Friend or Foe

by Jody Feldman

  His driver called, and Zane ducked into the limo.

  “You are into this,” said his dad, not hopeful, not questioning, just a statement of fact.

  Zane nodded.

  “Good to see. Not too shaken by Tay’s concussion?”

  “Been there, done that.”

  Aside from the past few months, he’d never held back a moment in his life, and he wouldn’t today.

  They pulled up to Golly Headquarters. A mob of people lined the block, holding signs and balloons and cameras.

  Zane turned to his dad. “Let’s do this.”

  Before

  THE COMPETITION AT

  GOLLY HEADQUARTERS

  Danny rushed in to Bert’s office at five a.m. “It wouldn’t be foolproof if the rat had sabotaged the challenges before they were moved into place.”

  “What?” Bert swiveled in his chair. “And why are you here this early?”

  “I figured it out in my dream or something. Did you build the final challenges where they sit now?”

  “No.”

  “What if the final challenges were sabotaged during the construction process or when you moved them into the final areas or anytime before we set the surveillance trap? Maybe that’s why Ratso didn’t take the bait.”

  “We would have caught it,” Bert said. “I had two different inspection teams in yesterday. Neither had a chance to confer with the other. Both groups found that Flamethrowers were still throwing flames, safely. The Sink or Swim whirlpool was whirling both clockwise and counterclockwise. All the Extreme Machines gears were meshing. They did find a broken scissors at Merry-Go-Wow, but we fixed that.”

  “Merry-Go-Wow? That’s not on the list.”

  “I thought it wise to have a secret backup, but pretend you didn’t hear that. No one knows. Well, almost no one. Sorry to deprive you of your beauty sleep.”

  Danny nodded like a disappointed little boy. But then he looked up. “You tried them, right? You actually tried Flamethrowers as if you were a contestant?”

  “They inspected the structures and—” Bert shot out of his chair. “No.”

  The two of them wound around the building and down three floors. Bert stopped and pulled out his cell phone. “I need Plago. He’s the only one I trust to work these all.”

  “What if he’s Ratso?”

  “If he is, I’ll know.”

  Bert paced back and forth along a ten-foot path between a somersaulting baboon and Saturn’s outer ring, then nearly tackled Plago the moment he arrived. “Don’t ask questions,” said Bert. “Just run our final challenges like you were playing them.”

  Plago didn’t hesitate. He warmed up Flamethrowers. It shot flames as they’d tested it, but when he started the launch sequence, the flame shot so far, it almost burned the baboon.

  “No!” Plago raced to shut off the flames. “What just happened, Bert?”

  “Sabotage.”

  No way could Plago fake the horror in his eyes. He wasn’t Ratso, thank goodness.

  They hurried over to Sink or Swim. The third press of Panel 2 sent Plago reeling back with a shock. He huffed and puffed and finally caught his breath. “Is this whole place rigged?”

  Bert could barely see straight. It’s like his blood was boiling, about to erupt from his ears. He almost wanted to call it quits, stop the Games entirely. He couldn’t do that. Not yet. They moved on to Extreme Machines.

  Plago shook his head. “If this kills me, tell my wife I love her.”

  But Extreme Machines worked perfectly!

  Meanwhile, with instructions from Plago, Danny had gone to check the identical challenges on the other side. None of those had been rigged.

  Bert shook his head. “Ratso is very smart.”

  “Who?” said Plago.

  “The bad guy knew to sabotage only one of each pair. Even if it didn’t hurt the kid, any malfunction would have given the other contestant an unfair advantage. We’d need our third do-over in three Games. We’d be a laughingstock. I need both of you to confirm you’re absolutely sure there’s been no sabotage to Extreme Machine.”

  “None,” Danny said.

  “You saw it,” said Plago. “I suppose we’re running with that?”

  “I suppose so.” Bert sent them back upstairs, but lingered to walk past his secret backup. “No one sabotages my Games and gets away with it.”

  Chapter 19

  Their limo had barely come to a stop in front of Golly Headquarters when Sharryn opened its door. “Zane!”

  The enormous crowd surrounding the red carpet started chanting his name. If he never made it to the NFL, at least he’d gotten a taste of superstardom. Too bad he liked it so much.

  Zane posed for five pictures and signed six pieces of paper, a forearm, and the back of a shirt before Sharryn moved him through the unassuming glass doors of Golly Toy and Game Company Headquarters.

  What first hit him was the smell of gingerbread, followed by a kaleidoscope of light bouncing off every surface. This was like no place on earth that Zane had ever seen.

  He stood hypnotized by the skylights that were catching the sun and painting prisms around the octagonal room. He didn’t even realize Ryder was in there, too, until the left wall slid partway open. Behind it was Carol, the famous Golly guide. “If I’m ever feeling blah,” she said, “I come here and leave different.”

  On any other day, that would sound totally cornball, but here, Zane felt it.

  “I could stay here forever,” said Carol, “but it’s time to move on. Ready?”

  “Let’s do this,” said Zane.

  “What he said.” And Ryder shot through the door in front of Carol. He stopped.

  They caught up with him, but there seemed to be nowhere to go in this dimly lit area. Carol kept moving as if she were either going to crash into the far wall or walk straight through it. It opened just in time for her not to lose stride.

  “Okay,” said Zane. “That was creepy.”

  Ryder nodded. “And cool.”

  Beyond the creepiness was a well-lit hall with weird pictures on the walls. Ryder pointed to a portrait of a very old woman with spiky green hair and an extra eyeball in the middle of her forehead. “We never saw her on TV.”

  “We don’t show you everything,” said Carol. She led them through a small waiting area and held open a door for them. “Go in. Sit tight. I’ll be back with our other victims.”

  Elijah and Hanna were sitting tight at the large table, chatting about marine biology. Becky and Josh sat next to each other, their chairs turned so they could punch the bounce-up gorilla back and forth. They were joking about geometry.

  Zane was about to spar with a five-eyed monster, but the door opened again. In came Berk and Leore. While Berk was all in-your-face, Leore barely looked you in the chin. Maybe in her element, she morphed into someone more energetic—someone with a pulse. If he and Hanna were picking teams like Elijah had suggested, Hanna would go first, and Zane would probably get stuck with Leore. That meant only one thing.

  He sat next to Leore, who had moved to a chair away from the group. “Are you as nervous as I am?” Not that he was nervous; just looking for common ground.

  She stared at her hands, folded on the table. “Somewhat.”

  “I can talk too much when I get nervous,” said Zane. “Am I bothering you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Good. Because if we end up on the same team, I don’t want to annoy you. You’ll tell me if I do?”

  She nodded.

  “Should I leave you alone?”

  She shrugged.

  He’d have more fun with the others, but Zane didn’t want Leore to think he was giving up on her. Now what?

  He was saved by Carol and Bill, the other guide, who burst in with more energy than Zane had ever seen off any field or court.

  “We are ready for you,” said Bill.

  “Are you ready for us?” Carol said.

  “Is this when you divide us into teams?” asked Ry
der.

  Carol raised her eyebrows three times and laughed. “Where shall we start, Bill?”

  “Let’s start with the past couple years. Carol was always in charge of one team, I was in charge of another, and we had our friendly wagers. The first year, her team won, and I had to shave my head. Last year, my team won, so she became my maid for a year.”

  “We spent so much time together,” said Carol, “we decided to get married, and the good people at Golly didn’t want any friction to come between us.”

  “The problem is,” said Bill, “our relationship thrives on competition. And yet they have failed to give us teams to manage.”

  “No teams?” asked Berk.

  Bill shook his head. “Not initially. We have something else up our sleeves first.”

  “A little something,” Carol said, “we call Friend or Foe.” She let out an evil-movie laugh.

  Bill’s eyes opened wide. “I married that?”

  “Yes, you did,” said Carol. “Now, Friend or Foe will pair you with a different contestant for four challenges. Each time, you’ll decide who of you plays in Friend mode and who plays the more difficult Foe version.”

  “The four with the best cumulative times following all rounds will be on one team and will have an advantage over the four who have been less successful,” said Bill. “And that may leave you wondering, why on this Gollywhopper of an earth—”

  “Gollywhopper of an earth?” Carol shook her head.

  “Yes,” said Bill. “Why on this Gollywhopper of an earth would you choose a harder challenge over an easier one?”

  “Good question, Bill.” Carol chuckled. “It comes down to points. When you successfully finish a round, whether you’ve played as Friend or Foe, you’ll earn one hundred points.”

  “But these timed challenges,” said Bill, “will award you additional points for every second you beat the clock. For example, if you finish your challenge with two minutes remaining, you will receive two hundred twenty points; one hundred for completion plus one-twenty for the number of seconds left on the clock.”

  “However,” said Carol, “if you choose to play in Foe mode, you’ll have more time to complete your task, so the potential is there to earn more points. Got it?”

  They did.

  “In order to know who plays who—”

  “Or is it whom, Carol?”

  “Give that man one hundred points. In order to know who plays whom, we have a handy-dandy pairing chart.” She held up a GollyReader with some sort of grid, but brought it down before Zane could make any sense of it.

  “To make this totally random, you are identified with contestant numbers, which you’ll receive right now.”

  “It’s not as confusing as it sounds,” said Bill.

  “Unless you’re often confused, like he is,” Carol said.

  “And this is what I put up with at home.”

  They both laughed. If only Zane’s parents would laugh like that again, and not just when one messed up.

  Bill then held out a block of wood with eight jester heads. “Each of these poor guys has a numbered stick for a body.” Bill went up to Hanna. “Pick a head. His body will reveal your contestant number for this round.”

  She closed her eyes, whirled her finger around the block, and let it land on a head. Number four. Bill held the jesters out to Ryder, who pulled number one.

  “And so if we look at our handy-dandy chart”—and Carol referred to her GollyReader—“we see Ryder, who’s number one, will meet in Round Three with number four, Hanna, and will be joined by Friend or Foe number four.”

  “Friend or Foe number four? What’s that?” said Berk.

  Carol came around and clamped him on the shoulder. “Oh, you perceptive soul. We were about to tell you.”

  “So let’s just tell them, Carol.” Bill came around in back of Berk and joined Carol. “We need a little help to pull off the Friend or Foe element of each challenge, so we’ve enlisted people to help you.”

  “Or hinder you,” Carol said with a voice of doom.

  Hanna raised her hand.

  “Yes?” Bill said.

  “Will we get to know how they’ll hinder us? Or help us? I mean, before we decide Friend or Foe?”

  Bill and Carol looked at each other. He nodded at her.

  “We are evil,” she said. “You’ll get a little information, but not too much.”

  Bill continued around the table with the jesters, then hit a button on the remote. The schedule was projected on the wall. “Take a minute to see who you’re facing.”

  In Round One, Zane—who pulled number 8—would be against Berk; in Round Two, against Ryder; in Round Three, Leore; and in Round Four, Elijah.

  If it were up to him, he’d never go against Elijah, partly for the buddy aspect, but mostly because of his brains. He wouldn’t have picked Berk, either. Berk was like that football player who’d targeted Zane’s helmet with his own (and it hadn’t been an accident like the other guy had claimed) to give him his first concussion.

  Leore and Ryder? Leore seemed so tentative and Ryder, so reckless. Then again, they probably thought he was a dumb jock. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as everyone here, but he did have one advantage. He knew strategy.

  Berk came up to him. “First round, pal. You’re going down.”

  First strategy—don’t let him see you sweat, mostly because you’re not sweating. “Bring it, pal.”

  Chapter 20

  Bill and Carol led them in relative silence down four hallways into a waiting elevator. Without anyone pushing a button, the large elevator rose up and up and up until the doors opened to an area glowing with color. Was it . . . ?

  “That’s right,” said Carol. “You don’t start every day at the top of the Rainbow Maze.”

  “This isn’t a challenge,” said Bill, “just an opportunity to take the ride of your lives into the competition area. Contestant number eight. Zane. You’re up!”

  Zane vaulted onto a golden ledge and launched himself down the chute.

  He twisted, he spiraled, taking hairpin turns at breakneck speed. Around, around, down, down, around. “Whoo, baby!” To the right, to the left, down, down, down. “Oh, man!” Around. A huge fall. Then slower, slower, slower.

  The slide deposited him somewhere new; not the wacky warehouse area with all the random, giant objects. The sight, though, nearly took Zane’s breath away.

  Colorful beams of light shot from the floor to a ceiling that had to be at least five stories tall. Each light beam was probably three feet in diameter, and the columns of light sort of formed walls and hallways as far as he could see.

  A rumbling came from the slide. Out tumbled Elijah, backwards, but apparently okay.

  “Yeah! Buddy!” Zane came over and high-fived him. “How great was that?”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as the room stops spinning and these colored lights go away.”

  Zane laughed.

  “Holy quark! Those lights are real!” Elijah ran toward them, stopped short, then seemed to sneak up on one of the blue ones. He reached his hand toward it, as if the light might burn him. Then he stuck his whole hand in, giggled, and started back to Zane.

  Zane looked away to Josh coming down the chute. He gave Josh a high five—might as well high-five everyone—and waited to see his reaction to the light. He pretended to not notice, but his eyes gave him away.

  Berk’s eyes showed nothing, though.

  “You’re not impressed?” asked Elijah.

  “No,” said Berk. “I could do the same with flashlights and colored lenses.”

  “Right,” said Elijah. “And I could build the Pacific Ocean with a bucket of sand and a hose.”

  Good for the kid, but he probably didn’t want to get on Berk’s bad side.

  “Or a replica of Mount Rushmore out of GollyGlop.”

  Zane gave him a little nudge.

  “I know,” Elijah said. “I couldn’t help it.”

  Zane gave Elijah a stealth
low five.

  The other four—Hanna, Leore, Becky, and Ryder—ran the high-five gauntlet, then paused to stare, openmouthed.

  “Our grand illusion of the year,” said Carol, walking in. “These beams are walls of sorts that separate the spaces for the Friend or Foe challenges.” She waved her arms. Four of the lights turned white and now had writing projected on them. The first white beam had an arrow curling to the right. It read:

  Area #1

  Players 1 & 2

  Ryder and Becky

  The next white beam pointed the way to Area #2. Then came the one for #3, then Berk’s and Zane’s names for Area #4.

  “It’s time,” said Bill, “to follow your arrows to the land of challenges. Off with you!”

  Zane and Berk, already elbowing for position, followed their arrows between light columns, which finally curved into an open area about half the size of a school gym. On a table several steps ahead sat a square-based, two-foot-tall pyramid of eyeballs—probably marbles, but still freaky. Zane would eat eyeballs if that’s what it took.

  He waited for Berk’s reaction. “Cool. Eyeballs.”

  “Drat!” said Bianca, coming from nowhere, Jig in stride. “We wanted to gross you out.”

  “Not these tough guys,” said Jig. “The others’ll give us what we want, though.”

  “What’re you doing here?” said Berk.

  “We’re your Friends,” Bianca said.

  Jig sneered. “Or your Foes.”

  “So if you guys don’t know, I’m Bianca LaBlanc from two years ago, and this is Jig Jiggerson from last year, and this is so much less pressure than when I had to talk in a hot-air balloon. Or when I auditioned for that TV pilot last week.”

  Jig nudged her.

  “Anyway, at this station, your challenge is called Googly Eyes because Golly has this new marble game coming out that’s really cool, even for me when I played it with this eight-year-old last week. And she was so good, but, sidetracked! So Googly Eyes is your Round One, and we’re here to help you.”

  “Or hurt you,” Jig said.