At Whitman, the VMC team meets before the start of the grand final, the last Friday of April, with the parish newspaper's webpage on display and that makes predictions for it. For some reason, beyond the Venomous Agendas, Palo Alto, University High, TJHSST, Saratoga, Montgomery Blair, Lexington, Phillips Exeter and Stuyvesant are given as favorites, all being part of the 13 co-champions of Square Root of the Answer last year, except for Montgomery Blair. Whitman is in the same tier as, for instance, Adlai Stevenson, which, without being a favorite, can hope to do well.
"Tonight, it's the swan song for me as a mathlete. We will not go down without a fight, we can defeat these powerhouses! Our opponents may have MOP qualifiers, or EGMO gold medalists, but we shall take the fight to them!" Zhou shouts at his teammates.
"The VMC is not the same kind of contest as the Math Madness or the MOP, Zhou. By now you know that doing well on one type of contest does not mean you will do well on another kind of contest" another Viking mathlete tells him.
"Stevenson proved it last year; they had a MOP qualifier for a captain and couldn't even make it to the SRA final! The only one we have any confidence whatsoever of defeating is the Venomous Agendas; as before, we shall stop them here and now!" Zhou continues.
"Zhou, please stop considering these math contests as if we were playing Fortnite! Everyone plays against everyone else at once; you seem to treat the VMC as if we need to beat schools piecemeal to win!" the Vikings coach scolds Zhou.
Meanwhile, at TJHSST, people, while not always motivated for the same reasons as at Whitman or among the Venomous Agendas, they have another reason to seek to defeat the Venomous Agendas: they hold the Venomous Agendas responsible for Lucy's arrest, which cannot compete in the VMC because she's still behind bars. She continues to take classes as if nothing happened, with the other prisoners deemed equivalent to 12th grade. However, if one compares her to the other inmates, even with her mind still damaged by the overdose, she's clearly better than them academically.
"Tonight, we are going into the Vans Math Contest final to avenge Lucy, our teammate in jail. And also to avenge our losses to the Venomous Agendas this season" the coach of the Colonials harangues his large team.
"For Lucy! Down with the Venomous Agendas!" Colonials then shout.
The population keeps wagering on the VMC and most of them bet on their own to win tonight, and Zack is perhaps the only one in town that's a little ambivalent about the Venomous Agendas at the VMC. That said, he's patient, knowing he can't get out with his beloved Tara before the end of the contest.
Finally, the six Venomous Agendas that are officially entered into the competition are in the room and shortly assume a formation where the four girls are at the vertices of the mass of desks, and the two boys are between the girls on the flanks. The unofficials get seated, drawn by the extra credit that unofficial participation to this competition can give to calculus BC students (the school does not offer Calculus AB).
- For several of you, this tournament is a swan song as mathletes, first, me, Cory begins. I am not too personally invested in mathletics, but I feel our stars were so invested as mathletes that I believe their lives once in college will be marked by a clear departure from what they lived as Venomous Agendas this season.
"We will seek to avenge this season's mathletic failures! For example, us at the Math Madness" Vontae adds, stretching his hand, with Cory stacking his hand on Vontae's.
"And me on the AIME!" Marcia shouts, before putting her hand on Vontae's.
"And me on the USAMO!" Krista adds.
"And me on the Purple Comet!" Imélie continues, with her hand on Krista's.
The Venomous Agendas A and B were very far off on the Purple Comet without their three stars; even a state championship at 17/30 would not have had the same meaning than even the defense of their state title at the VMC. Yet Imélie was less traumatized by this 17/30 at the Purple Comet than her 82.5 on the AMC12 in 9th grade. What an immense waste of mathletic talent! To think that Gen scored only 9 more points than I did on the AMC12 that year and now she is an EGMO gold medalist? Imélie thinks while she feels regrets about giving up on mathletics too early. But she feels she now has a chance to avenge her past mistakes as a mathlete, to repair the broken pots.
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The Quest for High School Mathletic Glory
Teen FictionNote: This is an English translation of a story previously written in French. Geneviève, a junior in a rural southwest Louisiana high school, quietly lived her high schooler life until the unexpected victory at the state calculus championship propel...