After spending much of the night tutoring Carrie in Algebra II, Pablo and Audrey are both getting ready to go to bed.

“Don’t forget: take it easy tomorrow, since we already earned our HSNCT berths, and also you get to play at State next month!” Pablo is about to kiss his girlfriend.

“Sorry if I’m asking you this, but how do you feel about Carrie?” Audrey asks him before kissing him.

While the kiss isn’t the best kiss in the world, Pablo keeps quiet and doesn’t answer his girlfriend’s question about Carrie until after the kiss ends.

“I think her priorities are misplaced. I mean, she played better down the homestretch and into the playoffs, but put school on a backseat. And she was visibly happy to leave the house after she was done reviewing the math material. However, Carrie and Finn form a good couple” Pablo answers her.

“Before we go to sleep, could you please look at the field for tomorrow’s tournament?”

“Sure!”

One name stands out to him, since he never saw that name come up in previous quiz bowl tournaments: Livonia. However, he closes NAQT’s tab after having seen the field.

The following day, as usual for quiz bowl tournaments, they awaken early on Saturday, hastily eating breakfast, ready to endure a nearly two-hour drive through the prairies of the western Louisiana countryside to get to Leesville, well outside southwest Louisiana. And do their homework in the car. With any remaining time being devoted to reading past quiz bowl sets.

When they arrive in Leesville, they arrive before the rest of the team, not realizing that one of the teams already in place seems to attract the attention of the other attendees.

I knew American high schools were often omnisports club operators, but, other than academic work being in English, I was never told any more than that back in Latvia. So why did the teachers deem me a good quiz bowl fit? Aija is wondering what quiz bowl need she somehow fills for the Wildcats. In my corner of Courland, they just aren’t nearly as fanatical about youth basketball clubs, which aren’t operated by schools. Hockey took more social room.

Meanwhile, a few male quiz bowlers from other teams stare at Aija because she’s, well, the new girl on the block. And yet, somehow, she keeps quiet, not wanting to draw more attention than she already did.

As the other teams arrive on-site, they quickly go through check-in and their pool assignments are released so that no school has more than one team in the same prelim pool. And seeded so there’s supposed to be a balance between pools.

“Looks like we will be in separate pools for the prelims...” Audrey sighs, before forming up with the rest of the A-team near the room assigned to them.

“Good luck then...” Pablo then forms up with the B-team.

But then, as the first round begins, the B-team is getting seated on one side of a classroom along with their opponents on the other side. As the moderator starts the first game:

“This is round one of the 2030 Leesville Spring Invitational. From Pointe-Coupée Parish, we have Livonia and, from Jefferson Davis Parish, we have Venomous Agendas B. Best of luck to both teams, and here’s tossup one: Sweden’s loss of Ingria in the early stages of this war led to the relocation of the Russian capital...” the moderator reads, while Aija buzzes in.

“Great Northern War!” Aija exclaims in an accent that doesn’t sound Cajun at all, more like a Scandinavian one.

“Fifteen”

Shoot! I won’t let this... Latvian bitch steal our thunder! However, if everything I heard about Aija is correct, I don’t expect much from her in literature! Pablo ruminates while the bonus is a literature one, and Aija keeps quiet. And we’re down forty-five points because of her! But I mustn’t fool myself: it’s still early.

“Tossup two: a phase of matter made up of a liquid of this property occurs in certain magnetic materials...” the moderator reads while the players roll their eyes.

Everyone starts thinking about what comes next. The next clue still make the players’ heads spin, especially when it pertains to its discovery in an experiment with an uneven magnetic field. As the power mark draws nearer...

“Alignment of this property in matter forms the basis of MRI...” Pablo then buzzes in.

“Magnetic spin!”

“Fifteen. For ten points each, answer these questions about moneylending:”

Nadine and Lilina both get one bonus part correctly apiece, and the final bonus part comes around the corner:

“In a Chapter Thirteen bankruptcy, this procedure can be used by debtors to reduce the outstanding balance of a secured loan to the fair market value of the collateral” the moderator reads the final part.

“Debt restructuring!” Pablo exclaims, in hopes of buying precious time to get to the correct answer.

“Be more specific please!”

All four VA players’ minds run faster as they have only 3 seconds to provide a more precise answer to what kind of debt restructuring. Because a Chapter 13 insolvency is essentially one big debt restructuring plan for individuals. Once the three seconds are up:

“C.. cramdown?” Pablo hesitates a bit, his body shaking while delivering what he deems to be the final answer.

“Thirty for the bonus, here’s tossup three…” the moderator rules, with everyone on edge for the next question, and both sides tied.

However, for much of the game, Livonia’s lack of tournament experience has cost them, and Aija ended up scoring the Wildcats’ only power. In fact, Livonia only scored a total of three tossups, the other two being scored by other players.

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“And that’s the game. Livonia ninety, Venomous Agendas B five hundred ten!” the moderator looks at the game’s scoresheet, before sending it to the tournament director via email.

How are we to earn a berth at State if we get blown out against teams like VA B? It makes me not want to imagine how playing like VA A at State would feel like… Was getting Aija to play the right choice? Livonia’s captain ruminates, his face down, ready to go to the next game room after the Wildcats get blown out.

But as the rounds progress, VA B has a serious option on getting one of the top two positions of their pool, while VA A sits atop the other. Yet, for some reason, Pablo seems a little shaken as VA B goes from game to game in one part of the building.

After three games, however, Warren harangues the B-team moments before the start of game number 4.

“You guys got three blowout wins in a row, don’t go around thinking the next two games are going to be as easy as the first three games have been!” Warren warns the B-team before they enter the game room.

Hard to argue with that when they played Neville and Kinder, these teams having earned a berth at State by the skin of their teeth at LQBA Fall Invitational North and South respectively. Joy: Caddo Magnet and Anacoco are the teams remaining that we have left to play, and my last game against Caddo Magnet was an overtime nightmare! Pablo shivers when he is put in to play against Caddo Magnet once again. Caddo Magnet is the remaining team that cares most about quiz bowl, they will be hungry to avenge their loss at the ESA Cade Cane Classic, which allowed us to even qualify both teams for the HSNCT.

And this means everyone on both sides will be willing to fight tooth-and-nail to beat each other. A final before the hour to some since, to Caddo Magnet, both VA teams feel the same to play against.

“This is round four of the Leesville Spring Invitational. From Caddo Parish, we have Caddo Magnet, from Jefferson Davis Parish, we have Venomous Agendas B. Best of luck to both teams, and here’s tossup one:”

And... wow. This is far tighter than the first three games played by both teams, keeping everyone on their toes. But, going into the final tossup, almost a half-hour later, VA B is 20 points behind. Everyone starts shaking, knowing that one bad move will be swiftly punished.

“Tossup number twenty: this Austrian painter...”

The clues keep getting disgorged, one by one, and not even Nadine appears able to answer the tossup. Much less Pablo. How significant was his family life to his work as a painter? He starts questioning one of the clues prior to the power mark.

“Art historians believe that his use of the Nuda Veritas...” the moderator is interrupted as Nadine buzzes in two words after the power mark.

“Gustav Klimt!” a confident Nadine answers.

“Ten” the moderator reads the preamble to the bonus they earn.

The Mustangs (i.e. Caddo Magnet players) start shaking in their seats, praying that VAs answer either zero or one bonus part correctly. Already that both teams are virtually assured of finishing either first or second in the pool, both sides think only of the here and now.

Yet, the VAs drew a blank on the first bonus part. When the second bonus part is read:

“Chemical reactions giving rise to a loss of enthalpy give off this kind of energy” the moderator reads and Gerard answers immediately after the end.

“Heat!”

“Thermal energy is caused by this type of motion..."

And the game boils down to the final bonus part; everyone shakes in their seats, with several players’ heart rates rising. The Mustangs keep praying while the final bonus part is read.

“Vibration!” Gerard answers the last bonus.

“Twenty for the bonus, and that’s the game. Caddo Magnet two hundred ninety-five, Venomous Agendas B three hundred five!”

Half an hour later, both VA teams sit atop their respective prelim pools. Pablo rushes towards Audrey as they try to get lunch:

“Try to guess against whom I played” Pablo asks Audrey, while leaning a little on her.

“You played against a lot of different opponents this season, so there isn’t much that can really surprise me with in-state opponents” Audrey answers.

“Aija; she sounded very different from other female quiz bowlers I played against this year, probably some exchange student”

From what little I heard about foreign exchange students, often exchange students are high achievers, among whom quiz bowlers are regularly drawn. But Livonia playing quiz bowl? I know nothing about Livonia other than Aija plays for them and we’re playing hoops against them on Monday, Audrey then brings herself to look at the tournament’s preliminary stats on the Quiz Bowl Resource Center. So not only Aija is their best basketball player, she seems to be their best quiz bowler, too, albeit on a very inexperienced team, more or less like a Latvian version of myself, Audrey ruminates while she lets the implications of Aija playing quiz bowl sink in. If, by some miracle, Livonia earns a berth for State, despite posting a 2-3 prelim record.

However, going into the playoffs, the last round of VA B is played against LSMSA, and both teams go into it with a 1-1 playoff record.

“We might have beaten LSMSA at the ESA Cade Cane Classic, we can do so again here. Just focus on the questions and we’re going to be fine!” Pablo harangues his teammates going into the game.

Once again, they find themselves in a situation where VA B are trailing with one tossup to go, by 30 points this time. By then VA B awaits the final tossup.

“Final tossup: The titular character of this play disrupts the Pope’s banquet by stealing food and boxing the pope’s ears” the moderator starts reading the tossup.

As the clues keep getting disgorged, both sides appear on the fence for buzzing in. Why would someone disrupt the Pope’s banquet that way? A Protestant perhaps? This seems a bit old for the clergy’s child abuse to rear its ugly head, questions pop in Pablo’s mind.

“In the early stages of the play, the lead’s dissatisfaction with his quest for knowledge led him to turn to dark magic” the moderator gets interrupted as Nadine and LSMSA’s literature player are locked into a buzzer race.

At this point, they both press the buzzer. However, Nadine is beaten by a split-second. When LSMSA’s literature player wins the buzzer race, after both players sweating in an attempt to get the answer faster than the other, all VA players start being on edge, hoping for a neg five on the Eagles’ (i.e. LSMSA’s) part. Pablo crosses his fingers…

“Doctor Faustus!” the Eagle literature player answers.

“Ten” the moderator rules.

“We skip the entire bonus” the Eagles’ special topics player announces.

Damn it! I lost us the game! Nadine bangs her head on the table after losing this buzzer race for a few seconds. As the scoresheet is being compiled… It’s not the first time we lose a game on the last tossup, she sighs, while the moderator reads the scoresheet.

“And that’s the game, LSMSA three hundred twenty, Venomous Agendas B two hundred eighty”

Oof… during the awards ceremony, as trophies are handed out to the winners, VA A, and the runners-up, LSMSA, the tournament director announces the following:

“Congratulations to the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts for earning its first HSNCT berth in almost twenty years! Also, honorable mention to Livonia for having earned a berth to the state championship at its first tournament! Finally, the Wampus Cats (i.e. Leesville) also earned a berth at the quiz bowl state championship!”

I guess, if Kinder and Neville can somehow qualify for State, while fielding horrendous quiz bowl teams, we can, too. Just playing at State means a lot to us, with or without Aija, Livonia’s quiz bowl captain reflects on his experience of playing at Leesville, with Leesville also posting a 2-3 preliminary record.

“Why couldn’t I have been faster on the buzzer?” Nadine starts crying.

“That’s OK, we can’t win all the time, we already secured our HSNCT berth last month” Pablo tries to console Nadine.