The Potato Chip Puzzles_ The Puzzling World of Winston Breen - Eric Berlin [36]
“There you are,” Mr. Garvey said as Winston approached. “I didn’t know you were planning to have a picnic lunch with those guys. We watched two teams walk by while we were standing here!”
“Going in or going out?”
“Going out! They solved the puzzle! They found it and solved it, and we’re just standing here. Let’s go.” Mr. Garvey started walking.
“Who was it?” Winston asked Mal and Jake. “Who did you guys see?”
“One of the teams had that kid on it,” Jake said. “What was his name—John? You know, the one who said he was going to kick our butts.”
“Oh, him. I guess he is kicking our butts.”
Mal said, “He waved to us as he passed and said, ‘Having fun?’ You know the way he said it—what he really meant was ‘Having fun, losers ?’ He might as well have said ‘Nyahh, nyahh’ and stuck out his tongue. I don’t know if we’re going to win this, but I sure hope we beat him.”
“Who was the other team?” Winston asked.
“The Marin School,” said Mr. Garvey. “One of the private schools. Smart kids, and they probably sent their smartest here today.” He shook his head.
“Hey,” said Mal. “We’re smart.”
“Yeah?” said Mr. Garvey. “Show me. Less talking. More walking.”
They shouldered their way through the dense crowd, looking for anything that might be a puzzle. Winston was feeling particularly small and childlike, trying to make his way through groups of adults with strollers and gangs of high school kids enjoying the first day of summer break. It was uncomfortably crowded.
“Stupid,” said Mr. Garvey. “Stupid to put a puzzle here on a day like this. It’s just not thinking! How are we supposed to find it?”
“Other teams did,” said Jake.
They found a small island of calm near some picnic tables and stopped to regroup.
“All right,” said Mr. Garvey. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” Winston said. “This place is huge.”
“Does that computer give any more information?”
Jake said, “I don’t think so, but I’ll look.” He turned on the computer, which promptly gave its opening teedly-teedly-tee. He poked at the buttons and said, “No. It just says Adventureland. Once we’re here, we’re on our own.”
“Great.” Mr. Garvey was disgusted.
Jake kept pushing buttons, while saying, “It would be nice if this thing told you who was in the lead.” There was a moment’s pause and then Jake said, “Oh my gosh! It does!”
“It does what?”
“It tells you who’s winning the contest!”
“What? Let me see!” Winston said.
Jake handed him the computer. The Status button had brought up a simple chart, showing all their school names and which puzzles they had solved.
“There it is, all right,” Winston said. “West Meadow, Kennedy, and the Marin School have all solved this. Everyone else must be here or on the way.”
Mr. Garvey looked over their shoulders. “We know that Lincoln is here already,” he said. “They left the farm a couple of minutes before we did.”
“Lincoln,” said Mal. “Which one is that?”
Jake said, “That’s Mr. Garvey’s archenemy.”
“Cool,” said Mal. “I wish I had an archenemy.”
“He’s not my enemy,” Mr. Garvey insisted. But then he hesitated and added, “I just want to beat his pants off for once. Okay?”
Winston said, “Well, they must still be here, so maybe we can catch up.”
Mr. Garvey took the computer from Winston’s hands and shut it off. “We have to start moving faster. Where’s that puzzle?”
They looked around. They were standing near some food carts, with long lines snaking every which way. To the right were the bumper cars—Winston could see the merry chaos of kids banging into each other. Up ahead was the park’s beautiful, full-size carousel, and beyond that, the Ferris wheel. As a ride, the Ferris wheel was boring: You went up slowly, you came back down slowly. Big deal. Today, however, it caught his eye. “What’s that?” Winston asked, squinting to bring it into focus.
They all turned to see. The wheel was stopped at the moment, so that