December 2027. While, of course, Chantal keeps winning extemp in debate tournaments, the new POI player proves unremarkable, and Daisy, as well as Gaston, both seem to be having a relatively strong season, but falling short of ToC bids.
As for quiz bowl, Kinder scores its first victory on the buzzer against the VAs at the LQBA Fall Invitational South in a nail-biting game lost by the VAs when Myriam negged on the last tossup. However, neither one would go on to win a HSNCT berth as of yet.
Of course, with Faith captaining the math team, but Myriam and a handful of other fresh recruits not quite measuring up to Faith and Valerie, the team finds itself unable to replicate its success of last spring, and gets eliminated in the third round of the Math Madness playoffs. However, Myriam is still able to get to the AIME, just without USAMO expectations.
After the AIME qualifiers are released, Valerie meets with Chantal and Daisy on the night of December 15, at her own home, feeling that it's best to get the 3 kids for whom early admission is a gamble together to find out if said gamble has paid off.
"Time to roll! Chantal, you go first" Valerie signals her teammate on the math team to check on her REA application to Princeton.
Chantal is as nervous as nervous can be, she starts to hyperventilate and then pray as she accesses the Princeton application system. The other 2 remain by their side and on the edge of their seats. And, of course, Glen is filming the entire scene from the moment the 3 girls are in position.
Because so many try to access their decision letter by that point, the system is a little slow so once Chantal finally reads it...
"Dear Chantal..."
"Keep going, please..." Daisy asks a paralyzed Chantal, while she opens her own Dartmouth application. "We regret to inform you..."
"Daisy, you know what's left for you to do" Valerie pleads with a devastated Daisy.
"Against the coach's advice, you went ahead and decided to apply ED to Dartmouth anyway! There was no way you could have gotten in without at least having played at Nats, even with the grades you got!" Chantal scolds her debate teammate, before resuming her reading of the Princeton decision letter. "Congratulations! I am delighted to offer you admission to Princeton's class of 2032" Chantal then jumps for joy, but Valerie starts to hyperventilate herself, knowing her turn has arrived to check on Caltech.
From what knew about Daisy when I still was VA's principal, Daisy was less intense than even Flo, even though Flo wasn't the most intellectually intense girl in the world. The same Flo who underperformed twice at district qualifiers. Now, Chantal is better rounded than Valerie is and, in international relations, well-roundedness is an asset. Yet I can't help but feel like I let my daughter gamble her future away. As much as I would love to believe that Caltech is a good fit for her... I hope she doesn't develop an addiction to gambling, Glen then watches a visibly shaking Valerie check on her Caltech application decision.
If I don't make it, will I be condemned into attending LSU? Might be affordable, yes, but... are the lost opportunities worth the savings of going to LSU? Valerie ruminates while struggling to keep her cool. I don't want to waste my two MOP participations, but I don't feel like I am in the hot seat in mathletics anymore; Faith is the one the parish adulates now. Dad doesn't pressure me about my college choices, he trusts me enough to make the choice by myself. "It is my absolute honor to offer you admission"
"Woohoo! Valerie made it to Caltech! That's my daughter! That's a nice consolation prize for failing to make it to the IMO" Glen shouts for joy.
Meanwhile, Chantal notifies her parents, asking them to prepare to pay the deposit at Princeton, leaving Daisy alone with Valerie while Glen shuts off the webcam and starts editing the resulting clip.
"My dad told regularly about how where you go to college won't define who you will be. And Anna would have as well" Valerie then tells a Daisy who might be a little disappointed by her rejection from Dartmouth.
"I guess, I could be applying to other colleges where my extracurricular record might be enough. Like Trinity, Connecticut College, or William and Mary, and contact their respective debate coaches. That said, try to guess who I played against at Isidore Newman" Daisy tries to lighten up.
"Did you play against DCC again?"
"Anna"
"Anna? The Anna we both knew for years?" a surprised Valerie screams across the room. "I would never have imagined her to be a confrontational type, and to just stick to quiz bowl!"
"Yes, that Anna. I might have won against her, but she's still pretty good for a novice"
As he hears his daughter from the next room over, Glen then gasps in horror as the harsh reality sinks in. Does Kinder not offer violin on band? Is Kinder so brains-starved in humanities and social studies that its debate team would have asked the quiz bowl team for reinforcements? And in LD of all formats? The way this is going, Anna is making me feel like she's now Allen Parish's resident genius, Glen has questions popping in his mind.
But these questions regarding Anna, who was the highest-profile transfer-out student for 2027 to his eyes, didn't daunt him when he is editing the clip so that he can post it to YouTube and have it posted on the district's website.
"Look at this video: the best two girls in the parish's class of 2028, both getting into their first choice! And Daisy who could basically have been a valedictorian anywhere else in the parish" Glen then has Selena watch these rushes.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Glen cut out Chantal scolding Daisy about having applied to Ivies with what Chantal felt was a weak extracurricular record (in the context of Ivies anyway); he didn't feel like it would be worth showing to the world in the same clip as the results themselves.
At the same time, he is about to hand over the scolding clip to Daisy.
"Before I hand over the clip to you, promise me that you won't publish the clip in any shape or form" Glen then pleads with Daisy.
"Sure, it's embarrassing and it's a painful reminder to me" Daisy acknowledges the facts.
"As far as gambling is concerned, college applications are like betting at horse races"
Daisy then thinks of where else she could apply that would provide a similar experience to Dartmouth and wouldn't write her off based upon her inability to qualify for Nats or the ToC, believing that Ivies and equivalent colleges of any size will. Unless I win either at NSDA-State or Last Chance... in which case I may as well take a gap year! A 3.9+/1500 would not be held back by numbers.
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The following day, Glen then makes the trip to Lacassine to meet with its principal to follow up with the use of the advertising revenue from the signage and the math team.
"Oh, Mr. Superintendent, I didn't expect you to come here today!" Camden gasps when Glen arrives. "Last I met you, it was at a horse race and I think the time has come to partner up and gain ownership of a racehorse"
"Don't tell me that you plan on using the advertising revenue from your LED sign to pay for it!" Glen warns Camden and is about to yell at Lacassine's principal.
"Now that our LED sign paid for itself, and then some, maybe we should use the money for the benefit of the kids. Such as a racehorse for the school's FFA club to maintain"
"Don't go around thinking that, if you pay for the racehorse out of the advertising revenue, and then charge the costs of ownership against the FFA club's budget, it will make for an allowable use of school money! If you want to own a racehorse, in whole or in part, you will have to do so out of your personal funds!"
At horse races, I only wagered, like, $5-10 at a time, maybe $20 if I was especially confident in my wager. On average, I spent about $75-100 per day at the races... Glen, triggered by the race horse comments, reflects on his past dealings with that principal at the hippodrome. Camden is on a short leash and not the least because of the sheer absurdity of this plan of his! He might have gambling problems but I can't tell him yet.
"And you're no better, sir: you used VA's kids, and especially girls, as if they were racehorses! You acted like a racehorse owner towards them, you attempted to squeeze every last drop from their intellect! You only need to look at the various... races to the IMO the Venomous Agendas were entered!" he tries to get back at Glen.
"Do you have any idea of how expensive it is to own a racehorse? Also, don't go around thinking that racehorse owners are exploitative towards their horses, as you seem to be implying! I have a better idea for using the advertising revenue: buying additional books for the math team!"
While Camden calls upon its math team coach, he pulls out a tentative budget assuming the racehorse wouldn't earn any prize money for the year.
"Thirty grand per year on a racehorse? Are you serious? Sometimes I feel like you sound more like an intrapreneur than a principal; you're on the verge of embezzling school funds for gambling!" Glen tells him.
"Racehorse ownership is a long-term kind of gambling, like investing in a fad"
"So while it might differ from racetrack betting, you admit it is gambling"
"What is the meaning of this?" Lacassine's mathletics coach asks the two men upon arriving at the principal's office. "You seem to be fighting over horse racing?"
"We were waiting for you" Glen answers the mathletics coach. "It's about how to spend the money from the LED signage; because the parish is paying for mathletics out of MSPGO money, we want to see everyone succeed. And I heard Lacassine got a mathlete to the AIME for the first time"
"Of course, Derrick won't be, like, Faith, Valerie or even Salome, they are some of the most spectacular mathletes in recent memory. But we need to get some training materials for it" the math team's coach then retorts.
"I may as well order other training materials for middle school mathletics as well, and supply everything for the whole parish, again out of MSPGO money" Glen then realizes the rest of the parish is missing training materials in mathletics.
"In a way, being a principal is much like being a racehorse owner" Lacassine's principal then retorts to the other two.
Lacassine's principal makes me suspicious of financial mismanagement. I'll launch an inquiry and, if serious evidence of such is found, then we'll have just cause to fire the principal. But right now, we don't have enough evidence to do so, Glen's level of discomfort with Lacassine's principal makes him wary of that school going forward. Just planning on making an inappropriate purchase that the school board won't notice anything about, even if the racehorse was open to competitive bidding, is not enough to warrant disciplinary action against a principal.
"How so? I never knew you were a racehorse owner!" an intrigued math coach asks him as to how principalship could be anything like racehorse ownership.
"You know your time with the kids is limited, just as with a racehorse, and school staff are to a principal what the farrier, trainer and vet are to a racehorse owner. Plus, you spend money in an attempt to get the best out of the kids. But in the world of horse racing, often racehorses are owned not by a single person, but by partnerships" Lacassine's principal explains to his math coach. "However, I already privately own a ten percent share in a racehorse"
The math coach then receives a list of books VA's math team is using, both at a middle school and a high school level, in his email account.
At the same time, Glen checks against the dollar amount value of the basket at Art of Problem Solving to ensure that he can actually go ahead and procure the parish a copy of every book on this list for every school as appropriate for the recipients' enrollment profiles without having to undergo competitive bidding. He does so, knowing that he can always charge it under instructional materials for MSPGO funding purposes.
"That ought to be enough for the AIME as well as hoping we can move up a division for the Spring Math Madness playoffs!" the math team coach exclaims upon seeing the list.
"And practices ought to be increased, if you want the Cardinals (Lacassine's teams, athletic or academic, go by Cardinals) to achieve both!" Glen then warns the math team coach as the orders are placed for mathletics training materials, to the tune of one order per school.
Lacassine goes first in the superintendent's list of purchase orders because what unfolded in front of his eyes, as well as his past dealings with Camden at the hippodrome, suggests that Camden couldn't be trusted to buy the training materials for the AIME.
However, since the secretary, who is also in charge of the school's business transactions, has already left, Glen cannot question her just yet. He then wastes no time relaying his suspicions of embezzlement to the parish's central office and requests the comptroller to start shopping for a forensic audit of Lacassine's finances, citing concerns over gambling fraud. Glen then gets out of the office with that school's math coach.
"Do you have any signs of suspicious behavior to report regarding your principal?" Glen then asks the math coach.
"I'll transfer these signs to you in writing" the math coach then proceeds to write down his testimony about Camden's mismanagement. "But I want to tell you how happy I am to finally be given the resources necessary to get Derrick, the current captain and a senior, and, later down the road, Blythe, to perform their best in the mathletic arena"