“What’s the point,” Leon said. “I’ll never win.”
“Why not?” said P.W.
“Because it’s a sure bet Furtles is competing. We’re better off saving our money.”
A ten-dollar bill suddenly fluttered into Lily-Matisse’s lap.
“Are you sure, Monsieur Napoleon?” Lily-Matisse asked politely.
“Allez! Go on!”
Lily-Matisse handed Leon the money. “You heard Napoleon. Allez!”
“I’m afraid to ask,” said P.W. when Leon returned the second time.
“Mission accomplished,” Leon announced unenthusiastically. He held up an envelope. “The official contest guidelines. They’re worse than I thought.”
P.W. snatched the packet and read through the rules. “Says here the Chip-Off will be divided into two parts. Trivia, which you know cold, and flavor awareness.”
“That’s a fancy way of saying there’s a taste test,” Leon said miserably. “Which means I’m cooked.”
Lily-Matisse gave him a gentle punch. “Hey, stop sounding so glum.”
“Why shouldn’t I sound glum?” said Leon. “You saw how I did back in the Furtles testing room. There’s no way I can compete with the pros.”
“Sure you can,” said P.W.
“All it takes is practice,” said Lily-Matisse.
“With what?” Leon shot back. “Where are we going to get all the different chips to practice with? Have you thought about that?”
“Worry no more, Monsieur Leon. Allow Napoleon to help.”
“How?”
“Fasten your seat belts, my friends, and you shall see!”
For the next two hours, Napoleon’s taxi crisscrossed the city, idling at shopping centers, corner grocery stores, gas stations, and gourmet shops just long enough for the three fifth graders to hop out and purchase training chips. By the time the buying expedition was complete, foil bags filled the trunk of the taxi.
Back at the hotel, Leon, Lily-Matisse, and P.W. resettled in the coffee shop to inventory their loot.
Frau Haffenreffer bustled over to greet her favorite customer and his favorite classmates. “Can I give you three some dough balls? They’re just now out of the oven!”
“Thanks,” said Lily-Matisse, “but I think we’ve got the snack situation pretty well covered.”
P.W. dumped a shopping bag onto the tabletop.
“So many kartoffel chips!” Frau Haffenreffer exclaimed.
“And there are more under the table,” said Lily-Matisse.
“Napoleon took us to just about every store we could find,” P.W. added.
“Ach,” said Frau Haffenreffer, clearly disappointed. “So no dough balls?”
“Sorry,” P.W. apologized. “For the next few months Leon here is in training. We can’t risk confusing his taste buds with the sweet stuff.”
“Then I will leave you to it,” said Frau Haffenreffer.
Lily-Matisse cleared the table while P.W. built a wall of menus. “Ready, willing, and able?” he said after solidifying the barrier with a couple of napkin dispensers.
“Just get on with it,” Leon grumbled.
“Fine,” said P.W. “Here comes the first mystery chip.”
A familiar crinkling sound filled the air. Lily-Matisse passed a chip over the menu wall.
Leon reluctantly accepted it. He looked. He sniffed. He nibbled.
“Plain?” he said after some deliberation.
“Good!” said Lily-Matisse, a little too enthusiastically. “Now, can you tell what brand?”
“No way,” said Leon.
“Well, can you tell if it’s hand sliced?” P.W. asked.
Leon turned the chip over in his hands a few times. “Definitely hand sliced.”
“Right!” said Lily-Matisse, again with too much encouragement.
“Stop babying me,” Leon snapped.
P.W. ignored the outburst. “What else can you tell us about the chip?”
Leon could think of at least twelve brands of hand-sliced plain potato chips. But which one? “This is impossible!” he exclaimed at last, knocking down the menu wall in frustration.
“At least guess,” said P.W.
“I can’t!” Leon exclaimed. “I have no clue. Zero. Zip. Zilch. I’ll never be able to ID chips without all that fancy stuff Furtles uses.”
“Forget about Furtles and his stupid Nose-It-All 3000,” said Lily-Matisse.
“She’s right,” said P.W. “You can’t worry about Furtles. And besides, we’ve got our own knows-it-all.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Leon. “Who?”
“Mr. Sparks,” P.W. replied.
TWENTY-FIVE
Common Sense
P.W., Lily-Matisse, and Leon stayed back after the next science class.
“Mr. Sparks?” said P.W., once the other fifth graders had left. “Leon here is entering a potato chip competition.”
“That’s splendid,” said Mr. Sparks. “Science always benefits from work done outside the lab.”
“I guess,” said Leon.
“You don’t seem too thrilled,” said Mr. Sparks.
“He’s not,” said Lily-Matisse.
“He doesn’t think he has a shot,” added P.W.
“Nonsense,” Mr. Sparks said. “I can’t think of anyone, with the possible exception of Idaho Furtles, who knows more about chips than you, Leon.”
“Yes and no,” said P.W. “Here’s the thing. Half the test is about potato chip trivia. Leon will ace that part for sure.”
“And the other half?” Mr. Sparks asked.
“Flavor awareness,” said Lily-Matisse. “Basically Leon has to be able to recognize mystery chips. Which is why we need your help. We started testing him yesterday and …” Lily-Matisse hesitated.
“Go on,” said Mr. Sparks.
P.W. took over. “And let’s just say the results weren’t pretty.”
“Of course they weren’t,” said Leon. “How could they be? I don’t have any of Furtles’s thingamabobs.”
“You don’t need them,” said Mr. Sparks. “And in any case, Mr. Furtles’s method works for Mr. Furtles. You must devise your own.”
“That’s why we came to you,” P.W. said. “We need a foolproof trick for identifying chips.”
Mr. Sparks scratched his beard for a moment. “I’m afraid there is no trick. All I can tell you is this. You need to combine scientific rigor with the passion you already possess.”
“That’s swell,” said P.W. “But can you be a bit more specific?”
“Tell you what,” said Mr. Sparks, “suppose I help you kick-start the process?”
“Now you’re talking!” P.W. exclaimed.
“Why don’t you three clean the test tubes in the sink, while I set things up? I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”
Five minutes later, Mr. Sparks called them back to his bench. “Okay,” he said, “let’s get started. As you can see, I’ve set out three petri dishes, each containing a chip.”
“What are the index cards for?” asked Lily-Matisse.
“I’ve written the name of each chip on the side that’s facedown,” Mr. Sparks explained. “Now Leon, I want you to analyze the chips using every one of your five senses.”
“But—”
“No objections, no excuses,” said Mr. Sparks. “Get to it.”
Leon applied his five senses to the three chips. He looked. Smelled. Touched. Listened (by snapping the chips close to his ear). And, of course, he tasted.
“All I know is they’re salt ’n’ vinegars,” he said at last.
“That’s a fine start,” said Mr. Sparks. “But I’m quite sure you can tell me more.”
“Not without a thickness tester, or the other stuff Furtles uses.”
“You don’t need them, Leon, as long as you use common sense.”
Leon gave Mr. Sparks a sideways glance. Why is he stressing the last word? he wondered.
Mr. Sparks started jingling some coins in his pocket. “Penny for yo
ur thoughts,” he said with a smile.
And then, all of a sudden, Leon understood.
“Mr. Sparks,” he blurted out. “Can I borrow some change?”
Lily-Matisse and P.W. gave Leon puzzled looks.
“Thought you’d never ask,” said Mr. Sparks, slapping some coins on the top of the lab bench.
“What are you guys going on about?” said P.W.
Leon grabbed a penny and lined it up against the edge of a chip. He did the same with the nickel and the same with the dime. He repeated the comparisons on the other two chips.
“Got it,” Lily-Matisse said giddily.
“Me, too,” said P.W. “He’s making common cents comparisons.”
“Precisely,” said Mr. Sparks.
It didn’t take long for Leon to announce his results. “You see this chip here?” he said with newfound confidence, holding up the specimen from the middle dish. “This chip has the exact same thickness as a penny. And the chip to the right? It’s thinner—closer to a dime. As for the last chip—it’s the fattest of the three, and is almost as thick as a nickel. Definitely hand sliced. Which actually narrows things down. I may be wrong, but as far as I can recall, only the Palombo Brothers make a hand-sliced salt ’n’ vinegar chip that is this thick.”
“So you’re saying that this chip, this one right here”—Mr. Sparks aimed a finger at the sample in question—“is a Palombo Brothers Salt ’n’ Vinegar?”
“Yes?” said Leon.
“That doesn’t sound terribly confident,” said Mr. Sparks.
“Yes,” Leon repeated more forcefully.
Mr. Sparks turned over the index card. It said, PALOMBO SALT ’N’ VINEGAR.
“That is too cool,” P.W. declared. “All Leon has to do is match coin thickness to chip thickness and chart the results.”
“Pretty nifty,” said Lily-Matisse.
“Idaho Furtles may have his external caliper gauge, but you have something far more valuable,” said Mr. Sparks.
“I’m not sure about that,” said P.W., gazing down at the bench. “From the looks of it, Leon has sixteen cents.”
Mr. Sparks chuckled. “I meant that his passion for chips is far more powerful than all of Mr. Furtles’s gadgets combined. Now if there’s nothing else, I’ve got to prepare for next week’s experiment.”
The coin trick was a real shot in the arm for Leon. It revived his confidence and enthusiasm. Back in his room, he stayed up until nearly midnight conducting thickness analyses, noting the results in his laboratory notebook. The following day he invited Lily-Matisse and P.W. back to the coffee shop for more tests.
“All set to try this new system of yours?” P.W. asked eagerly as he erected a menu wall.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a system,” said Leon. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Whatever,” said P.W. “Are you ready?”
Leon gave a nod. “Go for it,” he said.
Lily-Matisse passed him a mystery chip.
Leon measured it against the three coins and checked his thickness chart. He took a nibble, which confirmed his initial opinion. “It’s a plain—probably a Goody Two-Chews or a Furtles. I can’t tell which.”
“A Goody Two-Chews,” said Lily-Matisse.
“Nice get,” P.W. said.
“Thanks,” said Leon. “But there’s still a lot more stuff to work out. Thickness tests are totally useless on crinkle cuts.”
“So what are you going to do?” Lily-Matisse asked.
“What Sparks told me to do,” Leon replied self-assuredly. “Approach the problem using science.”
“And passion,” said Lily-Matisse. “You can’t forget that.”
“I won’t,” Leon said.
TWENTY-SIX
The Zeisel Method
Although the three-coin test worked fine on conventional potato chips, it was useless on crinkle cuts. So Leon set out to overcome the limitation of the procedure. He studied every crinkle cut in his stockpile and ultimately identified three distinct profiles.
The most common kind of crinkle cut had perfectly even, zigzaggy ridges—like the saw blades in Mr. Groot’s wood shop.
The second most common kind of crinkle cut had jagged, uneven ridges—like the teeth of a great white shark.
The rarest kind of crinkle cut displayed edges that recalled the tops of castle towers, which Leon had learned (while studying the Middle Ages in fourth grade) to call “crenels.”
Leon grabbed a pencil and sketched side views of the three basic profiles in his science notebook. Using the drawings as a guide, he then charted all of the crinkle cuts by profile type.
That covers thickness, Leon said to himself. What’s next?
After taking a moment to look over his work, he drew up a list of potato chip properties that warranted further scientific study. He decided to tackle chip shape. But an hour of pattern analysis only established two basic groups: irregular “amoebas” and curvy, stackable “saddles.”
Leon entered the data into his notebook and turned his attention to size. Nearly one hundred measurements later, he concluded that size was too iffy. He nixed that property and moved on.
Color came next. Leon realized very quickly that chip color presented a new headache. He could distinguish many shades of yellow and brown. The problem was he didn’t know how to record those differences in his notebook. He tried using markers to make up a color chart. The results were lame. So Leon decided to seek out expert guidance. He ran to the phone and called Lily-Matisse. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” said Lily-Matisse.
“Is your mom around?”
“No, Leon. She just leaves me alone with a bag of chips for dinner. Of course she’s around. Why?”
“I’m trying to color code potato chip brands, and I’m stumped. Your mom knows tons about colors, right?”
“She is an art teacher,” said Lily-Matisse.
“Exactly,” said Leon. “Do you think she can help?”
“Ask her yourself. Hold on.”
Leon heard some talking, some laughter, followed by more talking.
“Hello, Leon?”
“Hi, Ms. Jasprow.”
“My daughter tells me you’re entering a potato chip competition.”
“Yup.”
“Sounds important. How can I help?”
“I was analyzing potato chip colors, and that made me think of you.”
“It did?”
“Uh-huh. Remember on the field trip to that museum of the Middle Ages last year? We were looking at an old picture and you told us about a yellow paint made from cow pee?”
“That’s right,” said Ms. Jasprow. “Indian yellow used to be produced that way. Mango leaves would get fed to cattle to intensify the color of their urine, which was then collected, dried, and packed into small balls of pigment.”
“That is really, really disgusting,” Leon said approvingly. “Anyway, since you know so much about yellows, I was wondering if you could give me a list of all the different shades?”
“Sorry, Leon. You’re out of luck. No such list exists.”
“Darn.”
“But I can make a suggestion. Do you have a hardware store near you?”
“Yeah,” said Leon, thoroughly bewildered.
“Do they sell paint?”
“I guess.”
“Go to the store and see if you can get some chips.”
“I have the chips, Ms. Jasprow. It’s a list of yellows I need.”
“Not potato chips, Leon—paint chips.”
“Oh.”
“If it’s a decent hardware store, they’ll have sample cards for all kinds of paints in all kinds of colors.”
“That’s great,” said Leon. But his excitement was cut short by a new concern. “How much do the sample cards cost?” he asked.
“They shouldn’t cost a thing, Leon. Paint companies give them away.”
“Super, Ms. J. Thanks.”
“Glad to help,” said Regina Jasprow.
&n
bsp; The next day Leon asked his mom if he could make a run to the hardware store.
“If you promise to feed the piranhas in three-oh-two,” Emma Zeisel negotiated.
“No problem,” Leon said before disappearing through the revolving door.
The local hardware store was a family business called Adler’s that had a humongous black hammer mounted above the entrance. Leon wondered, as he passed underneath the hammer, if Adler had needed a second, even more humongous hammer to nail up the one overhead.
“Can I help you?” asked a tiny man wearing an apron that read “Fred.”
“Do you have paint chips?” Leon asked.
“Adler’s wouldn’t be Adler’s if Adler’s didn’t have chips,” Fred said proudly. He pointed a wooden-handled screwdriver to the back of the store. “Take a right at the mousetraps, then your first left after the toilet plungers.”
As soon as Leon passed the plungers, he knew he’d struck gold—and bronze and yellow.
Hundreds of paint chips covered the entire back wall of the hardware store. The bookmark-shaped samples, all arranged by color, made Leon think of a rainbow fed through a potato chipper. He dashed to the entrance and double-checked to make sure that the chips were free for the taking.
Fred confirmed what Regina Jasprow had said on the phone. “Grab as many as you like, sonny. Adler’s wouldn’t be Adler’s if Adler’s didn’t give away chips.”
Leon collected a complete set of yellows, a complete set of golds, plus a decent assortment of browns, light browns, reds, oranges, and purples to compare against various specialty chips.
The color harvest didn’t take long. A half hour after he had begun his expedition, Leon was on his bed, dealing out paint chips like playing cards.
For a while he just stared.
Incredible! he said to himself. He never would have believed there could be so many shades of yellow—and each with its own special name. All at once Leon decided to classify the chips.
He began by isolating all yellows named after flowers: daffodil, dandelion, crocus, honeysuckle, marigold. He put them in a pile.
Leon and the Champion Chip Page 13