The Quest for High School Mathletic Glory

Chapter 34: Endgame

"Bravo Marcia!" Krista exclaims at the exit of the game room in which game #7 took place.

"I played well, yes, but Imélie represents the future of Venomous Agendas quiz bowl" Marcia then tells Krista.

"Also, I have news about Caltech"

"What is it?"

"I didn't want to talk about to you earlier, and to Geneviève either, but they took me off the waitlist!" Krista announces while she is jumping for joy.

"I'm happy, I'm sure you will perform well once there. As for me, they renamed one of the individual awards at the VMC in my name, and so, retroactively" Gen adds, while she is reeling in from this verbal joust with Zhou.

"Huh? What are you talking about, Gen?" Krista asks her friend.

"The award that now bears my name at the VMC is the prize awarded to the best feminine performance by a non-senior at the final. I won it last year, this year there is more than one winner" Gen explains herself.

"Then there is more than one female non-senior that had a perfect score" Imélie points out. "I am happy for the other co-winners"

"Listen, we won the gold medal at the VMC, nine of the thirteen gold medalists of last year won it again" Gen announces as a follow-up.

And, against all odds, Whitman has also won the gold medal. Thus, Maryland is one of two states to have more than one gold medalist school this year. Only one other school having won gold at the VMC aligned 4 girls in the final: TJHSST, and one of the co-winners of the « Geneviève Prize » attended it as well. And so without Lucy who, even though she was released on bail and having gotten a conditional absolution shortly afterward, couldn't take part in the VMC final. But it was 4 girls out of something between 20 and 30 participants writing the final for this school...

Also the 3 female quiz bowlers of the Venomous Agendas attract a lot of attention, especially Imélie for some reason. All hopes seemed allowed for the Venomous Agendas, and, with them, the hopes of girls in quiz bowl. Especially since most teams at the level of, for example, Boston Latin or higher (approximately in the national top 70), had at most two girls, and sometimes only one, or even zero. Oh my God, look at this! I'm the only one of the three girls that played all seven games, the only Venomous Agenda to have heard all the toss-ups, and I consider that I played well, Imélie thinks, while the Venomous Agendas have been rather balanced. I might be wondering if quiz bowl made me less perfectionistic than before, or if my perfectionism is more circumscribed than I initially believed, but I scored at least ten powers today without incurring a single interrupt all day. (A power represents a correct answer given before the asterisk on a toss-up)

I didn't always have the best relationship in the world with the parish newspaper, but I am forced to acknowledge that never the parish newspaper commented on the looks of people or otherwise disparaged anyone, whether we talk about quiz bowl or mathletics! They always preferred to talk about achievements, what they require and represent, Gen thinks, while the latest issue of the parish newspaper talks about the HSNCT. Yes, the parish newspaper also talks about the Venomous Agendas' gold at the VMC but they only briefly talked about the size of this contest's intellectual demands.

"Now that you won gold at the VMC, what's your shoe size?" Gen asks her teammate.

"Seven. Why?" Imélie asks.

"Since you got a perfect score on the VMC final, the booster club will pay you a pair of Vans shoes of your choice"

"VMC? What's the VMC?" Bruce asks in Imélie's direction, with a pinch of confusion in his voice.