by Jody Feldman
A withered Eep was propped in a chair, a giant funnel stuck in his mouth.
“Any questions?”
“Five units, right?”
“Exactly five units. Okay, come back around. One more thing. The first forty units of Gloop are free. If you need more, we’ll deduct one point from your score for each extra unit. On the flip side, for every unit you don’t use, we’ll add a bonus point.”
“So figure it out first?” said Zane.
“Your call.”
“Which means,” said Zane, “that you can’t answer.”
Cameron stayed silent for a moment. “Everything I’ve said will be projected on the wall.” He pointed to the back wall, and the instructions appeared. “These are in black. Any further instructions will appear in blue. Got it?”
“I’m ready.”
Cameron stepped away. “Then go!”
Five units? They’d already filled the 4. If the word “exact” weren’t shouting at him, he’d pour those four units into the 7, fill the 4 one-quarter of the way, add it to the starter units, and feed Eep. But the walls of the containers were thicker on the bottom and thinned out considerably at the top, so eyeballing it was out.
This had to be some sort of math equation with filling and pouring and dumping to get five units. What if he started by pouring the Gloop from the 4 into the 7? Zane needed to try it. Worst case, he’d pour it all back and wouldn’t waste any units.
Okay. Now he had four units in the 7 and nothing in the 4. If he filled up the 4 and poured enough in to fill the 7, there would be one unit left inside the 4, right?
Right. He was so close he could taste it, but he couldn’t hold all the reasoning in his head.
Zane ran the 4 to the hose and filled it. He ran it back to the 7 and poured it in until it hit the 7’s red band. So now he had seven units in the 7 and one in the 4. And—
Yes! He ran the 7 back to the sink and dumped it out, ran the empty 7 to the table, poured in the one unit from the 4, filled the 4 back up, and added that to the one unit in the 7. Five units.
Zane bolted around the light partition and poured the contents into the funnel as quickly as he could without spilling a drop.
“Eat, you little Martian, eat!”
But apparently the Gloop digested at only one speed. Zane still had 6:53 as the last drop poured from the bucket to the funnel.
“C’mon, funnel, drain!”
A little more, a little more, a little more and—
Zane looked up to new blue instructions flashing on the wall.
Good job, but Eep needs more; 4 more units, to be exact.
All right! Just fill up the 4 and feed him. Zane raced back, but the 4 container was gone. An empty 5 container was in its place. This had to be the same type of system, but which should he fill first, the 5 or the 7?
His gut told him to go with the 7. As the green Gloop oozed into the container, he tried to reason it out.
If he poured five units from the 7 container into the 5, that would leave two units in the 7. And if it followed the same system, he’d empty the 5 into the sink. Then if he dumped those two units into the 5, and if he filled the 7 again—
“Ah!” He’d been so lost in thought, the 7 was spilling over. He turned off the hose, then dumped out the overflow until the 7’s Gloop reached the red band.
Back to the table. He filled the 5, then ran the 5 to the sink and dumped it out, wasted, with at least one unit he’d lost from being careless.
No time to beat himself up.
Again to the table. He transferred the two remaining units from the 7 into the 5. Now, if he filled the 7 again . . . Hmm. Yes! If he filled the 7 and used three units to top off the 5, he’d have four units.
Back to the sink! “Fill, you container, fill!”
It finally did. Back to the table. He poured. Around the light partition. Into the funnel.
“C’mon, Eep! You can do it, buddy!”
The clock was at 4:14 and counting. Eep was filling. Eep was straightening. Eep was glowing. Eep was lifting. Eep was flying around the room!
Cameron came in and thumped Zane on the back. “Good job!”
“How good? Better than your person in the first round?”
Cameron smiled. “I can’t tell you that. I can say that you got your hundred points for completion, plus two thirty-seven for time remaining, plus seventeen units unused. Too bad about the overflow.”
“I know,” Zane said. “Can’t beat myself up about that now.”
“Absolutely.” Cameron led him to a room with a sink, mirror, and a stack of towels. “You might want to wipe yourself down, and you’ll need this.” He tossed Zane a fresh Gollywhopper Games T-shirt. “Just leave the dirty one here. I’ll be right outside.”
Somehow the Gloop had landed in Zane’s hair, on his face, and all over his arms. It came off pretty easily, though. He cleaned up, changed shirts, and emerged to a bunch of noises from just beyond one of the light walls. “Ryder?”
Cameron nodded.
“Are you allowed to tell me how you’ve been his Foe?”
“You can probably guess,” said Cameron.
“So you can’t tell me.”
“I can,” said Cameron, “but we have five minutes to kill, and he’ll use it all. So guess.”
“If I was his Foe, I’d give him a container with holes and make him search for a solid one. Then I’d give Eep a much smaller funnel.”
“We did the second one. Also, his four container wasn’t filled at the beginning, and his Gloop sometimes comes out too fast and sometimes turns off altogether. And that’s your five minutes’ worth, or so they tell me. Apparently, they have people testing all this stuff out.”
“Did you get to test?”
“No. But Gil does. He lives in Orchard Heights, so he’s at Golly all the time.”
A buzz came from somewhere on Cameron. He stood. “I need to be a Foe one more time. Stay here.” Cameron trotted off.
Zane started to play Monday-morning quarterback, but how much would it really help to dissect his mistakes? Each challenge was entirely different. For the next, the Golly people could make the contestants twirl on their heads or scale a fish or explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Everything boiled down to two key words: play smart.
If he did that, he’d never need to second-guess anything.
Chapter 22
Cameron came back with a cold bottle of water. Zane drained it. A short time after that, Lavinia brought Ryder around, totally red faced and Gloop covered. “Zero points. Zero!” He looked at Zane. “First, I had too much, then I had too little, then just a little too little, then I got the first one with two minutes left. Tell him, Lavinia. Tell him how close.”
“You told it perfectly, Ryder, but like I informed you, you were not allowed to estimate. We emphasized exact. We didn’t ask for close.”
“Then how do you do it?” Ryder turned to Zane.
He reined in his smile. “Math.”
“Math?”
Lavinia explained.
Ryder shook his head. “So stupid. I was so stupid.”
“No,” said Zane. “Your mind got stuck. It won’t happen next time. Believe it.”
And he was saying this why? It’s what he knew. Zane had tried tennis, and he’d wrestled some, but solo sports didn’t do anything for him. It was football—diving for a tackle, launching for an interception, rallying behind a common goal—that felt right. When the team gelled, it was like the world was singing. And though this was one-on-one, team Games were coming.
Right now, things stayed silent until the lights showed their next assignments. He was paired with Leore, so no telling what he was up against.
Ryder’s recklessness and Berk’s bravado had been easy to read. At the pool last night, he’d seen Becky’s athleticism and witnessed Hanna’s confidence beneath her kindness. Josh loved to be front and center, and Elijah was Elijah. Leore, though, was a question mark hiding behind hair that surrounded
her face like barely open curtains.
They followed their arrows, side by side.
“How’s it going so far?” said Zane.
“Horrible.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
“There’s still two more,” he said. “You never know what can happen.”
“Unfortunately,” Leore said, “a lot can happen.”
Either she had totally bombed or she was like that kid, Cyril, who used to be on their team. “We’re going to lose,” he’d moan. And “Do they have enough medics on hand?” If someone had warned him it might rain cows, Cyril would have predicted dire crushings. Zane would have said, “Milk for everyone!”
Zane couldn’t let Leore’s attitude bring him down. On his worst concussion days, he’d felt the negativity smother him with never-stopping waves. He couldn’t let that happen now. He needed to believe—he did believe—that whatever they threw at him, whether as Friend or Foe, he could win.
But whatever Golly had placed on a pedestal in the middle of their room was completely underwhelming. It was about a foot long and made of pieces from the Doohickey Builder Set. Not that he held anything against Doohickey. Zane had spent hours building lots of contraptions with rods and gears and cranks during commercials in college and NFL games.
Leore stopped about halfway to the pedestal. “This is not my strength,” she said.
Would she even admit to a strength?
“And where are our people? What if they forgot about us?”
“If they did, I’ll find them.” Then Zane strode up to study the Doohickey model.
He didn’t have much time. Estella and Thorn came from behind one of the light pillars.
Leore jumped.
“No worries, Leore,” said Estella.
Thorn nodded. “We don’t bite.”
“Not much.” Estella laughed and guided Leore to the model. “If you don’t know, I’m Estella from last year, and he’s Thorn the Rich from the year before.”
“If you don’t stop introducing me that way,” Thorn said, “people will start thinking that’s my real name.”
Had Thorn spoken that much on the DVDs? Not that he’d seemed shy; more that he’d seemed bored by the whole thing. On the other end, Estella had been passionate about everything. His kind of person.
“So here’s the what’s what,” Estella said. “See this little Doohickey prototype? You’re gonna build us one of these. Everything you need is in your spaces. We’ve even provided you each with an identical starter piece. It’s standing in the middle of your areas.”
“If you choose Friend mode,” said Thorn, “we’ll pretty much leave you alone. In addition, you’re allowed to ask one question during the challenge. Make it a good one.”
“Not ‘Can you build this for me,’” Estella added, “because that would be a big, fat NO.”
“Exactly,” Thorn said. “But if you work in Foe mode, you can’t ask questions and . . .”
He paused, and some evil music came up.
“Yeah,” Estella said. “We’re not always nice.”
If it were Zane, he’d throw the Foe extra parts to wade through. Or broken ones he’d need to replace. He could do this, though. Piece of cake.
“For this challenge,” Thorn continued, “you’ll have eight minutes in Friend mode.”
“Eight minutes to build that?” Zane pointed to the model he could build in thirty seconds.
“Right,” said Thorn. “And fifteen in Foe mode.”
Zane gave a low whistle. Crazy time difference. Were they going to take his model apart every time he turned his back? Would they blindfold him? Was Sasquatch guarding the Doohickey pieces in the Foe room? “We both need to build the same thing?” he asked.
“Exactly the same thing.” Estella pointed to the model. “This is the prototype for both. You may come back and refer to it as often as you need. So what is it? Friend or Foe? Go.”
Leore was biting a clump of hair. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this either way, so what does it matter?”
“Fine,” Zane said. “Take Friend, okay?”
“Whatever.”
“We’re set?” Estella said.
Zane nodded. “I am.” He circled the pedestal, trying to memorize the details. To the left, there was a crank attached to a long rod. In between the crank and an end cap on the far side were, in order: a green spool, a hook, a blue spool, a coiled-up yellow banner, another hook, and a red spool. The hooks were attached to pieces of cabling. They’d probably need to hang their version somewhere.
Zane and Thorn headed around a circle of smaller light beams that formed a column all its own, a marker for the room with the model. “So you’re my Foe today?”
“For starters,” Thorn said.
“Where’s the evil music now?”
“Playing in your head, I hope,” Thorn said, not at all bored with this.
When they rounded the corner, it became totally obvious why it would take so much time to construct that model. His starter piece, an enormous single rod nestled in a shallow silver cup of sorts, stood upright, nearly floor to ceiling.
Before Zane got his bearings, the lights flickered.
“Your time starts now,” said Thorn.
Go! First step, gather the pieces. Main rod, check. Above him, hanging from steel supports that spanned the ceiling, dangled two thick cables about six feet apart. One was just a piece of cable. The other already had a hook attached. So he’d need to attach the other hook to the cable, assemble the contraption, and get it up there. But where were the crank, the three spools, the hook, the banner, and the end piece? And he’d need a ladder. Everything had to be somewhere. It’s not like they wanted him to stand there like an idiot for fifteen minutes.
Zane scanned the room. In the corner! A slight gap in the lights? False alarm. He headed back to the middle of the room, but stepped right over a fist-sized metal loop, flush with the floor. Zane pulled it. Smoke billowed. He lurched back. A triangular piece of floor started rising with even more smoke. It rose and it rose, and with a click, it stopped. Zane waved away the smoke. A closet! Zane opened its door. Cranks and hooks!
But which should he use? They came in different sizes and shapes.
He could match the hook with the one already attached to the cable, but he’d need to check the prototype for the exact crank. It’d be fastest, though, to find what choices they’d given him for the rest of the pieces and possibly make only one trip to the prototype.
Two other corners also had lift-up closets. One had all the spools—green, blue, and red—but in different sizes and with different designs. The other had a mess of banners, each tagged with a different saying.
Now Zane ran around the column of small lights. This time, the prototype was suspended from a mini scaffold on the table and had its banner unfurled: BELIEVE IT, ACHIEVE IT!
The silver crank tapered to a point. Hopefully, only one looked like that.
Spool time. The green one was largest with round cutouts. The blue one was medium with square cutouts. The smallest one, red, had diamond-shaped cutouts. Green, blue, red, in order of size and placement. Green, round like a go traffic light. Blue, square like, um, whatever. Red, a bloody diamond ring.
Back to his space. The rod was there, but the closets were gone. Cue creepy music in his brain. Thorn ambled in with an evil grin.
“So you’re gonna mess me up every time I leave the room, huh?”
The grin turned into a smile.
“Maybe I won’t leave.” Zane relifted then opened the nearest closet, the one with the spools. Each color came in every variation of size and cut-out shapes. He sent the largest green one, with circles, rolling toward the middle of the room. He sent the smallest red-diamond one rolling, too. Then he grabbed the medium blue-square one and dumped it near the rod on his way to corner number two.
Up came the closet with about twenty hooks of different sizes and with different end points: some squared, some roun
ded, some pointed.
Zane ran to the middle of the room and eyeballed the size of the rounded hook already hanging. He chose three that looked about the right size, and one was. He shoved the other two toward a wall.
As for the pointed-end cranks, it’d take trial and error to see which fit. He grabbed all four sizes.
Over to the next closet. Of the dozen banners, only one had BELIEVE IT, ACHIEVE IT!
Back to the middle.
Zane expected to use all his strength to lift the huge rod and lay it on the floor, but it must have been made of hollow plastic. His only real concern right now was how to hang the thing. He still hadn’t seen a ladder. Zane glanced once more around the room and focused for just a second on the clock. Somehow, nearly six minutes were gone.
First order of business, insert the crank into one end. The first crank was too loose. He compared it with the other three. The largest one fit perfectly.
Next to the crank, the large green spool. He started at the non-crank end, lined up the spool’s center with the rod, and pushed it along the rod until it rested next to the crank. Next, the medium blue spool. Then the banner and the red spool. He left a space for both hooks.
Clock: 7:43. 7:42.
End cap. Where was it? None of the closets had them. And where was the ladder?
Zane couldn’t leave the room. No telling what Thorn might do. Take his contraption? Hide all the pieces?
Play smart, play smart. Where would they stow a ladder? He circled the room in search of more loops to pull, but there were none, not even in the fourth corner. But that fourth corner had the odd light column made from smaller lights. Was it big enough to hide a ladder?
Zane reached in like Elijah had done earlier. Nothing bit, nothing burned. A little farther, a little farther. Metal. Zane plunged both arms in, then his head. Before Thorn could mess him up, Zane grabbed the ladder out, ran it to the middle of the room, made sure the legs were locked, climbed with the hook, connected it to the cable, climbed down, and repositioned the ladder in the middle.