After they arrive in Atlanta, they park off-site, arrive at the hotel and then check-in. Warren gives the instructions to the players about rooms after getting the room keys:
"Adults will sleep in one room, boys in another room, and girls in a third room" Warren tells his players as they get off the minibus.
It's so not going to be like the MSNCT, where players were all in one room at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare Chicago because there was only one squad, Lilina ruminates while she waits in line to collect the girls' room key cards.
Once they make it to their rooms, they take the opportunity to do stuff other than studying or quiz bowl-related activities. Much like Audrey and Pablo going to the hotel's outdoor pool.
"It would do us no good tomorrow and Sunday if our bodies are out of shape. Yes, quiz bowl is a mind game, but if your body can't take it, your mind won't function properly when it counts the most!" Audrey tells her teammates before she leaves the room.
"And then I will go on the weight machine!" Myriam announces to the other VA girls.
A few moments later, the pair arrives at a crowded pool and they face the cold, hard truth. They need to stick to what competitive swimmers call the "gutter lane" if they want to swim laps. That is, the edge of the pool.
Even then, the gutter lane is crowded enough to put a limit on the speed at which they can swim. I can't swim any faster in this pool! Pablo starts feeling the frustration of being slowed down to a crawl in the pool, but doesn't show it any more than Audrey does.
The athleticism of the two make other attendees of the pool forget they are dealing with HSNCT participants. After swimming for what feels like forever to them, having overtaken a few more people in the lane, despite having swum only a dozen laps... an opposing quiz bowler brings them back to their reality as they get off the lane:
"I wonder if you have relatives playing at the HSNCT..." an opposing quiz bowler asks them.
"Relatives?" Pablo asks the opposing quiz bowler. "I'm playing at the HSNCT!"
"Me too!" Audrey adds.
"I knew quiz bowl was difficult to recruit for, but your school had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get four people to play!" the opposing quiz bowler smirks, believing quiz bowl to have a poor reputation at VA, not knowing how it really is for quiz bowl at VA. "Good luck, you're going to need it!"
Time to use Heather's obsession to my advantage! Audrey seems to be a little... off. Like these insinuations make her want to lash out at the opposing quiz bowler.
"I get it, the competition is stiff here, but because my basketball coach kept implying that I am the brainiac of the team, he referred me to the quiz bowl team as far back as seventh grade!" Audrey refers to Kent here. "And it goes to show that playing basketball doesn't interfere with quiz bowl!"
I wonder what kind of school that is, if their resident sports teams' brainiacs can somehow carry them to the HSNCT... or are they on their sports teams because they are in desperate need to keep the team-wide academics afloat? The opposing quiz bowler questions why the couple even plays quiz bowl, as well as what kind of school VA is. That, even though he doesn't know they are VAs.
"How did you imagine quiz bowlers to be?" Pablo asks him.
"Given the demands of high school sports, which often means travel teams, camps and year-round conditioning, I just didn't expect athletes to play quiz bowl!"
YOU ARE READING
Can't Stop the Questions
RomancePablo, a sophomore playing tight end for Venomous Agendas High, plays the best football game of his life, but as the season comes to a close, his coaches tell him he can't rely on football to go to college, forcing him to buckle down on academics fo...
