The Potato Chip Puzzles_ The Puzzling World of Winston Breen - Eric Berlin [40]
“Who is this guy?” Jake asked angrily. “And how does he get away with so many nasty tricks?”
Nobody knew the answer to that. But as they talked about it, Winston realized something new: The cheater trapped this girl in the bathroom long after the leading teams had left for Adventureland. The cheater couldn’t be on one of the winning teams. But why go through all this trouble, if not to steal victory from everybody else? It made no sense.
“Hey,” Mal said, looking around, “where’s your teacher?”
Giselle said, “Oh. Right over there.” She pointed to the park bench, not that far away, where Miss Norris was sitting.
Mal said, “She’s not standing over you, yelling at you to solve the puzzle faster?” He shook his head with wonder. “Would you like to trade teachers?”
The girls smiled. “No, thanks,” Elvie said.
As if referring to Mr. Garvey was enough to summon him, the math teacher appeared suddenly from the other side of the Ferris wheel’s enclosure. He saw his boys talking with the girls’ team and called from a distance, “Excuse me. If you guys are finished chatting, I’d like to solve this puzzle before nightfall. Can we step back over here, please?”
“Sorry,” Winston said, after a moment of awkwardness. “Uh, we have to go,” he said to Bethany.
“I get that,” she said. “See you later.”
The boys and girls nodded good-bye to each other, and Winston and his friends caught back up with their teacher.
Mal said with a smile, “I think Winston is trying to win a different prize.”
“How did I know you were going to say that?” Winston said. “Well, not that, but something close.”
“They’re all kinda cute, aren’t they?” Jake said, looking back at them. He smirked at his friends. “Three boys, three girls. . . . You know what that means?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Garvey. “We’re going to lose. Can we focus, please?”
The puzzle was still here, revolving slowly in the afternoon sky. Winston still didn’t have any idea where to begin.
“Well, you hoped for a harder puzzle,” Jake said to Mr. Garvey as they all continued staring.
“I suppose I did. But I was hoping it would be harder for everybody else, not for us.”
“Maybe we need to go on the ride,” Mal said.
“What good is that going to do?” Mr. Garvey asked. “No. Just stay here.”
Mal said, “What if there’s something in the cars? Or maybe something on the ground that you can only see from the top of the Ferris wheel? We’re not getting anywhere just standing here.”
The math teacher grimaced and massaged his forehead. “All right. Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. But I don’t want all of you going. You’re on your own, Mal, all right? I want Winston and Jake to stay here and work with me on these words.”
Mal nodded and sauntered off to ride the Sun Wheel by himself. Winston thought Mal had a pretty good idea: When you’re stuck on a puzzle, it’s good to try random stuff to see if it sparks any new inspiration. But Winston also had to admit he was doubtful that a ride in the Ferris wheel would lead anywhere.
Mal shouldered his way into the crush of people waiting to go on the ride. It was a small mob—for some reason they refused to form an orderly line.
There were other teams around the Sun Wheel, and a few of them noticed Mal getting on the ride. Rod Denham’s team, off to the left, went into an urgent conference, and after a few moments, sent its own representative to go on the ride. Other teams followed suit. Bethany’s team, on the other side of the Ferris wheel, must have noticed somehow, or perhaps they had the same idea on their own. In any event, here came Elvie, the smallest of the three girls. Winston wondered if she was even tall enough to go on the ride.