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wore a navy blue, precision fit pin-striped suit and a white-on-dazzling-white shirt. An edge of his French cuffs showed beneath his jacket sleeves. Mrs. Olinski was not sure how much the correct amount was, but she knew that if she put a spirit-level to his, they would be exactly right. The French cuffs were held together with onyx cuff links, and his collar was tied with a red-striped power necktie. The television lights beamed down on his crown of hair, which was tinted the color of peach pits. He was dressed, brushed, coiffed, and blow-dried not just to be seen but to be looked at.
    Dr. Rohmer could not, would not take his eyes off the man at the podium, and Mrs. Olinski thought of
Alice in Wonderland.
“Don’t look at me like that!” said the King to the Cheshire Cat. “A cat may look at a king,” said Alice. Mrs. Olinski wanted to tell Dr. Rohmer that a cat may look at a king. But why bother? The audience was not permitted to speak.

    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 had she chosen this 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.
    Dr. Rohmer had announced that he had just completed a three-day workshop on multiculturalism for
ed-you-kaytoars.
Mrs. Olinski had always been amused by educators who called themselves
ed-you-kay-toars.
So, when he asked her how she had chosen the four members of her academic team, Mrs. Olinski knitted her brow and answered with hushed seriousness. “In the interest of diversity,” she said, “I chose a brunette, a redhead, a blond, and a kid with hair as black as print on paper.”
    Dr. Rohmer was not amused. He gave Mrs. Olinski a capsule lecture on what multiculturalism really means.
    â€œOh,” she said, “then we’re still safe, Dr. Rohmer. You can tell the taxpayers that the Epiphany Middle School team has one Jew, one half-Jew, a WASP, and an Indian.”
    â€œJews, half-Jews, and WASPs have nothing to do withdiversity, Mrs. Olinski. The Indian does. But we don’t call them Indians anymore. We call them Native Americans.”
    â€œNot this one,” she replied.
    â€œMrs. Olinski,” Dr. Rohmer asked, “would you like it if people called you a cripple?”
    Mrs. Olinski gave up. Everyone believed that she could be wounded by the word
cripple.
She could never explain to Dr. Rohmer, nor would she try to, that the word itself does not hurt, but the manner of its delivery can. For all of his training, Dr. Rohmer would never believe that cripples themselves are a diverse group, and some make jokes.
    Nadia was the redhead of Mrs. Olinski’s diverse group.
    Had she been born five hundred years sooner, Raphael would have chosen her as a model for his cherubs. Tendrils of bright red hair framed her face, a spray of freckles powdered her nose, and she was as plump as a perfectly ripened peach. Raphael probably would have painted out the freckles, and that would have been a mistake. Like brushing the cinnamon off cinnamon toast.
    For the first few weeks of the new school year, Nadia hardly spoke. All the sixth graders—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.
    Then on the middle Monday in October, Nadia Diamondstein arrived in class with a smile and addressed her teacher. “Don’t you think, Mrs. Olinski, that autumn is the most glorious time of year?” Mrs. Olinski confessed that it was her favorite season and told Nadia that she sometimes felt guilty because she thought she ought toprefer spring, with its pledge to make the lilies bloom