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Brendan’s eyes went wide and innocent. “I won’t, I won’t. I thought he would have solved it already. Mr. Lester . . . this is Winston Breen!” This was said with the sweeping arm gesture of a circus ringmaster introducing the evening’s top act. Winston felt himself blush.

The teacher, Mr. Lester, smiled and nodded. “Ah. Winston Breen. Brendan’s told us a lot about you. How is your team doing?”

“We’ve solved two puzzles so far,” Winston said, and saw how Brendan’s teammates smiled at each other. Well, sure. They were a full puzzle ahead. “Listen,” Winston continued. “A few teams think that somebody might be cheating.”

“Cheating!” Mr. Lester looked amazed.

“Yeah. Have you had any unexplained problems? A couple of teams have gotten flat tires.”

The members of Brendan’s team all looked at each other, shrugging. Mr. Lester said, “No, I’d say we’ve had pretty smooth sailing. People do get flat tires now and again. I ran over some broken glass myself a couple of months ago, had to wait two hours for a tow truck. It didn’t mean anybody was out to get me. I’d say it’s a pretty big jump to say there’s a cheater afoot.”

“There’s more,” Winston said, and told them about how the signs in the planetarium had grown legs and walked away.

Mr. Lester looked a little more thoughtful. “Suspicious, I grant you. We’ll keep our eyes open, I promise. But now we really need to find our car in this mess of a parking lot so we can move on to the next puzzle. If you’ll excuse us. . . .” He smiled politely but made a shooing gesture. “We’ll see you later on, back at the potato chip company.” He and his boys walked slowly off, looking for their missing car.

Brendan lagged behind the others. He turned back to Winston and said, “Do you really think someone gave you a flat tire on purpose?”

Winston nodded. “Yeah.”

“That stinks.” Brendan really did look quietly devastated. “I wanted this thing to be you and me, going head to head. You know?”

“Well, maybe we’ll catch up.”

“I”—Brendan stopped. He glanced behind him. Mr. Lester and the two brothers didn’t know that Brendan wasn’t with them. He stepped closer to Winston and said in a low but excited voice, “I could tell you the answer to this puzzle. Then we’d be all tied up again.”

Winston was alarmed. “No, don’t! You’ll get in trouble. We both will.”

“If you didn’t get that flat tire, I know we’d be neck and neck, racing toward the finish line. Two puzzle lovers! Who will come out on top?” Brendan’s arms were swinging wide again.

“I . . . we can’t do that. Maybe we’ll catch up anyway.”

Brendan paused, as if he might just blurt out the answer, consequences or no. But then he crumpled and said, “Yeah, okay.” His eyes immediately glittered again. “I can give you a hint. . . .”

“Brendan, let’s go!” Mr. Lester yelled, as if sensing that Brendan was about to give aid to the enemy.

“No hints,” Winston said firmly. “I think they found the car. And I better get back to my team.”

Brendan nodded. “All right.” It was almost funny how morose Brendan looked, even though his team was probably winning. He slunk back over to his teacher.

Winston dashed off to rejoin his team. Mr. Garvey had allowed him to go, of course, but would probably still snap at him for taking so long.

Brendan was going to tell him the answer to this puzzle! Incredible. And incredibly stupid. If he’d allowed Brendan to spill the beans, it would have been a disaster. What would he have said to his team? “Guess what! Brendan and I cheated, so we’re all set. We can move on to the next puzzle.” His friends would have been shocked beyond belief.

And how would Mr. Garvey react? The math teacher had shown he was willing to bend the rules here and there. But even he would consider this to be way over the line . . . right? Winston had to admit that he wasn’t sure. Either Mr. Garvey would slap Winston on the back to congratulate him, or he would yell at him until he had a seizure. Winston didn’t know which possibility he found more unsettling.

All in all, Winston had to admit he’d felt a small grain