The View from Saturday Quotes

“It was afternoon by the time they go to the last round, and Mrs. Olinski sat shivering in a windowless room in a building big enough and official enough to have its own zip code. This was Albany, the capital of the state of New York. This was the last Saturday in May, and some robot -human or electronic- had checked the calendar instead of the weather report and had turned on the air conditioning.”

Mrs. Olinski, returning to teaching after having been injured in an automobile accident, found that her Academic Bowl team became her answer to finding confidence and success. What she did not know, at least at first, was that her team knew more than she did the answer to why they had been chosen.

“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.”

“Mrs. Olinlski hugged her upper arms and wondered if maybe it was nerves and not the quartering wind blowing from the ceiling vents that was causing her shivers. She watched with baited (and visible) breath as the commissioner placed his hand into a large clear glass bowl. His college class ring knocked bottom. (Had the room been two degrees colder, the glass would have shattered). He withdrew a piece of paper, unfolded it, and read. “What is the meaning of the word calligraphy and from which language does it derive?” A buzzer sounded.”

“It was a surprise to a lot of people when Mrs. Olinski’s team won the sixth-grade Academic Bowl contest at Epiphany Middle School. It was an even bigger surprise when they beat the seventh grade and the eighth grade, too. And when they went on to even greater victories, everyone began to ask: How did it happen?”

“After The Souls had won the Epiphany Middle School championship, Dr. Roy Clayton Rohmer paid a visit to Mrs Olinski and asked -guess what?- why she had chosen the team. She still did not know (and wouldn’t until after it was all over), but by that time the success of the Souls (even if she did not yet know that they were The Souls) had made Mrs. Olinski less timid.”

“For the first few weeks of the new school year, Nadia hardly spoke. All the sixth grades -like Mrs. Olinski herself - were new to Epiphany MIddle School, but Nadia -like Mrs. Olinski, herself - seemed most disconnected. Both were watchers and waiters, cautious about being friendly, about showing themselves.”

“It happened when Ethan could not let Julian face disaster alone. And it happened because Julian valued something important in himself and saw in the other three something he also valued.”

“How has Mrs. Olinski chosen her sixth-grade Academic Bowl team? She had a number of answers. But were any of them true? How had she really chosen Noah and Nadia and Ethan and Julian? And why did they make such a good team? Mrs. Eva Marie Olinski always gave good answers. Whenever she was asked how she had selected her team for the Academic Bowl, she chose one of several good answers.”

“It happened at least partly because Noah had been the best man (quite by accident) at the wedding of Ethan’s grandmother and Nadia’s grandfather. It happened because Nadia discovered that she could not let a lot of baby turtles die.”