Four days later, the parish radio announces a news that only throws oil on the Venomous Agendas' fire, who, even though they should logically down Georgetown Prep, they aren't immune to a bad surprise. During breakfast at Geneviève's home:
"The other Louisiana team in division I, the neighboring parish was eliminated last night by the Whitman Vikings, thirty-nine to thirty; now our Venomous Agendas are the last ones standing for the state in division I! For the entire duration of the competition, the parish radio will cover every game of the Venomous Agendas live on air" the radio announces on air.
"I cannot say I am surprised, but now, we carry not only the hopes of the team, but of the state on the national mathletic stage!" Geneviève comments in front of her parents. "It might surprise you, but sometimes I would have wished to wear the colors not of the Venomous Agendas but of another institution that might be able to win it all, just not with as much public pressure!"
"Monday you were talking about buying promotional merchandise and now you wish to be wearing the colors of another institution? There's something wrong! You put way too much pressure on yourself!" Gen's mom then asks her daughter.
"I am the captain of the team, and last year as well! I am the one who must perform, in what I do best. The rest of the team must perform as well. I must show the example to the rest of the team!"
In the bus, she can't help herself but to look at how the town placed the posters bought earlier this week, while realizing that, at school, these promotional posters of the math team were everywhere. Especially on the doors of the classrooms where the math courses took place. But once in the physics course, as much as they are seeing the moment of inertia, as well as the energy and kinematics of bodies in rotation, there's something wrong with Gen and Krista. The more I try to focus in class, the less I can do so; I am dizzying. Not that mathematically I am unable to do so, on the contrary, and same goes of Krista, too, but I feel like I will pass out! she thinks before her head lies flat on her desk.
Shortly thereafter, Krista feels headaches that intensify. Both girls start suffering from intense headaches, and the teacher realizes very quickly that there's something wrong with them. For the teacher, in his mind, if there's something happening with his two "bellwether students", the rest of the class will struggle.
"I think a stay in the infirmary will be a good thing for you two. You look like you're very sick. There, your permissions. I will send you the homework later" the physics teacher hands the hall passes to them.
"Thank you..." both girls tell in turn, with their voices that are clearly not their normal voices, as if they caught hay fever, and they can barely walk.
But why do I have such big migraines while it's the first round of the playoffs? In the regular season it didn't hurt that much! I could tell myself that the game itself would be the same as a regular season game... I feel the pressure in a way that's way too intense to be true! But what did I do to get there? So much effort during the past five weeks, we get to the playoffs, the whole parish will follow us on the radio, I should be happy to get recognition as I never got it! But here it seems like my brain can no longer work at the level I am used to, Krista starts thinking, but in so doing, her migraines become even more intense than before. Once arrived at the infirmary, both girls are straight to the point as for their reasons to be there.
"Our physics teacher sent us here because we have too many headaches..."
"You must lie down, you need rest and cold drinks" the nurse asks both girls while they lose their colors. "You put a lot on pressure on yourselves"
They lie down on the infirmary's beds, while trying to get these intense pains to subside, but even though Geneviève already lived this kind of migraines in the past, Krista didn't. Florence, however, approaches them and makes a proposal that seems a little sudden to them...
"Go to the bathroom and take these pills. That should relieve your headaches. We can't afford to lose you for tonight!" Florence hands the painkillers to them.
Even though the taking of these ibuprofen pills, given to the two girls by Florence, seems to help them, it's not instant and they seem to get by with the strict minimum regarding notetaking in the classes to follow.
When the pre-game pep rally comes, they feel better; nevertheless, they remain prudent after wearing their Venomous Agendas jerseys for the game that the parish looks forward to. However, the scene is very different in the room from which the Georgetown Prep Hoyas will play tonight's game.
"Gentlemen, tonight is the first round of the Math Madness playoffs. I have to tell you that, unlike our opponents, the Venomous Agendas, we will not have any support in the form of a crowd of supporters. They would never have been the number one seed in the South without their stadium-sized crowd! We must show them we can win over them without needing a crowd of supporters on our backs! There goes Old Georgetown!" their coach yells at them.
"There goes Old Georgetown!" the mathletes howl in unison.
"But sir, their crowd would be mostly unable to help them with the questions!" a student retorts.
"I don't care what it takes! I don't care what benefits the crowd gives them, if any! Now get into position!" the coach orders them to get seated.
Like the day before the Square Root of the Answer last April, the crowd came but this time, there won't be open air review. Krista takes the mic first, addressing the crowd in a pep rally for the first time in her mathletic career.
"In the coming weeks we will have a full schedule. Tonight, the Math Madness playoffs open, and next week the AMC-twelve. At my old school, we flew under the public's radar, and, unless we qualify for the AIME, it was the end of our mathletic season. But today, I am here as a proud representative of the Venomous Agendas, and we're determined to win on the national mathletic stage at any cost! I am proud to be part of the best mathletic team in Louisiana history, and this tournament will mark the town's mathletic history, the parish and the state!"
"Venomous! Agendas! Venomous! Agendas!" the crowd shouts after Krista's speech.
My last speech last April was very bad and left doubts as to the possibility of our defeat. Further, the beginning sounded more like a graduation speech. Now, here's my chance to make up for it on an oratory level! Geneviève thinks while the eyes are on her, with the C clearly visible on her jersey.
"Good evening, everyone! Last year, at this date, no one could have seen coming the meteoric rise of the Venomous Agendas on the national mathletic stage. No one thought much of us when we began the Square Root of the Answer. Everyone predicted a quick and direct elimination, but we won the grand final! We took the whole country by surprise last April; we shall win again this time around! We have a weapon that no other team in this competition has: support from the local crowd! More than ever, it feels good to be a Venomous Agenda!"
"I may not be the same kind of mathlete as Geneviève or Krista, but, on the road to victory, I will take all the bursts of speed! We largely proved, all three of us, and Éliane during last season, not only to the eyes of the town, but also to the nation's eyes, that girls can have math talent too! All three of us are inspiration sources for female high school mathletes not only from Louisiana, but also the rest of the country, and we shall win with sweat, tears and bursts of speed!" Marcia addresses the crowd.
The desks are placed in a circle at the center of the football field, and they must then be seated during the game itself, while leaving enough space between each participant. At the same time, the crowd gets seated while the audiovisual technicians arrange the scoreboard so that everyone can see the scores as was the case at the auditorium in the regular season. And so, even if we expect the crowd not to understand anything more to the questions than during the regular season. Once installed, with the team's laptops properly connected to the stadium's wi-fi, the game starts in front of a full house having paid $7 for a 30-minutes-long game.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Clearly Georgetown Prep makes, early on, a mistake that Marcia et al will attempt to capitalize on for the first question: Fifteen points are designated on triangle ABC, the vertices, three points on side AB, four points on side BC and five points on side AC. Find the number of triangles with a positive area whose vertices are on the 15 points.
Good Lord! Other than a triangle is determined by its vertices, how will we determine the number of possible triangles? a lot of people in the crowd think, including but not limited to, Randy, Ted or even Florence.
Now that Georgetown Prep is practically out of order for this question, here's our chance to start scoring! At the onset we have combinations of 3 in 15, thus 13 times 14 times 15 divided by 6. Or 455. But one must also ask how many degenerate triangles there are, i.e., straight lines with vanishing area, in these 455 triangles. We then have 455 minus combinations of 3 in 5, 6 and 7, or 455-10-20-35 = 390 triangles, Geneviève thinks before entering her answer into the system.
"The Venomous Agendas just scored the first point of the game!" the home announcer, that people listening to the parish radio listen to as well, shouts under the applause and cries of the crowd, while the parish radio host reads the questions on air as they are asked.
The parish radio also draws prizes to the crowd, even though the prizes are, reserved to listeners that give correct answers to the questions. It goes without saying that the radiophonic prizes give rise to a cacophony of answers, even though, after two minutes of play, the Venomous Agendas lead 4-0. Georgetown Prep had to wait until the second question to score their first point.
"Before he starts painting, Bill had one hundred and thirty ounces of blue paint, one hundred and sixty-four ounces of red paint and one hundred eighty-eight ounces of white paint. He paints four walls of equal size, one wall in blue, one wall in red, one wall in white and one wall in pink, but not necessarily in equal quantities of red and white. Once he has finished, the same amount of each color remains. Find the total quantity of paint remaining" the radio host announces to the parishioners that listen to the game while their favorites solve this at the stadium.
If we have four equal-sized walls, it follows that we use red and white on one wall apiece, plus the sum of the « residues » for the wall in pink. We thus have 34+58 = 92 ounces for the wall in pink, but also 92 ounces for each of the other 3 walls, and there are 38 ounces remaining of each color. 38 times 3= 114, Krista thinks, while Marcia has entered her answer.
"What is this?" Zack, the strong safety, asks, while seeing the questions, while the Venomous Agendas are in the lead 9 to 4 after 5 minutes.
"You were there on Monday and me too alongside Marcia. The coach brought us to the math team practice..." Randy points out to Zack.
"I admit I didn't see any of the regular season games of the team, unlike you two!" The strong safety refers to Randy and Ted. "I would be unable to answer this"
"That's the kind of questions my girlfriend is now answering. You might not be aware..." Ted then says.
"Of what, you're dating a girl on the math team? Of course, we know, Ted!" Zack questions his teammate before the third question arrives.
Even though the crowd is practically unable to answer the questions, at least they acclaim their favorites point after point. After three questions, the Hoyas' state of mind is simply not the same as that of the Venomous Agendas. They're trailing 14-9 without realizing that they are being asked questions at the AIME level during this playoff round... but at the same time the hardest questions on the AMC12 overlap with the first third of the AIME.
"The Venomous Agendas are in the lead! How are we going to win against them now that we bombed the first question? At this rate what will await us is a quick exit!" a Hoyas player is wondering, doubting his team advances.
"There's always the AMC-twelve next week. In that competition we should be able to do well without the pressure of answering questions on the national stage" another player tries to cheer him up.
"Our only hope is that the crowd they vaunt so much is going to suddenly give them incorrect answers!" the coach responds to both students.
Oh, the Hoyas will be frustrated if they rely on the Venomous Agendas crowd as a double-edged weapon, because the points deluge hits them; they try as they may to stay alive. Despite all the headaches of the morning, both stars did not seem to be overly affected during the game itself, especially since everyone has the impression that the game is a lot noisier than what they were used to in regular season. Noisy even in a near-complete absence of attempts at blurting answers; people that still attempted to answer the questions did so in silence. Neither the parish radio nor the scoreboard, much less the home announcer gave the correct answers or the answers of their favorites.
"Venomous! Agendas! Venomous! Agendas!" the crowd chants with the score that leaves no doubt even when their favorites haven't all finished answering the eighth question.
"Ouch: the first question hurt our opponents a lot..." Florence comments even though she was unable to answer it.
Even though the Venomous Agendas are assured of advancing to the second round, while they lead by ten points, the home announcer and the parish radio abstain from declaring such until the end of the game proper. It's a rout at Georgetown Prep...
"We were beaten by... a bunch of girls? I always thought they weren't good at math!" a Hoya, saddened by their defeat, points out when he finally gets the opportunity to see what the Venomous Agendas roster is made of. "Three girls in their top five"
"We... lost? How am I going to go to college now?" another panic attack-prone student asks himself after this defeat. "This loss is not going to help my application!"
"Curse these Venomous Agendas! They are one of the very few teams remaining that have three or more girls in their top-five!" a demoralized student lets out.
"Now you see the advantage it gives an academic team to have more variety on their roster!" the Hoyas coach points out to his team after the loss, thinking that the guys on the team would be more motivated to do better if they had a girl on hand with a similar skill level.
But the atmosphere is totally different at the municipal stadium, where the crowd of 4600 is cheering after their victory in the first round. The whole team hands over the computer equipment borrowed to the school and the desks to the janitor that stores all the equipment used during the game to their usual locations. Geneviève stays with Cory at center field, with the camera centered on them.
"It's the noisiest mathletics contest of my whole life! I have a better idea of what the football team must live in a game situation now" Gen remarks on her experience.
"Give me a kiss... we're together all the time for mathematics, I owe you that... Gen"
"Well-deserved..."
The resulting kiss is made under the shouts of « Venomous! Agendas! » of the crowd after their victory by the score of 38 to 28. The fans seemed to like this kiss made at center field and especially since they seemed to love each other. But still... That they see me as more than simply a mascot filled with mathematical talent, I accept, they must understand that I am entitled to live a romantic life like everyone else! she thinks, while a lot of townsfolk desires autographs from the various players on the team. And not just the trio of girls that seems to be the favorites of the public. Even Cory and Vontae seem to have some fans after this astounding victory, probably more misogynistic than the others.
"It's very... inteeeeeense!" Krista shouts in reaction to her own experience of this mathletic contest played in an open-air stadium. "Now I know I won't live it ever again after this year. It's simply a magical experience. The highlight of my life as a Venomous Agenda"
"But at the same time, you can't get such an experience anywhere else in the country, with pep rallies as rousing for mathletics as for football. Speaking of football, I saw the pandemic ruin myself: no practices with contact, and I was injured in middle school; because of this no football for me as a Venomous Agenda..." Vontae explains to Krista.
"I regret nothing. Not even these big headaches incurred with my teammate; it's just the price to pay to play with Gen. Sometimes we push each other a bit too hard, but there's no doubt that everyone improved with her and I"
"Bravo Krista!" Ted shouts, who must go down the bleachers to see her again after the game. "I had no doubt that you would make it. Gen is entitled to a kiss at center field, you are too!"
"Nice! Two kisses for the price of one!" Zack exclaims, who visibly wasn't at the game for the mathematics.
Strong safety (we distinguish the strong safety who, in general, must deal with the opposing tight end if there's only one, from the free safety, which is the ultimate defense of a team) who must have realized that Krista was a big catch that made him jealous of the fullback. Or even of Randy, who seemed very close to Marcia. I might be wondering what my teammates do to date such girls... they are so brilliant; what's left? He thinks while Marcia is with Randy not at center field, but at goal line.
"You're fantastic but I spend all this time without daring to ask you. Do you want to date me, Marcia?" Randy asks her.
"Randy, I know you're very close to me, and you know that I'm always there for you if you have academic issues, and that I'm even ready to help you cheat on a test if necessary. But I fear not. The coming weeks will be very stressful, and I don't want to add a boyfriend on top of that. Maybe after I made my decision regarding college attendance" Marcia then responds to the cornerback.
Even if the courses themselves are far from the only stress source, what will stress her most is twofold, in fact, it goes of all seniors on the mathletics team. On one hand we have the playoffs, whosegames will now be held at the stadium in open air, and on the other hand theircollege applications if applicable. On that count the three stars of the teamare the most ambitious, but one could be wondering if the other team membersare as stressed out about college as these three players.