View from Saturday (9781439132012) (18 page)

“Why were they getting worried?”

“They worried, Mrs. Olinski, because you were on the verge of choosing another. Such a choice would have been disastrous.”

Mrs. Olinski had never told anyone—
anyone
—that she had been on the verge of choosing another. She grew uneasy. Why was Mr. Singh destroying the wonderful relaxed feeling she had had only minutes ago? She nervously cleared her throat. “But I did not,” she said defensively.

“Yes. It was most fortunate. They have been waiting, Mrs. Olinski.”

She said, “I'm afraid I still don't understand. Waiting for what? What are you trying to tell me, Mr. Singh?”

He smiled. The white of his teeth made a dazzling underline to his turban. “Just think about this, will you? You have never been able to explain how you chose the members of your team. You have given answers but no explanations.”

How did he know that?

“Think of the atom, Mrs. Olinski. There are energies within that tiny realm that are invisible but produce visible results.” Mr. Singh shook his head slowly. “Do not feel uneasy, Mrs. Olinski. Hamilton Knapp would truly have been a terrible choice.”

Mrs. Olinski had never told anyone—
anyone
—that she had been on the verge of choosing Hamilton Knapp. How could Mr. Singh tell her not to be uneasy when everything he said made her uneasy!

Mr. Singh stood. “Later,” he said. “Later you will understand. But for now, we would like to express our gratitude for realizing that Julian was the necessary soul.”

She nodded. “All right,” she said. “Later.”

He pushed the packets of cards in front of her. “Would you like to be quizmaster today?”

“I guess I would.”

“I'll send them in. They are ready to begin.”

She absentmindedly turned over the cards. There was one question per card, just like hers, but these were written, not typed. The writing was calligraphic, the paper white, the ink as black as Hecate's soul. She examined the questions—they were good ones—and hardly noticed when the children had come out of the kitchen and taken places at the table on the side opposite her.

“Who wrote these?” she asked.

Noah said, “We all did. I gave Julian a calligraphy kit for our first Saturday, and I taught them all.”

“Who made up the questions?”

“You made up some,” Julian said. “And the rest of us contributed others.”

“You, too, Mr. Singh?”

Mr. Singh bowed slightly from the waist. “My specialties are languages and weights and measures. Cooks must know weights and measures.”

Mrs. Olinski laughed. “Where did you come up with that category?”

“I'm a big fan of
Jeopardy!
on the television. When Julian and I lived on the cruise ship, they very often had quiz contests to amuse the patrons. This happened very often when the weather was bad.” He bowed again. “If you will be quiz-master today, Mrs. Olinski, I shall return to my kitchen. I am trying out new recipes for bran muffins. Americans care very much for bran. I learned of this when I was on the cruise ship.” He smiled. “We must talk again, Mrs. Olinski.”

Noah was saying, “There are some holes we need to plug, Mrs. Olinski.”

“What are they?” she asked.

Julian answered. “Music and the Bible.”

Noah said, “I keep telling Julian that we can skip the Bible.”

Julian said, “When I watch
Jeopardy!
with Papa, the Bible is very often a category. I think we need it.”

Noah said, “Fact: This is New York. Not India, not England, and certainly not a cruise ship. This is New York. And fact: There is the law. There is no way anyone involved
with teaching in a public school in the state of New York is going to quiz anyone who is in school at taxpayer expense on the Bible. They'd be slapped with fourteen lawsuits before the buzzer finished sounding. Don't you agree that's a fact, Mrs. Olinski?”

Mrs. Olinski was not thinking about facts. She was thinking about their name, The Souls. “I like it,” she said out loud.

“You like the Bible?”

“Well, yes,” she replied. “I like the Bible. As literature, as history, I'm comfortable with it as a category.”

Noah sighed. “Does that mean the New Testament and the Old Testament?”

“Wouldn't hurt,” Mrs. Olinski replied.

“And the Koran?”

“Wouldn't hurt,” Mrs. Olinski replied.

“The Upanishads?” Julian asked.

“Those, too?” Noah asked.

“Wouldn't hurt,” they all said in unison. And then they all laughed until Noah caught on and laughed, too.

It was dark when Mrs. Olinski left Sillington House, and she was glad. The dark wrapped the afternoon around her and kept it close. Sillington House was its own place. She lifted one hand from the steering wheel, whipped it off to one side, and snapped her fingers. She laughed. The Finger Lakes Regional Championship was in the bag.

T
he commissioner of education, recovered from the shock of having a contestant protest a ruling, cited Julian. He took away the two points he had been given for answering half of the question and gave Maxwell a chance to answer. The two acronyms they gave were MADD : Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Julian was about to protest that answer on the basis that MADD was not a true acronym because it was a word even before it became an acronym. But the word itself was spelled with one
d
not two, so Julian, who was patient beyond his years, said nothing and waited. Maxwell next came up with SONAR.

While waiting for them to decide what sonar stood for, one of the panel of experts looked up from a heavy volume and sent a signal to the commissioner. He walked over to her. When he returned to the lectern, he said, “We have an adjustment to make on the score. Tip is an acronym for To Insure Promptness.
We restore the five points we subtracted as penalty and add four for answering the question. Maxwell will be allowed to retain two points for MADD, but will not receive credit for SONAR.”

Julian said, “Thank you, sir.”

No one dared applaud, but everyone in the row to the left of Mrs. Olinski sported smiles that were very loud, and in the row behind her, Nate and Sadie, Izzy and Margy sat on their hands. Even Margy got that excited.

Between their regional championship and their trip to Albany, word had gotten out that something unusual was happening in Epiphany. Mrs. Laurencin had made a call to the local newspaper, and Mrs. Olinski and The Souls were featured above the fold on the first page of the metro section of the Epiphany
Times.

That started the blitz of publicity to which Dr. Roy Clayton Rohmer happily surrendered. He hungered for “positive taxpayer feedback,” so he called a press conference. After Holly Blackwell, the popular anchorwoman of Channel Three Eyewitness News, accepted his invitation, he invited Mrs. Olinski, The Souls, Mrs. Laurencin, and Mr. Homer Fairbain to attend.

While arranging The Souls behind Dr. Rohmer like a backdrop of the American flag, Holly Blackwell pointed the microphone at Nadia and, pitching her voice a full octave higher than her on-air voice, asked, “And * where * did * we * get * all * these * bee-YOU-tee-ful * red * curls?”

Nadia looked around. “We?” she asked. “Does someone
else have red hair?” Whereupon Holly Blackwell turned her back on all The Souls and instructed the cameraman to pan across their faces occasionally but to focus on Dr. Rohmer. Mrs. Olinski was not pleased. Here were four kids who could speak in complete sentences without a single
you-know
as filler, and Holly Blackwell asked them nothing. She asked Mrs. Olinski one question. Guess what it was. How did she choose her team? Mrs. Olinski gave one of her good answers-, her “complementary skills” response, dressing it up to say that the team's talents blended like a chorus, making one sound out of many voices. But her answer ended up on the cutting room floor.

Dr. Homer Fairbain was under orders to smile a lot and say nothing except, “The taxpayers are very proud.” He asked Dr. Rohmer if he could say, “We are very proud of these youngsters.” No. Just “The taxpayers are very proud.” How about, “Everyone is very proud of this team?” No. Just “The taxpayers are very proud.” And smile. Smile for Holly, the camera, and the sake of ed-you-kay-shun.

So the session was almost over when Holly Blackwell tilted her coif and turned her baby-blues on the deputy superintendent and asked him how the trip to Albany would be financed. Homer Fairbain smiled and replied, “The taxpayers are very proud.” Dr. Rohmer grew as pale as the paper of his unsigned contract.

Having followed orders, Mr. Fairbain provided the only real news that came out of the news conference. Mrs. Laurencin immediately called the school bus dispatcher and reserved six big yellow ones to take the Epiphany Boosters to Albany.

Dr. Rohmer said that the taxpayers were proud but not that proud. He said that unlike football matches where he
could charge admission to the games, there was no precedent for charging admission to the Academic Bowl. Taxpayer money would pay Mrs. Olinski's expenses and The Souls', would even pay Mrs. Laurencin's and, of course, his own, but he would not, could not, pay for chartered buses to take the entire town of Epiphany to Albany. He would allow the buses to be used, but he would not pay for the gas or the driver.

And that was when Century Village came through.

Noah's mother had taped the press conference and sent it to Noah's Grandma Sadie and Grandpa Nate who, in turn, shared it with everyone in the clubhouse at Century Village. They commissioned Bella Dubinsky to design a T-shirt. At the suggestion of Mrs. Froelich, she drew a noose. Nothing else. Sadie Gershom suggested that she put the name of the school under that.

Bella refused. “Less is more,” she said.

“Not if it's wins over losses,” Sadie answered.

But she liked the design, after all, and they arranged to have it silk screened on five hundred red T-shirts, which they shipped north. They sold for ten dollars apiece, and the profit paid for the gas for the buses. The drivers donated their services.

Mrs. Olinski drove to Albany, taking Julian and Mr. Singh with her.

T
he judges adjusted the score for the acronym question, which put Epiphany ahead. Then Maxwell answered: Who was the first president to live in the White House? and the score was even. Then Epiphany answered: What is the waste product of photosynthesis? Maxwell named the three major food groups, and Epiphany answered, “Who was the first Spanish explorer to reach Florida?” The lead ping-ponged back and forth as the teams took turns answering.