by Jody Feldman
He couldn’t let them down. Not now. Maybe something would change over the next few weeks. If he survived the Games, maybe his parents would give him the okay to play football after all. The bad news could wait.
“You? The Gollywhopper Games?” said Jamaal. “I still don’t believe you.”
“Then come over tomorrow when they email my flight info.”
“How will we know you didn’t make that up?” Jerome laughed.
Zane did too. “Go study the playbook, Jerome. Then watch for me on TV.”
Ten Days Before
THE STADIUM ROUND
The last time Gil Goodson had set foot in Bert’s office had been the day he won the Games. After that, Gil had become so popular, Tawkler from Marketing—or was it Plago from Toy and Game Creation?—suggested they invite him and the other contestants to work in the testing lab. Bert had never expected Gil to agree and had been avoiding him ever since.
The instant Gil shadowed Danny through the door, Bert walked right up and made eye contact. Gil didn’t look away. It was a good start. “Danny tells me you’ve put together some sort of plan.”
Gil nodded.
Danny turned to Bert. “We were brainstorming ways to do this, then Gil mentioned, and I agreed—Well, you tell him.”
If Bert was reading this right, Gil gave Danny a “Do I have to?” look.
“Your idea,” said Danny. “You take the credit.”
“It goes back to your father, huh?” Bert said.
Gil took a deep breath. “Sometimes my dad kicked himself for being so blind about the Incident. Said if you’d confronted him about the five million dollars, Bert, he could’ve trapped the person who actually did rig the computer system. Then he would have been your hero instead of your suspect.” He looked Bert in the eye and shrugged.
Danny nodded for him to go on.
“So I thought if we set a trap for the final challenge, the rat might take the bait.”
“Why focus on the final challenge?”
“That’s when the rat hit you hardest last time, where it could’ve caused the most chaos,” Danny said. “And because Ratso ultimately failed—”
“Ratso?”
“It’s what Gil and I started calling the person.”
“I like it.”
“Well, Ratso might have an itch to succeed where he failed last time. You know, to prove something.” Danny popped a pretzel into his mouth and looked at Gil.
“At least that’s what we thought. So we came up with all these complicated traps that might’ve worked,” Gil said, “but sometimes simple is better.”
“And it doesn’t get much simpler than this.” Danny handed Bert a pen.
“I ask Ratso to write out a confession?”
Danny laughed. “Nope. Here’s what you’ll do. As a casual point of information, you’ll inform your people that the security cameras will be turned off for an hour.”
“And?”
Danny took the pen back from Bert, pulled it apart, and plugged the bottom half into a USB port on Bert’s computer. It replayed every movement and word of their whole conversation.
Bert smiled.
“These spy cams come in a variety of disguises,” said Gil. “So we can set up whichever one blends in best around the final challenge area.”
“Areas,” Bert corrected. “One for each contestant. Then each area will have several different final challenges ready to go, just in case.” Bert stared silently at the pen for most of a minute before he looked up. “Would you two please step out of my office. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”
Once Danny and Gil closed the door behind them, Bert made sure the surveillance system in his office was turned off—it was never supposed to be on when he was in there—then opened the safe hidden behind a sliding wall panel.
He pulled out the site plans for the Games and turned to the page with the two identical final challenge areas. There, on each side of a low wall, were the three final challenges they’d settled on: Sink or Swim, Flamethrowers, or Extreme Machines.
Danny and Gil had been right. Those would be the most likely targets for Ratso. So Bert would need six spy cams. He stared at the plans again. No. Make that eight.
Bert put away the plans, called Danny back in, then sent him on a mission.
By the end of the day, just minutes after Bert himself had planted all the spy cams, he gathered his executive team to their seats around his desk. “There’s an issue with the surveillance system in the final challenge areas. To put the fix in place, they’ll need to shut down all the cameras next Wednesday at exactly seven p.m. They’ll be off for one to two hours.”
“Shall I get extra security detail on that?” Jenkins asked.
Bert knew someone would bring that up, but he couldn’t have extra security in place and expect the rat to make a fatal move. “Those of us in this room—We are the only ones who know exactly when this will happen. Just us and Walt Rusk, who will be doing the work from a control room on the eighth floor. I will be with him during the entire process. Better to not call attention to this. I just wanted to keep you informed.” Bert stood. “I need to leave for a personal matter, but you all stay and finalize which challenge we’ll use to end the Games. I’m fine with any of the three.”
Bert went out of the office, with hopes that someone would take the bait.
Chapter 9
Watch for me on TV? Had Zane really said that the other day? Now he’d need to be one of the last men standing, because he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself for the blooper reel. Besides, winning might buy him some fame and, more important, prevent him from becoming a Daryl. A million dollars could do that.
So on top of running with the guys every morning, working out with them in the afternoons, and perpetuating the lie that he was going to play football, Zane spent his time studying Gollywhopper DVDs like game film; memorizing Gil’s online guide, as if it were a playbook; reading as many Gollywhopper websites as he could stand; and having Zoe quiz him in return for shagging her punts. He wouldn’t be nearly as prepared as the hardcore G-Gamers, but he could play smart, and that always counted for something.
When Zoe found out that Golly Toy and Game Company had invited their whole family to Orchard Heights, she turned girl on him, moping that she couldn’t clone herself to be both there and at two-a-days. Thankfully, she snapped out of it after an hour. Thankfully, too, their mom couldn’t take time off from her new job, so he’d be spared the presence of the Arguing Parent Show. It would be just Zane and his dad. And a whole new competition he couldn’t fully prepare for.
Zane should have been pumped. Tomorrow was Games day, but he couldn’t generate that game-day rush, not even after he and his dad landed in Orchard Heights. They worked out at the hotel, ordered room service for dinner, hydrated, and got plenty of sleep. The next morning, they took a jog around the hotel grounds before they got dressed and went down to breakfast.
Zane made a beeline for the buffet and loaded his plate with mostly protein—eggs, bacon, sausage—along with a little fruit and one pancake, no syrup. He didn’t need a sugar spike to mess with any quickness, strategy, and overall smarts he’d need today.
They took the last two spots at a table with a redheaded boy whose redheaded parents swore he was the next Einstein until the girl next to him quietly mentioned she’d met some eleven-year-old who was already a senior in high school. That shut the Einsteins up until they started asking questions to gauge Zane’s smarts. He wasn’t playing. Neither was his dad. Instead, they smiled and gave short, direct answers. Everyone here was competition. If it ever came time for team building, though, Zane would team-build like the Games had never seen.
He kept his energy brewing at a low level for the rest of breakfast and through the bus ride to University Stadium. It moved to a simmer as they were whisked off the buses and into tents for registration and bar-coded wristbands.
Zane looked at his. In big numbers it said 798.
“Y
ou were hoping for twenty-one?” said his dad.
“Always.”
The number twenty-one wasn’t lucky to most people unless it was their birthday or they liked triple sevens. It was the number, though, of both Eric Wright and Deion Sanders, Zane’s football idols, and it was the number Zane wore on his jersey.
He did some quick math, and his energy ramped up to slow boil. “Dad.” He pointed to the 798. “It’s twenty-one times thirty-eight.”
“You got this, Zane,” he said, like he did before every game.
Within seconds, the Golly people ushered all the kids out of the family tents and into the stadium itself.
Even in the stands, Zane itched to put on pads and run the length of the field. His lungs craved to suck in wind that could push him faster than he’d ever gone before, but there he sat, in row twenty-one, at about the twenty-one-yard line in his assigned section D.
This year Golly had marked off ten distinct sections, from the top of the stands to the middle of the turf. Word spread that no kid from the same mall was in the same section, which meant less chance of anyone having a buddy in the next seat.
Even though the sectioning was similar to the past two Games, it felt different. There were no hot-air balloons, no confetti, no banners blazing. And the music that suddenly blasted over the speakers was just a recording—no live bands.
Um. No, it wasn’t. One verse into the Mercy Neptune song, Mercy herself, surrounded by a chorus of backup singers, bounded onto the field and up onto a stage. By the end of the first song, the crowd was rocking. When the second song started, at least a hundred dancers surrounded her, then climbed into the stands, pulling groups of kids around them.
All one thousand contestants, no matter their abilities—and there were some really awkward people—were dancing with ultrahigh energy. This type of moving and jumping and stretching wasn’t in Zane’s pregame warm-up routine, but it could’ve been. It was hitting all the right muscles in all the right ways.
With the start of the fourth song, one dancer pulled Zane to a more open space. Then she pointed to the video board. There he was, bigger than life. He found the camera that was on them, pointed to it, then looked up just in time to catch himself. Who knew? He could actually dance. The cameraman moved, but the dancing continued. And suddenly it got a little more crowded around him. He almost forgot this party was about to turn into competition. So he stepped aside with the start of the fifth song to get his mind back in the Games. Also to wipe the sweat off his face. After the sixth song, Mercy’s whole troupe raced off to screams of “Encore!” Mercy ran back only to take a bow.
Workers ran on the field and removed the stage. More workers pulled off tarps from large wagon wheels that studded the field’s perimeter. And then came a buzzing. Dozens—hundreds?—of bright cylinders zoomed into the airspace above the stands and the field, moving along wires Zane hadn’t noticed before. At once, they unfurled to create a magical ceiling of banners that amped him up for whatever these Games would throw at him.
The banners were riddled with motivational sayings. EXPECT MAJOR SUCCESS! YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN! JUST GO FOR IT! And others.
He needed to forget football. This was the game he was playing today. This was the time. This was the place. He expected success. He had what it took. He was going for it.
Chapter 10
“Welcome, contestants!” The voice ricocheted around the stadium. “This isn’t Gil’s Gollywhopper Games. This isn’t Clio’s Gollywhopper Games. This is your Gollywhopper Games!”
With only one thousand people cheering, the gut-rumbling roar was missing. So Zane cheered louder and made his own gut rumble.
“I’m Randy Wright, the voice of your Gollywhopper Games, and as they say, the game has changed. Right now, our Golly guides are handing you each a packet. Do not open the packet until we say ‘go.’ Which leads to the one supreme rule here: follow all our rules exactly. You will face elimination if you choose to make up your own. Got it?” He laughed. “We’re really not all that mean. We just don’t tolerate cheaters.”
A guide handed Zane a white envelope with the Gollywhopper Games logo and the warning on both sides: “Do not open until instructed.”
Within seconds, a slight buzz filtered through the stands. The scoreboard clock pulsed on and off at three minutes, then started counting down: 2:59, 2:58, 2:57.
“When the clock reaches zero, you may open your packets. Meanwhile, more instructions. These same instructions are inside your packet, but if you listen now, you’ll save yourself valuable time.”
Randy Wright continued. “Your packets contain six challenges. You’re to solve four on your own, from anywhere within your section, except for the top ten rows.”
Those appeared to be cordoned off.
“Now for something completely different. For challenge number five, you will need to choose a partner from anywhere within your section. For number six, you will need to work with three others to complete the task. You may not partner with any of the same people twice. When you have finished all six challenges—and you will be timed on these—find a Golly guide. Wave, Golly guides.”
A bunch of adults in bright yellow shirts waved wildly.
“Request a GollyReader from them and then enter your answers. That’s it. It might sound confusing, but it’s easy as pie, which you’ll discover in one minute.”
On cue, the clock hit 1:00, :59, :58.
“One more thing,” said Randy Wright. “This stadium is wired for sound and pictures. You may not discuss the solo challenges with anyone. No whispers, no note passing, no nothing. We will catch you, and you will be eliminated. Otherwise, good luck, and have fun!”
Zane skipped the cheering. He had twenty seconds to strategize. First step: grab three people for challenge six, while everyone was available. The right three, though; ones who might bring different skills to the challenge. He’d worry about finding a partner for the fifth challenge later.
He turned to the faces behind him. There was an older girl one row up, standing as confident as Zoe. Her. He made eye contact, hoped she understood. A few rows above her was a kid who seemed shy and scared. Totally different from Zane. Him. And that scrawny guy who looked like he was about four years old. He had to be really, really smart, unless he’d been an instant winner. Regardless, he was on Team Zane, too.
Three. Two. One.
Zane didn’t open his packet. He reached the girl first. “Group?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Stay there.”
Zane raced up three more bleacher rows to the shy kid. “You wanna be on our team?”
“Me?”
Zane nodded. “Go down to the girl with the red shirt.” He ran up to the scrawny kid who had some intensity in his eyes. “There’re three of us. You’re our fourth, okay?”
He didn’t wait for the kid to answer, but his footsteps followed. The four of them gathered where the girl had been sitting.
“I’m Zane.” He pointed to the girl.
“Cherise.”
The scrawny kid. “Elijah.”
The shy kid. “Braden.”
“We’re gonna move fast,” said Zane, “so no talking unless it’s about what we need to do.”
Elijah was holding up the instruction card marked 4-PERSON CHALLENGE. “Yours may all give the same directions, but you can’t assume anything here.”
Zane already liked this kid’s thinking. They compared cards, and they did all match.
Your challenge: Find the word on the wagon wheel.
Why it takes four of you: You need two Wheel Runners, one Line Watcher, and one Letter Reader.
Wheel Runners: You will thread the rope and its already-attached stabilizing rod through the center of the wheel. Clamp eight bars onto the rod. Holding only the rope, you will propel the wheel forward. You may not go backwards. You may not touch the rod NOR the wheel once the rope is clamped in.
Line Watcher: Occasional red lines mark the outside of th
e wheel. Each time a red line appears at the apex of the wheel, alert the Letter Reader.
Letter Reader: As the wheel turns, letters will reveal themselves. Note only those letters that are revealed when the Line Watcher alerts you. The letters, in order, will spell a common word that will be your solution for this challenge.
When you are finished: Signal a Golly guide by raising all eight of your arms in the air. Good luck!
“Let’s go!” Zane raced down the bleachers. By the size of the wagon wheels lining the perimeter of the field, he already knew he’d be a Wheel Runner. So would Cherise. She was closest to his height. Whichever of the other two claimed to have decent eyesight and the best memory would be the Letter Reader.
Before he got on the field, a Golly guide stopped him to scan all four of their wristbands. “You can store your packets in cubby number two if you want,” the man said.
Zane shoved his packet into the back waistband of his jeans—it’d be faster than fetching it afterward—then pulled the nearest wheel away from the wall, resisting the urge to see how many others were doing this same challenge first. Except . . . “Anything in the rules about not doing the four-person first?”
“Any order we want,” said Braden. “I already looked.”
“Great,” Zane said. “Okay, Cherise, help me with the rope. We’re going to be the Wheel Runners. You guys decide which of the other two jobs you’re doing.”
The wheel was tall, almost to Zane’s hip, but its base was wide enough to hold itself upright. Cherise fed one end of the rope through the wheel’s center hole. Zane grabbed it from the other side and pulled the attached stabilizing rod to the exact middle.
“You need to secure the rod with these.” Elijah pointed to the slim metal clamps, four on each side, lying flat against the wheel.
“Good eyes,” Zane said, hoping they’d chosen Elijah to read the letters.
Within seconds, Cherise had snapped all four clamps from her side into place. Zane clamped only three.
“You missed one,” Elijah said.