“Yeah,” said Simon, remembering the night he’d met Kyle and Akimi. “He’s awesome.”
Mr. Lemoncello put his hand to his ear, as if he were a news anchor receiving an update. “I’ve just been advised that the banana jet has landed safely. Mr. Mitchell? I believe you have an announcement to make.”
Soraiya’s dad made his way up a flight of steps to the stage. Mr. Lemoncello handed him a microphone.
“Thank you, Mr. L.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. M. But, please: No karaoke.”
“No, sir. Just a quick announcement. We need our twelve players to head on over to the intersection of Main and Third Streets. Once there, put on your plastic jumpsuits, knee and elbow pads, and goggles. You’ll also get to choose your helmets. Spectators? You should head over to Main and Third, too.”
Mr. Lemoncello knocked knuckles with Mr. Mitchell, and then he and Dr. Zinchenko opened the door on the TV screen, stepped inside, and disappeared.
Simon couldn’t help but slip around to the back of the stage to see where they’d gone.
But they weren’t there. They’d really disappeared.
“How’d they do that?” he said to himself. “How’d they disappear?”
Soraiya walked up behind him. “I’d say magic, except as a scientist, I don’t really believe in magic. Also, I can see the mirrors they used to achieve the illusion.”
“Hurry along, you two,” said Mr. Mitchell. “You don’t want to be late to the starting gate!”
“What’s up with the helmets?” Simon asked as he and Soraiya joined the throng making its way from the park to Main Street.
“You know how, when you play a board game, you pick a token?” said Soraiya. “The shoe, the boot, the robot. Well, since we’re the playing pieces in the sidewalk board game, we have to wear safety helmets with big foam tokens on top. They’re painted gold. They actually look pretty cool. Dad showed them to me last night.”
There was a small U-Haul trailer parked at the corner of Third and Main. In the back were racks of waterproof coveralls (in various sizes) with elastic wrist and ankle cuffs, boxes of knee and elbow pads, and safety goggles dangling off a pegboard.
“We’ll need all of that stuff and, of course, our tokens,” said Soraiya. She grabbed a helmet with a lioness perched on top. Simon went with the penguin.
“You’ll also need these,” said the volunteer helping the contestants find the right-sized gear. She handed Simon and Soraiya high-tech watches. “They have your dice-rolling app. They’re also waterproof.”
Main Street was unrecognizable. The Zoom Zone, as Mr. Lemoncello called it, was set up in the middle of the road: a giant miniature-golf windmill with slowly moving blades; an inflatable bouncy house castle filled with a rainbow of colored balls and with a slide at its far end; an enormous double-headed rubber mallet, like something out of a cartoon, swinging back and forth over the street; a chocolate volcano burbling up slick syrup that slid down the slopes like sticky brown lava; and, at the far end of the street, a sludge puddle of oily slime with four islands of green florist foam floating near its center.
“That is so Lemoncello-y,” said Soraiya, laughing as she checked out the final obstacle course. “We make it through that, we win! We see what’s inside the new building before anybody else!”
“Um, okay,” said Simon.
“It’s like that classic show Double Dare on Nickelodeon!” said Piya as she surveyed the scene. “We’re gonna get slimed!”
“Oooh, check out the sidewalks!” Soraiya said to Simon.
The first concrete square on the west side of the block had the word “RUN” painted in big block letters on a pale-green background. There was also a red arrow pointing north. The rest of the painted sidewalk looked like a multicolored Monopoly or Family Frenzy game board.
“I guess that’s the direction we need to go,” said Simon, gesturing at the arrow.
“Well, duh!” said Jack, who’d snuck up behind Simon and Soraiya.
The token squatting on top of his helmet?
A snarling Tyrannosaurus rex.
The kind that ate anything and everything that got in its way.
“You know you don’t belong here, right, Skrindle?” Jack sneered at Simon.
“Yes he does,” said Soraiya.
“Ha!” said Jack, with a laugh. “We’ll see about that.”
The “RUN” square quickly became claustrophobic as all twelve players crammed into the four-by-four box.
“Jack?” said Piya, squeezing in beside him. “Two words. De-odorant.”
“All right, gang,” said a woman in a bright-yellow vest. Her ID tag read “Mrs. Leslie Zilber Blatt, Injection Molding.” She pointed up the street. “There are ten squares on this side of the street. As you can see, some are painted red. Those are connected to shops where you’ll go inside and complete your six challenges to earn your six flags. On this side, we’ve got the bakery, the ice cream shop, and the dentist’s office. The purple squares in between are resting stops. Other painted pieces of sidewalk have stacks of cards you can pull. Lucky Duckies on the green squares are the good cards. The Clunkers on the blue squares? Well, those you want to avoid!”
“Unless you are a clunker,” Jack muttered very close to Simon’s ear.
“The crosswalks at both ends of the block are like the chutes in Chutes and Ladders,” Mrs. Blatt continued. “When you step off the curb, you can slide across to the eastern side of the street. You’ll find challenges at three more red squares—the cheese shop, the laundromat, and the pizza parlor. There are Lucky Ducky and Clunker squares over there, too. You will keep moving around the board until you complete all six challenges and have all six of your flags. Once you have all six flags, you need to run through the Zoom Zone, up the middle of Main Street.”
“You still have time to quit, Skrindle,” jeered Jack. “I’m sure that’s what your grouchy old grandfather would want you to do anyhow.”
For an instant, Simon wondered about that. Had Grandpa Sam figured out where Simon was? Because he definitely wouldn’t like the idea of Simon being one of the twelve kids competing to be the first inside Mr. Lemoncello’s secret new building, where he could, maybe, win a titanium ticket.
“Don’t let Jack get under your dome,” coached Soraiya. “At the Gameworks Factory, ‘Fun is ingredient one.’ My dad says that all the time. I think that used to be Mr. Lemoncello’s advertising slogan.”
“All right, contestants,” said Mrs. Blatt, “kindly look at your watches. On the screen, you’ll see a GIF of a waving flag. That’s the color you need to collect.”
Simon’s flag was yellow. Soraiya’s was green.
“Hooah!” cried Jack. “I am the black flag of death!”
Mrs. Blatt gave him a look. “Mr. McClintock?”
“Sorry. Just a little pumped.”
“Try to contain yourself. Now then—everybody please note the randomly generated number on your flag. That is the order in which you will roll.”
“Hooah!” Jack shouted again. His watch had just shown him he’d be going first. Soraiya drew the sixth position. Simon’s flag had a twelve fluttering on it. He’d be going last.
“Ha!” said Jack, laughing. “Last is a good place for you to start, Skrindle. Because, guess what? That’s definitely where you’re going to finish!”
Simon stood on the “Run” square watching the other eleven contestants work their way up the western side of Main Street.
The dice-rolling app on their watches was only tumbling one die, which meant six was the maximum number of spaces anyone could move.
Jack had rolled a two, which put him on a Lucky Ducky square. He drew a green card the size of a poster board. The card told him he was due for his annual checkup so he could skip ahead six spaces and go to the dentist, one of the red squares with a cha
llenge. He disappeared into the dentist’s office and the other players rolled on.
Soraiya rolled a six, which took her to a red square on her first move. She scampered into the ice cream shop.
Simon hummed a soothing tune in his head until it was finally his turn. He threw a three.
That meant he was going into the bakery for his first challenge. As he was about to step through the door, he saw Jack come out of the dentist’s office. He was covered with clear gunk that looked extremely sticky and gooey.
Jack wiped some of the stringy slobber off his goggles.
“Whoa! That big mouth in the chair can really rinse and spit!” he shouted. Then, very triumphantly, he held up a miniature black flag. It was dripping gobs of drool, too. “Hooah. Only five to go!”
Simon shuddered a little, then entered the bakery.
“Welcome, Simon,” said the baker, Mr. Dylan Teut. “If I were you, I’d lower those goggles.” Mr. Teut was dressed in a bulging baker’s outfit that looked more like the padding police officers assigned to the K-9 squad used for training attack dogs. His goggles were already down. “Your first yellow flag is right there on the counter, stuck in a birthday cake.”
“Thanks,” said Simon. The floor was a checkerboard of black and white tiles. Simon took one step. His foot landed on a white tile.
Suddenly, a banana cream pie sitting on top of a display case flew up, catapulted by some kind of spring-loaded contraption. The pie slammed, whipped cream side first, into Simon’s face.
That stunned him a little.
But he shook his head, wiped off his goggles, licked his fingers, and took another step forward.
This time, a whole pan of cupcakes leapt up, hurled themselves across the room, and splattered him in a dozen different spots.
Simon cleaned frosting off his goggles, wiped some off his coveralls, and used his tongue to catch a chunk of cupcake that was sliding down his face.
“Mmm. That’s good.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Teut. “Life’s better with sprinkles on top.”
Simon looked down at his feet.
They were both on a white tile. So he picked up one foot and put it down, very carefully, on the nearest black tile and braced himself for impact.
Nothing new came flying his way. He took another step, making sure he stepped on a black tile again. No baked goods shot across the room. He had figured out how the game worked!
The future, and the flags, belong to the puzzle solvers, he thought. Yes, the game was messy. But Soraiya had been right. It was also fun.
Simon hopscotched his way to the counter, using nothing but black tiles all the way. He plucked the Fourth of July–sized yellow flag out of the layer cake, pausing to lick the frosting off its wooden stick. He was enjoying it so much, he forgot to pay attention to where he placed his feet when he turned around.
Two white tiles.
Two chocolate chip cookies came shooting out of the walls like ninja stars. Simon quickly clamped down on the flag with his teeth and caught the cookies as if they were flying Frisbees.
“Now that’s what I call a balanced diet,” joked Mr. Teut. “A cookie in each hand. Good luck on the rest of your quest, Simon.”
“Thank you, sir!”
Simon hopped from one black tile to the next until he was safely out the door and back on the sidewalk.
Piya Sarkarati was standing on the red square, waiting to enter the bakery. Her eyes went wide when she saw the whipped cream and frosting smeared all over Simon.
Simon waved his flag. “I got my first one.”
“Sweet,” said Piya.
“Very. Want a cookie?”
“No thanks. Are those cupcakes smooshed on your chest?”
“Yeah. They’re very delicious. You’ll see!”
Piya laughed. “Thanks, Simon.” She stepped into the bakery.
“Your roll, Mr. Skrindle,” said Mrs. Blatt.
Simon tapped his watch. He couldn’t believe his luck. He rolled another three that sent him to another red square! The ice cream shop. That’s where Soraiya had started. He moved up the three spaces, wondering what wacky challenge might be waiting for him. He looked around, trying to find his friend—hoping she might give a hint about what to expect.
“Hey, Simon!” She was up at the corner, waving at him from the “Don’t Walk” square.
He hadn’t recognized her at first because her formerly white jumpsuit was now basically brown.
“Hot fudge!” she shouted, waving a green flag. “Enjoy your banana split!”
When Simon breathed out, he could see his breath. The whole ice cream shop was freezing.
Simon’s next flag was poked into the top of a swirled mountain of whipped cream, right next to a bright-red cherry the size of a pumpkin. That whipped cream was on top of six huge scoops of ice cream (they were the size of exercise balls) smothered in gallons of gloppy hot fudge sauce. The whole ginormous sundae sat in a big blue wading pool of a bowl sealed inside a clear plastic cube.
“Th-th-there’s only one w-w-way in to grab your flag,” chittered a volunteer bundled up in a ski parka with a bushy fake fur collar. “You h-h-have to use the sl-sl-slide!” She (or he—it was hard to tell because they were so bundled up) pointed to a slide sculpted to look like a split banana.
And the slide was greased with gobs of mashed bananas.
“G-g-good luck!” said the volunteer. “And r-r-remember, in h-h-here, every d-d-day is Sundae!”
Simon scampered up the ladder to the slide, lowered his goggles, closed his eyes, and smeared his way down the slick chute of banana mush—headfirst and on his belly.
His sneakers were squishy when he came out of the ice cream parlor waving two flags—the hot fudge had melted some of the ice cream into a soupy puddle at the bottom of the baby-blue bowl. Some of it had soaked into Simon’s socks.
Simon’s next turn took him past the dentist’s office challenge (he’d have to play this side of the street at least one more time) and onto the crosswalk. He scooted over to the other side of the street.
Where things got even grosser.
In the cheese shop, Simon had to crawl around in tunnels, burrowing through a holey wedge of Swiss cheese ten feet tall and twenty feet wide, searching for his flag. The holes were filled with stinky cheese sludge. But he finally found his flag.
“Gouda job!” said the lady running the cheese shop. “You’re doing grate!”
“Thanks!” said Simon, laughing at the, yes, cheesy puns.
He made it to the laundromat on his next roll but had to wait on the sidewalk for a few minutes while the Gameworks volunteers inside “reset the props.”
Apparently, a lot of the props were soap-related.
Because when it was Simon’s turn to go in and face his challenge, he had to trudge across an indoor lake of soapsuds fizzing up to the ceiling while he dodged clear plastic “bubble” balls.
Simon hoped he wouldn’t slip as he sloshed across the floor like a human mop, his squeaky sneakers scrubbing up foamy bubbles.
To release his flag, Simon climbed into a human-sized hamster wheel called “the spin cycle.” In his head, he heard a heroic musical anthem. It pumped him up. He churned his legs and spun the wheel faster and faster. As he did, sudsy water rose up inside a tube and triggered a lever that knocked a rubber ducky off its perch. The squeeze toy ducky was proudly carrying a tiny yellow flag poked into its air hole.
“Yes!” Simon shouted as he plucked it out.
Simon emerged from the laundromat soaked but carrying four flags.
“Way to go, Simon!” hollered Soraiya from across the street. She was waving four flags, too.
Jack had five. But the dice weren’t rolling his way.
“Aw, come on, you dumb watch! I needed a two, not a three!”
>
It sounded like he’d just missed the one red square he still needed and would have to take another lap around the board.
Back on the west side of Main Street, the dice app on Simon’s wrist made a WHOMP-WHOMP-WHOMP noise and sent him to a Clunker card.
“You’re overdue for your annual appointment,” it said. “Go see the dentist. Immediately!”
Huh. Simon was confused. A Lucky Ducky card, one of the good ones that gave players a bonus, had sent Jack to the dentist. Why was a bad card, a Clunker, sending him to the same red square challenge?
He found out soon enough.
His yellow flag was planted in the braces bracket of a wide-open plastic model of a mouth. It was larger than an enormous car’s trunk. Thick drool was dribbling out of the cartoonish mouth—explaining why Jack had come out soaked in slobber. Extracting the flag would be nasty enough. But getting to the mouth would be the hard part.
“Oooh, you must’ve pulled a Clunker,” said Dr. Gregg Lituchy, the town’s dentist, who had turned his office into a sidewalk board game stop. “Because, Simon, it looks like you have a few cavities that need drilling!”
He pressed his foot on a pedal. A high-pitched whine sent shivers down Simon’s spine.
Then things got even worse.
Two dozen Nerf drill bits spun their way down from the ceiling. Others poked up from the floor. Some flung toothpaste off them with every spin. To get to the slobbering open mouth to yank out his flag, Simon would first have to dance his way through a maze of whirring drill bits, all trying to block his path or knock him on his butt.
And there were dental floss trip wires stretched across the floor, too.
It took some time, but Simon was able to figure out a route through the maze and extract the flag from the slobber mouth with a pair of pliers Dr. Lituchy lent him.
“Good work, Simon,” said Dr. Lituchy. “Nobody else figured out the maze that quickly.”
With five flags in hand, Simon needed only one more—from the Pizza Palace on the east side of the street. He made it to the red square outside the Italian eatery on his next orbit around the outdoor board game.
Mr. Lemoncello and the Titanium Ticket Page 8