The New Champion

by Jody Feldman

  This was good. He’d only need to try each key in one lock. Next key. Square. Door number two. No. Next. Large and notched on two sides. Door four. No luck. Normal key. Door three. No. Very long, very skinny key. Door one. No.

  He glanced at the screen. Spencer was still racing with all his might. Poor Estella was probably transfixed by her old boyfriend. And why was he worried about Estella now?

  More keys. He tried two normal ones. Another square one. A skinny one. Three two-sided ones. Another square one, and yes! Door two.

  Inside was nothing but a small closet space with a couple of toys on the floor. Those would have to wait. Right now it was a race against all those keys Spencer was sending down the chute.

  New game plan. He rooted through the container for normal-looking keys. They’d get buried more easily and be harder to find. If only he could stop the new ones from coming!

  He tried the first normal key in door number three. No. Second key. No. Third. No. By the time he went back for a fourth key, he had to dig to find one beneath a barrage of new square keys, which he didn’t need.

  The keys were almost as high as the feeding tube. Spencer was still running. Hard. Fast. If only he’d trip and give Cameron a break. If only Cameron could take off his shirt and stuff it in the feed tube. Wait. Not a bad idea. Unless there was a rule against it. But being half naked on national TV? No, but—

  Maybe his instruction card was large and flexible for a reason. He held it inside the container, against the feed tube with one hand. With the other, he clawed a bunch of keys against the card to hold it into place.

  Spencer dropped in three more keys. The card held! The keys were staying in the tube!

  Back to normal keys. He tried four more until the fifth worked. Door number three, open. He couldn’t help himself. On the floor were both the zipper and shoelace cards from the old Dress Me, Dress You learning game. In the other door were the GollyRocket and GollyCopter. And these were supposed to have something in common?

  He’d been better off knowing nothing. Spencer was still rushing over with the keys, and no telling how long the card would hold. Unless . . .

  Oh, no! What if Spencer was feeding him keys he needed? Forget that for now. He could always reopen the floodgate later. Cameron grabbed a double-notched key. Why couldn’t the first one work on door number four? Or the second? Why did it take eight of them?

  Cameron knew better than to glance toward this floor, but it was like roadkill; he had to see. Two new objects: GollyGlitter and GollyGlue.

  Back to the container. The card was leaning in like a dam about to burst. He shoved more keys against it, but they would hold only for a while. He had to get the last door open.

  Time for the long, skinny keys. One, two, three. No, no, no. Four, five, six. No, no, no. Seven, eight, nine, ten. Eleven!

  He pulled out the staircase and wardrobe from Mystery at Golly Mansion. He brought over the rest of the objects and laid them on the desk. What was he supposed to do now? He pulled the card from the container to a key avalanche. “Four things belong, four others are wrong.”

  “It’s wrong they don’t give us another hint,” he muttered.

  But they’d given him a drawer in the desk! False alarm. It had paper and pens and nothing. He used them, though, to list what he had:

  Shoelace

  Zipper

  Wardrobe

  Stairs

  Glue

  Glitter

  Rocket

  Helicopter

  Step one, process of elimination. It couldn’t be the words themselves because Golly hadn’t instructed him to call it a helicopter or copter or chopper; a lace or a shoelace; steps or stairs. It had to be the objects themselves, not their names.

  So what did four have in common? Similar markings? Nope. Common objects versus not? His house had stairs, glue, shoelaces, zippers; but Dacey probably had glitter, and Golly couldn’t have predicted who owned what.

  Next idea. The colors? The dates Golly introduced the products? What the company still made and what it didn’t? No, no, and no. The answer had to be simple. Right now his brain was completely blank. And even when he figured this out, what was he supposed to do with the four things that belonged?

  He inspected inside and underneath the desk drawer for writing. Nothing. Hoping the screen had more info now, he touched the monitor. Spencer and the rest were still running for keys. Not for long, though. The key wall was mostly empty.

  So was the rest of Cameron’s room. Nothing else inside the closets. Nothing under the desk. Just the key container, discard container, monitor—

  Back up. He dumped out the keys from the discard container. At the very bottom it said, “Deposit the four that belong in here. Close the other four inside any of the closets.”

  Yes! Back to the puzzle. Fresh brain. Fresh ideas. What fresh ideas? Maybe if he focused on the objects one at a time . . .

  You tie a shoelace. You zip a zipper. You put clothes into a wardrobe. Shoes? Zipper? Wardrobe? What else has to do with getting dressed? Nothing. Unless he used glue and glitter to make a shirt. And no.

  Still, he liked his direction. You tie a shoelace. You put clothes in a wardrobe. Or you open a wardrobe. Were there other things that opened? Not really. Onward. You stick things together with glue. A rocket flies. So does a helicopter. They lift up. They come down. And the stairs! You go up and down a staircase. One more thing.

  Cameron scanned the objects, grabbed the zipper, zipped it down, then up!

  He put the up-and-down things into the container. He threw the shoelace card, the glitter, the glue, and the wardrobe onto the floor of the second door and slammed it shut.

  Now what? Nothing on the monitor. But the discard container suddenly glowed. It lifted up, up, up toward the ceiling. Cameron started looking for a trick wire, but the entry door opened.

  Bill thumped him on the back. “Good work!”

  “Fast enough?”

  Bill pointed to their lounge. “See for yourself.”

  Clio was the only one in the room. She sipped from her glass, then smiled at him. “I’m glad it’s you.”

  “Me, too.” He took a deep breath. “I mean that it’s you.”

  “So what did you think was harder, Cameron? Keys or objects?”

  He hadn’t sorted it all out yet. “Equal, I guess. What about you?”

  “The objects. I mean, you did stop the keys, didn’t you? Slid the card into the grooves?”

  “What grooves?”

  “The two grooves at the top of the key bin,” said Clio. “They held the card in place.”

  “I just wedged it in there.”

  “That works, too.”

  Maybe, but Cameron was kicking himself. He always noticed little things like that. Was he getting lazy without his camera? He got a glass of lemonade, sat, and sighed.

  “I know,” she said. “It’s like an endurance test. I wouldn’t give this up for anything, but it’d be even better if we could go home and eat dinner and sleep between each event.”

  “Yeah,” said Cameron. “Well, no. I’d be obsessing over it so much I wouldn’t sleep, my brain would overheat, and I’d be a pile of ashes in the morning.”

  Clio smiled. “You did okay from yesterday to today.”

  He nodded; then they sat there in comfortable silence until the door opened.

  Jig barged in like he owned the place. He tried to look all cool when he saw them, but his slight pause gave him away. Maybe Cameron could still notice details.

  “That was a bear,” Jig said. “Not the up-and-down thing—that was easy—but those keys! Rocky was relentless. How’d you get here before me, Cameron?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.” No way he’d give Jig any tips.

  “Who got in here first?”

  “I did,” Clio said.

  “Thought so. Your girl wasn’t as fast as our guys.”

  “True.” That’s all Clio said. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.


  The silence didn’t last long. The door opened. It was Estella, beaming. “I did it! I forgot that pig was there and just did it.” She gave Clio a hug.

  “Aw!” said Jig. “The girls have formed the Happy Support Society. We need a guys’ version.” He thumped Cameron’s shoulder. “You’re so good. Maybe not as fast or smart as your brother, but you can do this, buddy.”

  Cameron started to growl but turned it into a laugh to shut the guy up. Jig was as transparent as air. Maybe his deflation techniques worked on other people, but not on Cameron. He wasn’t as fast as Spencer. But he might be as smart, even smarter. Either way, he was here.

  The door opened again, this time to the tear-streaked face of Dacey. “Well, I’m going home, y’all. To nightmares about keys fallin’ all over me.” She came around and gave each one a two-armed hug.

  Estella hugged back with only one.

  Cameron wished he could have filmed that.

  Bill came in with a large purse. “Is this what you asked for, Dacey?”

  “Thanks, Bill.”

  “Just make it quick.” Bill backed away.

  Dacey pulled out a sheet of paper. “Could y’all sign this? On the front, if you don’t mind. It’s for my scrapbook, though I can’t end the book like I’d planned.” She handed it to Cameron along with a pink sparkle pen.

  Was this what he thought it was? A sketch of the obstacle course? Could he get one?

  Cameron signed his name and passed it on.

  Jig took it. “What is this?”

  “That stadium study guide I was talking about. If y’all brought yours, I’ll sign ’em, too.”

  “I didn’t get a picture,” Jig said. “Anyone else get a picture?”

  The others hadn’t, either.

  “Well, maybe you got something I didn’t. But that’s not important,” said Dacey. “Please sign it, y’all, while I apologize to Estella.”

  “Me?”

  Dacey nodded. “I was rude today. Truth is, you’re so pretty you kept remindin’ me of Laura, and well, she just gets to me. Makes me ugly. And now I’m goin’ out there to fake-smile at her, and we’ll both pretend we’re besties.”

  “You do that,” said Estella. “It’s been interesting meeting you.”

  “Likewise.” Dacey tucked the sketch back into her purse, pageant-waved, and walked out the door.

  Bill leaned in. “I’ll be right back for your next little adventure.”

  “What was that about?” said Jig. “If I had a picture—”

  “Does it matter?” said Estella. “You’re still here, and she’s not.”

  Apparently, it mattered to Jig. “Why’d she get a picture and I didn’t?” he asked when Bill came back a couple of minutes later.

  “These Games are full of surprises, aren’t they?”

  “But—”

  “You want to play, Jig? Or you want to talk?”

  “Bring it on!” said Jig.

  Bill smiled. “Hold on to your seats. Here we go!”

  The lounge veered backward, then toward the left, before it came to a smooth stop. It opened to a waiting area painted like a busy foreign marketplace with stalls of fruits and rugs and jewelry, people in colorful clothes, dogs and kids running around.

  “Same routine,” said Bill. “Find your doors. Go in with the signal. And remember”—he paused for effect—“your door leads in, and your door leads out.” He lifted his eyebrows a few times and smiled.

  Ding! Ding! Ding!

  Compared with the last room, this was like a closet, and it was totally bare except for a table and the objects on it: an empty tote bag, a pad of paper, pens, a bolted-down GollyReader, and his next challenge card.

  When last we left Tad (young Thaddeus G. Golliwop), he was ordering lunch for old Uncle Eb. Today he’s faced with another task. He must do the marketing for Eb’s brother, old Uncle Zeb.

  One problem: Young Tad is strapped for time and needs your help. Go to the market and bring back the four items Uncle Zeb needs, one each from the four appropriate stalls. Make sure you also pick up the corresponding price tags so you will know the appropriate prices.

  When you return from your shopping trip, figure out how much Zeb owes, then post that exact amount to Zeb’s account. (One-minute penalty for each wrong guess.)

  And the four items? Uncle Zeb is hard to figure out, but this might help:

  He’ll buy organic deviled eggs, but not organic egg rolls.

  He’ll buy homemade fruitcake, but not store-bought cupcakes.

  He loves crab cakes, but not shrimp rolls.

  And palm nuts? Yes! But not pecans or walnuts or Brazil nuts or most other types of nuts.

  Grocery shopping? Not high on Cameron’s Hooray List, but this wasn’t really shopping. This was cracking Uncle Zeb’s code. Why did he like those foods? What common thread would show Cameron exactly what to buy?

  At the top of Uncle Zeb’s like list: organic deviled eggs. What made them organic? Organic chickens? Organic ingredients? What ingredients went into deviled eggs? No. This wasn’t a cooking show.

  New tactic. Why organic deviled eggs? Why not spicy deviled eggs or purple deviled eggs? Or organic scrambled eggs?

  But no egg rolls. So the word “egg” wasn’t the key. Neither was “organic.” And homemade fruitcake? Weren’t there like a million fruitcake jokes, how horrible they were? Wouldn’t the whole world trade a fruitcake for a cupcake?

  Crab cakes and shrimp rolls. So it had nothing to do with cakes and nothing to do with rolls and nothing to do with seafood allergies.

  Allergies? Was Zeb allergic to nuts? And if you’re allergic to nuts, do palm nuts count?

  Cameron laughed. This wasn’t a medical show, either. He needed to focus on the words and their letters.

  What did the words in the yes column have in common?

  Cameron wrote them in reverse order to see it differently:

  Palm nuts

  Crab cakes

  Homemade fruitcake

  Organic deviled eggs

  Two words, two words, two words, three words. Some words started with vowels; others, consonants. No pattern to the second letters or the third letters or the letters they ended with. There were letters with ascenders and descenders and letters without. There were letters with curves and letters with straight lines and combinations of the two. And his brain was about to overheat again.

  There had to be some pattern he wasn’t seeing yet. It wouldn’t be spelling again, would it? Only one way to know: one letter at a time.

  He went slowly, listening to the sound of the letters. “O-R-G-A-N-I-C-D-E-V-I-L-E-D-E-G-G-S.

  “H-O-M-E-M-A-D-E-F-R-U-I-T-C-A-K-E.

  “C-R-A-B-C-A-K-E-S.

  “P-A-L-M-N-O—” He stopped himself. “Not O. U. Why’d I say O? P-A-L-M-N-O-P—”

  Was that it? He checked the others. The a-b-c in “crab cakes” and the d-e-f in “homemade fruitcake” and the c-d-e in “organic deviled eggs.” On the don’t buy side? None had three consecutive letters of the alphabet. Time to shop! But where? As Bill had said, his door led in and his door led out.

  Cameron grabbed the tote bag and puzzle card and hoped the painted market in the common hall had magically transformed into a real one. No such luck, but one of four new doors there had his name.

  Inside was a marketplace. Magic carpets soared in midair. Live parrots squawked from the corners. It even smelled like cinnamon and curry and other exotic spices. Most important, each stall, billowing with brilliant fabric, had a sign bearing its name.

  Which four, out of all these dozens, contained three sequential letters?

  He surveyed the signs from where he was standing. FRANK’S FRANKS. No. JAKE SANTANGELO’S GREEN GROCERY. Lots of letters, but none in a row. SAM STUART’S SAUSAGES & SUCH. Yes!

  Sam’s stall had four choices:

  Hot dogs

  Polish sausage

  Bratwurst

  Salami

  Cameron tossed the package of bratw
urst into his tote.

  He ruled out Ethel Toffel’s Cakes ’n’ Bakes, then moved around to another row of stalls. Not Fernando’s Foods, but yes to Raj Klondike’s Condiments. His choices:

  Orange marmalade

  Prickly pear jelly

  Litchi jam

  Persimmon puree

  In went the litchi jam and—

  He looked at the space where the jam used to be. A slip of paper. “Litchi jam: $1.00–$2.00.”

  He ran back to the sausage shop. The price slip was there. “Bratwurst: $4.00–$5.00.”

  Couldn’t they be more specific? He’d figure that out later. He bypassed Paul’s Poultry, Super Spicy Spices, and Candies by Candy. But he stopped at B.C. Dinners. His choices:

  Chicken fricassee

  Beef goulash

  Turkey hash

  Ham and beans

  In went the beef goulash and the price tag. “Beef goulash: $3.00–$4.00.”

  Next stop, Lehi Juarez’s Tex-Mex.

  Poblano pepper poppers

  Toasty tostadas

  Hot tamales

  Fresh frijoles

  He popped in the poppers and their $2.00–$3.00 price, then sprinted back to his room.

  He plopped the tote on the desk and dug out the price tags. How much should he add to Zeb’s account? How much should he enter into the GollyReader? He laid out the price tags in order of cost. $1.00–$2.00. $2.00–$3.00. $3.00–$4.00. $4.00–$5.00. The cost was anywhere from $10 to $14. Did Uncle Zeb pay whatever he wanted? If only it were that easy. If only there weren’t penalties involved.

  Had the instructions said anything other than “appropriate prices”? No.

  What would be appropriate for bratwurst? “Just tell me how much,” he said into the air. He turned the slips over in case he’d missed something, but they were blank on the back.