As per usual, the quiz bowl team does not hold practices during the end-of-semester exam season, so all remaining players' lives are dominated by studying and tutoring others. Like Pablo with the younger siblings of football players, or Audrey with the younger siblings of basketball players (irrespective of the gender of the basketball player; she tutored younger siblings of both boys' and girls' basketball players this year).
At the end of the AP Bio final, which is their last final exam of the season, Audrey and Pablo meet each other under a tree. Audrey can hardly contain her nervousness:
"I think these past two months have been hard on you. You have grown much closer to me during this time, and I remember clearly your early days on the quiz bowl team, you have grown as a quiz bowler as well" Audrey harangues him.
"While I study more than I used to, I'm knee-deep in a world I still don't know very well. As a quiz bowler, I feel like I am pressured to fit a certain image and to provide academic aid if needed" Pablo starts crying. "And I'm lucky that the pressure I have to perform in quiz bowl isn't that intense, unlike yours!"
"It's part of the stuff you don't understand yet about quiz bowl seasons: while, obviously, the higher we place at any given tournament, the better to the eyes of the public, what really matters to the public is twofold. You seem to think the competitive pressure is on the A-team because it's the squad competing at quiz bowl-State and the HSNCT, and the onus is on us to get those berths. However, it's only true early in a season, because we tend to clinch these berths at our season opener, and then there's only the social pressure until a week or two before State" Audrey explains to him.
"I guess the town does not expect us to earn a second HSNCT berth" Pablo adds to it, but feels like she spoke for too long. "But stop beating around the bush please!"
"Pablo, do you want to go see me play on Monday night? I'll even give you the ticket as with the game against Lacassine!"
"Of course, I would!"
Kinder, Eunice, Hanson Memorial are all teams the B-team defeated, and they all qualified for quiz bowl-State, Audrey then feels like a weight is taken off her shoulders, while Pablo looks up the VAs' girls basketball schedule. And VA is playing Eunice at home on Monday night.
After a harrowing exam season, where Pablo managed to earn over $200 tutoring middle schooler siblings of football players, it's finally time for him to buy what he deems appropriate for Audrey as a Christmas gift.
"Please, let me go shopping! I promise it will be quick and we will be back home soon!" Pablo pleads with his parents on Wednesday night.
"You will have to tell me where beforehand" Pablo's dad warns him. "Look for what you need and nothing else!"
After cross-checking what he deems to be appropriate for him to give her, that is, a whole set of brakes (pads, rotors and fluid) for her family's car, he tells him which shop has the best prices for each item. Even when he restricts himself to the car parts dealers in town, he finds out that no single shop is cheapest for all 3, and he plans to save on costs. And yet, he has better prices by buying pads and rotors as one set.
"Let me get this straight: you plan on gifting us new car parts?" Pablo's dad gasps upon hearing about where his son plans on shopping.
"No, it's not for me, it's for my girlfriend. She might be new to you as a girlfriend, but you know her for years"
Audrey... she seems like a good girl, she has her priorities straight, unlike some of her hoops teammates, Pablo's dad seems to have an idea of who Pablo could consider his girlfriend.
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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...
