The New Champion

by Jody Feldman

  Right now, they were off track. It wasn’t the words themselves that mattered. One column meant yes; the other, no. “It’s not the words.” He whispered to hear himself. “It’s the languages. Why did they choose those languages in that order? The names of the languages could spell—”

  Clio touched him on the shoulder. “You’re right,” she said to Cameron. Then she turned to the others. “You all need to hear this.”

  They looked at Clio. She glanced at Cameron, but the rest were still looking at her. She shrugged and started talking. “If you match the words with the languages they come from, maybe the first initials of those languages spell out the right game.”

  “Do you speak all these languages?” said Dacey. “I don’t speak all these languages.”

  “You don’t have to,” said Clio. “We can start with the ones we know. Like yes. English is the only language that officially uses ‘yes.’ So if the sixth letter in the first word is an E for ‘English,’ then—”

  “Well, isn’t that the perfect example?” said Dacey. “The E works for ‘Greased’ and ‘Jupiter.’”

  Cameron tried to shut out her nastiness and focus on another word. Wasn’t nein German for “no”? And the third letter in “Piglets” was G! But it was also the third in “Fighter.”

  “What about sí? That’s ‘yes’ in Spanish, and it’s—”

  “Well, whoopie, Estella!” said Dacey. “You take Spanish, too.”

  Estella shook her head. “Yo no tomo español, hablo español todos los días. No importa. Never mind.”

  Jig shook his head. “What’d she say?”

  Dacey shrugged.

  Jig wouldn’t let it go. “Estella. What’d you say?”

  “Stop wasting time. Focus on the puzzle.”

  “That’s not what you said.”

  “Of course it’s not what I said. Do you really care or do you want to win?”

  Now both Dacey and Jig were glaring at her. It was worse than having Spencer around.

  “I was going to say,” said Estella, “that si is also ‘yes’ in Italian, but I don’t know if the Italian si has the same accent. Also that ja must mean ‘yes’ in two different languages because neither of the first words starts and ends with the same letter. That plus N-O means ‘no,’ as you should know, Jig, in English, Spanish, Italian, and probably some others.”

  “Really?” said Clio. “I didn’t know that. What about any of these? Do you know more of these, Estella? Anyone?”

  Cameron knew da—his friend Max’s great-grandfather was from Russia—but if da was also “yes” in a U language, they couldn’t eliminate Jupiter Fighter, and he didn’t want Jig or someone to jump the gun and open Greased Piglets, then blame him if he was wrong.

  “What’s yok?” said Jig. “Something you scramble? Something you hook to an ox?”

  “Seriously?” said Estella. “Be serious.”

  Enough. Cameron dropped to his knees and crawled under the blue-lit table.

  “Look,” said Jig. “That’s him being serious. You groveling?”

  “No,” Cameron said. “Looking to see if they taped a translation guide to the underside.”

  “Did they?”

  “No.”

  Jig laughed. “Or nie, tidak, nein—”

  “Wait,” said Clio. “Did I hear you say something about nein, Cameron?”

  “It’s German, but the third letter is G in both second words.”

  “At least we’re on the right track. Oh! I have an idea. Look at it backwards.”

  “You mean, ‘rethgif retipuj’? ‘Stelgip desaerg’?” Dacey laughed at her pathetic joke.

  “No,” Clio said. “If you take the F in ‘Fighter,’ for example, the top word of column two would need to be in an F language. Like N-O-N in French. Not N-I-E in—” Clio let out a sigh of frustration. “As far as I know, N-I-E could be Finnish.”

  “We need a translation guide,” said Dacey. “Oh! Y’all! Maybe they have books in our conference room!” She and Jig turned to run, but that was a waste.

  “No!” Cameron stopped them in their tracks. “I specifically noticed there weren’t.” While he had their attention, he kept going. “But I might know another word.”

  “Whatcha been waiting for?” said Dacey.

  He tried to ignore her tone. “Da is Russian for ‘yes.’”

  “Only one of them has an R in that position,” said Estella. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us in the first place?” said Jig.

  “If there’s a U language, it could be ‘Jupiter Fighter,’ too.”

  “Does a U language exist?” asked Jig. He picked up Greased Piglets. “We tried to reason this out so they can’t penalize us. Anyone object?”

  “Only if it gets us all greasy,” said Dacey.

  While Jig opened the box, Estella leaned over to Cameron, “Good job.”

  “Good job,” echoed Clio.

  Cameron hoped it was a good job, or they’d be all over him.

  Jig pulled out their stunt card.

  STUNT #1

  * * * * * * * * * * *

  Our pigs are on unplanned release.

  What’s worse, they’ve tracked through pools of grease!

  Go find the greasy pigs and then

  move all of them from field to pen.

  Two rules:

  1. You each must place two pigs exactly where we ask.

  2. You each must wear our special gloves to carry out this task.

  Oink!

  “Thank heaven they have gloves for us,” said Dacey.

  “But where are they?” said Jig. “There were arrows last year.” He turned toward the entrance. “Yoo-hoo! Bill! Where are the pigs?”

  Silence.

  “Yo, Bill!”

  Nothing.

  “Then it’s a warehouse search!” Jig zoomed toward the rear of the massive room. Why there? Why not to the right or the left or somewhere near the first clue? How could he know where to go?

  Still, they followed him like Mary’s little lambs. At worst, they were getting a good overview of what they might need later. They passed a beach of sea turtles, tubas, tuba-sized ice skates, giant stuffed aliens, a zebra-headed candy cane, a towering vase sprouting ceiling-high flowers, a wall of boomerangs, a kitchen, an oil derrick, and a rack of Shooter String before they got to the back of the warehouse. But no pigs.

  “At least we know where they aren’t,” said Dacey.

  “And don’t you go taking off again.” Estella sounded like a scolding mom.

  “Bill didn’t say anything about sticking together,” Clio said. “We’ll cover more ground if we split up in different directions.”

  Estella sectioned off the warehouse, assigning Cameron the front right. It made sense to focus forward and speed to his area, but it wouldn’t hurt to mentally map the place. Once he’d cataloged the elephant bath, the neon orange forklift, the sunflower field, the green wall, and the blinking banks of lights, he pretty much gave up memorizing his path. In fact, he’d veered off course. Where was he? Why didn’t this place come with a GPS? He stopped and looked toward the ceiling, looked to find a corner to the right. There! Cameron was almost to his area when one of the girls shouted, “Here! Here!”

  The “here” came from behind him and to the left.

  “Where’s here?” yelled Jig.

  “Look up. Cow! Moon!” said the voice.

  Way in back, a cow was jumping over the moon, turning, and jumping again. Cameron kept his focus upward and raced as quickly as his legs would carry him.

  Dacey pulled up right behind him. “No-o-o!”

  “Heh-heh,” said Jig. “Your worst nightmare.”

  The fenced-in field, about the size of Cameron’s school’s band room, looked mucky and slick. So did the ten motorized pigs running around inside. Cameron leaned through the fence to touch the ground. “It’s not muddy.”

  “It’s not?” Dacey asked.

/>   He stood. “The ground only looks muddy. It’s ridged, but it’s hard.”

  “Which isn’t getting us anywhere.” Estella pointed to the far side of the fence. “Gloves, I think.”

  The gloves were more like socks. No place for fingers. No place for thumbs.

  “This is so gross,” said Dacey.

  She was right. The outsides of the “gloves” were greasy, and the insides were just as slimy, as if they’d been soaking in oil overnight. The pigs were shiny, too. They almost looked real, about a foot and a half long, their heads about that same distance from the ground. They were rigged to dart around fast. Not only that, but they were quaking and shaking and sort of heaving as they moved.

  Jig hurdled the four-foot fence, caught up with a pig, and reached down several inches in front like he was anticipating it moving into his hands. The pig veered away as if it had radar.

  “Let me show you how,” said Dacey. “Unfortunately, I’ve been privileged to do this before. More than once. Word to the wise: Don’t enter the Miss Ragin’ Razorback contest.” She ran up to a pig, lowered her hands, and her sock gloves slid off.

  “Wedge them between your fingers from the back side.” Clio grabbed Dacey’s hand. “Like this.”

  “Thanks.” She gave Clio a smile that almost looked genuine. “Okay. So now you stand straddle-legged, reach down, and stab at them.” She did, but the pig was out of there before she clapped her hands together.

  “Thanks for the lesson,” said Jig. “Just go for it, everyone.”

  Cameron targeted a pig. He reached toward its nose with one hand and its tail with the other, but he lost it before he got traction. The little sucker accelerated away. There had to be Golly people with remote controls making this impossible. No one had even come close.

  “Hey!” said Estella. “Listen to my idea.”

  Cameron straightened for a second to stretch his back.

  “These piggies can’t run wild if there’s no place for them to run. We need to corner them. That corner over there.” She pointed to the right.

  They gathered in a C and tried to herd the pigs to the opposite corner, but a few sidestepped them and scooted behind.

  “It won’t work if we don’t have them all,” said Estella. “The others will just run loose.”

  “Where’s she going?” said Dacey.

  Clio had thrown off her gloves, had climbed the fence, and was coming back with a large camel. She handed it to Jig. “I don’t think they can climb. We need to barricade them into a corner.”

  Jig set the camel upright, but Clio laid it on its side, turning it into a wall.

  They each climbed the fence and came back with an object. They added a stoplight, stoplight-sized hot dog, jack-in-the-box, foot, and cheese wedge. Then they worked together, moving the wall of objects forward and shoving the pigs to a corner. The pigs were still shuddering and moving, but they were also bumping into one another.

  “Enough,” said Clio. “We need room for ourselves.”

  There was enough room for two. Dacey and Jig went first. What should have been easy still wasn’t. The wiggling pigs kept slipping from their greasy gloves.

  “If only I didn’t need to keep my fingers clenched together,” said Dacey.

  “Just clench a couple of them,” said Clio.

  And maybe if they grabbed smaller parts—

  Cameron needed to say that out loud. “The pigs aren’t real. Grab the ears; you can’t hurt them.”

  “Yeah! Did you hear that?” Clio said much louder.

  “Hear what?” said Jig.

  “Grab their ears or their feet. Nothing against that in the rules.”

  Jig got a hand on an ear and a foot, but why’d he let it go? Maybe he didn’t. The pig was wriggling and shaking. He held on the second time. “Where does this thing go?”

  “Right in front of you,” said Estella.

  Just outside the field was the pigpen, a giant, hollowed-out, writing type of pen all decked out with pictures of pigs and, more important, with ten compartments. Jig leaned over the fence and shoved his pig into one of them. The pig shut down.

  “That’s one,” said Clio.

  “Two!” Dacey said.

  In quick succession they each got their second pigs. Now there was enough room for the other three to get in.

  Cameron butt-slid over the camel and came toe-to-toe with a pig. It darted to his right but bumped into Estella’s leg. “Hold still, Estella.” She did, and he grabbed an ear and a leg like he’d seen Jig do. “Five!”

  “Six!” said Clio. And about ten seconds later: “Seven!”

  Again there was too much space. The remaining three pigs were darting around again.

  “Either move in the hot dog and foot or come help us corner these,” Estella said.

  Jig barely nudged the hot dog. Clio and Dacey climbed the fence to help.

  Cameron didn’t want to lose the pig he almost had. He charged at it with one leg and somehow knocked it on its side. Its wheels were spinning, and its body was wriggling; but it was going nowhere. He picked it up. “Eight!”

  “What’s the deal, Estella?” said Dacey. “Get a pig already.”

  “You’re doing fine,” said Clio. “Try what Cameron did. Try to knock one on its side. Kick it if you want. It’s not alive.”

  “But they look so alive,” said Estella. “All wriggly and pink like newborns.”

  “They’re mechanical pigs,” said Jig. “Get over it.”

  Cameron stepped next to her and herded the pig a little closer to the corner. Clio joined him, and within a minute Estella had numbers nine and ten in the pen.

  Puzzle time! But nothing happened.

  “Bill! Where’s the envelope?” yelled Jig.

  “Yeah,” said Dacey. “I swear, Cameron, if you were wrong about—”

  “Stop it!” said Clio. “Maybe it’s the numbers on their bellies.”

  “What numbers?” said Dacey.

  “See?” said Clio. “The first one has a five. The next one has an eight.” She picked both up. “We should each move two of them in case that’s part of the rules.”

  They took out all the pigs and replaced them, one at a time, in numerical order.

  “Here goes number ten,” said Estella. She slid in the last pig, and a wide banner unfurled from a beam that seemed suspended in midair.

  Cameron’s heart raced. Please don’t say Puzzle #1. He couldn’t bear the blame if he’d failed them.

  “We did it!” Dacey and Jig high-fived as if they had made this happen by themselves.

  Spanning the width of the banner were eight pictures: a nest, microscope, chicken coop with one rooster inside, empty egg carton, cup and saucer, sleeve, hayloft, and a bumpy, green thing. Underneath it read “PUZZLE #2.”

  Bill appeared from behind the banner, throwing towels so they could clean up. “Brilliant use of resources,” he said. “But you’re neck and neck with the other team. Go!” And he slid back around.

  Jig pointed to the banner. “Our puzzle, I presume.”

  “That’s it?” said Dacey. “Just pictures?”

  “Obviously,” said Estella.

  Dacey waved a hand in the air. “Ooh! I’ve got it. It’s one of those picture puzzles!”

  “Well, duh,” said Jig.

  “No,” she said. “Those rebuses. Like a picture of a skirt, then a minus sign, then the letter S, then a plus sign, then a map of the Mediterranean, which would equal ‘curtsy.’”

  “Where’d you come up with that one?” said Jig. “Curtsy. Ha!”

  “Well, pardon my third-grade teacher,” Dacey said.

  Estella shook her head. “So that’s what fills your brain. Rebuses from third grade.”

  Okay then. No way Cameron would admit to learning in first grade that the Brazilian gold frog is the size of a dime.

  “Sorry,” said Clio, “but does that really matter?”

  “It doesn’t,” Estella said, “because the puzzle is not a rebus
.”

  Dacey put a hand on her hip. “Why not?”

  “Where are the minuses? Where are the pluses?”

  “Where are the choices?” Clio said.

  Cameron pointed to the banner. Very small, in the bottom-right corner, almost fading into the fabric, was an arrow at the end of a line that trailed right, then looped back onto itself.

  The choices were on a table behind the banner. Had it been there before? Didn’t matter. They had choices! JinxTrap, LionPaws, and DoomTomb.

  Clio picked up all three and brought them around to the picture side of the banner.

  “Eight pictures, eight letters in each choice,” Estella said, glaring at Dacey. “That has to mean something.”

  “Fine,” said Dacey. “So it’s not a rebus, but what’s wrong with first impressions? It’s not like we’ll solve things bein’ mute like him.” Dacey pointed to Cameron.

  “He gave us da,” said Estella.

  Cameron was in a no-win situation. If he stayed quiet, Dacey would be right. And if he spoke up now, she’d take the credit.

  “Look,” said Clio, pointing to the puzzle, saving him from Dacey. “Somehow, these objects spell out the answer, but I don’t see it yet. ‘Nest’ starts with N and ends with T, and two of the choices have N’s, and two have T’s, but none of them start or end with those letters. In fact, none of the beginning letters of these pictures mesh with our choices. Anyone else?”

  This would have been Cameron’s opening, if he’d had something. Eight letters, eight objects. DoomTomb had repeated letters, but no objects repeated. Um, um . . . New tactic. If he were shooting these actual objects with his videocam, he’d focus on the straw of the nest next to soft bird feathers, then the rigid microscope with a human eye close to its lens. But that wasn’t getting him anywhere.

  “It’s horrible,” Dacey said. “My mind’s stuck on that rebus idea, and it won’t move off.”

  “Don’t say that,” said Estella, “or we’ll all get stuck.”

  “I can talk,” said Dacey. “I can talk about runnin’ out of eggs and lookin’ at plankton through a microscope, and what are all these nests in little rooms? Bird condo?”