Lexi Magill and the Teleportation Tournament

by Kim Long

  Ron cocked his left eyebrow. Then his right. Then his left. He switched back and forth at a steady pace. After the sixth or seventh time, Lexi couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Seriously,” she said, lightly punching her fist into her palm. “I’m all for having fun, but we have to concentrate on the tournament. That’s the whole point.”

  “Got it,” Ron said. “Don’t worry, Magill. It’ll be fine. I’m looking forward to it. I love logic puzzles and stuff like that.”

  Mal adjusted her scarf. “Yeah, and I love traveling through Europe. I want to go to as many places as possible. We’ll be super-fast.”

  Lexi let out a breath, feeling a little better. While she didn’t expect Ron or Mal to know enough science to actually help during the tournament, there was a difference between not helping and slowing her down. “Okay. Thanks, guys.”

  Ron hopped onto the picnic bench and stepped atop the table. He looked over the crowd. “All right, so let’s talk about this tournament. Who’s our fiercest competition?”

  “Good question,” Mal said as she joined Ron on the tabletop.

  Smiling, Lexi climbed up, too. She noticed Haley’s Comets, the Physics Phenoms, Tesla’s Techies, and several other teams of former classmates or summer science camp pros mingling in the lot. Jealousy rumbled through her. She’d give anything to be down there, laughing and talking about potential science problems they’d encounter in the tournament.

  Next year. Next year, that’ll be me.

  “Earth to Lexi,” Mal said, giving her a poke. “What do you think? Who do we have to watch out for?”

  Everybody. Lexi motioned to the middle of the lot. “Well, everyone from the academy and STEM competitions will definitely be good.”

  “STEM?” Mal said. “That’s Science, Tech—”

  “—nology, Engineering, and Mathematics,” Lexi interrupted. “There are competitions throughout the year.” She identified the main teams before flipping her hand toward three sparkling silver shirts. “And that’s Haley’s team. She’s my best friend and real smart, too.”

  “Hmmm,” Ron said. “Who won last year?”

  Lexi stared into the crowd. “The Mighty Sanbornes. David and Daniel are twins. They just turned fourteen, so this is the last year they can run. They’re entering with their sister, Ashley. She’s twelve, like us, so this will be her first tournament. I don’t see them yet, though.”

  “Mighty Sanbornes,” Ron murmured. He smoothed his hands together. “Good to know.”

  A horn blared, and Team RAM jolted. Lexi watched as Dr. Harrison proceeded to a makeshift stage at the front of the parking lot. With a squeal, she hurriedly leaped to the ground and grabbed her notebook. The tournament was about to start.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dr. Harrison leaned into the microphone. “Welcome to Wisconsin’s Sixth Annual Memorial Day Weekend Teleportation Tournament!” He laughed, stepping back. “Wow! It’s nice seeing everyone up so early on a Saturday!”

  Cheers erupted across the parking lot. Lexi smiled but didn’t join. Standing tall, she stared straight ahead, clicked her pen, and rested a notebook on her arm, ready to write. Ron sidled up next to her… with a partially torn spiral notebook that was clearly a leftover from last semester. He flipped to a blank page about halfway in and dragged a chewed-off three-inch pencil out of his sock.

  Mal leaned over. “I’ll leave the note-taking to you two. I’m just gonna listen.”

  “Okay,” Lexi said, side-eyeing her teammates. Apparently, she should have stressed the importance of note-taking more than once.

  “All right,” Dr. Harrison shouted. “Before we start, is there anyone who didn’t provide their Tel-Med to the check-in booth?” The crowd hushed as kids looked at their neighbors. Dr. Harrison held his hands high over his head. “Please make sure. All Tel-Meds must have our tracking and disabling chip, and this is the only chance we have to install them. It’s now or never.” Again, kids glanced around the parking lot, nodding at their teammates to confirm their Tel-Meds were ready.

  “Great. Let’s move on. Since you were at our meeting last weekend, I’m going to make this short and sweet.” Dr. Harrison lifted a badge—like the ones he had handed out at the check-in counter—off his chest. “First, this is your badge. It allows you to obtain teleport tickets free of charge and free access to museums and public transportation. So, whatever you do, don’t lose your badge.”

  Lexi twirled the pen between her fingers. No need to write that down.

  “Next,” Dr. Harrison said, “are your Teleport Travel Request Forms. When your team wants to teleport to a new destination, complete the form and fill in the code of the teleport station where you want to travel. Hand in your form to a tournament official, and you’ll get your tickets.”

  “What if we pick the code for a teleport station in Antarctica?” a kid shouted.

  “Then you’ll go to Antarctica,” Dr. Harrison answered without missing a beat.

  The teams hushed.

  “Just kidding,” Dr. Harrison said, and sighs of relief echoed through the crowd. “No one is going to give you a ticket for Antarctica or any other place that is wildly off course. That being said, we have tournament officials in stations that are off course because we expect some mistakes. If you end up traveling to one of those spots, you’ll still have a chance to rejoin the race.”

  Dr. Harrison looked at the next note card. “Okay, now obviously everyone wants to go fast, but don’t forget the mandatory checkpoints. Make sure you check in at the tournament booth every time you arrive in a new city. The booths will be located near the teleport stations and decorated with signs, so they should be easy to find.”

  Unable to keep still, Lexi started to doodle a baseball diamond. Dr. Harrison was just repeating the obvious. She scribbled a dugout next to the diamond, and then drew a row of seats behind it marking where her family’s season ticket seats had been. Brewers tickets had been another casualty of the downsizing initiative—one particularly hard on Lexi and her father. Maybe there’d be enough prize money for them to go to some games this—

  “Hey,” Ron whispered, jabbing her with his pencil. “You’re not writing any of this down.”

  Lexi flinched at the thought of missing something, but then Ron flashed his page. He had scrawled Don’t lose your badges, Don’t go to Antarctica, and Don’t forget checkpoints on the first three lines.

  She rolled her eyes. “You need to be reminded not to lose your badge?”

  “And not to go to Antarctica?” Mal teased.

  Scowling, Ron drew his notebook to his chest and stepped to the side.

  “Fine,” Lexi said, and with a sigh, she copied the three rules into her notebook.

  Dr. Harrison continued, “Next are mandatory rest breaks. This is a three-day tournament, ending back in Wisconsin on Monday. You’re going to be doing a lot of traveling over seventy-two hours. If a tournament official advises your team that you must stop for the day, then you’ll be spending the night in that city’s rest area. When the race reopens the next morning, teams will depart in the order they arrived.”

  Dr. Harrison ran his hand through his hair. “Also, remember that, due to regulations by the Wisconsin State Board of Education, there can be no teleporting between ten p.m. and seven a.m. As soon as you cross into a time zone where it’s between ten p.m. and seven a.m., the chip we installed will disable your Tel-Med, so please keep aware of the time zones as you travel.”

  Lexi pursed her lips, wishing Dr. Harrison hadn’t reminded her competitors about the different time zones. Time-zone screwups happened every year, and she had been hoping a few teams would fall behind from forgetting to factor in a time-zone change or skipping rest periods, leaving them exhausted from all the time-zone hopping. Now that was less likely.

  “Okay,” Dr. Harrison said. “The last thing is your team’s Trek Tracker. There will be nine stops in the tournament, and your Tracker has spots for nine stickers—one for each puzzle. As you comple
te a puzzle and collect a sticker, place it over the designated spot on your Trek Tracker. To win, your team must have all nine stickers in place. If a team crosses the finish line without all nine stickers, it will not be declared the winner. No skipping puzzles.”

  Lexi added Nine puzzles and Collect nine stickers to her notebook.

  “And that’s it,” Dr. Harrison said. “I hear we have some special guests waiting to talk to you, but before that, let me see if there are any questions.”

  Several hands shot up. Dr. Harrison pointed to a boy near the front. “Can we work with other teams? You know, form alliances?”

  Dr. Harrison shrugged. “Sure, if you want. But like I said, to be eligible to win, each team needs to collect its own stickers. And you should also know that we’ve designed it so only one team can win.” Dr. Harrison bobbed his head back and forth. “In fact, I think it’s fair to say it’s physically impossible for there to be a tie. So yeah, if you want to hang out with your friends, go ahead. But know that when it comes to the finish line, it’s the first team of three people: one, two, three.”

  If only I could hang out with my friends, Lexi thought for a split second before brushing it off. She had to stay focused. Eyes narrowed with determination, she wrote there couldn’t be any ties.

  “Can you tell us what the eliminations will be?” a girl shouted.

  Lexi leaned in. Dr. Harrison hesitated, but then said, “We’ll probably cut it down to thirty teams by tonight and then eliminate another half tomorrow night so that on Monday we’ll start with fifteen teams. Then we’ll narrow it down to a top five for the final puzzle.”

  “Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said we had to keep up or be eliminated,” Mal said.

  Ron tapped the pencil to his page. “That’s all right. I shouldn’t need more than two days to sell everything.”

  Mal cocked her head to the side. “Good point. That should be enough for my photo exhibit, too.”

  Lexi gritted her teeth. The tournament hadn’t even started and her teammates were talking about when it would be okay to be eliminated. She forced herself to take a deep breath. The tournament was going to come down to teleport science, and that was her expertise. She’d make sure they’d be racing on Monday.

  Dr. Harrison stuffed his note cards into his sport coat. “Okay, if there’s nothing else, then it’s time for some good luck wishes.” He snapped his fingers, and a screen rose behind him. “Who better to send those wishes than the scientists who invented teleport travel: Dr. James Bressler, Dr. Wallace Kent, and Dr. Viktoria Vogt!”

  Lexi squeezed her notebook closed and sprung into the air. “NO WAY!” Heart racing, she ran a few feet toward the screen to get a better look. Sure enough, it was really them.

  As the crowd simmered, the camera focused on Dr. Vogt. She set her glasses atop her head and brushed a few bangs off her forehead. Dressed in cargo pants and a black T-shirt, the seventy-year-old petite scientist vaulted toward the camera, leaving Dr. Kent and Dr. Bressler in the background. She winked and bent toward the lens.

  “Guten morgen! It’s so good to see such enthusiastic, young scientific minds!”

  Lexi stood completely still as she tried to process the fact that Dr. Vogt was talking to her. Well, okay, a bunch of other kids, too, but she was one of them! She exhaled again.

  Dr. Vogt continued in her German accent, “As you may know, Dr. Bressler, Dr. Kent, and I love working with young people. It’s so exciting to hear fresh ideas from those with a real thirst for science. For that reason, we are happy to announce that one of you will have the opportunity to work as an intern in our lab this summer!”

  Lexi’s notebook slipped from her hands and fell to the ground as she placed her hands over her mouth. Her mind spun. An internship with the top teleport scientists in the world? She snatched her notebook off the ground but couldn’t keep it still in her trembling fingers. She’d be the perfect intern. They had to pick her.

  Dr. Vogt held up a finger. “But more about that later. For now, let’s get to the tournament! Would anyone like a hint?”

  As the other teams blared “Yes!” Lexi tried to steady her hands. Focus.

  Dr. Vogt lowered her voice. “Listen closely. Every scientific invention starts with an idea, a spark. A scientist must, above all, have an imagination—an imagination that not only thinks of the impossible, but how to make the impossible possible.” She shook her head. “But it’s not easy. At the early stage of the spark, many will doubt you, even say you are foolish for believing such astounding things can become a reality.”

  Lexi nodded. Dr. Vogt knew what she was talking about. When she first published her teleportation theories, the scientific community scoffed. Everyone said teleportation was impossible—that there was no way enough energy could be generated to transport matter, much less a person, in mere seconds. In the end, Dr. Vogt proved everyone wrong. Her development of a teleportation medallion as an energy source advanced science tenfold. No one was laughing now.

  Dr. Vogt balled her hand into a fist and glared into the camera. “You cannot let these doubters stop you. You must stand tall and protect your ideas.” Steely-eyed, she inhaled deeply and pressed her hair behind her ears. “The world has always been full of those who dare to see things differently—those who followed their own course and their own dreams, despite what others said. For the first part of your trek, you’ll be visiting some of these daring personalities.” She leaned forward. “And here’s a big hint—you might visit my home country along the way!”

  With a wave good-bye, Dr. Vogt rejoined her colleagues, and the screen turned black. Lexi furiously wrote down all she could remember.

  Dr. Harrison returned to the stage. “How did everyone like our special guests?”

  Thunderous cheers filled the lot. “It’s great, isn’t it? Okay, so now that we know what’s at stake, is everyone ready for your first puzzle?”

  Lexi checked her watch. 7:20 a.m. Technically, the tournament wasn’t supposed to start until 7:30 a.m. She wondered whether—

  “Then what are you waiting for? Open your envelopes!”

  Lexi turned to Mal and Ron, who both stared at her.

  Riiiiiiiiiiipppppp.

  She whirled back around. A girl in a purple shirt stood a few feet away, torn envelope in her hand. Lexi rushed to her backpack and retrieved their envelope. An instant later, she tore the seal. The race was on.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lexi emptied the contents of the envelope onto the picnic table.

  “Here it is,” Ron said, sliding out a page titled “DESTINATION NO. 1.”

  Lexi reached for the clue, but stopped, remembering from her review of previous tournaments that the tournament directors sometimes buried hints in the starting package. She waved off Ron. “Go ahead and read it,” she said, fanning through pages of rules and Travel Request Forms. “I’m gonna skim through the rest of this stuff real quick.”

  She spotted the Trek Tracker and picked it up.

  Making a mental note to remember that the order was incorrect in the first row, Lexi stuffed the Tracker inside her backpack.

  She looked at Ron, who had remained silent. “Well? I thought you were going to read it?”

  “I did,” Ron replied as he extended his arm toward Mal. “To myself. Now, I need Mal’s tablet to look something up.”

  Mal gripped her tablet between her hands. “No way. Let me see it, and I’ll do the search.”

  Ron clicked his tongue. “Nah. How ’bout you just give me the tablet?”

  The corner of Mal’s mouth curled up. “Um, how ’bout for the obvious reason that it’s my tablet? Use your phone.”

  “Screen’s busted,” Ron said. He lunged for the tablet, and Mal waved it behind her head and backed up. Ron swiped for it again, forcing Mal to sidestep his advances.

  Lexi squeezed between her teammates and threw out her arms. “You guys! Stop!”

  Mal retreated farther away as Ron faked a move to his left, then stepped
toward her, his grabby hands outstretched in front of his body.

  Lexi swiveled to block him, and as her teammates held their positions, she dug her fingernails into her palms in an effort to remain calm. Everything had gone so smoothly when she’d worked with Mal and Ron on their group project on ancient Egypt this past semester. Ron researched hieroglyphs and created his own puzzle, Mal constructed and decorated a model of the Luxor Temple, and Lexi had explained Egyptian mathematics. Then they all contributed to their paper. The teacher gave them an A and complimented their teamwork. It was the main reason Lexi asked Ron and Mal if they wanted to race with her. This, though, was not a good start.

  She swallowed. “Look, let’s do what we did on our Egypt project. We can divide up responsibilities.” She tilted her head toward Ron. “You can read the clues.” She gestured to Mal. “And we all know Mal’s a whiz on the computer. She can look stuff up.”

  Mal gave a curt nod, and a second later, Ron exhaled. “Fine,” he said, holding the clue out in front of him. “Here’s the important part: ‘Some said I was silly, most called me mad, but if I inspired Cinderella Castle, how can I be that bad?’”

  “Easy,” Mal said. “I’ll search for ‘who inspired Cinderella Castle.’” Sliding onto the picnic table bench, Mal typed in the search. Moments later, she called her teammates close and whispered, “It’s a castle in Bavaria called Neuschwanstein Castle.” Mal shouted out tidbits as she scrolled through the text.

  “It was built by King Ludwig the Second in 1869. He ruled from 1864 to 1886. They said he was irrational and eventually ousted him from the throne.” Mal paused. “Wow.”

  “What?” Lexi and Ron asked at the same time.

  “He became king when he was only eighteen, and then he built all these fancy castles. He kept spending money the country didn’t have. That’s the main reason they thought he was ridiculous—he’s known as Mad King Ludwig. He died under suspicious circumstances a few days after he lost the throne.”