Soraiya and Simon stood in front of the wall honoring Simon’s parents and shook hands with a long line that included just about everybody who lived in Hudson Hills.
“Never knew you had it in you, Simon,” said one person.
“You sure showed us!” said another.
“Way to go, honey!” Mr. Mitchell said proudly to his daughter when it was his turn in the receiving line. “You too, Simon. You know, your parents hired me, straight out of high school. They became my mentors.”
He shook Simon’s hand. “I owe them, big-time. I wish they were here to see all of this!” He swept open his arms to take in the party and the sparkling new building dedicated in the memory of Simon’s parents.
“So, when’s the next round in the competition?” asked a lady. “When do you two win Mr. Lemoncello’s fortune?”
Soraiya laughed. “We don’t know. This, after all, is just the first game of the whole tournament.”
“That’s right,” said Kyle Keeley, coming up to shake Simon’s and Soraiya’s hands. “And, of course, your fiercest competition will come out of Ohio! But today, you are the champions, my friends!”
“Ah, there they are!” Mr. Lemoncello bustled into the crowded room with Dr. Zinchenko. “Sorry to be late. Dr. Z and I had to deal with a last-minute complaint from Jack McClintock. He said that you, Soraiya, manually operated one of our robotic exhibit pieces?”
“Yes, sir. It was an emergency.”
“Which is why we want to present you with this medal to go with your titanium ticket,” said Dr. Zinchenko as she draped the medal’s purple ribbon over Soraiya’s head.
Soraiya read what was emblazoned on the medallion: “Safety First!”
“That’s my girl!” boomed Mr. Mitchell. “But, uh, speaking of safety, I’m afraid, sir, we need to hire a new director of security. Buck McClintock just quit. Then he wrote a bunch of nasty stuff on Twitter about you and me and pasted in some of the ruder emoji….I don’t even know what this one means….”
“Well,” said Mr. Lemoncello, “I’m sorry to lose him. No, wait. I’m not. I was thinking about my keys. I was sorry to lose those….”
Just then, Mr. Raymo, the chief imagineer, came into the Dedication Room.
Simon’s grandparents were with him.
Simon braced himself. He knew his grandfather was going to yell at him. But then his grandmother gave him a wink and a thumbs-up.
Simon’s grandfather walked up to the memorial wall and rubbed the engraved letters of his son’s and daughter-in-law’s names.
Everyone else in the room quit talking.
Mr. Lemoncello stood ramrod stiff so his banana shoes wouldn’t accidentally burp-squeak.
“You know,” Simon’s grandfather said, without turning around, “I had forgotten that Steve met Sally right here, working at the factory. Fortunately, just about thirty minutes ago, my wife was able to remind me, in no uncertain terms, that some of the best things in our lives came to us courtesy of Mr. Luigi L. Lemoncello. My son’s beautiful and brainy wife. Their beautiful and brainy son.”
He turned around.
“I’m sorry, Simon. Your grandmother is right. Life is for living. Sure, you need to work hard, but you ought to have some fun while you’re doing it, too.”
He opened his arms.
Simon ran into them.
“I’m so proud of you, Simon.”
Finally, Grandpa Sam broke out of the hug and walked over to Mr. Lemoncello.
“Now then,” he said, “if my grandson and his friend Soraiya here are really going to take over your factory…”
“They might,” said Mr. Lemoncello, bouncing on his heels. “We’re already planning a few more competitions in our tournament to determine my successor.”
“Well,” said Grandpa Sam, “whoever wins, they should have this. I found it with Steve’s things, years ago. Probably should’ve shared it with you back then, but, well…here.”
He handed Mr. Lemoncello a rolled-up tube of engineering drawings.
“Steve thought you ought to reconfigure your plastic mold injector. Since heat rises, it’d be more energy efficient if the heating tube was horizontal instead of vertical. That way, both ends would be the same temperature and you’d get even melting.”
Mr. Lemoncello beamed. “Like father, like son.”
Grandpa Sam looked confused. Simon smiled. He realized where he got his puzzle-solving skills: from his mom and dad.
Mr. Lemoncello took the plans from Grandpa Sam.
“I’ll be sure to pass this on to whoever inherits my empire.”
“You’re really giving it all away?” asked Grandpa Sam.
“Oh, yes indeedy. Some young puzzle solver—maybe someone right here in this very room or someone back home in Ohio or someone somewhere I haven’t even imagined—will, one day, inherit everything that I have spent my entire life building. But for now, we play on!”
“That’s right,” said Simon with a wink to Soraiya. “This game has just begun!”
ARE THE GAMES OVER?
Of course not! The names of over six dozen real board games, past and present, have been sprinkled into the text of this book.
How many can you find?
Send your answer to [email protected]. One winner, selected on August 25, 2021, from all the entries listing the most board games, will win a very cool prize. (Well, not as cool as inheriting Mr. Lemoncello’s entire empire, but cool!)
THANK YOU!
So many people have helped Mr. Lemoncello since his very first book came out, it’s almost impossible to thank all of them.
But I’ll try!
First and foremost, thank you to my extremely talented, patient, and funny wife, J.J. She’s not only my amazing coauthor on Shine! but the first editor of everything I write, including all five Lemoncello books.
Speaking of editors, the fantabulous Shana Corey and I have now done ten books together (with more to come!). She is amazingly insightful and knows how to make everything she touches better. She is ably assisted—and so am I—by Polo Orozco (when he’s not too busy managing security for Mr. Lemoncello’s Imagination Factory, that is).
I’d also like to thank Maria Modugno, editor of my picture book No More Naps!, because you don’t get to thank people in the back of picture books.
Big thanks to my longtime literary agent, Eric Myers, who takes care of all the serious stuff so that I can focus on the silly stuff.
Many thanks for the support and guidance from all of Mr. Lemoncello’s wondermous friends at Random House Children’s Books: John Adamo, Kerri Benvenuto, Julianne Conlon, Janet Foley, Judith Haut, Kate Keating, Jules Kelly, Gillian Levinson, Mallory Loehr, Barbara Marcus, Kelly McGauley, Michelle Nagler, and Janine Perez.
Mr. Lemoncello’s brand-new cover look was created by James Lancett. Thanks to him and Michelle Cunningham, Katrina Damkoehler, Stephanie Moss, Trish Parcell, Martha Rago, April Ward, and everybody in the Random House Children’s Books art department for making Luigi look so good.
An author is just one part of the team that makes a book. Ginormous thanks to more folks at Random House:
Copyediting: Barbara Bakowski, Heather Hughes, and Alison Kolani
Production: Shameiza Ally and Tim Terhune
Publicity: Dominique Cimina, Noreen Herits, and Lili Feinberg
School and library marketing: Shaughnessy Miller, Emily Petrick, Kristin Schulz, and Adrienne Waintraub
Sales (the crew that gets the right books into the right kids’ hands): Suzanne Archer, Amanda Auch, Emily Bruce, Gretchen Chapman, Brenda Conway, Dandy Conway, Whitney Conyers, Stephanie Davey, Jenelle Davis, Nic DuFort, Cletus Durkin, Felicia Frazier, Stella Galatis, Alex Gottlieb, Becky Green, Susan Hecht, Christina Jeffries, Kimberly Langus, Katie Lenox, Ruth Liebmann, Lauren Mackey, Cindy Mapp, Denni
s McLaughlin, Deanna Meyerhoff, Carol Monteiro, Tim Mooney, Stacey Pyle, Michele Sadler, Mark Santella, William Steedman, Ceara Steffan, Kate Sullivan, and Richard Vallejo.
Finally, thank you once again to all the teachers, librarians, parents, and grandparents who have introduced Mr. Lemoncello to millions of children all over the world! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
CHRIS GRABENSTEIN is the New York Times bestselling author of the hilarious and critically acclaimed Mr. Lemoncello’s Library and Welcome to Wonderland series, The Island of Dr. Libris, Shine! (coauthored with J.J. Grabenstein), and many other books, as well as the coauthor of numerous page-turners with James Patterson, including Katt vs. Dogg and the Treasure Hunters and Max Einstein series. Chris lives in New York City with his wife, J.J. Visit ChrisGrabenstein.com for trailers, bonus puzzles, and more. Look for Chris’s next book, The Smartest Kid in the Universe, coming soon!
@cgrabenstein
chris.grabenstein
cgrabber1955
FAVORITES BY CHRIS GRABENSTEIN
The Island of Dr. Libris
Shine! (coauthored with J.J. Grabenstein)
THE MR. LEMONCELLO’S LIBRARY SERIES
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library
Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics
Mr. Lemoncello’s Great Library Race
Mr. Lemoncello’s All-Star Breakout Game
Mr. Lemoncello and the Titanium Ticket
THE WELCOME TO WONDERLAND SERIES
Home Sweet Motel
Beach Party Surf Monkey
Sandapalooza Shake-Up
Beach Battle Blowout
THE HAUNTED MYSTERY SERIES
The Crossroads
The Demons’ Door
The Zombie Awakening
The Black Heart Crypt
COAUTHORED WITH JAMES PATTERSON
The House of Robots series
The I Funny series
The Jacky Ha-Ha series
Katt vs. Dogg
The Max Einstein series
Pottymouth and Stoopid
The Treasure Hunters series
Word of Mouse
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Mr. Lemoncello and the Titanium Ticket Page 17