The Venomous Agendas are going into the HSNCT off from an even better quiz bowl season than the last. That, even though the A team is the only one going qualified for the HSNCT; the B team was a middling team. By now this new formula according to which the other two academic teams are entitled to one slot each on the quiz bowl team seems to have worked. Imélie took the math team's slot, Sadie took the debate team's slot; both proved our star players on the A team. Clearly Sadie represents our history and RPMSS future for the next two years as I don't expect next year's math team player to be as good as Imélie and therefore our math and science future is equally up in the air, Warren reflects on the Venomous Agendas' quiz bowl season.
"Sadie, how do you feel, now that we won our first state championship?" Imélie asks her after the awards ceremony ends.
"Better than about debating, that's for sure. The coach kept comparing me to... Florence I think? Let's say the debate team is hurt by the successes of the math and quiz bowl teams, because the players we do have mostly tend to treat debate as a team for someone wanting their slice of the extracurricular pie but don't have athletic, musical or mathletic talent" Sadie explains to Imélie.
"I knew Florence, she was very much like you in several respects"
From what I am told, this debate season was no better than the last one, even with me as the captain. I bear the brunt of the public forum team's weight, but more people started getting an interest in the other debate formats, we run more debate events now. We now do policy, Congress, Lincoln-Douglas, and speech. But because we are new to these things as a school, we don't win anything, and, as with last year, PF is king, and presumably for the next two years if I keep doing debates, Sadie reflects on her debate season, which eerily feels like Florence's last debate season in high school.
"You're even better than Flo as a quiz bowl player, but you're also the one lodging all our protests this season. Not that we necessarily lodged a lot of them anyway. Even though I didn't ask this of Florence, I heard her talk about debate and quiz bowl, so what do you like out of each?" Imélie asks Sadie.
"I like different things about debate and quiz bowl, Imélie. From quiz bowl, it's about knowledge. From debate you gain a deeper understanding of current events and history"
If what the head debate coach says is correct, Florence was, as of today, one of the all-time greats of Venomous Agendas debate. However, Venomous Agendas debate really came into being only during the pandemic, and same went of quiz bowl. And the previous principal died during the pandemic, too. The current principal was the one who spurred quiz bowl and debate for interscholastic competitions. And, that one time a scheduling conflict occurred between a quiz bowl tournament and a debate one, I prioritized debate because I trusted Imélie and our fine arts player to pick up the slack in history and RPMSS, Sadie keeps thinking about the evolution of Venomous Agendas academic extracurriculars.
Pre-pandemic, there was only a math team, about 4-5 students on it; now there are about 30 students across all three teams, of which only 2 are on more than one.
"I thought I would never see the day where a team would win a state championship with its top two scorers being girls!" Vance, the moderator for one of the playoff games, comments to both girls. "Now that's what I call progress!"
"We came within one interrupt of doing it last year..." Imélie comments, realizing that it would then have been three girls being the top scorers then, and not just two. The Venomous Agendas' high scorers were Marcia, Florence and Imélie, in that order, at last year's State.
And my personal PP20TUH record was in that one tournament Sadie couldn't attend, the LQBA Winter Invitational South, where I scored a whopping 97-odd PP20TUH, and not just because I answered nearly every science question correctly, but also powered history and RPMSS questions that were normally Sadie's to answer. Normally I am not a tournament top scorer, but I was the high scorer of that tournament because of Sadie attending the Isidore Newman Invitational, which earned me the NAQT Player of the Week Award that week, Imélie reminisces about her past experiences as more than just the team's high scorer, triggered by Vance's comments.
"Oh, I'm sure Imélie and I both played well this season" Sadie adds.
In Sadie's mind, she initially expected coaches at other schools that actually had both debate and quiz bowl to expect a debater to do well in history and RPMSS, with no guarantees outside of these categories, similar to mathletes vis-a-vis math and science, but the two out-of-state people who attended the Isidore Newman Invitational that also did quiz bowl were instead literature/fine arts and M&S players respectively. However, not many schools earmarked quiz bowl spots for other academic teams to designate.
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Going into the HSNCT, however, the Venomous Agendas A team was seemingly ranked ahead of perennial powerhouses such as Detroit Catholic Central (DCC), Ladue and TJHSST; the VAs were, on Groger Ranks, fifth while these three schools were sixth, seventh and eighth respectively. The highest-ranked gender-balanced team. The second highest is the "Second High School attached to Beijing Normal University" or, for NAQT, Beijing #2. The China national high school quiz bowl champions. Upon arrival in Atlanta, they have one last group meeting before they hand in their buzzer to tournament directors:
"As the Louisiana State champions, remember that we all represent the state at this tournament. So please, stay on your best behavior, especially you, Sadie" Warren then turns to Sadie. "Please don't lodge protests without just cause. You had a tendency to lodge protests even when the game was no longer in contention"
"Next year, I will attend Tulane, and play for the Green Wave. So our window of opportunity to win will close as soon as this tournament ends, and William will graduate this year, too" Imélie then turns to Sadie. "One more thing, Sadie: you will be asked a number of things from across the circuit especially if you play well. Such as how do you feel about being a female quiz bowl player, people asking you for dates, your contact information, and so on"
"Tulane? Tulane does quiz bowl?" William asks, surprised that Tulane even have a quiz bowl team. "You will so be the Green Wave's star player from day one! I'm not even sure I'll be playing for Cornell this fall"
"As for how I feel as a girl playing quiz bowl, among the Venomous Agendas I feel good, everyone respects each other. In tournaments I have less of a reason to feel like I am in the crosshairs of our opponents because history and RPMSS aren't framed as a masculine bastion. But I get asked for dates and contact information" Sadie comments on Imélie's remarks.
"You have a point in that our town is a bubble where gender balance means a lot. Sometimes girls are under the spotlight a little too much for intellectual activities, but you know by now that I live the stereotype threat. In mathletics and as a science player in quiz bowl. Yes, it drives me to play better, to do better in class and in competitions. But I would be lying if I said it had no impact on my playstyle. It made me not want to buzz in if I am not certain of my answer, because I feel like I would be made fun of if I eat too many interrupts. But we're not like some other female players that feel a little discomfort about question content, editing or writing" Imélie makes her own comments about girlhood in quiz bowl.
And, if we do well at the HSNCT, it will definitely help me go to any of these five schools everyone at my level here dreams of, plus any actual Ivies if they're a good fit. I was told don't stretch myself too thin, do some community service, and I might have a chance provided I keep up my grades and do well on the ACT next year. Maybe attend a debate camp, Sadie thinks about how the HSNCT fits in her collegiate future, which could include leadership roles in either quiz bowl or debate.
"In a sense I'm lucky that I'm doing debate and not mathletics on top of quiz bowl; I wouldn't want to imagine how I could even manage doing mathletics as well as quiz bowl. The knowledge bases required are so different, whereas there's much more that can be used in quiz bowl from debating. Which is why the coach started earmarking a quiz bowl spot for the debate team"
"To be honest I am not sure the math team will use its quiz bowl earmark next season" Imélie comments, "but the parish newspaper anointed Jennifer and you as the Venomous Agendas' mathletic and quiz bowl future respectively; however, they kept quiet about the debating future"
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The following day, card time arrives and the Venomous Agendas land card number 21. And their first preliminary game pits them not against a school at Boston Latin's level or equivalent, but a school they never heard about beforehand, which the moderator officiating their game talks about to the people in the audience.
"This is round one in the morning prelims at the 2025 NAQT high school national championship tournament. This game pits the twenty-one card against the three hundred and sixteen card"
A few seconds later, the word Ontario comes up. William and the fine arts player are wondering which Ontario the moderator is referring to, but to the two girls, it is as clear as day that it is the one in Canada.
"From Ontario we have Lisgar"
Lisgar Collegiate Institute. For the first time in seven years, Canada actually has a team at the HSNCT. And Lisgar was the last Canadian school to attend the tournament... From this game I'll have an idea of how strong the Canadian circuit is, if Lisgar is de facto the Canadian high school quiz bowl champion, Sadie thought while it would not necessarily be representative of the Canadian high school quiz bowl circuit. The first question is asked and a stream of thoughts flood Sadie's mind, about arguments set forth in One-Dimensional Man. She then feels the urge to buzz in.
"Marcuse"
"Fifteen. For ten points each..."
On the other side of the moderator, the opposing players start wondering what they are going to be able to answer, since the philosophy tossup was already used up for this packet. On the following tossup, a Lord (i.e. a Lisgar player) buzzes in early and loses her cool on the buzzer on this question about physics, in an attempt to "neutralize" Imélie, irrespective of whether Lisgar actually knew about Imélie, or the Venomous Agendas.
"Torque" the Lisgar player answers.
"Neg five"
"Spin" Imélie then buzzes in shortly after the Lord negged on the question.
"Fifteen"
Lisgar negged so many times over the next questions that they ended the game with a grand total of zero points, even with the few tossups and bonuses they managed to score against the Venomous Agendas. Wait a minute, it seems like the Canadian quiz bowl circuit has been ruined by the pandemic! It shows it has wreaked havoc, we went in for the first time in years and the first game we play here is a blowout loss! the Lisgar coach starts thinking after this atrocious 530-0 loss to the Venomous Agendas.
Because of power matching, it made the Lords play against a much weaker team, while the Venomous Agendas play a much stronger opponent in round 2. Which is about to make the Venomous Agendas' lives harder, and in turn, their opponents'.
"This is round two in the morning prelims at the 2025 NAQT high school national championship tournament. This game pits the twenty-one card against the sixteen card. From Michigan we have Detroit Catholic Central A"
The Venomous Agendas. That's to be a playoff game but long before they actually happen. It will be a much tougher opponent than our last one and, on top of that, they play for a much stronger debate school than we are; I know this because they attended the Isidore Newman Invitational, and I lost my opener round against them; she ended up in the quarterfinals. Here's my chance to avenge the Isidore Newman Invitational! a DCC player keeps thinking, while he feels his rage rising upon seeing that specific player responsible for his loss on the opposing buzzer. Sadie, I shall avenge thee.
Detroit Catholic. I can feel the eyes of their debate guy burning, they think we are a much stronger debate school than DCC, but I didn't qualify for the debate-Nationals any more than Florence did! But which one is his quiz bowl specialty, literature/fine arts or M&S? All I remember about the Isidore Newman Invitational field's overlap with quiz bowl was three quiz bowlers total, out of hundreds of players, most of whom debated for non-QB schools: me, a lit/fine arts player and a M&S player, Sadie simultaneously starts thinking before the first tossup is read, leading to a buzzer race between the Shamrock debater and, well, the entire Venomous Agendas team.
"The Imaginary Patient" Lance, the DCC debater, answers after buzzing in.
"Ten. For ten points each..."
Calm down, this is just one tossup. They may lead by 30 points now, but the next tossup is about science, a topic best left to Imélie, Sadie keeps thinking while Imélie buzzes in on the second tossup.
"Refraction" Imélie then answers.
"Fifteen. For ten points each..."
On the final tossup, nearly 20 minutes later, everyone starts biting their nails since the game is tied. Sadie only managed to answer two tossups all game, and scored no powers, but to her credit ate no interrupts. The final tossup begins and Sadie buzzes in the opening seconds...
"Final tossup: the Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed between France and Spain in 1800, retroceded this territory to France..."
"Louisiana" Sadie answers.
"Fifteen"
Oh crap. First, they beat us in debates, now here in quiz bowl? They must be focusing on these two things as a school... some other schools try to spread themselves too thin and can't be good at all of them. We pride ourselves in quiz bowl... the DCC debater reflects after this close loss to the Venomous Agendas in round 2, while watching, powerless, the VAs convert all three bonuses. Once they have finished answering the questions...
"And that's the game. Score?" the moderator asks the scorekeeper.
"Three hundred forty-five to three hundred" the scorekeeper answers.
But the following game would be just as big a surprise for them. In round 3 they face another team that went 2-0, as is usual for the HSNCT, however, they didn't expect to be playing, of all teams, another foreign team.
"From South Korea we have Seoul International School"
That particular game ends up being the male players' best game of the day, especially for William, since Seoul International was stronger in science and history to a lesser extent, with the Lisgar game being a close second to them. But Sadie's only literature power of the day came on tossup number eleven, which is about Spanish literature:
"Marianela" Sadie answers, moments after buzzing in, and moments after the start of the question.
"Fifteen"
And their game against Seoul International ends up in a rout where the Koreans scored nothing in English-language literature and scored nothing in American history either.