He stepped inside and the air smelled delicious. Like he’d just stuck his head inside a steaming pizza box.
“Buongiorno,” said the owner, Mr. Myles Decosimo. “Your flag is hidden inside a plastic meatball, which is hidden inside that giant bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.”
So Simon had to climb into a clear glass bowl that was larger than a hot tub and feel his way around the warm, squishy noodles swimming in tomato sauce. After diving into the muck several times and getting oregano up his nose, he found a plastic meatball he could pry open like a toy Easter egg.
His sixth and final flag popped out.
Simon climbed out of the bowl, with strands of spaghetti dangling off his nose, coveralls, and shoes. Back on the sidewalk, he wiped the red sauce off his watch and tapped his next dice roll. It took him to the southeast corner of the block—the launching pad for his sprint through the final obstacle course in the center of Main Street.
“You need to wait there, Simon,” said Mrs. Blatt. “There’s congestion in the Zoom Zone. Three players at a time is the limit.”
So Simon remained on the “Free Standing” space and waited.
“Hello, Loser McSnoozer,” whispered someone behind him.
Simon turned around.
Jack McClintock was covered in soapsuds but had six black flags tightly gripped in his fist.
“Looks like we’ll be zooming through the Zone together,” he whispered so no one else could hear. “If I were you, I’d start saying my prayers.”
With Jack more or less breathing down his neck as they both waited on the “Free Standing” square, Simon watched the three contestants working their way through the Zoom Zone in the middle of Main Street.
Piya had already made it to the putrid putting green and sloshed her way through the knee-deep slime to plant her six flags in one of the bobbing cubes of foam.
“That’s my daughter!” screamed her mother in the crowd. “The future is female! Woo-hoo!”
Piya would be the first contestant moving on to the supersecret building.
Soraiya had already made it through the giant windmill—a monster-sized version of the Putt-Putt classic—and the bouncy house. Now she was timing her pass under the swinging, double-headed rubber mallet. It was suspended from the apex of a steel triangle. Both sides of the rubber mallet were ridged, like a kid’s squeaky toy. When the path was clear, Soraiya turned sideways and dashed through the hammer obstacle. It barely missed her, whooshing past as it made another pendulum swing.
“Yes!” shouted Simon.
“She got lucky,” huffed Jack beside him.
Next, Soraiya had to scale the slopes of the chocolate volcano.
As she climbed up, Carolyn Hudson slipped and surfed back down to where she’d started, riding a wave of fudge sludge.
“Grab the handholds!” Soraiya yelled over her shoulder from her perch at the crater where lawn sprinkler jets of chocolate sauce sprayed up into the air. “They’re hidden under the chocolate. It’s just like climbing a rock wall!”
“Thanks!” shouted Carolyn, who’d already started working her way back up the volcano.
“What a fool,” snorted Jack. “You never give aid or comfort to your enemies.”
Soraiya and Carolyn both conquered the mountain, slogged across the green swamp of the putrid putting green, and planted their flags.
The crowd cheered. The first three contestants moving on to the titanium ticket round—Piya, Soraiya, and Carolyn—joined (somewhat slimy) hands and raised them triumphantly.
“All right, boys,” said Mrs. Blatt. “You two are up next. We have three winners. We only need one more! On your marks, get set, lemon, cello, go!”
Simon tightened his grip on his flags and took off. Unfortunately, Jack blasted off. He paused at the windmill, waited for the blades to clear, and dashed through.
Simon matched Jack’s moves and cleared the windmill, too, although he did feel a blade brush against his back.
Now they were both in the bouncy castle, where the floor was basically a ball pit. Jack was attempting to plow his way through the sea of plastic balls. Simon took a more nimble, high-stepping approach and made it to the exit ahead of Jack. He jumped up and scooted down the slide at the far end. When he landed, he was face to face with the swinging rubber hammers of doom.
“Go ahead, Skrindle,” cried Jack, who’d just slid down from the bouncy house. “You made it here first. You can have first dibs on the hammer swing.”
Whoa, thought Simon. That’s a surprise. Jack’s being a good sport.
“Um, thanks, Jack.”
Simon crouched down and studied the hammer as it moved back and forth. He could smell the rich milk chocolate flowing down from the volcano obstacle on the other side. He timed his takeoff perfectly and dashed to where the hammer head had just cleared.
“Whoa!” shouted Jack. “Is that your grandfather?”
Simon paused. Whirled around.
“W-w-where?”
“Never mind,” said Jack. “It’s just some other old geezer.”
And that’s when the rubber hammer swung back and conked Simon in the head. He toppled to the asphalt, which, fortunately, was covered with foam matting.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Skrindle!” shouted Jack as he cleared the hammer and scurried toward the volcano. “No aid. No comfort. Hooah!”
Feeling a little dizzy, Simon hauled himself up off the ground.
The hammer knocked him down again on its return swing.
Dizzy, Simon tucked and rolled. He didn’t want a third hammer whack.
Stumbling to his feet, he staggered toward the slippery chocolate slope. Thanks to Soraiya, he knew to look for handholds. But he could only use one hand; the other one was busy clutching his six flags. His vision was also a little blurry.
He slogged his way up the slope. Jack must’ve slipped and slid a little on his climb, because he and Simon made it to the summit of the chocolate volcano at the exact same second. Chocolate sauce was spewing up from the crater, showering them both with muddy brown liquid.
“How’s your head?” jeered Jack, under his breath.
Kind of woozy, thought Simon. He didn’t have a concussion (the rubber hammer was just a giant squeak toy), but he did feel wobbly.
“So long, Skrindle!” shouted Jack.
Simon heard his opponent jump, land on his butt, and sled down the far slope. So he tried to mirror Jack’s moves.
But his goggles were smudged with fudge, so he was sort of flying blind.
Groggy, he jumped up like he’d heard Jack do.
But Simon didn’t hit the slope.
KERPLUNK!
He plopped, butt first, into the three-foot-deep crater. The powerful chocolate jets knocked all six flags out of his hand.
“Noooo!” Simon cried as the flags he’d worked so hard to collect were washed away in the surge. Completely drenched in chocolate, Simon used both hands to grab hold of the rim of the crater and haul himself up. He must’ve looked like a chocolate groundhog, popping up from its hole.
Because as he watched his flags slosh down the sides of the mountain, everybody on Main Street was pointing up and laughing at him.
Hysterically.
Except Jack McClintock.
He was too busy planting his six flags in the putting green and becoming the fourth and final contestant moving on to the next round.
Defeated, Simon slid down the side of the chocolate mountain.
A volunteer guided him to the outdoor shower tent, where he was able to hose off all the goop and glop he’d been slimed with during his failed attempt to win the game. He then passed under a car-wash-sized hot-air blower to dry his hair and face in a flash.
His own clothes had remained clean under the high-tech waterproof coveralls.
“Would you like a souvenir T-shirt?” asked a volunteer.
“No thanks,” he mumbled.
He slumped his shoulders and shuffled out of the tent.
“Simon?” Soraiya called to him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Simon told her. “But you know that thing you say about the future belonging to the puzzle solvers? You’re wrong. The future belongs to cheaters like Jack McClintock. Always has, always will.”
“What’d Jack do?”
“Nothing.”
“You want to register a complaint with Mrs. Blatt?”
“No, Soraiya. I want to go home.”
He worked his way through the wall of spectators lining Fourth Street and sidled through the mob behind them on the next block of Main Street.
It felt like everybody in Hudson Hills was laughing at him.
Probably because they were.
Everybody except Soraiya. She was looking at Simon with pity in her eyes. That was almost worse than all the pointing and laughing.
As he walked up Main Street, moving farther and farther from the festivities, Simon could still hear the loudspeakers making announcements back at the sidewalk board game.
“Well, folks, there you have it,” a booming voice (it sounded like Mr. Mitchell) declared. “We have our four winners! They will be the first to see what’s inside the supersecret new building behind the factory. That’ll happen today at six p.m. when they will play an exciting new game to win a titanium ticket, which could be their ticket to an out-of-this-world, unbelievable, and yet-to-be-announced prize!”
Simon glanced at his watch (they’d let him keep it). There were still three hours before the game in the supersecret new building.
The one Simon wouldn’t be playing.
“All right,” Mr. Mitchell’s amplified voice continued. “Here are the teams going on to today’s final game.”
Simon sat down on a park bench to listen. The block between Eighth and Ninth Streets was pretty much deserted. There was no one there to laugh at him.
“First up,” Mr. Mitchell’s voice echoed in the distance, “Carolyn Hudson! You’ll be playing with the star of Kidzapalooza’s Hey, Hey, Haley, the one, the only, the Grammy Award–winning Haley Daley!”
The crowd roared. From four blocks north, it sounded like a dragon waking up from a long winter nap.
“Jack McClintock?” Mr. Mitchell continued. “You’ll be heading into the next game with Andrew Peckleman. Piya Sarkarati? You’ll be playing alongside Akimi Hughes. And, Soraiya Mitchell? Don’t worry, we didn’t forget you. Your partner will be the legendary gamester himself, Kyle Keeley!”
There was another excited roar from the crowd at the outdoor board game.
Simon was happy for Soraiya. She deserved to team up with Kyle Keeley, the top gamer from Ohio.
Simon wasn’t sure what he would do next. Go home and build something? Maybe play with his glockenspiel? Or, he could go eat one of those BLT ice cream sandwiches….
Suddenly, a yellow minibus, shaped like a lemon on wheels, whirred up the street. It stopped in front of Simon’s bench. The door swooshed open. There was no one sitting in the driver’s seat. Akimi Hughes, however, was buckled into the first swivel chair behind it.
“It’s an autonomous automobile,” she said when she saw the look on Simon’s face. “That means it drives itself.”
“Um, why’s it shaped like a lemon?”
“What? You think Mr. Lemoncello would make his driverless minibus look like some other kind of fruit? Hop in. This is your ticket to ride.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’re Simon Skrindle, right?”
Simon nodded.
“You’re the one Kyle and I met like a week ago. The one who nailed all those riddles.”
“I was just—”
“We need your help.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I just said so.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Kyle Keeley’s sick. Dr. Zinchenko thinks it’s a stomach virus. Some kind of twenty-four-hour bug. Then again, she’s a librarian. Not a medical doctor…”
“But Kyle’s supposed to play the final game with my friend Soraiya.”
“Exactly. So, we need a substitute. Guess who?”
“Um, Miguel Fernandez? Sierra Russell?”
“Nope. They’re both back home in Ohio. We need you.”
“To do what?”
“To take Kyle’s place.”
The self-driving lemonmobile whisked Simon and Akimi up the steep roads leading to where the Gameworks Factory sat perched on the bluff overlooking the Hudson River.
“We’re going to the factory?” Simon asked.
“Uh, yeah,” said Akimi, nodding toward the tablet computer operating the autonomous vehicle. “See?”
There was a box labeled “Destination” with “Loading Docks/Mr. Lemoncello’s Gameworks Factory” typed on it. Simon thought it was weird to see the oval minibus steering itself and doing exactly what the street signs and traffic lights told it to do.
“This is just a bigger version of Mr. Lemoncello’s Looney Lemons and Limes Robo-rally Race Car game,” said Akimi.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Seriously? It’s been a big hit for years.”
“I’m not allowed to play Lemoncello games.”
“Why not?”
“Long story.”
“Well, you’re about to play the biggest, most important Lemoncello game ever created. It’s Mr. Lemoncello’s masterpiece.” Then Akimi gestured for Simon to lean in so she could whisper something to him. “It’s what we were testing that night we met!”
“Was it fun?”
“Fun? Hello! It’s a Lemoncello! It’s also a mind bender. You need to be a genius to figure out the whole thing. Kyle and I never did. We ran out of time. And, from what Dr. Zinchenko and Mr. Raymo tell us, they’ve upped the degree of difficulty even more with all new games and riddles.” She shrugged. “Guess they had to because the prize is totally out of this world.”
“What is it?”
Akimi shrugged again. “Nobody knows. But we will. Probably right around six o’clock.”
The electric lemonmobile whirred itself around to the back of the Gameworks Factory and the loading docks, where dozens of eighteen-wheeler trucks were parked, ready to take Monday morning’s shipments of Lemoncello games all across the country.
“We’re in the red one,” said Akimi.
Simon nodded. “Okay. How come?”
“We needed a place to hang out between the time we landed and the big game. They built us a couple of dressing rooms and a little lounge inside the trailer. We were able to watch the sidewalk board game on a video monitor.”
“Oh. I didn’t do so well.”
“Uh, yeah. Because, from what we saw, it looked like that guy in the T. rex helmet distracted you—right before the swinging hammer of doom bonked you in the head. By the way, how’s it feeling?”
“Fine, now. It just made me a little wobbly when I reached the top of the volcano.”
“Yeah,” said Akimi. “We saw.”
Hydraulics whooshed as the lemonmobile came to a stop alongside the red truck.
“You have arrived at your destination,” said a computerized voice from the dashboard.
The door swung open.
“Come on,” said Akimi, stepping out of the vehicle. “You need to work with Haley Daley.”
“How come?”
“She has a whole trunk of costumes and wigs. She brought all her Hollywood makeup stuff, too. You need to become someone other than Simon Skrindle.”
“Huh?”
“Simon Skrindle didn’t win a slot in tonight’s big game. So, guess what? You’re g
oing to become somebody else!”
“Isn’t that cheating?”
“No. Because you can’t win. Just like I can’t win. And Andrew and Haley can’t win. We can only help the kids from Hudson Hills win.”
“But I’m from Hudson Hills.”
“Simon?”
“Yes?”
“You’re not going to be you. You’re going to become someone new. We need you to do this. Soraiya needs you to do this.”
Simon thought about what Akimi was telling him. “I can’t win?”
“That’s right. Unless, you know, Mr. Lemoncello decides to bend the rules.”
“So if I can’t win, I’m not cheating. I’m just putting on a disguise to help Soraiya?”
“Exactly. It’s what Mr. Lemoncello would want you to do.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. He’s all about helping people.”
“But, do you really think I can fool people into thinking I’m someone I’m not?”
“Absolutely. Haley is amazing. She’s learned so much in Hollywood and can do all sorts of cool tricks with plastic, glue, and foam. You can be anyone you want. For instance, I’m not really Akimi Hughes. I’m Miguel Fernandez!”
She grabbed her left cheek with her right hand and started to tug like she was going to pull off her face.
“You’re kidding!” said Simon, a little freaked out.
“Yes,” said Akimi, letting go of her face. “I am.”
Simon laughed. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
“Great.”
He followed Akimi up a short flight of concrete steps to the loading dock and went over to the roll-up door on the back of the long red rig.
Akimi pushed a button. A regular-sized door, hidden inside the roll-up door, popped open. Kyle Keeley was standing on the other side.
He had a blanket draped over his shoulders and an ice pack sitting on top of his head like a floppy hat. He was also carrying a steaming mug of chicken soup.
“Simon’s in!” Akimi announced.
“Yes,” said Simon, and this time he didn’t hesitate. “I am.”
Mr. Lemoncello and the Titanium Ticket Page 9