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.