Flip the Silver Switch

by Jackie Yeager

  Jillian shrieks. “Why not? Didn’t you hear what Master Freeman said? We’d get to travel all over the world!”

  “Stop making him feel bad,” says Ander.

  I’m so confused. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t want to go.

  Seraphina places a hand on Jax’s shoulder. “Listen everyone. Let’s go back to our tree suites. It’s been a very long day. We can figure this out tomorrow.”

  This competition is not off to a good start.

  I climb into my sleeping egg and draw the blankets up to my face. Mare turns off the light, and the whole room looks like the outdoors. Stars twinkle overhead through a skylight, and a cool breeze fills the room. A speaker startles me. “Germ eliminator in progress.” I peek out of the blankets and see millions of tiny eggs zooming in the air. They get bigger and bigger and when they get to be the size of actual eggs, they disappear through an opening in the skylight.

  “Yikes,” says Jillian. “They’re germ-eating eggs. This has to be an invention from one of the past teams. How did they think up that?”

  “I liked the air purification sparkles better.” I throw the covers over my head. Germ-eating eggs? Whatever. I don’t care about the amazing germ-eating eggs. I’d rather be sick.

  THE SHOWCASE FESTIVAL

  I wake up to a knock at the door and climb out of my egg bed to open it. But no one is there. I turn around, and Jillian sits up. Mare looks like she could be dead. I push my bangs away from my eyes and hear the knocking again. It’s coming from a tiny square cupboard near the bathroom. I open it and Ander’s face appears on a screen.

  “Hey KK, hurry up. Get dressed. We’re starving! Meet us downstairs in five minutes.” His face disappears, and I’m not sure where it went.

  “What the heck was that?”

  Jillian rubs her eyes. “That was Ander.”

  “Yeah, I know, but like, where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Downstairs someplace.”

  Jillian and I stare at Mare, dead to the world. We both know how this is going to go. If we try to wake her up nicely, she’ll just lay there and yell at us to leave her alone. On the other hand, if we drag her out of bed, she’ll give us the stink eye and yell at us to leave her alone, but at least she’ll be out of bed.

  I shrug, and Jillian and I each grab one of her arms.

  She tries to squirm away. “What are you guys doing? Let go. I’m sleeping!”

  I strengthen my grip “We have to meet the boys for breakfast. Come on.”

  We pull her onto the floor, and she lands with a thump. Jillian and I try really hard not to laugh. She glares at us and huffs off to the bathroom.

  Ten minutes later, we’re all wearing our American flag t-shirts and walking along the brick path. We pass the Texas and Idaho tree suites and keep wandering, looking for a building marked le Cantine de Universite.

  When we get in between a Canadian tree suite and a Chinese tree suite, we see the sign and take the brick pathway that cuts through the forest. Soon, the trees thin out and we come to a clearing at the edge of the university campus. Beyond the grass, le Universite de Creativite shimmers in the distance. With the sun shining over it, it looks like a sparkling palace.

  The largest building is full of tall peaks with deep sloping rooftops. The surrounding buildings are smaller but still regal-looking. We cross the clearing, and I feel the magic of this place pulling me in. On the side of one small building is the entrance we’re looking for. When we finally walk through the door of le Cantine, we’re bombarded with the sounds of voices and clanking silverware. There must be a thousand kids in here. It’s not exactly magical, but it’s definitely spectacular. We pick up our trays and get in line.

  The dining hall is full of foods from all over the world. I pass by the stuff I don’t recognize and fill my tray with pancakes. I wish I could find the warm peppermint-y scrambled apples from Camp Piedmont, but they don’t seem to be anywhere. I quickly realize my teammates and I have been separated. I search for signs of them, but all I see are signs written in languages of countries I’ve never been to. Everyone seems to know everyone, and my stomach flips over. How could my teammates leave me? Where are they? I walk in circles but don’t see them anywhere.

  I stop at the beverage station, relieved to see Maelle, a girl from the French team. “Hello, Kia. How are you today?” She’s wearing a shirt with the French flag on it.

  “Hi, Maelle. I’m fine. How are you?”

  “Mm, good. We are sitting over there. Is your table close by to us?”

  I smile because I suddenly see Ander waving from the corner. “Yeah, it’s just over there.” I look down at the croissant on her tray. “Is that all you’re going to eat?”

  She laughs. “Well, yes, there’s chocolate inside.”

  “You’re having chocolate for breakfast?”

  “Mm, yes. I always have chocolate for breakfast. I should go to my table and eat now. I will see you another time, alright?”

  “Sure, see you later.” I carry my tray to the table marked with our sign. Seraphina and Gregor have just started eating, but the rest of my team is almost finished.

  “Morning, Kia,” says Seraphina.

  “Did you get lost?” asks Ander.

  “Yes! But then I was talking to Maelle from the French team. Hi, Seraphina. Do you know what time we present to the judges?”

  “Our report time is nine o’clock. Your team will be presenting at 9:45 a.m.”

  I bite my thumb nail. “But we need to practice.”

  “You need nourishment,” says Gregor.

  I nod and quickly eat my pancakes while Seraphina continues.

  “The Showcase Festival will also be open to the distinguished guests of Québec. After judging, your job will be to answer their questions about your invention.”

  “Who are the distinguished guests?” asks Jax.

  “Many are teachers, some are engineers, and some are scientists. They come from several countries and could be the people turning these inventions into real items one day. We’d like you to stay in the New York booth for a while after you compete to answer questions from these guests or from kids on the other teams. Gregor and I will be there to help you.”

  I wipe my face with a napkin. “Okay, so can we go now? We have to practice. The judges will be coming soon!”

  “Kia, we can’t even get into your booth yet.”

  “But I’m not ready! We didn’t even practice on the aero-bus.”

  “I don’t feel ready either,” says Jillian. “Is there somewhere we can practice?”

  “Yeah, can we?” asks Ander. “We rehearsed right before Pre-Judging at Camp Piedmont, and then again before the National Finals, but it’s been three weeks since then.”

  Mare stands up. “What if we forget what we’re supposed to say? I don’t want to look like an idiot in front of the judges and the distinguished guests, or whoever they are.”

  “But aren’t our props over at our booth?” asks Jax.

  “Yes,” Gregor responds. “Perhaps you can practice without them. There is enough time.”

  Seraphina stands up. “Okay, come on, guys. I have a place we can go.”

  We clear our trays and scurry out of le Cantine. Seraphina and Gregor lead us back across the clearing towardthe tree suite colony. Before we get as far as any of the tree suites, we stop at an area in the forest, full of tall, gnarled trees. Most are tangled so badly it’s hard to tell which one is which, but we do find two large limbs lying on the ground.

  “Perfect!” says Seraphina. “We can sit here. Why don’t you run through your lines first to make sure you haven’t forgotten them? After that, you can act out the entire skit in this clearing.”

  We spend the next forty-five minutes rehearsing the skit that goes along with our Ancestor App invention. Crimson Catropolis slowly comes back t
o life—sort of. Each of us messes up our lines at least once. No matter how many times we try, we can’t get it quite right.

  “We’re never going to get it,” I say. “And we’re running out of time.”

  “This is just great,” says Mare. “I said right from the beginning at Camp Piedmont that I didn’t want to do a play, and now we have to do it for international judges and make total fools of ourselves.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to take a nap on the bus instead of rehearsing,” I remind her.

  “We were supposed to have two weeks here to practice!”

  “She’s right, KK. None of us knew we’d be judged today. Don’t worry. Maybe we just need to be in the right environment.”

  “You may be right, Ander,” says Seraphina. “This isn’t working, but it’s not as bad as you think. You have most of it down. Maybe you do need the props and costumes to perform your best. Let’s head over to the Imagination Centre. The doors should be open soon. We’ll have just enough time to set up before the judges arrive.”

  The butterflies in my stomach wake right up as soon as Seraphina says that, but I take a deep breath and start walking with the rest of my team. It takes hardly any time at all to get to the Imagination Centre, or maybe it just seems like that because I don’t feel like we’re ready at all. I hope Seraphina’s right. Maybe once our costumes are on and we’re standing with the Circle Spinner, we’ll be okay.

  We enter the building, and I’m surprised at the sight. The Imagination Centre doesn’t look like the gala room at all. Last night it was full of food and kids in fancy clothing, but now it’s full of partitioned booths and kids unpacking boxes. Hundreds of booths are set up, one for each team, marked with the flag from their country. That’s when it hits me. This is the Showcase Festival—where the greatest inventions will be on display from kids all over the world, just like us, but not like us at all. I’m not sure if I love or hate being around all these amazing inventions—inventions that may be better than ours.

  “This is awesome,” says Ander, bouncing on his toes. “I can’t wait to see all the cool stuff!”

  We walk up and down the aisles looking for our booth and finally reach it. An American flag banner hangs above the back wall with a New York sign underneath it. The booth itself is empty except for our boxes, each sealed with tape. Some are small—probably containing our costumes. One is very large. It holds the Circle Spinner, the metal holder containing my Golden Light Bulb, where we project the Ancestor App.

  Seraphina looks over them all. “Why don’t each of you take a box? Be careful when you open them up. We don’t want to have any disasters.”

  I pick a small box and open it slowly. Inside is the air screen that controls the Ancestor App. I carefully unwrap it from its cocoon. The box holding the Ancestor App is lying flat on the floor. Seraphina grabs hold of the cardboard corners and carefully pulls the box away as Gregor holds it in place. The Golden Light Bulb is still secure and the metal stand is in one piece, but scattered on the floor are pieces of wood that used to be glued to the front as decoration. Now our invention looks broken.

  “Oh no!” says Jillian. “Some of the pieces fell off!”

  “But it’s not that bad,” says Ander.

  “But it doesn’t look good. Does it even still spin?” she asks.

  “Don’t spin it,” says Jax. “More pieces may fall off. They probably loosened during transport.”

  “Where’s the toolbox? Did that make the trip?” asks Mare. “We need glue.”

  “Yes!” says Jillian. “We packed it in one of the costume boxes. Glue was definitely in there.”

  Ander pulls it out of the box. “I’ll do it.”

  “Wait,” I say. “The judges will be here in twenty minutes and we still have to change into our costumes. There’s no time for the glue to dry.”

  “Great,” says Mare. “Our invention is going to look like we slapped it together in five minutes.”

  I rifle through the toolbox. “Not if we use this.” I hold up a roll of duct tape.

  “Perfect!” Ander gives us the thumbs up. “I’ll cut the pieces. You guys stick them on the wood.”

  We get to work rolling the duct tape into tiny pieces and sticking them to the backs of the broken wood pieces. We press them onto the Circle Spinner and it starts to look better, but still, it doesn’t look perfect.

  “It’s going to have to do,” says Seraphina. You only have eight minutes until the judges arrive.”

  This is horrible!

  We grab our costume bags and race past invention after invention on the way to the bathroom. While I’m running, I pull my hair into two pigtails. We find a bathroom just around the corner and slip inside. I’ve never changed so fast in my life! While I buckle my overall shorts, I think about my talk with Grandma Kitty yesterday morning when I was at her house. She wants to be able to communicate with her dead mother again. Winning is the only way to make that happen, so we just have to ace this presentation.

  We take two seconds to make sure we all look okay and race back to our booth. The boys arrive after us, which is so typical, and they don’t even have to worry about their hair! Ander jumps into the booth with his jester costume on inside out. “Freddy Dinkleweed, at your service!”

  “Oh my god, Ander.”

  “What?” he asks.

  Jillian gasps. “Your costume is inside out!”

  I see the look of panic on his face, and I should tell him it’s fine, but no way. If we lose because he can’t figure out how to put his clothes on like everyone else, then I’ll never forgive him.

  “Don’t worry,” Seraphina assures us. “Freddy Dinkleweed would definitely wear his clothes inside out.”

  I look at Ander again, and yeah, I guess she does have a point. Seraphina glances down the aisle. “They should be here any minute.” We scurry to take our places in front of our props. Seraphina and Gregor take their places at the front corners of the booth and keep watch. Seraphina nods. “You’ve got this, my Crimson Kids. Ready to show ’em what you’ve got?”

  And just as the judges appear in front of our booth we chant, “Yup de dup dup dup. We’re ready to show you our team’s circle!”

  But my heart is thumping out of my chest. I’m not sure I’ll be able to say my lines. Two men and one woman in matching gold shirts laugh. The woman, wearing a flowered hat, laughs the loudest. “Well, we certainly are ready to see it.”

  “Do you have the proper paperwork?” asks one of the male judges.

  “Yes, of course,” Gregor responds, and hands a packet of papers to him.

  While the two male judges read through it, the female judge walks over to us, “You aren’t nervous, are you?”

  Ander tugs on his inside out shirt. “Nope, we’re not.”

  “Because I don’t want you to be nervous. This is only one small portion of the competition. The real hard part comes next when you attempt to solve the Global Task.”

  Don’t remind me.

  “But in case you are nervous—like if you feel like you may faint or throw up—just take all that imaginary garbage out of your head and pretend to hand it to me.” She holds her hand out to each of us. “Now just place those nervous, sick-feeling thoughts right in my hand, and I’ll throw them all away.”

  Is she crazy? I didn’t have major sick-feeling thoughts before, but now I do.

  Her palm is cupped in front of me. “What are you waiting for?” she asks.

  I look at the rest of my team. Jillian shrugs.

  This is really weird.

  I pretend to place something in her hand. She places my pretend something in her pocket.

  The rest of the team does the same thing, and she walks to the front of the booth and pretends to empty the contents of her pocket onto the floor.

  Are you serious?

  “New York Team fr
om the United States of America,” says one of the men. “We’re ready for you. You may begin whenever you like.”

  We stand there, frozen.

  Seraphina seems to realize we need someone to start us. She quickly says again, “Team, are you ready?”

  “Yup de dup dup dup, we’re ready to show you our team circle!”

  And just by saying those words, the magical world of Crimson Catropolis slowly comes to life. Our voices boom, and I’m sure the judges can hear us over the noise of the people walking in the aisles. It’s hard to perform our play in such a small space, but we adjust for the difference, trying to stay out of each other’s way. As we skip around the space, I notice a crowd gathering around our booth. Other kids and distinguished guests are watching our skit. But it doesn’t make me nervous—not like the lady in the hat did—it makes me feel like a star. Jax flairs his cape. Mare snaps her gum. Jillian spins the spinner. Ander activates the Ancestor App. When Ander’s great-great-grandpa Jim appears from the smoky swirl and begins answering Ander’s questions, the crowd gasps—just like the audience at Camp Piedmont did.

  At the end of the twelve minutes, the crowd is clapping for us, and I feel like I’m floating on a cloud. But the judges don’t cheer one bit. They write their notes, enter stuff into their portable air screens, and off they go. No smile, no “good job.” No nothing. Not until the lady judge says to Ander, “Did you know your costume was inside out?”

  Without hesitation, he replies, “Yup, I knew.”

  “Impressive. It definitely added to the quirkiness of your character.”

  She walks away, and Ander tries not to smile.

  “Nice save on that one,” says Mare.

  He nods. “Yeah, I planned it all along.”

  Before we can ask Seraphina and Gregor how we did, we’re bombarded with questions from the crowd. “How did you think of that?” asks a man in a suit. “How many hours did it take you to assemble it?” asks a woman in a skirt. “Do you know what this will mean for people?” asks another.

  We do our best to answer their questions, and it’s fun at first, but then it gets tiring and I wish they would go away. A group of kids dressed in matching outfits depicting the red, white, and blue colors of the French flag walk up to the booth. We quickly realize it’s our new French friends.