View from Saturday (9781439132012) (16 page)

The Souls continued their animated conversation, when suddenly, as if on signal, the four of them looked back at Mrs. Olinski.

And that is when she knew.

That is the exact moment she knew that Julian Singh would be the fourth member of her team and that she would always give good answers when asked why she had chosen them. And then and there, she also knew that someday she would drink another cup of slow tea at Sillington House.

T
he commissioner looked over his list of possible answers. “Posh and tip?” he asked. Julian quickly answered, “Posh means fashionable and is the acronym for Port Out, Starboard Home, referring to the time when India belonged to Britain, and the people traveling there wanted the shady side of the ship both going and coming. And tip, meaning the small sum of money given for services rendered, is the acronym for To Insure Promptness.”

The commissioner laughed. “You may be a little ahead of us on that one, Epiphany. I don't have either of those acronyms on my list. We'll have to check with our advisory panel.” He nodded to the three people sitting at a table on the far side of the room. One rapidly punched keys on a computer as the other two consulted large books. The three of them conferred briefly and passed a note to the commissioner.

“We can allow posh, but we do not find a reference for tip.”

Julian said, “With all due respect, sir, I think you ought to check another source.”

Their path to the state finals started with the sixth-grade championship. Mrs. Olinski had expected victory, for her team was quick and informed and worked together perfectly. No one had expected them to trounce the other two sixth grades, but they did. Their victory was so profound that the sixth-grade math teacher, Mrs. Sharkey, confided to the music teacher, Ms. Masolino, that for the first time in the history of Epiphany Middle School there was a chance—just a possibility, mind you—that a sixth-grade team might beat the seventh grade. Mrs. Sharkey said that, after all, she knew the current seventh grade, for she had taught them just last year, and in her opinion, when they were very, very good, they were mediocre.

The Souls practiced during activities hour—that portion of time between eleven-thirty and one o'clock that was not devoted to eating lunch. Mrs. Olinski read questions from note cards: one card; one question. She used three sets of questions.

The first was a series of questions required of everyone in a particular grade. Knowing that they would be competing with grade seven, she added their questions to her sixth grade set. The second set had been culled from previous contests. Some required only speed: How many quarters in twenty dollars? Some required cleverness: If one man could paint an eight foot by twelve foot wall in a half hour, how long would it take three men to paint a wall that was eight feet by twenty-four feet? The third set of questions were
ones she had made up by weeding items from the news and connecting them to geography or history or both: A masterpiece by the artist Rembrandt was recently stolen from a museum in his native country. What is that country? What is its capital? Mrs. Olinski required that they find the country on a map, and then would ask them to name two other famous artists. Their countries? Their capital cities?

They beat grade seven, almost doubled their score. Fact: No sixth grade team had ever defeated a seventh grade team. They were scheduled to go up against grade eight. Further fact: No sixth grade had ever competed against the eighth because no sixth grade had ever gotten that far.

When word got out that Mrs. Olinski's homeroom had a chance of beating the eighth grade, kids from the other two sixth grades started signaling a thumbs-up sign when passing a team member in the hall. They raised their arms high overhead and lifted their thumbs like a forest of small apostrophes at the ends of their closed fists.

Excitement grew throughout the week. Mrs. Olinski's sixth graders were David versus the eighth grade Goliath, and the kids with the slingshots knew how to use them. Soon the vanquished seventh grade chose sides; they would cheer for grade six. On Thursday, the day before the showdown, kids from grades six and seven lined the halls between the cafeteria and Mrs. Olinski's room and gave her and The Souls a round of applause as they returned from lunch to practice. Mrs. Olinski smiled and said thank you, thank you as she wheeled herself between the flanks of honor guards.

Traces of her smile remained as the rest of the class filed
in for social studies. She sat at her desk and sorted out the papers that were due to be returned.

The room was quiet until a student in the back of the room let out an enormous belch and said, not too sincerely, “Sorry.”

Mrs. Olinski continued sorting papers before looking up. “Hamilton Knapp?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he answered.

“Would you please come to the front?”

He walked slowly, watching her, a half smile on his face. She let him take his time. Before he reached the front of the classroom, someone launched another belch. Its sound rocketed forward, and the laughter that followed traveled the same trajectory. Mrs. Olinski waited until Ham reached the front of the room before asking, “Jared Lord, would you please join Mr. Knapp?”

Jared also took his time, and Mrs. Olinski did not rush him either. As he ambled down his row toward the front of the room, smiling faces lifted and tilted toward him like the broad front faces of sunflowers as they follow the sun across heaven. Mrs. Olinski allowed that, too.

“Now, Mr. Knapp and Mr. Lord,” she said, “I would like the two of you to teach the entire class how to belch on command. Please describe the process for all of us.” She picked up a piece of chalk from the ledge. “Which one of you wants to take notes on the instructions we are about to receive?” Neither volunteered, so she thrust the chalk into Knapp's hand. “I think you enjoy writing on the blackboard, Mr. Knapp,” she said. Ham took the chalk. The class registered its approval with body language that was the equivalent of silent applause.

The class waited. “I'll help you with the spelling,” Mrs. Olinski said.

Ham began to clown around, rolling his eyes and saying, “Well, first you …”

The rest of the kids tightened their stomachs, opened their mouths, and tried to figure out how to explain a belch. Jared stood at the blackboard—empty-handed, awkward, uncomfortable—and he too, tried to figure it out. Knapp made another attempt. “Well, first you …” Then another long, awkward, uncomfortable wait. “Well, first you …”

Mrs. Olinski allowed them to stand there until three minutes seemed like thirty. Then she sent them back to their seats. “Since you cannot describe what you have done, I would call belching loudly to interrupt our class an
unspeakable act.
Unspeakable. And because you cannot explain how to do it, I would say that you cannot teach either.” She paused, locked eyes first with Knapp and then with Lord before adding, “But I can. If I choose to, I can explain how to belch on command, and I could teach you. If I so choose.” She looked at Knapp and Lord again, her nostrils flared slightly, then slowly turned her head to the class and added, “But I don't.

“The front of this classroom is privileged territory. There are only two reasons for you to be here. One, you are teaching something to the rest of the class or, two, you have been invited. From now on, the only tricks that I am willing to put up with are those that you can first explain and then teach.”

She looked at Jared Lord and asked, “Do you understand, Mr. Lord?” Jared attempted a grin. His attempt failed, and he nodded yes. “Then let us have no more interruptions with unspeakable acts. No barking
Arf!
either. Do you understand
me, Mr. Knapp?” Ham nodded yes. “Mr. Lord?” Jared said, “Yes, ma'am.”

As he returned to his seat, no one smiled at Ham or even made eye contact with him.

Suddenly Nadia Diamondstein thrust her left leg straight out into the aisle. Noah Gershom, who was three seats in back of her, stuck out his right leg. Ethan Potter saw and raised his right arm in the air. As if on cue, Julian Singh raised his left fist. For a moment above and below eye level, all four limbs stuck out, and then, just as quickly, all four disappeared. It was quite a balancing act.

Mrs. Laurencin called a school assembly for the contest against the eighth grade. The principal herself asked the questions. If a team missed its question, the other team had an opportunity to answer. To break a tie, the last team to answer correctly had to correctly answer one additional question.

This was the question that the eighth grade could not answer and Noah could: Name all the parts of the human eye in the order that light reaches them.

This was the four-part question that they answered to win: Name the famous fathers of: Queen Elizabeth I of England. Esau and Jacob. Alexander the Great. Our country.

Mrs. Laurencin was impressed. The sixth grade was jubilant. Ms. Masolino said she knew it all along, and Mrs. Sharkey said they gave new meaning to the term “bottoms up.”

The Souls were now the school's team. The next step was the contest against Knightsbridge for the district championship.

A
ny other team on spaceship Earth would have worried about Julian's defying an official of the sovereign state of New York. But not The Souls. They would let him risk whatever he wanted.

The commissioner was—to put it politely—annoyed. He looked at his seating chart. “Mr. Singh?” he asked. “Are you Julian Singh?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Well, Mr. Singh, we all agreed to stand by the ruling of the panel of experts.”

“The panel's information is not complete, sir.”

“Mr. Singh, we must stand by the ruling of the panel.”

“Sir,” Julian said, “long ago in England, pub owners used to place a box on the bar. They put a sign on the box that said To Insure Promptness, capitalizing each of the three words. People dropped coins …”

“I'll allow posh but not tip.”

“With all due respect, sir, you are wrong.”

At that point, the commissioner could have disqualified the entire Epiphany team—and maybe would have—except that he was rendered speechless.