All around you are banners proclaiming the names: The Screaming Tuna, Team 62, Three Chicas. A special area of the cafeteria is set up for team pictures. Yellow paper covers the wall, the area is framed in balloons, and the line to use it is long. You think the paper is likely to fade from all the flashbulbs.

You shepard the three girls into a room in their hand-painted shirts. They sit in three chairs on the left. Another three girls come into the room in silk-screened shirts. You size them up but they are just three sixth grade girls, not all that different from your three. The questions begin. �In which book did......?�

You watch silently. You know they know but you don�t know if they remember. You don�t really believe in ESP but you find yourself thinking the answer really, really hard. You bite your lip. You look for the signs: the quick whisper, the smile, the nods. When you don�t see them you hold your breath and hope.

You wish for the easy questions and pray they can ignore the way the first monitor is fawning over the other team. (You later learn she�s best friends with the grandmother of one of the members of the other team but you ignore her bad behavior because it didn�t throw your girls and she was scrupulous about the score and time.) The announcement comes and you change rooms.

Different room, different and better monitor, and obviously different team. This time there are three boys on the left. This monitor is kind enough to hold the competition for mothers to take a bathroom break. This monitor remembers what it�s like to be a mother at these things. You take your seat and the questions begin again. To your delight, they don�t miss a single one this time.

You die a thousand deaths all evening long and you feel the triumph as they ascend the stairs to the stage. You�re over-involved but you try not to let on. Yep, you�re a parent at the Battle of the Books Invitational�and you�re lucky this time. The Great Brains, your daughter�s team, take the third place trophy!

You celebrate at Baskin-Robbins, despite the cool weather, return the team�s groupie to her home, and come home. You watch one twelve-year-old girl walk on so much air that her head scrapes the ceiling even though she�s only four feet seven inches. Then, when she thinks you don�t see, you watch her kiss the trophy just once.

What a roller-coaster, what a trip, what a glorious evening!

|