.

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"I fail to see how the goings-on in Louisiana made it important in understanding the American Revolution; as you said, Louisiana fell under Spanish hands" George, reminded of the goal of this extra credit assignment, fumes at both facilitators.

And yet, it opened most of his football teammates to the wider context, and the aims of each nation in North America going into the French and Indian War (known in Europe as the Seven Years War). Because they realize the teacher ignored almost entirely what was happening in Europe when the French and Indian War took place. And it was symptomatic in how the very extra credit was formulated.

"So you're both saying that the French and Indian War was the start of a war that spilled over into Europe as well" the girlfriend of the left linebacker in attendance gasps upon hearing about the aims of each nation at war.

"That was going off tangent, but while the British were victorious, it cost the British government a fortune, and so was holding on to their gains. Which led to the British levying new taxes in the Thirteen Colonies and angered the colonists" Pablo adds to this lecture, while the others start searching for more information to supplement what the two just told them about the French and Indian War.

After some digging, they then learn the other contentious item that arose from the French and Indian War was the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which held lands in reserve for the Native Americans. And residents of the Thirteen Colonies wanted to settle westward, which is a fact Bart, the left linebacker in attendance finds unsettling, for reasons he doesn't delay in voicing to his teammates.

"It seems like our teacher said nothing about how Native Americans were belligerents in the French and Indian War, other than both French and British had some tribes behind them" Bart complains about how the teacher covered that aspect of history.

I guess, it's not a given that Audrey submitted it, not that she needed it to keep her A in World History, Pablo wonders whether his girlfriend submitted the World History extra credit as he helps footballers with it.

They all put these explanations together, with one paragraph per aspect, into their respective essays. To some, it almost feels like Lilina and Pablo are spoon-feeding them an essay and then some sources at the end of each aspect covered, interrupted by questions from others.

"Yeah, each side was supported by Native Americans, but what was the point to give exclusionary rights to Native American tribes?" George asks the two facilitators after they learn about the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

"The British were afraid that the tribes who supported the French during the French and Indian War would remain hostile. They essentially bought peace with them that way" Lilina answers him.

I feel like I had no choice, and same with some of my teammates, but to go there and listen to these two talk about history, because of no-pass, no-play; they were busy shoring up their academic positions in other subjects, George sighs, feeling that the sooner the footballers (and the LB's girlfriend as well) can finish the extra credit work, the better for them. My ex was the kind of person who could have helped me here, though.

But then even Pablo sits down to process everything he and Lilina just told the others about the impact of the French and Indian War in North America, and what impacts these will have in the leadup to the American Revolution. And, of course, they end up sharing their bibliography with their preferred resources on each part of the issue.

"Thank you for taking the time to get the extra credit done" Bart tells Pablo.

As the others use their AI tools on their laptops for proofreading, Pablo follows suit, and fine-tunes the resulting essay. However, Lilina is the first to leave.

"Goodbye, see you next time, Pablo!" Lilina then leaves the room to return home and do her regular homework.

And most of the other footballers also leave the room soon thereafter, after submitting their extra credit essays, to get their remaining homework done as well, whose deadlines aren't as early. Only remains Pablo and George.

"Holy Beggar, are all girls on the quiz bowl team like Lilina?" George asks him after his teammates left, because he doesn't want to publicly admit that he might be eyeing Lilina, feeling like it's too premature.

"There's only one aspect I can say that they are all like her: intellect. What do you mean, then? Personality? Looks?" Pablo asks the offensive guard, since George feels like B-team quiz bowlers can fly under the social radar. That he might not even have known about Lilina as a quiz bowler, or forgotten about her as such.

"Joy..." George sighs, sarcastically. "I guess, personality"

Because even I could tell that Lilina doesn't look like Audrey at all, and not the least because Lilina isn't as beefy or tall as Audrey, George's mind conjures a side-by-side comparison between the two girls he personally interacted with who are on the quiz bowl team.

"I would love to continue this further, but we still need to do our homework for our other courses" Pablo reminds him of the coursework at hand.

This time around, however, they seem willing to at least try to get the work done by themselves. And only ask each other when they run into issues. George seems to have had more issues than Pablo did. Geometry mostly. But once the last of these issues is resolved:

"One more thing: as a tutor, Lilina is likely to be of use to you in social studies, maybe English. If she's taking Geometry, then Geometry, but she never discussed math homework during quiz bowl practices. Are these areas where you most need help?" Pablo asks George.

"Why?" an annoyed George asks back.

"Just so that we're aware, please be mindful of what a tutor is good at before using one. Some people will resort to using tutors because of the social aspect they won't get from any other source of academic help. If you ever think of dating Lilina, or anyone else for that matter, please be mindful of your girlfriend's needs, too. It's not just about what you hope to get from a relationship, but also what she hopes to get from it, too"

"Their needs can change on a whim"

Damn... if I'm careless with Audrey, even with basketball on her plate, I might find myself unable to address a new need for her, Pablo starts worrying about how their budding relationship will survive, and what pitfalls can befall him.

"Yes, there might be a way to keep it working when something unexpected happens, or when you differ in significant ways, but both sides need to communicate clearly what their expectations are before they can commit to a relationship, and even during one"

"It's just that I don't always know how to tell things to girls" George retorts, feeling that Pablo gave him a lot to think about life in a relationship.

"That, unfortunately, I can't help you with. I knew girls were complex people, but beyond that, respecting them as people goes a long way. However, if you feel like Lilina is someone you're interested in to ask for academic help..." Pablo is about to give Lilina's contact information to George.

"Sure, Holy Beggar" George just waits for Pablo to give Lilina's contact information to him.

Speaking of begging, after Pablo gave Lilina's contact information to George, he checks on the team's GoFundMe campaign on his phone before returning home to train more in quiz bowl for the ESA Cade Cane Classic. Marcia is still the highest donor at $200, but the VAs obtained a few hundred dollars more from across the region.