Pablo then proceeds to spend the rest of Sunday to explore a little bit the resources given by Audrey to familiarize himself with quiz bowl. He also attempts to complete what he deems to be his part on the AP Biology group project, based on the extras started by Audrey, and gives out notes for Natalie and Tyler for their parts based on the work of the other two.

The following Monday, during the AP Biology lecture, Warren checks on the various teams' progress status at the very start of the class. He doesn't spend very long with each team though.

"What progress has been made last week?" Warren asks Pablo.

"We spent a night to make our research and analysis of the topic, and we all made some fine-tuning later in the week, so I believe it will be finished by next week" Pablo reports his team's status. "Oh and by the way, I'm going to play on the quiz bowl team..."

"Pablo, I want you to see me after class about quiz bowl" Warren, while satisfied by the rapid progress made by his team, instructs him.

Now that's rapid progress! A lot of teams are a lot slower, Warren keeps to himself, before moving on to another team.

"I did a favor to you by joining the quiz bowl team" Pablo whispers in Audrey's left ear, before turning to his teammates in the group project. "Now, I strongly believe it would be in our best interest to finish the project by next week, and hopefully tonight! I'll even offer to host it at my home, same time as last time"

"Good. I can't wait to get over with this project" Audrey is relieved that at least someone on this team understands that their lives are going to get more complicated going forward.

"It seems like the other teams didn't do nearly as much as we did. However, rushing the way Audrey and Pablo want will only lead to disaster!" Natalie warns them.

"Of course not, Natalie; we can spread out our fine-tuning time, and only make small adjustments as needed once the big work is done. That's how we will prevent the disaster from happening" Tyler keeps arguing, while he thinks that fine-tuning will take the form of an introduction, conclusion and bibliography.

As they start getting into mitosis and meiosis, as well as how they play into genetics, there's one question that Natalie is itching to ask when Warren explains that both mitosis and meiosis involve replication of genetic material.

"What happens if errors are made in DNA replication?" Natalie asks.

"That's a mechanism for genetic mutations to occur, especially when errors happen at random" Warren explains to them. "More on that topic will be covered in a few weeks"

And also carry implications for protein synthesis, Audrey is then remembered a tossup in freshman year on this very topic.

When the lecture ends, Warren gets to speak with Pablo about quiz bowl.

"It's the first time I ever had a football player playing quiz bowl. You're probably aware of the intensity of intellectual requirements of quiz bowl, and for this reason, don't expect to have success in quiz bowl right out of the gate. Nevertheless, quiz bowl will benefit you in your coursework. And, of course, several quiz bowlers will be tempted to believe that football players won't be able to amount to much on the buzzer"

"Beyond reading past quiz bowl questions and using Protobowl, how else can I improve in quiz bowl?" Pablo asks the quiz bowl coach.

"Audrey gave you the most effective ideas. If you realize that you're weak in one area, then you can try writing questions on that area"

For each Myriam, who actually had some success in quiz bowl right out of the gate, there are several who take months to be serviceable, Warren wonders what to expect from Pablo.

Because there is no quiz bowl practice today, Pablo notifies his parents that he will have the team come over to finish the AP Biology group project tonight. He also finishes his homework upon returning home. And, of course, resumes his reading of old quiz bowl packets, with priority being given to more recent packets as appropriate.

However, right after dinner ends, Pablo prepares four bags containing Halloween candy his family didn't distribute for trick or treating. I know how draining basketball practices are, so I hope that Natalie and Tyler will both appreciate that Lagniappe I am about to give them, he muses while he knows that Audrey's basketball practices begin when the regular football season ds.

And, unlike last time, where there was no music being played, he plans to use some soft music that might help them relax. When they arrive to Pablo's home...

"Hi Pablo" Audrey greets him, her energy level being a little low.

"Here, have a bag of candy" Pablo hands her a bag of candy.

"My part is essentially finished. I'll be honest, though, I didn't look at what Natalie and Tyler did over the weekend yet" Audrey opens her laptop to start looking at what these two did, before opening the bag of candy.

"I didn't either because I believe their parts depended upon mine"

While Audrey eats her bag of candy, Natalie and Tyler both arrive at Pablo's home. He also gives them their bags of candy.

"OK, everyone, let's review what Audrey and I added during the previous week. It will be very helpful for you to not only finish your parts, but also start thinking about an introduction and a conclusion" Pablo opens the meeting as well as the files.

Tyler then copy-pastes everyone's parts onto a master file. To his horror, he realizes that the project had become much longer than they would have liked, and the risk of having the appendices dwarf the main body is real, even if they are able to determine what should be in the main body vs an appendix.

"We can't play around with the margins, nor the indentation" Tyler complains, while they start thinking of ideas to cram more content within the parameters given to them, and ensure they have enough space to write a good introduction and conclusion.

"Font? Spacing?" an annoyed Natalie asks her teammates.

"I think word choice can save you a few lines here and there" Audrey starts reviewing where people might have used words that are too long where a shorter word could do the same job.

And they realize, in their quest to squeeze precious space out of their project, that wording is a little inconsistent from a student to another. So not only they must ensure that they're more consistent in their wording, but they must also ensure concision and coherence.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"I kept hearing about how some of you guys were too wordy..." Pablo's mom is visibly startled by the team's noisy attempts at squeezing the most out of their page budget, before getting to him. "What could you guys have so much to say about... eating disorders?"

"Mom, it's not about my part or Audrey's. We need to make sure all parts flow between each other, and everyone can say what they feel is necessary. While AI is useful in the early stages, as well as for proofreading..." Pablo retorts while his teammates are still trying to squeeze lines out of the text.

The group keeps arguing about whether they can afford to change a word in a paragraph if it meant it could save them a line later down the road. Or maybe even cut words here and there if they aren't directly quoted.

However, it's understood that whoever oversees a given part will make the final decision regarding word changes in that part. And this exercise amounts to a group exercise in beta reading.

Oh boy, they finished doing it with Audrey's part, now it's my turn! Pablo has a shiver sent down his spine when he and his teammates start reading his own part for freeing up space after the consistency and coherence phase is over. Of particular interest to them are paragraphs where the final line is not very long and there's a potential to save a line.

"Look, Pablo, is it directly quoted?" Audrey asks him, pointing to a specific point she deems savings are achievable.

"Yes" Pablo answers her friend.

"Can you cut down part of a quote by putting an ellipsis within brackets? If you're quoting two or more propositions directly, but comes from the same original source..."

Bulbs light up in the other 3 students, and they start double-checking their quotations if they come across this situation. And they are going through another round of desperate attempts at saving lines, believing that every line counts. Outside of bibliography and appendices, but even then, appendices are also subjected to the same treatment. Especially tantalizing to them is when an opportunity to save a page with only one line on it presents itself in the appendices.

"I think we might have covered a little too much ground. Think of what you feel is important to understand your part, and then we can resume this!" Tyler begs his teammates.

Even with the ellipses within brackets, even with choices of words, they realize after spending over an hour squabbling over edits to the project, however, they can only trim so much fat without losing its substance.

"We spent so long cutting the fat off our paper, now we need actually write the introduction and conclusion!" Pablo sermons his teammates.

"Yeah, there comes a point where we did everything we could to save lines, it's clear now what we will be using them for!" an exasperated Natalie retorts, while she has one last issue to raise that could result in space savings. She then turns to Pablo. "Wouldn't Type II diabetes also be a risk factor for eating disorders? If so, can you leave out Type I?"

"The source I used is a research paper that specifically studied eating disorders in patients with Type I diabetes, so no, I can't leave out Type I" Pablo answers her, and then sighs, showing signs that he's weary of editing.

Compared to trimming the project's main body and appendices down to size, writing the introduction and conclusion is a cinch. Once that is done, they use their favorite AI proofreading tool to, well, proofread before they can actually call it a day on this project.

"Before we submit this work, I would like all of us to proceed with one final review. I'm doing all of us a favor by pushing you to get the work done this early in the cycle, but you may not have realized it yet" Pablo makes one last request of his teammates.

"What do you mean, you're doing us a favor?" Tyler asks him, failing to see what favor is made by doing the work early. "I would have expected you to have done more in the following weeks than in the beginning, Pablo!"

"Yeah, Tyler, this is not doing you much of a favor, since FFA and band are year-round commitments, unlike football or basketball!" Natalie starts to vent her frustration at the project's pace, which she now feels is way too fast for her. "Or theater and the student newspaper for me!"

For group projects of this size, it's normal for those who put in the work to feel emotional attachment about it. Sometimes you do stuff in the heat of sessions like these that you might regret later, and I certainly did so in the past, Natalie ruminates, while Audrey feels the urge to answer her junior teammates.

"You think of us both as having only seasonal commitments? Pablo is on the quiz bowl team now! I am a quiz bowler, but it's true that football is more seasonal than what we all do!" Audrey responds to Natalie, feeling her blood boiling.

"On top of that, since I am new to quiz bowl, I need to get more familiar with the game!"

The other two gasp, upon hearing that Pablo is playing quiz bowl. "If there's anyone on the football team who can play quiz bowl, it's you!" Tyler shouts in Pablo's direction.

On-field intellect isn't wholly derived from off-field intellect, but the coach made the smartest kids on the team play QB or TE if they wanted to play on the offense, LB or SS on defense, depending on their physical qualities. Nevertheless, me playing quiz bowl will surprise a few people at school, Pablo starts to think about who else on the football team could have played quiz bowl.

"To be fair, there are forty-five players on the football team. And I am not alone on the football team in taking AP courses or otherwise do well in class! Maybe you interacted with other players who would have been poor fits for quiz bowl, though" Pablo adds to this.

"Who else on the football team do you think could have played quiz bowl?" Tyler asks him in anger.

Pablo then lists three more players, a QB, a LB and a SS, while Audrey seems to be doing the final review on her own.

"Guys, please, stop!" Audrey pleads with her teammates. "We just need one last review to double-check our project!"

"All right, but promise me that we won't have another meeting regarding this project!" Tyler begs Audrey for her to put an end to the group project.

Whereas they spent over an hour earlier to fix issues with the content, and squeezing sufficient space to get a proper introduction and conclusion, here double-checking would only net them a few minor fixes. Which, out of fatigue, they all seem to readily accept.

"You seem to squeeze us like lemons! This is one of my most unpleasant experiences of group projects in my life!" Natalie screams, while she hastily picks up her supplies to leave Pablo's home.

"You can count yourself lucky because everyone has been pulling their weight here!" Audrey surmises that Natalie was used to cover for her teammates in the past.

Once Tyler leaves Pablo's home shortly thereafter, but takes more care in packing up his supplies than Natalie did, the two are on their own, opening their bags of candy.

"Now that's what I call a Lagniappe!" Audrey looks at the candy in her bag, starting with the licorice strand.

"I guess, it's my turn to brew coffee! You did it last time, I will do it today!"

And then Pablo brews four cups of coffee, while remaining mindful of how his parents like their coffee: black. Which means that they will be the ones putting in milk and sugar in theirs. Once the coffee is ready, he lets Audrey pour the milk and sugar as she feels like it.

"It's nice to drink coffee and eat candy when your mind feels a little beat up!" Audrey quips while she pours the milk and sugar in her coffee cup. And is about to finish the licorice. "Thank you for caring about me!"

"You're welcome"

Once Audrey has poured hers, Pablo starts putting in milk and sugar into his own coffee. His coffee is still a little strong, however, and Audrey starts noticing it in the smell. Perhaps it's the strength of the coffee, or just the two of them being brought together as they submit the group's project, but they feel like said project could set in motion a change in their friendship.

"I might have known you for years, and somehow... it feels different from how we lived our friendship in the past. However, it's a little early for us to think about whether it can actually become more than a friendship" Pablo confides in her.

"You're right, it's premature. But, at the same time, you understand why I felt in such a hurry to get the project done, why, in Natalie's words, I squeezed the team like lemons tonight"

"Yes, your season opener is this week"

"Because of my basketball season, here, I'll link you to our season's calendar" Audrey then texts him a link to the VAs' final girls' basketball schedule for the season, complete with score sheets and team stats.

She then follows that up with texting him the link to VA's page on NAQT's system, where he can follow all the VAs' quiz bowl stats, including his own progression as a quiz bowler across tournaments whenever NAQT creates his page. And Audrey's as well, since she previously took part in tournaments.

He then proceeds to bookmark all 3 web pages on his cellphone. In the past, we never really cared about the performances of each other, we kind of knew where each other stood academically and in sports but not in detail. So I wonder what pushes her to give me her stat pages, Pablo also proceeds to give her the link to his football stat page. And he writes the title page, the table of contents and submits the group project in the team's name.

"It's a little late to give me access to your football stat page, but thank you" Audrey then packs up her supplies to return to her home. "See you tomorrow!"

"You too!"