Venomous Agenda Memoirs

Chapter 27: Chain Disaster

Alas, it was not to be. The Venomous Agendas didn't win the HSNCT, but they finished in eighth place, an improvement over last season. With Cristiano and Sadie graduating, and no one appearing poised to play on their level, it feels like the pressure is ratcheting up on Anna to get better at science in a quiz bowl context. In the week following the HSNCT, the year-end report sent in from Venomous Agendas High contains, on the one hand, the manifest of graduates, and, on the other hand, the manifest of transfer students, broken down into 4 categories: inbound transfers and outbound transfers, each subdivided by in-parish and out-of-parish, normally with their destination schools listed. And, of course, the names of the students who will be enrolling from feeder schools.

One name stands out in VA's out-of-parish outbound transfer list: Anna Tessier. To so many among the humanities and social studies faction in town, Anna transferring out of VA and out of the parish altogether is the straw that breaks the quiz bowl team's back. Anna always seemed to have stronger nerves than everyone else, and she's clearly a brain, too! I hope the VAs' fanbase is ready to accept a year or two of no HSNCT... the pill will be difficult to swallow when you had 4 years of consecutive top-25s and suddenly all the talent that made it possible has dried up. But I'm sure her family had good reason and hopefully unrelated to how the school or district is run, Glen ruminates on what Anna's transfer means to the VAs. He then proceeds to put the projected enrollment of all the parochial schools on a spreadsheet so that he can then submit the data to Bâton-Rouge for the MFP.

Around the dinner table that night... the three family members still in town are gossiping about Anna.

"So Anna will leave town. This leaves a gaping hole down the quiz bowl team. Also, Valerie, if you don't get past the TSTST this time around, you will play quiz bowl rather than band!" Glen then warns Valerie.

"While there were VA mathletes who had some quiz bowl success, none of them went to MOP. Marcia, who is the earliest of them, told a few years back on the parish radio about how even ten on the AIME was very good for a quiz bowler" Valerie then retorts. "I never heard of anyone treating quiz bowl as punishment for mathletic failure! Not sure that leaving band for quiz bowl is a good move for college applications either!" she keeps whining. "On top of that, what use am I to the quiz bowl team? Because of you, dad, I focused far too much on math to be of much use in quiz bowl!"

"Fine, stay on band"

I am a smart girl, but just because I am better at math than Anna doesn't make me smarter than her. Anna is much better-rounded than I am. Of course she was going to play quiz bowl! I may as well ask her about where she plans on transferring, Valerie then texts Anna about her future transfer plans for the following year after returning to her bedroom. I really hope that extracurricular rationing will be made clear on the counselor's report.

"I'll be attending the neighboring parish since my dad found another job in Allen Parish" Anna answers her friend on the phone.

What do many in the VA community called the neighboring parish is actually called Kinder High; like VA, it has operational quiz bowl and debate teams. In fact it's the only other school in all of Southwest Louisiana with both teams in working condition. As with VA, it changed its team name after the pandemic (their teams were called the Yellowjackets pre-pandemic) and they are known as Majors since.

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The following week, Glen prepares to pick up Faith so that both of them can go to Bâton-Rouge and, from there, to Pittsburgh, paid for by the MAA.

"Hey Faith, how do you feel about the MOP?" Valerie asks her teammate before she rides her father's car. "I hope you're ready to get a lot of attention; there's, like, six or seven girls at MOP, eight or nine at most"