“They called themselves The Souls. They told Mrs. Olinski that they were The Souls long before there were a team, but she told them that they were a team as soon as they became The Souls. Then after a while, teacher and team agreed that they arguing chicken-or-egg. Whichever way it began -chicken-or-egg, team-or-The Souls- it definitely ended with an egg. Definitely, an egg. People will remark about how extraordinary it was to have four sixth graders make it to the finals.”
“What happened was: they became a team, a family of two. There had been times before they ran away when they had acted like a team, but those were very different from feeling like a team. […] You might call it caring. You could even call it love. And it is very rarely, indeed, that it happens to two people at the same time—especially a brother and a sister who had always spent more time with activities than they had with each other. ”