Flip the Silver Switch

by Jackie Yeager

  We settle in on the couches, and I stare out the window, but instead of saying my lines in my head, I spin my wristband.

  Be Curious. Be Creative. Be Collaborative. Be Colorful. Be Courageous.

  Seraphina’s words helped our team a lot at Camp Piedmont, and now we have an awesome invention. But we still have to be totally prepared when we present the Ancestor App to the judges at this competition. We have to show them it’s better than all the other inventions in the whole world—and that’s a lot of inventions.

  I stare at the bright sky and watch the clouds morph into a lollipop. The swirl spins around and around, then opens up into a skinny pathway. My eyes flicker, feeling heavy, and I wonder where the path leads. The pathways at Camp Piedmont were bumpy and full of pebbles. I wonder if the pathways in Québec will be bumpy too. I wonder if our rooms will be filled with inventions like the ones inside our bed chambers—or if we’ll have a chambermaid like Swissa. I wonder if we’ll all remember our lines and be able to make our Ancestor App work. I wonder if we can pull off another miracle and place in the top three. I wonder if the Global Championships in Québec will be anything like Camp Piedmont at all.

  The aero-bus lands in Québec City, the capitol city of the Canadian province of Québec. None of my teammates wanted to practice our real skit and I’m not happy about that, but I guess we do have two weeks, so it’ll probably be fine. Besides, now that we’re here, I can’t wait to see what Québec City is like. I step off the aero-bus and expect to see the university where we’re staying, the sprawling grounds with all the buildings, but I don’t see it anywhere. All that’s here is one concrete garage. My teammates and I look at each other. The bus driver obviously dropped us off at the wrong place. I make a move to step back onto the bus, but the door slides shut in my face. The driver nods and looks away.

  “Wait!” I yell, knocking on the door.

  Ander pushes up next to me. “Don’t go!” he calls. “This isn’t the right place!”

  Mare pounds the door harder. “Open up! We need to get back on.”

  The driver doesn’t change his expression at all. Instead, he points to the sky behind us, lifts the aero-bus off the ground, and flies away.

  I turn around, but all I see is a sign above the concrete building written in French. I have no idea what it says! “What do we do now?” My heart starts beating like the drums in Art Forms class.

  Jillian squeals. “Oh my god! He’s leaving us here.”

  “Look!” Ander says. I turn around again and see what the bus driver was really pointing at—a miniature hot air balloon floating toward us. It gets closer and closer and soon lands at our feet. The colorful stripes are filled with words written in English: Think, Imagine, Solve, and Fly. We peek inside the basket but it’s empty—except for a message written on the floor.

  Greetings, New York Team!

  Follow me to the Piedmont Global Championships . . .

  The wind picks up and the balloon floats just out of our reach.

  “What if it’s a trap?” says Ander. “What if it’s really a spy balloon, leading us into enemy territory?”

  Jax shakes his head. “Or it could actually be sent from the Piedmont people.”

  “Come on,” I say. “Let’s follow it.”

  “What about our bags?” Jillian asks. She nods in the direction of our suitcases lying in the spot where the aero-bus used to be. I grab mine and start chasing the balloon. Ander catches up to me first. “This is crazy! Where are we going?”

  “I guess it’s leading us to our bed chambers, or the sign-in building—just like at Camp Piedmont.” I check over my shoulder. Mare is right behind us but Jillian is fumbling with her giant suitcase. “Come on, you guys, the balloon is getting away!” Jax grabs her suitcase and they race to catch up.

  The hot air balloon disappears behind the concrete building. We round the corner and it stops at a set of stairs that look like they lead to an underground subway terminal. It heads down the stairs, bouncing on each step as it descends.

  “I’m not going down there.” Mare plants herself firmly on top of her suitcase.

  “Yeah, it looks creepy,” Jillian agrees.

  “What else are we supposed to do?” asks Jax. “If we want to get to the Global Championships, we have to follow it. Maybe there’s a hallway down there that leads to the check-in building.”

  I bite my ring nail and then tuck it into my fist. “Jax is probably right. The campus is probably on the other side.”

  “Okay, Buddy, but I’m not going first,” says Ander. “You lead the way.”

  Jax shrugs. “Fine, follow me.”

  The balloon dips further into the stairwell. We stay as close as we can to it, but soon I have to cover my face. Swirls of dust gather around my nose. This place is so creepy I have chills on my arms.

  “Yuck! It stinks down here,” says Mare. “And it’s getting dark.”

  The stairs wind around and around and around—the lower we walk, the dizzier I feel. I grab a hold of the railing with one hand, trying to hold onto my suitcase with the other, just as a light appears along the steps.

  “That’s a little better.” Jillian sounds relieved. “Where do you think we’re going?”

  “I don’t know,” says Ander. “But I hope we get there soon. This place is freaking me out.”

  We reach the bottom of the stairs but all that we find there is a small metal door—our only option. The balloon hovers next to the handle and flashes.

  “I think it wants us to open the door,” I say.

  “Yeah. Open it, I guess,” Mare replies.

  I turn the handle, and the balloon dips into a concrete room. The floor is empty except for five cots lined up against the walls. Shelves are scattered everywhere holding about a million books, toys, and other stuff—so much stuff that I can’t even count it all.

  Ander eyes the place with suspicion. “This looks like a jail cell.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” says Mare. “This can’t be where we’re supposed to go.”

  The balloon spins in a circle and drops to the center of the floor. The basket lights up again and we step closer to see the new message:

  To reach the Global Championships

  you must complete the following task:

  Using the white paper and duct tape provided, cover the items in the room that begin with a letter of the alphabet. Then place the remaining items in the balloon basket. Upon completion of the task, the pathway to the university will be revealed.

  “What the heck?” says Mare. “I thought there weren’t going to be any more tasks.”

  Jillian lets out a huge sigh. “We’re going to be here all night. There are a million objects in this room. There’re like a hundred paperclips on that shelf and look—there’s a bucket of tennis balls.”

  “Cool, I’ll practice my juggling while I’m in here.”

  I let out a breath. “Ander, will you please focus?”

  “What? I’m just saying—it looks like we’re going to be here for a while.” He nods toward the cots.

  “I don’t get it,” I say, picking up the pile of paper. “We need to check into our rooms today. We can’t if we’re stuck in here.”

  “Then we better work fast,” says Jax.

  “But we only have this much paper. We don’t even have enough to cover all this stuff.”

  “But we don’t have to cover all of it,” says Jillian. “Only the ones that begin with a letter of the alphabet. The rest can go in the basket.”

  We stare at Jillian and then she gets it. “Oh, right. Every single thing starts with a letter of the alphabet.”

  “This task doesn’t make sense. We’ll be here all night.”

  “Look, there’s food on this shelf,” says Ander. “We won’t starve . . . grapes, granola bars, and bread.”

 
“This is stupid,” says Mare. “I say we go back.”

  “Back where?” I ask.

  “Back upstairs to the garage. We can talk to someone there and they can send for the aero-bus.”

  “I say we go back too,” says Jillian. She pulls on the door but it doesn’t budge. “Oh my gosh, we’re trapped in here!”

  “We’re not trapped,” says Jax. “The balloon said that the pathway to the Global Championship will be revealed once we solve the task. And Ander’s right. We do have food and cots to sleep on tonight.”

  My head starts to pound. “Hold on. We’re supposed to be there soon. I think the cots are here to throw us off, to make us think the task will take us all night.”

  “Hey, you may be right, KK. Maybe this task is easy to solve, we’re just looking at it in the obvious way.”

  “What do you mean?” asks Jax.

  “We all think we have to wrap every single item in the room in this white paper in order to get out of here, right?” he asks.

  “Right,” says Jillian.

  “But we don’t have that much paper.”

  “Right,” says Mare.

  “So there must be a way to cover all the stuff in paper that isn’t so obvious. We must be overthinking it.”

  “Or not thinking the right way,” I say.

  “So how should we be thinking?” asks Jillian.

  Ander falls onto one of the cots. “I don’t know. I thought of that part. You guys can take it from here.”

  Mare pulls him off the cot. “Oh no, you don’t. If I don’t sleep—and I am not sleeping on that thing tonight—then no one does. We have to figure this out—now.”

  I sit down cross-legged in front of the balloon. My teammates follow suit, and we form a circle around it. I bite my pointer nail. “So what do we know so far?”

  “We have to cover every object that begins with a letter of the alphabet with white paper,” says Jax.

  “And the ones that don’t begin with a letter from the alphabet have to fit in the balloon basket,” says Jillian.

  “Well, we already said that none of the items go in there,” says Mare.

  “I know. I’m just stating what we know.”

  Ander stands up and grabs the clump of grapes from the shelf. “If we eat these grapes, that’s one less item we have to cover.” He pulls off a branch and tosses the rest to Jax.

  Mare nods. “Good thinking. I’m starving.”

  “So let’s eat the rest of the food too,” says Jillian.

  “That’s a good start,” I say. “But look at this pile of paper. We have to consolidate somehow. We don’t have that much to use, and even if we did have more, it would take us forever to cover every single object with it.”

  Ander tosses me a handful of grapes. “Maybe it’s easier than it looks. The Piedmont people are all about secret clues and all that.”

  My brain feels squished. “The task could be easier than it looks. If the hard part is covering all these pieces with paper, and if it is easier than it looks, maybe that means we do have enough paper, and it won’t take that long for us to cover everything up.”

  “But we do have to cover all the objects,” Mare insists.

  “But we don’t have to cover them individually, do we?” asks Jax.

  “That’s it,” says Ander, his grin huge and eyes shining.

  “What’s ‘it’?” asks Mare. “What did I miss?”

  My brain un-squishes, and I think I know what Ander has in mind.

  He jumps up on one of the cots. “We can put some of the objects inside each other, stick the little objects inside the big ones, and then cover the big ones with the paper and duct tape.”

  “That’s what I was thinking too,” says Jax.

  Ander nods. “Jax and I will grab the big objects. You girls get the small ones.”

  The girls and I scurry around, placing each tiny item inside something a little bigger. I take the paper clips and place them inside a bowl, then I place the bowl inside a jewelry box. Ander tosses a granola bar to each of us. Of course he’s still taking care of the snacks. Jax finds two barrels and drags them over. We fill one of them with as many books and toys as we can. We do the same with a bucket, a large pot, and a vase, then drag them to the second barrel, and place them all inside.

  “Perfect,” says Mare. “We can cover the two barrels with the paper easily, and we’ll still have a little leftover.”

  “I’ll rip the duct tape into pieces and hand it to you guys,” says Ander. “It’ll be faster that way.”

  “Wait,” says Jax. “What about the cots?”

  I look at the empty room. The shelves are bare but the cots still line the walls.

  Jillian groans.

  “Crap,” says Mare. “We forgot about those.”

  “I have an idea,” says Jax. “Maybe we can put the barrels under a cot and cover that instead.”

  “Then what about the other cots?” I ask.

  Ander places one on top of another. “They stack!”

  “Awesome,” I say. “That should work.”

  Mare and Jillian pick up one of the cots and place it on top of the barrels. Ander carries the others and stacks them on top of the first. “Okay, I’ll start ripping the tape.”

  It takes us only a few minutes to cover the structure completely. When we’re done, we stand up and wait. Nothing happens.

  “What the heck?” Mare asks.

  “We followed the directions,” says Jillian. “Everything’s covered in paper.”

  I look over at Ander tossing the roll of duct tape in the air. “Everything but the duct tape.”

  Ander drops it like it’s on fire. “We forgot about the tape.”

  “Geez, guys, do I have to think of everything?” Mare picks up the tape, walks calmly over to the structure, tips it back, and slides it under. As soon as she tips it back down, the balloon springs up from the floor. A panel in the wall opens, and we follow the balloon right through.

  THE TREE SUITE

  We pile out of the room dragging our suitcases behind us and enter a forest with trees taller than any in Crimson Heights. Summer Tanagers, small red birds singing strange notes, surround the balloon. Tipi-tuck-i-tuck. Tipi-tuck-i-tuck. We follow them along a brick pathway, but with so many twists and turns, I soon lose my bearings and have no idea which way we’re going. I hope they all know where they’re going, because we are so lost if not.

  Luckily, before long, we emerge from the forest. A grassy clearing stands before us, and in the very center is a shimmering pool glistening in the sunlight. It looks like it could hold a thousand kids! At least one hundred silver cottages line the perimeter of the square. We walk along the pathway toward them, and as we get closer, the cottages get bigger and bigger. The balloon stops and dances in front of one of them, and I realize it’s not a cottage at all. It’s the most amazing treehouse-looking thing I’ve ever seen! Except I’m not actually sure that it’s a treehouse either. It’s not made of pine or oak or any other kind of wood that treehouses are usually made from. The stairs, the bridge, and the house itself are all made of metal and built into giant branches. The sign staked into the ground reads:

  THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  The Team from New York

  Marianna Barillian, Kia Krumpet, Jax Lapidary, Jillian Vervain, Alexander Yates

  Preceptors: Seraphina Swing and Gregor Axel

  “Holy cow!” Ander exclaims. “Is this where we’re staying?”

  A side door flies open, and Seraphina runs down the staircase with her purple platform heels tap, tap, tapping on the metal. “My Crimson Kids, you’re here! We were wondering when you’d arrive!”

  “Seraphina!” I call. She opens her arms wide and scoops me into a hug before embracing everyone else too.

  “Actually, I knew you’d f
igure out that paper task pretty quickly. Gregor wasn’t so sure.”

  Gregor strolls out the door right after her. “I see Seraphina is making me look bad already.”

  We charge to the top of the stairs. “Gregor!”

  He pulls away from our hug and adjusts his shirt. His mouth breaks into a slight smile though. “Hello team. It’s good to see you all again.”

  Seraphina is still grinning at us. “How was your ride on the aero-bus?”

  “It was good,” I say. “Your game was really fun.”

  Ander leaps from the top step to the bottom. “Yeah, I was a pirate who crawls. You should have seen me!”

  Gregor nods. “I’m sure you were outstanding, young Ander.”

  “Oh, I was.”

  “How was your break?” Seraphina asks. “I heard your town is making a big deal of you.”

  “Yeah,” says Jax. “We were interviewed by a TV reporter before we left.”

  “Wait until you get started here in Québec. Then they’ll really have something to talk about back in Crimson Heights.”

  Why does everyone need to keep talking about us? I mean, I want everyone to know about our invention, but I bet some people—like Charlotte, will think this whole thing is weird, so I’d rather Principal Bermuda just keep his big mouth shut.

  “Is this really where we’re staying?” asks Jillian.

  “Yes!”

  “All of us—together?” asks Mare.

  “Yes,” Gregor replies. “You’ll stay together this time as a team. Come this way and we’ll show you.”

  He leads us across a bridge made of swaying metal boards. I grab onto the ropes to steady myself, and as I step across, each board turns into a different color and words flash across them: Be Curious. Be Creative. Be Collaborative. Be Colorful;. Be Courageous.

  “Our team mantra,” Ander calls, hopping off the bridge.