The Potato Chip Puzzles_ The Puzzling World of Winston Breen - Eric Berlin [37]
“Graffiti?” Jake said.
“I don’t think so,” said Mr. Garvey, hope dawning in his voice. “Let’s go see.”
They elbowed and shouldered their way through the crowd. Mal amused himself with an endless harangue of “excuse me, pardon me, coming through, excuse me . . .” until Mr. Garvey told him to keep quiet already.
They arrived at the Sun Wheel. Sure enough, signs had been placed all around, inviting park visitors to try Simon’s new Potato Squares. This was the right place.
Each car of the wheel had been painted with a different, random icon. Was that supposed to be a rhinoceros? And an ice-cream cone? And, yes, that was a shoe painted on one of the cars.
“Whatever I thought we were going to find here, it certainly wasn’t this,” Jake said.
“I’m trying to imagine the conversation Dmitri Simon had with the amusement park people,” said Mal. “‘I’d like to paint a bunch of pictures on your Ferris wheel.’ ‘I’m sorry, sir, we can’t let you do that.’ ‘What if I gave you this big pot of money?’ ‘Oh, ho ho, that changes everything.’”
“So what are we supposed to do?” Mr. Garvey said.
“Dunno,” said Jake.
Winston was suddenly aware of being stared at. He looked to his left and saw the team from Lincoln Junior High: Rod Denham and his three frowning kids. For a change, Mr. Denham wasn’t wearing that superior smirk. Mr. Garvey and his rival made eye contact and waved to each other in a shaky display of sportsmanship. Mr. Denham then moved his team a few feet further away.
Mr. Garvey, still staring at them, said, “They were five or ten minutes ahead of us. If they’re still here, they must be stuck. This is our chance to pass them by. Let’s not blow it.”
“Well,” said Jake, “what are we supposed to do? Who has some paper? Let’s write down what these things are.”
Mr. Garvey had a small notebook he’d been using all day. He took out a pen and said, “Okay, toss them out to me. Start at noon.”
“Start at noon?” Mal said. “It’s already after twelve thirty.”
Mr. Garvey stared at Mal in disbelief, then said slowly, “Pretend the Ferris wheel is a giant clock and give me the picture at the twelve-o’clock position.”
“Oh.”
Winston said, “That’s a rhinoceros. Then there’s a bunch of faces . . . a boat, or maybe that’s supposed to be a canoe. Then that’s a—”
“A garbage can,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” Winston said. “Then a house.” The wheel was turning now, carrying new passengers. “After that we’ve got a stage or a theater or something. Then a trumpet.”
“That’s not a trumpet,” said Mal. “A trumpet has whaddayacallem. Valves. That’s a bugle.”
“Okay, a bugle,” said Winston. “Then a safe, an ice-cream cone—”
“Hold on,” Mr. Garvey said, writing. “Okay, what else?”
“A bunch of hats. A shoe. And a fence.”
“That last one is a gate,” Jake said.
“Yeah, I think Jake’s right. A gate.”
Mr. Garvey crossed something out and then finished writing. He clicked the pen closed, looked at his boys, and announced, “I have no idea what this is.”
“Me neither,” said Winston.
“Do all these things have something in common?” Mal asked.
“Yeah,” said Jake. “They’re all made up from letters of the alphabet.”
They stared at the wheel, all four of them, wide-eyed and increasingly baffled. Winston tried pairing the images up in some way. The shoe was right next to the hats, and both of those were kinds of clothing. That seemed vaguely promising . . . except why one shoe, and why three hats? Winston guessed that maybe the house and the stage could be paired up, too—they were both kinds of buildings. That didn’t feel right, however. This whole line of thought seemed less than promising. Even if it was right, what then? Winston couldn’t pair up any of the remaining pictures. A gate and a rhinoceros? Faces and a canoe? It was hopeless.
Mal said, “I guess the answer’s going