By late March, while the Majors attend quiz bowl-State, which is the first quiz bowl tournament the VAs ever hosted, their lackluster performance all season made it so that the student body didn't know anything about it all year. No finish higher than fifth (and that's the state championship), and, given the size of the fields, no HSNCT berth.
And, even though the Majors' fanbase had every reason to be hopeful for their own speech and debate team going into NSDA-State, when the Majors return from that tournament, on Monday morning... winning 2 NSDA Nationals berths is too big to pass up. The principal even let the two deliver the morning announcement.
"Good morning, everyone. For the first time in many years, our school won a state championship in speech and debate. I, Anna Tessier, qualified for the NSDA Nationals in Lincoln-Douglas debate!"
"In our hearts, Anna is our LD champion. As for me, Oscar Mayer, your faithful class clown for all four years, I will be at Nationals in humorous interpretation"
"Thank you, Anna and Oscar"
Is this a cruel joke? There is a national championship for class clowns like Oscar? I knew he was funny but competing nationally for who can crack the funnier jokes? a puzzled Marjorine wonders, trying to digest the morning announcement upon Anna returning from the principal's office, but everyone else on campus bursting in laughter.
But, when the school day ends, Marjorine's path crosses Anna's, the former pretending to go to the bus parking, the latter going to her debate practice. Anna is quickly cornered, with her back against the wall, and the bulky Marjorine staring at her.
"Anna, you think you're a hot commodity now because you qualified for the national Lincoln-Douglas championship, but you're just, at the core, a nerd like another. Get lost!" Marjorine's tells Anna in an obnoxious tone.
"You already got suspended because of bullying earlier this year. You lost the first trombone chair on the band because of it, and you take the loss of your musical position out on me! Plus how do you picture a nerd anyway?" Anna asks Marjorine as if Marjorine was her opponent in a LD round at Nats.
To the question of how Marjorine pictures a nerd, she draws a blank. However, Anna soon realizes something is amiss.
"First, I got reinstated on band on January first, because I tallied no violations for the second quarter"
"Why is it that you pick on me more often when I achieve some success in debate tournaments?" Anna keeps asking Marjo.
"What do you mean?"
"Until today, all morning announcements subsequent to Duke with speech and debate tournament results only talked about humorous interp and you mostly left me alone then! Not even quarterfinals at Stanford made you come out of the woodwork"
"The reason why you say mostly is because I called you a nerd several times but no more than that"
"You called me a nerd and made it sound like it's a bad thing, but now my question is about what makes me a nerd to you?" Anna keeps asking Marjorine. "Or maybe just possessing a certain intellectual level is enough for you?"
Good Lord! Marjorine kept evading my questions and, on top of that, she's back on band. I can feel it in her eyes that I make her feel inferior, but she doesn't want to admit it in front of me. Like, OK, she isn't the smartest kid in the world, but still strong enough to be in the honors track in social studies and, from the looks of it, she performs just fine. Not the best but decent, and not simply because she always sits next to me in tests, Anna muses, while Marjo leaves the premises to take her bus.
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In the weeks to follow, right into the leadup to May 1, however, she realizes the Majors harbor different attitudes towards college and people take longer to make up their minds. Whereas the VAs usually knew by April 2 where they would go, not so much for those Majors who are college-bound. And people keep calling Anna nerd, making it more tiresome for her to try to answer for the name-calling than before she qualified for Nats and the S&D coach started begging money from church as well as the school board.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
On May 1, however, Decision Day arrives, and the principal has all seniors gathered in the auditorium during lunchtime, so they can announce their post-graduation plans, in alphabetical order of last names. A good chunk of them end up going directly into the workforce, but most of the college-bound kids will attend in-state schools. Even the other senior quiz bowlers or mathletes (2 kids total, of which 1 does both), they will both attend Louisiana State (LSU). When Oscar's turn arrives...
"I'm Oscar Mayer. I'll take a gap year, I think I am too immature to go to college at this time" Oscar announces to the crowd, which then bursts in laughter.
He claims he is too immature for college at this time, but he probably wants to capitalize on a strong performance at Nats so that he can have more options for college. He probably dreams of Hollywood... Anna reflects on why he could even want to take a gap year. A few minutes later...
"I'm Marjorine Reisen, and I'm going to LSU this fall"
Too bad she ate suspensions this year; she didn't bully at the same intensity in past years, the principal muses upon realizing that bullying senior year has hurt Marjo's future.
I kept quiet about the University of Chicago for months, I fully expect them to roll their eyes, or to treat this place as a college like another, when I know otherwise, so let's roll! Anna muses while going on stage.
"I'm Anna Tessier, and I'm going to the University of Chicago next fall"
The student body assumed UChicago gave her a full-ride, or at least as close to one as the family's financial situation allowed them to so that Anna could actually attend.
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But then Oscar and Anna would be spending the two weeks after finals to prepare as extensively as possible for Nats. And hopefully, in Oscar's case, leverage a strong performance at Nats, and all these results in inter-state tournaments as well as the HI state title into college. Anna plans on cutting and exchanging as many cards as she can, and even playing practice rounds with a variety of opponents, on both sides of the issue.
What few Majors fans actually following its S&D team predict, going into Nats, was that both players would break, based on how they performed at inter-state tournaments. Yet, they fail to realize that Nats is about traditional LD while Stanford is a progressive tournament. But before they set off to train for Nats, at the conclusion of the final exams:
"What do you mean, you're too immature to go to college?" Anna asks Oscar. "You might be at Nats, you know as well as I do what kind of dedication it takes just to compete there! On top of that there are multiple ways you could be immature in a way that can hurt you in college"
"You know by now how all-consuming high school got. For you, for me and for other people. While we all learned some things, I feel like I am not intellectually mature, while you obviously are to my eyes"
"I paid a pretty heavy implicit price for what you call my intellectual gifts, Oscar. People were asking me left and right for answers, or at least those kids who actually cared, but they were in the minority. Even Marjorine at times. Or you"
"What got me through high school, in class, was that I could obtain help from whoever I wanted provided I could crack jokes in return, and sometimes I got spoon-fed answers. In group projects I did mostly introductions and conclusions. Also, people thought I was going to go to college for theater"
"I get it, Oscar, your intellectual development is a little stunted. I'll make you undergo some LD drills in exchange of which I'll listen in on you rehearse some. Sounds good?"
The drills Anna makes him undergo, after she cuts the main cards, and then writes her opening statements, are first based on cross-examination of specific arguments, on both sides of the argument. At first he struggles, but for each 10 minutes of cross-ex drills she does with him, she watches him go through the entire piece.
But she realizes she also needs to play some practice rounds, both with him and against other opponents. She then leaves Oscar alone for a bit while she edits the opening statements prior to practice games.
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At the conclusion of the Nationals, while Anna didn't particularly care about the result, the two weeks of intense practicing bore their fruit, finishing in the top-20, and Oscar also finished the tournament in the top-20.
Yet Allen Parish didn't make much of a deal of this, unlike their Southern neighbors when Chantal won it all in international extemp for a second time in a row. When the time comes for Anna to part ways with Oscar upon returning from the tournament...
"I've never been this close to someone outside my family in my life, Oscar. As a VA, while there were some nice kids, as well as kids I could mesh well on so many different levels, I just couldn't form the same kind of bonds as I did with you this season. Not to take anything away from my time in quiz bowl or anything, it's obvious to me you cared about me when things went rough, and not just about Marjorine. But the time has come to say farewell" Anna tells Oscar as she starts crying on the floor.
"It's not about the rounds, it's not about the tournaments. I am not worried about you, Anna. You made me realize that whatever intellectual maturity I need to get, I must get it by myself. Humor is good on some level, but I have some ways to go. So farewell" Oscar tells him, while crying later.