by Jody Feldman
He now had five pieces in his pocket. Just five more, and then he’d yell and be champion. Back to the puzzle.
An unsealed letter with debatable news
was scattered at sea on a sightseeing cruise
by a brat with a goatee and bowl-styled hair
who first cowardly hid it—“No reason to share.”
But a kayaking girl brought ten pieces she found
and gave them to beasts on this merry-go-round.
Go! Find them yourself, yell the message out loud.
If you do this the fastest, you’ll be doggone proud.
It was like two answers popped right out—in “cowardly” and “doggone.”
He remembered the cow was on two, and the dog was on the bottom tier near the stairs. He ran to collect their pieces. Just three more.
He held on to the nonmoving pole between the dog and an owl and went back to the poem, back to the longer words. “Reason.” No animal. “Kayaking.” That had to have something. “Kay.” No. “Aya.” “Ayak.” “Ayakin.” “Yak.” “Yaki.” Wait. Yak! What did a yak look like? The shaggy thing on the top tier?
He ran up, steadied a hand on its back, put a foot on its saddle, grasped the pole to hoist himself up, and pulled the pole from its socket. Zane tumbled to the floor. Maybe he was supposed to use that wrench.
In
THE EXECUTIVE VIEWING AREA
“You have to stop the Games, Bert!” said Morrison. “We can’t take any more risk.”
“He’s right,” Tawkler said. “(A) I don’t want to kill a kid. And (B) This could be a public relations nightmare.”
Jenkins jumped up. “Stop! There’s blood on the kid’s shirt. Had to be that wrench.”
“We’re not stopping,” Bert said. “Look.”
Chapter 37
Zane bolted up. Where had he left the wrench? With which animal?
Zane’s stomach dropped. It didn’t matter where the wrench was. Fireworks were shooting from Elijah’s side of the wall.
Bill came up from behind Zane. “You almost did it.”
“I did.”
“No screaming? No crying? No shouting? No tears? Go ahead; the cameras won’t show a thing.”
Zane shook his head. “Too numb to react.”
“Wait, you’re bleeding.” Bill called for a medic.
“Happens on the field all the time. But what were you thinking with the wrench? It nearly brained me. I was heading to get it when the fireworks went off.”
“What wrench?” said Bill. He put on his headset, then stepped aside to let the medic tend to Zane.
In
THE EXECUTIVE VIEWING AREA
Danny pulled Bert aside. “That was Bill on the headset. He was asking about a wrench that fell on Zane.”
“A wrench?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Get Security,” Bert whispered.
Danny slipped out the door.
Chapter 38
Zane looked over the wall that separated his area from the celebration. There was Elijah, sitting inside the dog whose body had sprouted a hot-air balloon and was now rising above his merry-go-round.
The little dude soared around the top of their crazy warehouse world, looking so small and so large at the same time.
The medic finished up. “Are you okay, son?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you really?” Bill said.
“Just some scrapes.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” Zane said. “I’ll be fine.” He shrugged. “You know, there was a point, really early, when I thought I had it. I’d cracked the code, I survived the wrench attack, and I was about to fix the yak. And I didn’t know how Elijah would be able to get those ribbons down.”
Bill walked him to the staircase. Leaning against the wall was a long scissors contraption.
Zane nodded and pointed to Elijah, rising to the domed ceiling. “I told him you’d give him everything he needed.”
Bill smiled. “Word for word, that’s what he shouted when he found it. ‘Zane said you’d give us everything we’d need.’”
“Little dude learns fast. He was too hard to beat. Wish I could ride around with him, though.”
“I can arrange that.” Again, Bill whispered into his headset.
In
THE EXECUTIVE VIEWING AREA
Danny returned to the area with three men. One stood at the door, and the other two flanked Jenkins.
“Excuse me?” she said.
Bert brought his face three inches from her. “Who are you working for?”
She stepped back, and Security moved with her. “Bert, you’re . . . What are you talking about? I work for you, for Golly.”
Bert took a deep breath. “How’d you know about the wrench?”
“It fell from above the goat,” she said. “Look for yourself, Monitor Four.”
“Danny,” said Bert, “have them run that feedback again.”
Danny nodded. “I’m ahead of you.”
The footage played. For half a moment, a piece of a blur was visible behind Zane’s shoulder. Even in frame-by-frame stop-motion, it was indistinguishable as a wrench.
“Take her out of here,” said Bert.
Chapter 39
A Spider-Man guy rushed toward Zane, opened the dog’s saddle, and strapped Zane inside with a mess of cables. In rushed another guy, and a third to double- and triple-check it all.
The merry-go-round’s top peeled back, and within a minute, the inflating balloon was lifting him up and up and up. When it lifted high enough, and both dogs had turned and were facing each other, Zane could only do one thing, the same thing he’d do for any teammate. He pumped his fist in the air. “You go, Elijah!”
Zane sat back on his dog, soaring. It should have been exciting, but losing sucked—in spitting contests, in football, in the Games, and now in this bet with Elijah.
Their dogs landed on one of the patios from the bridge challenge. The Spider-Man guys unhooked them and trotted off. One turned before he was completely out of sight. “Carol and Bill and your families will be here in two minutes. Have a seat.”
Have a seat? Elijah had to be too wound up to sit. Zane picked up Elijah and spun him around. “You deserved it, buddy! Best competitor ever!”
Elijah laughed. “I doubt that, but I’ll take it!”
Zane spun him a couple times more, hoping the thrill of victory, plus a good dose of dizziness, would have Elijah forgetting the bet. Either that, or Carol and Bill and the families would run in before Elijah could collect.
Zane let Elijah down and twirled him around one more time. The little guy wobbled, then flopped into one of the big recliners from the moving room. Zane spun that a few times.
Elijah kept laughing. “Stop! You’ll make me vomit!”
Zane gave the chair one last push and let it wind down.
“Besides,” said Elijah, “quit your stalling; it’s confession time.” He lifted his face toward the ceiling. “And if you’re listening, Bill and Carol, give us five minutes.”
Zane laughed. What else could he do? He took a muffin and a bottle of water from the table next to them, then sat in the other chair. “How’d you guess my strategy?”
“You know me by now. I learn fast. So answer my question. But what?”
“Huh?”
“Our conversation went something like this.” Elijah looked straight at him. “You said, ‘I’m a football player. I’ve always dreamed I’d play for my Tigers, then get drafted by the NFL.’ Then I said ‘But what?’ Then you said—”
Zane waved him off. Put the muffin down. “Okay. Fine.”
He shook his head, stared down, but there was no trapdoor to save him. Zane looked up, looked directly at Elijah. “I’ll just say this. Can you get your genius brain to invent a better football helmet? I’d pay huge money.”
“Oh.” That’s all Elijah said, but his eyes said more.
“You put two
and two together?”
“Concussion?”
“Two of them. One mild, one not. I’m out of football this year. Maybe forever.”
“Why?”
“I thought you were smart.”
“So you can’t play foot—”
“It’s not just that.” The little dude deserved to hear it all. “My whole world is football. All my friends are in football. We practice together, we work out together, we eat lunch together, have our inside jokes. It’s what we do. And maybe I’ve been a football snob, and I don’t do it on purpose, but that’s the way it is. And now I might as well go into exile.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“I heard exactly what you said. ‘All my friends are in football. We practice together, we work out together, we eat—’”
“So you heard me, but what’s so hard to understand?”
“I don’t understand why you have to give up football.”
Zane closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“No, really,” said Elijah. “Hear me out.”
“Fine.”
“You love football. You’re really smart, too. Right?”
“Sure.”
“You were the person, I heard, who made your team competitive when you should have lost by a mile. You were the one who helped us kill that four-person stadium challenge with your strategy. You were the one who taught me that Golly would give me everything I needed. You were the one on that highlight reel who gave that pep talk to your team after you lost. I’ve never heard anything like it. You, Zane, are a coach.”
Zane felt all the adrenaline rush to his face. He looked away.
“Not only are you a coach, you may end up being the best coach to ever walk onto a football field.” Elijah paused. “Even so, when you’re in college, major in engineering. In case you change your mind. Please.”
Zane nodded, spun halfway around in his chair, and gave himself ten seconds to cry.
Then he took a shaky breath.
Bill and Carol had already given them more than five minutes, and Zane was grateful. He needed to pull himself together. And yet, suddenly, it felt like he’d won more than a million dollars. Elijah had given him his life again.
Zane grabbed a napkin from the table and blew his nose. He should have taken a gulp of water to clear the lump from this throat, then splashed some on his eyes, but it seemed like too much trouble. What he really wanted to do was crawl into a ball and sleep for about three days, then wake up to tell Coach and the JZs about his new plan.
First, he needed to find a way to thank Elijah.
Zane swiveled his chair back to face the little dude.
Elijah was picking at a poppy-seed muffin with his fingers. “Did you ever wonder how many seeds you eat in a year? Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, tomato seeds, cucumber seeds, the occasional accidental watermelon seed?”
Zane laughed. “Can’t say that I did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That I don’t think about seeds?”
“No. That I’m eleven. And maybe too smart and absolutely awkward. But I’m sorry for what I said. I know you want to play football. Coaching is—”
“Elijah. Stop. You misunderstood. Coaching is . . .” Zane shook his head and looked up to keep the tears back in their ducts. “It’s practically perfect. You deserve the million dollars just for that.”
“Really?”
“I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”
Two Days After
THE GAMES
Bert Golliwop was practically skipping around his office. The panel of independent judges had finally returned with their ruling. The sabotage to Merry-Go-Wow had not affected the outcome of the Games. Elijah had already freed his sixth slip of paper before Zane had found his first. The Muscle could never have overtaken the Brain.
The third Gollywhopper Games was officially over. No need to call back contestants or camera crews or judges or anybody to run a new final challenge. They’d pulled off the Games with barely a hiccup. And they’d caught Ratso. The only problem was, she wouldn’t admit which company—McSwell, United GameCo, or Rinky Brothers—had paid her, probably handsomely, to sabotage the Games. That company would certainly try again if he decided to hold another Games, so he’d already set his investigators on the case. They’d crack it. Or maybe she’d crack in jail. Not that Jenkins was there yet. And why wasn’t she?
His executive team and Danny were on their way to his office.
Bert barely let them get a foot in the door before he walked up to Morrison from Legal. “Why haven’t they locked her up yet?”
“Nice to see you, too, Bert.”
“Sorry, but you know me. I want things done.”
“Then, like I said, you need to file a complaint. You need to press charges.”
“She spied on us. She sold secrets to our enemy.”
“This isn’t like nation-to-nation warfare. It might feel like it to you,” said Morrison, “but we are not the government. Her crimes aren’t considered treason.”
“She caused our generator to explode at the stadium last year. She rigged it so some poor girl tripped over an electrical cord. She rustled up rats in Kansas, and she hurt the Muscle; could have killed the Brain if he’d been on that side.”
“I know,” said Morrison, “but she’s tricky. Like I’ve told you, the police already investigated the issues from last year, and there’s still no direct evidence. No fingerprints, no nothing. No proof that Jenkins was involved, and she still swears she wasn’t. Meanwhile, we have two choices. We can make sure she is a corporate outcast; make it tough for her to get a job. Her own bad name will follow her everywhere.”
“One of those rat-fink companies seems to love her.”
“Until they stop trusting her,” said Morrison. “Or we can have her arrested. Consider, though, what happened the last time we had someone arrested.”
“This time we have proof. How else would she know about the wrench?”
“I’m sure she’ll claim she never said it or that you misunderstood her.”
Bert Golliwop shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but let him in.”
Morrison opened the office door for Gil Goodson.
It wasn’t only Gil, though. Gil’s dad was right behind him.
“What’s he doing here? Wouldn’t sell me KidZillionaire. Would’ve made us a fortune.”
“Still might from what I understand,” said Charles Goodson. “You’re poised to own Flummox, right?”
“Yes.” Bert Golliwop smiled. “And your contract is with them.”
“For better or for worse,” said Charles Goodson. “But exactly why are we here?”
Bert related the goings-on with Jenkins. “And now I need to decide whether or not to press charges against her.”
“Then decide,” said Charles Goodson.
Bert shook his head. “She has kids, too.”
“Since when are you this nice?” said Charles.
“I’m not.” He looked directly at Gil. “How bad was it for you?”
“Pretty bad,” Gil said. “But mostly because we knew my dad was innocent and no one would believe us. If he’d been guilty, losing my respect for him would have been worse, but I’d’ve understood why you had him arrested.”
Charles Goodson clamped Gil’s shoulder. “How sure are you that she’s guilty, Bert?”
“Something she said. A couple of us heard—”
“It’s not perfect evidence, but it was fairly condemning,” said Morrison. “I have a criminal attorney heading over who can tell us if we have enough to move forward.”
“The same one you had for me?” asked Charles.
“He’s a good man. He just had bad information from us last time.”
“I still want to know what you think, Gil,” said Bert Golliwop.
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid,” said Charles Goodson.
“It’s okay
, Dad.” Gil turned to Bert. “If she’s guilty, she should pay somehow. Just make sure this time.”
“No worries,” said Bert Golliwop. “I don’t make the same mistake twice.”
Chapter 40
Zane’s team had just scored a touchdown, and they finally led by four points. But with twenty-four seconds left, the other team’s receiver could still take the next ball all the way to the end zone. For the fourth time.
Zane took Jamaal aside.
“How many polyesters?” Jamaal said.
Zane smiled at the inside joke, but needed Jamaal to focus. “Later,” he said. “Right now, number eighty-seven is going to try and beat you to the outside again. So here’s what you do. Stand toe to toe with him, then move two inches toward the sideline.” Zane showed him two inches with his thumb and forefinger. “When he finds there’s no room around you, he’ll curl inside, and you’ll be ready. Just watch his eyes.”
He pushed Jamaal toward the rest of the defense and glanced over at Elijah, who’d persuaded his parents to bring him here to see helmets in action. Zane tried to convince him there was better football than this—Elijah lived down the street from Northwestern University, where he’d already been accepted starting next fall, and he was a short drive from Soldier Field and the Chicago Bears—but Elijah insisted that for his first live game, he needed to see Zane as a coaching assistant.
“Two inches?” said Elijah. “How do you know that?”
“How do you know your physics stuff?”
“Just do.”
“Exactly,” said Zane, “but I see it as geometry. You know, the shortest distance between two points. Watch it that way.”
Elijah held up the helmet he’d been carrying all game. “If I combine his geometry with my physics . . .” He turned to Jerome, who had to sit out today’s game with a sprained shoulder. Zane had assigned Jerome to be Elijah’s bodyguard. He didn’t need the little guy to forget about the on-field action and get smashed by a play that drifted toward the sidelines. “What do you think, Jerome?”