“We made it to the Super Seven, and we resume play after dinner. Get back here at seven PM!” Flo instructs the players about their dinner.

  After the game ends, an elated Olivia texts Ned, who stayed home, studying Geometry.

  Olivia: I scored the winning tossup against TJHSST A against their opposing cheerleader, and VA advances to the Super 7

  Ned: I knew you were going to play well *kisses*

  They then go out and eat dinner early, especially since playing nail-biting playoff games made them hungry, and they still have at least two games to go.

  After eating Mongolian beef braised short ribs with Jim and Joaquin, they return to the hotel and Imélie meets with the team before the Super 7 bracket’s games begin.

  “By going into the Super Seven bracket undefeated in the playoffs, you’re not simply going further than any other VA team ever did. You have a very real chance to win it all!” Imélie comments.

  “I admit, there were a couple of close calls, but in the Super Seven, we won’t have any margin of error…” Cindy adds.

  All these years since we burst onto the national quiz bowling stage, VA’s quiz bowl history is marked by yearly disappointments. And I was the best player on what was possibly the best VA team not to win it all… Imélie starts getting flashbacks of her high school days, playing for VA before it formally changed its name to that.

  When Flo returns to the Marquis level by the appointed time, she checks the Super 7 bracket matchups.

  Meanwhile, Hathaway and Lacassine’s coaches go to the lobby to claim their buzzers, but since VA is in the Super 7, they can’t go claim their buzzer just yet.

  “We won the one card in the previous game, and it turns out we have a bye for this round”

  “What does that imply for us going forward?” Olivia asks her coach.

  “If we win the next game, then the other finalist must win two games to win the title. If we lose, finalists only need to win one more game to win it all, and we will play the winner between the team that beat us and the other semifinal winner”

  “So no matter what happens, we finish either first or second”

  Once again, thirty minutes later, the VAs step into the Marquis Ballroom and they play their semifinal game, with seemingly everyone back in Jennings watching the game on NAQT’s livestream. History in the making to them. But this time around, the ballroom is full: a lot of defeated teams, and a few of the hotel guests.

  “This is round twenty-nine, the semi-final of the 2041 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament. This game pits the one card against the four card. From Louisiana we have Venomous Agendas, from Virginia, we have Maggie Walker A”

  As tension ratchets up in the room with each passing tossup, Olivia seems not to be as willing to buzz in as she might have previously been. However, this question is about to push her to answer:

  “Tossup eight: This sports medicine concept’s name was originally coined in the context of power grids”

  The clue seems to make people wary of buzzing in because, in their minds, power grids seemed to be far away from sports medicine. When the second clue rolls around:

  “This concept’s core principles include specificity, individuality and reversibility”

  Annette’s training plans for each of us during cheer’s off-season were tailored to all of our needs. I guess, the same holds true for Ned as either a baseball or football player, Olivia calls upon her experience as a cheerleader to buzz in. Time to buzz in!

  “Load management!” Olivia presses the buzzer like a syringe.

  “Fifteen. For ten points each...”

  With the lead being exchanged often, and buzzer races aplenty, the game gets exciting, for everyone in the room and watching it on NAQT’s livestream. So much so that VA is in the lead by 30 points, with one tossup to go.

  “Tossup twenty-four: This novel’s titular character leaves St. Petersburg with her lover due to her inability to fit in among its upper society”

  The players are too unsure of the answer to even hazard a guess worth buzzing in for, be it Joaquin, Olivia, or even their counterparts at Maggie Walker.

  “It has its titular character’s husband ask for divorce, but fails due to insufficient evidence”

  This time around, it’s not Olivia who gets mired in a game-deciding buzzer race, but Joaquin, and against Maggie Walker’s lit player. Come on, Joaquin… Olivia starts shaking but doesn’t buzz in.

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  Alas, that wasn’t to be. Turns out that the opposing lit player beat Joaquin to the tossup by a mere split-second.

  “Anna Karenina!” Maggie Walker’s lit player exclaims.

  “Fifteen. For ten points each, answer these questions about carbonyls. The active ingredient of creams for dry heels contain this type of carbonyl”

  To this bonus part, the Green Dragons (i.e. Maggie Walker’s players) draw a blank since, apparently, they never used a cream for dry heels. Or didn’t pay attention to its ingredients if they did.

  “Urea. The carbon atom in a carbonyl will have a partial positive charge because of this phenomenon”

  What could cause a molecule to have a partial charge? Maggie Walker’s science player ponders, while the VAs pray they get it wrong.

  “Resonance!”

  “Resonance is possible in carbonyls because of this characteristic”

  Once again, VA fans and players renew their prayers because their lead is now down to five points. All players are on the edge of their seats for five seconds, but the few Green Dragon fans in the room are on the edge of their seats nonetheless. Once the five seconds of agony end:

  “Answer?” the moderator asks.

  “Double bond!” the Green Dragon answers.

  “Twenty on the bonus, and that’s the game. Score?”

  “Maggie Walker three hundred seventy, VA three hundred sixty-five”

  Shoot! There’s nothing I could have done differently to win this game! I just didn’t come across that book in the Red Army sets I used to study for this tournament, despite their Russian origins! That’s not like the Moscow #263 A game yesterday, Olivia seems to dwell on the Pyrrhic loss VA just endured.

  By then they watch the petit-final pitting Maggie Walker against Boston Latin, who, like VA, never got to a top-3 finish before. VA fans in the crowd all seem to root for BLS, even though BLS was, under any other circumstances, a bitter rival. But, with one tossup to go, Maggie Walker leads by only 10 points.

  “Tossup twenty-four: The prevalence of Jews among this category of musicians in early twentieth century Eastern Europe can be...”

  Maggie Walker’s arts and literature player buzzes in. “Virtuosos!”

  “Neg five”

  The moderator keeps reading the question. However, since BLS couldn’t buzz in on the first two clues, they have to wait until the For ten points cue, as is customary when not able to power a question an opponent gets wrong.

  “For ten points, name the category of musicians whose most famous representatives include Menuhin, Mozart and Paganini”

  “Prodigy!” an enthusiastic BLS’ arts and literature player shouts.

  “Ten. For ten points each…” the siren for the end of the game rings.

  “We’ll skip the entire bonus”

  “And that’s the game. Maggie Walker three hundred, Boston Latin three hundred five”

  In the end, BLS wins, and they brace themselves for one last, winner-takes-all clash of the quiz bowling titans. After the VAs get seated:

  “Welcome to the grand final of the 2041 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament. This year’s finalists are teams who never made it to the semifinals before, much less win the title! So this year, a new champion will be crowned. From Louisiana, we have Venomous Agendas, from Massachusetts, we have Boston Latin. Best of luck to both teams...”

  In front of a full ballroom, the VAs face off against the Wolfpack. The tension increases with every new tossup-bonus cycle, and both teams fight tooth-and-nail.

  But by halftime, and 12 questions in, VA is trailing. Which becomes the wakeup call for the few moments they have to regroup.

  “We’re in win-now mode. For some of us, it’s going to be the highlight of our high school years. But, since we’re trailing, we must play the game of our lives to win it all tonight!” Cindy harangues a hackneyed speech to the others.

  “For decades now, VA always fell short on the national quiz bowling stage, starting with my unfortunate neg back in 2024 denying us a top-twenty finish in our HSNCT debut…” Flo tells her players. “But we mustn’t panic! We’re only trailing by about twenty points or so”

  Even back then, people treated the team name Venomous Agendas as if it uniquely identified the school, Flo muses as the players return to their seats, and the game resumes.

  “Tossup thirteen: In a mathematical space named after these objects, its basis contains as many of these objects as its dimension”

  To this clue, somehow, not even Cindy would even dare buzz in, so presumably, as a mathlete, she never really dealt with that aspect, despite making it to the VMC final.

  “The mixed product of three of these objects, in three dimensions, is the determinant of a matrix whose rows…” the moderator is about to be interrupted.

  By then, Cindy and Olivia are inexplicably locked into a buzzer race. I didn’t buzz in on tossups during the first half of the game, I MUST buzz in at some point of the second half, or else we’re toast! Even if it meant becoming the smartest cheerleader in the world for the next 9 minutes! Olivia starts getting cold sweats, which make her desperately want to buzz in.

  After slamming the buzzer, and hence beating Cindy to the tossup, Olivia spends two and a half seconds combing through her memories of past quiz bowl packets she read.

  “Vectors?” Olivia seems to lack confidence.

  “Fifteen. For ten points each…”

  Thus far, I seemed to mostly amount to Anna or Nadine 2.0, in that I seemed to buzz in primarily in arts and literature. Yet, somehow, I powered a science tossup? Against a VMC finalist of all people? A bewildered Olivia struggles to contain her emotions of having powered her first question in this game.

  Through this bonus, VA regains the lead, which must be fiercely defended. However, as much as they would love to try, somehow, with one tossup to go, VA is trailing by a whopping 40 points.

  “Tossup twenty-four: This legislation eliminated the Office of Thrift Supervision”

  BLS’ history player, hoping to seal the deal right there, buzzes in. “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”

  “Neg five. This law’s Volcker Rule limited banks’ ability to make...” the moderator is about to be interrupted.

  Time to buzz in! Olivia muses while she tries to formulate an answer.

  “Dodd-Frank Act!” Olivia exclaims.

  “Fifteen. For ten points each, answer these questions about poetic forms. As a poet, Shakespeare is best known for writing in this form”

  Ouch! Did I just cause the Wolfpack to lose the HSNCT? BLS’ history player starts showing signs of panic as VA gets the bonus Olivia won them.

  “Sonnet” Joaquin answers.

  “Adelaide Crapsey, a female pioneer of this form, included twenty-eight of these poems in her collection Verse”

  To this, all VAs are scrambling for an answer, knowing that any hope of victory in regulation hinges on it. But Crapsey isn’t a poet about whom they know anything. Five seconds later:

  “Cinquain. This Japanese three-line form is written using seventeen syllables”

  This is it: our only shot at keep us in the game! Cindy ruminates as she buzzes in, and everyone in the room shakes in their seats, awaiting the answer.

  “Haiku!”

  “Twenty on the bonus, and that’s the game. Score?” the moderator asks the scorekeeper.