by Jody Feldman
“Help me shove the rock.”
With double the strength, the boulder tilted over. Sword underneath. “That’s two.”
“Three,” said Rocky. “Your girlfriend, Lavinia, has one. Don’t know about Bianca, but I think Thorn’s lounging on the beach waiting for the butler to bring him his caviar.”
“Leave him alone, Rocky. He’s harmless.”
“And useless.”
Gil couldn’t disagree. “Two swords over here,” he yelled. “Anyone else?”
“I have one,” said Lavinia.
“Me too,” called Bianca.
Nothing from Thorn.
“Were any buried in the sand?” yelled Gil. No reply. “Then everyone to the beach.”
Lavinia had found her sword on top of a cave and Bianca’s was in the ground next to a group of flowers. Thorn had already sifted through one quarter of the sand.
They spread over the expanse of beach, Rocky kicking through the sand, Lavinia on her hands and knees, Bianca shuffling back and forth, and Gil and Thorn leaning over and running their fingers through the five-foot-wide strip.
Where was it? Where was it?
“By the way,” said Thorn, “I did find the beast. It’s in that cave.”
Where was that fifth sword, though? Maybe three of them should continue looking in the jungle, but Gil felt sure the fifth one was here. If no one found it in—
“Yo!” said Rocky. “Found it.”
Back into the jungle, into the cave. An enormous silver creature with glowing red eyes growled at them. Rocky rammed a sword into a hole in its side. “Kill the sucker!”
“Oh, gross!”
“No blood, Bianca,” said Gil. “It’s not alive.”
“Hand me another,” said Rocky. He shoved the other four into the preformed holes, one by one. After the fifth, the beast groaned then keeled over with a vibrating thud.
Gil dropped to the ground on all fours to where the beast had been standing. Thankfully the writing there had nothing to do with winds battering palm trees.
CHAPTER 14
Carol reappeared from nowhere. “Major mistake, major. But you’re still in this. Just stop driving me nuts. Even if I don’t have to shave my hair, I’ll have to color it instead. It’s turning gray before my eyes. Now make up that four and a half minutes!”
“Less than five minutes?” said Gil. “We can do this.” He read the puzzle written on the ground, then he read it again more slowly, at Bianca’s request.
Puzzle #4
Call 1-33-784-693-6557.
(Follow the blue line to table #4.)
The blue line zigged and zagged, sending the green team around the giant dice again, circling a golden grand piano, passing a people-sized ant farm, and stopping at a living room with sofas, tables, overstuffed chairs, and their three choices: Wonder Tiny Dolls, Busy Busy Babies, or Destiny Dolls.
“There’s the phone,” said Bianca, pointing to the table next to the sofa. “Let’s call.”
Rocky grabbed the receiver. “Who remembers the number?”
“I don’t remember it,” said Bianca, “but I wrote it on my hand when Gil said it again.”
“So shoot.”
“Put it on speaker phone,” said Thorn, “so we all hear.”
“How—”
“That’s one thing I know.” Thorn hung up, pushed a button that broadcast the dial tone, then punched in the numbers from Bianca’s hand.
“That’s more numbers than a normal long-distance call,” said Lavinia.
“This isn’t exactly a normal place,” Gil said.
The phone rang and rang and rang.
“C’mon,” said Rocky, “pick up, you incompetents.” He stared at the phone. “What if he dialed wrong? I’m hanging up.” He looked around. “If no one objects.”
“Go ahead,” said Bianca.
Rocky pushed the speaker phone button, then redialed.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Busy?” said Gil. “As in Busy Busy Babies?”
Rocky’s hand reached for the box, but Bianca shoved it away. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t busy the first time.”
“She’s right about that,” said Gil. “But, Bianca, are you sure the number’s right?”
“With her, anything’s possible. I’ll go and…” Rocky sprinted off mid-sentence.
“This is not going as well as I anticipated,” Lavinia said.
Gil nodded. “The other team could still mess up. We just need to play our own game.”
“And don’t let anyone bully us into the wrong answers,” Thorn said.
Bianca sighed. “I got that number right, I’m sure.”
“It was a long number, Bianca,” said Gil.
“They could have made it easier, like when I order my Moonglo makeup. You know, Lavinia, when you decide to wear make-up, you need to get Moonglo mascara. It doesn’t make you look like a raccoon if you get something in your eye—like an eyelash or a tear. But what I mean is, you know how companies make it easy to remember phone numbers? Like I dial one eight hundred Moonglo, and I don’t have to remember numbers or anything. Which is good because—”
“We know,” said Gil. “You’re not good at math.”
“Yeah,” said Bianca, “but my point is if one thirty-three-something-something-something spelled a word—”
Gil grabbed her shoulders. “Bianca, you’re a genius.”
“I am?”
“Sometimes you are. Now repeat the numbers.”
Before she could, Rocky showed up. “I’m back. First number is one.”
“Aah!” said Gil. “The number one on the phone doesn’t have any letters.”
“Maybe,” Bianca said, “they wanted to trick us into believing it was a phone number.”
“Maybe so.” Gil moved to the phone. “Next number.”
“Three,” said Rocky.
“When I text, that’s D, E, or F,” Bianca said.
“Okay,” Gil said. “Do any of the dolls start with any of those letters?”
Lavinia grabbed a box. “Destiny Dolls. Maybe the numbers spell out Destiny Dolls.”
“Huh?” Rocky’s eyebrows came together. “Are you idiots? Numbers don’t spell.”
Thorn explained what they were doing as Bianca, Lavinia, and Gil worked their system.
“We already have D,” said Lavinia, reading the label on the Destiny Dolls box. “Next, E.”
“Three again,” responded Bianca.
“Right again,” confirmed Gil.
“S.”
“Seven.”
“Keep going.”
T-I-N-Y. Check. Check. Check. Check. D-OL-L-S.
Gil pumped his fist. “Yes!”
“My turn again,” said Rocky. “I get to open that Destiny Do-Goody. Gimme.” He snatched the box from Bianca.
“Stop!”
With Lavinia’s booming command, Rocky jumped, dropped the box.
Lavinia grabbed Gil’s hand. “The clue says, ‘Call one thirty-three,’ and so on. We’ve completely discounted the number one. So far, everything in the clues has had a purpose.”
“What are you thinking?” asked Gil.
Rocky tapped his foot.
“Shut up!” Bianca scowled at him.
Lavinia took a deep breath. “We need to examine our choices again. Destiny Dolls might be right.”
“Busy Busy Babies can’t be right because the phone rang the first time,” said Bianca.
“That leaves Wonder Tiny dolls,” said Gil. “Won-der-Ti-ny-Dolls,” he repeated slowly, stressing each syllable. “And if the ‘one’ of the phone number is spelled…”
“W-O-N,” Lavinia continued, picking up Gil’s train of thought, “then the remaining letters and numbers might match up. Let’s try it.”
“Okay, Lavinia, give me the first letter after W-O-N?”
“Next is D,” she said, running the drill again.
“Three on the phone,” said Bianca.
“Right,” confirmed Gi
l.
“Then E.”
“Three.”
“Yeah.”
As they ran through the letters, Rocky inched toward the other box. Bianca held onto it with a death grip until the last letter checked out. “It’s yours, Rocky.”
He ripped at it, dislocating the doll’s head, then slashed open the envelope.
Stunt #4
Wonder Tiny Dolls are small,
but one has grown up very tall.
And now she’s not a pretty sight.
Please help—she’s over to your right.
Rocky raced off, leading the others to a huge chair with an enormous doll body—at least five times the size of an adult—seated four feet off the ground and minus head, arms, and legs.
“Eew!” said Bianca.
“That’s certainly gruesome,” said Lavinia.
“Too bad there’s no blood,” said Rocky. “You’d think with this amount of dismembering going on, there’d be gallons of it smeared all over her little pink dress.”
“It’s a pinafore,” said Bianca.
“And you’re a pinhead.”
Thorn stayed out of the Ping-Pong match and opened a second envelope marked for that stunt.
Stunt #4
The crew at the factory didn’t have time to put me together yesterday.
If you attach all my body parts correctly, I’ll give you your next puzzle.
“And here are the parts,” said Gil.
A jumble of toes, feet, shins, and thighs; fingers, hands, forearms, and upper arms; ears, eyes, nose, lips, hair, and one huge head were heaped in a green tub to the side of the doll body.
“Leave the giant head in the tub,” Gil said. “We need to separate the other pieces into face parts, arm parts, and leg parts.”
Gil picked up a nose, an eyeball, and a plug of hair. He looked up to where the head would go. Too high to reach. “You guys finish. I’m going to find something to climb on.” He took only a couple steps. “Rocky, come here and grab one of these ladders. Set it up on that side. Thorn, you don’t climb, so you’ll put the toes into the feet. Lavinia, do the fingers.”
“I get the face,” said Bianca.
“Perfect.” Gil set up his ladder. Ran to get an upper arm. Needed to make up some time. He grabbed the arm and—
It flew into the air, but he caught it. He needed to slow down. Wipe his palms. Hold the arm. Climb the ladder. No. Too dangerous. “Bianca, do me a favor. Hand me this arm after I’ve climbed high enough. Give Rocky his, too.”
Gil tried to insert the arm’s six-inch screw into the shoulder socket, but he couldn’t get the right angle. He climbed a step higher, then a step lower. No and no. It looked like Rocky was having the same problem.
Gil climbed down, dropped the doll’s arm, and scooted his ladder to Rocky’s side. He supported the end of that upper arm while Rocky eased it into place. Gil rotated the arm clockwise as far up as he could reach.
Rocky took a step higher, grabbed the stump, and sent it down to Gil. After about five rotations, the arm set snug in the shoulder.
With the ladders still set there, they went to work on the lower left arm.
Bianca acted as their parts runner. Even so, she worked fast enough to also pop the eyes into their sockets, wedge the nose into the middle of the face, screw in the ears, attach the lips, jam in sixteen hair plugs, and tell them of each accomplishment by the time the arms were in place.
“How’re you guys coming?” Gil called to Lavinia and Thorn.
“Two more fingers,” Lavinia said.
“Three more toes.”
“Two more hair plugs,” said Bianca.
“Ready for the head, Rocky?”
Rocky grunted and grabbed his ladder and positioned it left of the neck while Gil put his to the right. He took two steps up.
“Done,” Bianca said.
“Okay, now hand me the head.”
Bianca bent over, grabbed the doll by the ear, and managed to lift the head a couple feet off the ground. “It’s heavy.”
“It can’t be that heavy,” said Rocky.
“It is.”
Gil leaped down and lifted the head. “She’s not joking, Rocky. This sucker is really heavy. No way we can hold it and climb a ladder. Lavinia,
Thorn, Bianca,” he said. “See if the three of you can hand the head to us.”
Those three stood behind the doll’s chair and raised the giant head above their own. From their ladder perches, neck high, Gil and Rocky reached for the head, but the ear holds were still half a foot too low.
Rocky grabbed at the hair, but a plug came out with his first swipe.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Bianca said. “I’ll fix it.”
“I have an idea,” said Gil. He climbed another couple rungs and surveyed the contents of the warehouse. He saw the palm trees and the giant bowling pin, the tip of the golden piano and living room. The living room. There was something he had seen on the way from the living room. Something. Something. There! He clambered down the ladder and tugged Rocky out of Bianca’s face. “Come on.”
Without question, Rocky ran alongside Gil. Together they hauled back one of that giant pair of dice and shoved it against the doll’s chair. They hoisted the head on top of that, but it left room for only one person to stand with it.
“Lavinia, jump up there, okay?”
Lavinia hopped up a few rungs of the ladder and jumped onto the four-foot die. She lifted the head high enough for Gil and Rocky to take it from her and set the giant screw into the socket in the doll’s neck. Gil twisted the chin to Rocky. Rocky sent it back to Gil. They spun the chin round and round until the head was fully on and facing front.
By this time, Bianca and Thorn had attached the hands and the leg parts. They were each twisting a foot into place.
“That’s it,” Thorn said. “We did it!”
Nothing.
“Where’s our envelope?” said Rocky.
“We must have done something wrong,” said Lavinia.
Rocky and Gil rechecked the arms and head. The others examined the reachable parts. Everything seemed tight. Now what? They stood back and stared.
“Is it me,” said Bianca, “or do the doll’s feet look funny?”
“Two left feet,” said Gil.
“Hey, Carol!” Bianca said. “Wherever you are! They gave us two left feet.”
“No, Bianca,” said Gil. “We gave her two left feet. We just need to move some toes. The big toe goes on the inside.”
Gil and Rocky jumped to it, switching around four of the toes on the right foot—the middle toe, already correct. One last twist to the baby toe and pow! The doll lit up. And from her pinafore popped an envelope. Success!
But had they made up any time?
CHAPTER 15
“Good news and bad news,” said Carol, ruffling her hair. “There’s hope for me yet. The red team messed up that last puzzle. They made the mistake you almost did: forgot to use the one in the phone number. But the bad news is you’re still nine seconds behind.”
Gil didn’t wait until Carol disappeared. He looked at the next puzzle. “Huh?”
“Share.” Bianca pulled the paper away and glanced at it. “Her what?” With a twist of her wrist, she flicked the paper outward for someone else to take.
Puzzle #5
Her hound do whirl done bag hag gun.
(Table #5 is on the wall at the opposite side of the room.)
The team hurried across the area, passing the puzzle back and forth, sighing.
Gil felt the puzzle return to his hands. He read it again. Her hound do whirl done bag hag gun. “Could they make this one any stranger?” Maybe their choices would give him some clue: Around the World and Back Again, The Great Crook Chase, or Word Scurry.
“Sounds like a scurry of words to me,” said Bianca.
“I wish I knew how to figure things out like the rest of you,” Thorn said. “I wish I knew what it meant.”
“Well, it does
mean something,” said Lavinia.
“I want to say it means nothing,” said Rocky.
“You always say that,” Bianca said, “and you’ve been right how many times?”
“Okay,” said Gil. “What if we each copy the puzzle then work alone for three minutes?”
No one disagreed.
Gil took his copy and sat next to five stairs leading nowhere. He stared at the words. Her hound do whirl done bag hag gun. He could rearrange the letters. Or divide them in different places. Those ideas didn’t work.
He could group the first letters of each word, then the second letters and so on: hhdwdbhg eoohoaau ruinggn nre dl. Nope. Skip every other letter? hrondwiloeahgu ehudohrdnbgagn. Or not. Write it backward? nuggahgabenodlrihwoddnuohreh. No again.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Thorn’s watch sounded the end of their silent time.
Gil returned to the other four. “Anyone?”
They responded with head shakes and shoulder shrugs.
“Maybe we start opening,” said Rocky. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Maybe not,” said Bianca. “But this silent thing didn’t work for me, either.”
“Then talk,” said Gil. “What do you think when you look at the puzzle, Bianca?”
“Just that this sounds like one of those higgledy-piggledy nursery rhymes that never made any sense, either. You know, like a scurry of words.”
“Sounds like someone’s bagging a hag with a gun—cops and crooks to me,” said Rocky.
“Oh, no,” Gil said. “We’re not doing that again. Until we know we’re right, we’re not opening another thing. Lavinia? You have any thoughts?”
“Not yet.”
“Thorn?”
“I’m bad at this,” he said, “but I keep thinking it’s that Around the World game—”
“I know, because you’ve been there, and it sounds like some foreign language you heard in Outer East Mongolia.”
“Rocky!” yelled Bianca. “Shut it.”
“Actually,” said Thorn, “he’s not too far off. I was going to say Sweden, though.”