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“You get the letter C,” said Jake. “Winston, you did it!”

Mr. Garvey said, “What word do you get when you solve every pair?”

Winston said, “ICARUS. Isn’t that a word? Something out of Greek mythology, right?”

Mr. Garvey nodded in agreement. “Right, I know this one. He was the son of Daedalus. The two of them made wings out of feathers and wax so they could fly. Daedalus warned Icarus not to get too close to the sun, because the heat would melt the wax and his wings would be destroyed. But Icarus forgot what his father told him, and he flew higher and higher. And of course the sun melted his wings, and he fell into the sea.”

Jake turned on the computer and began pushing buttons. “This has to be right,” he said, typing in the answer. He stared tensely at the screen for a moment, and then beamed with happiness. “That’s the answer.”

There were high fives all around.

Mr. Garvey actually took two steps for the exit before he stopped and smacked his forehead. “Ugh! Mal is still on the Ferris wheel.”

“Let’s just leave him,” Jake said.

“Don’t tempt me.” Mr. Garvey shielded his eyes, trying to find Mal on the ride. “I can’t believe this. Here’s our chance to pull ahead of a few more teams, and we’re stuck here. Where is he?”

“Other teams have kids on the ride, too,” Winston said. “If they solve the puzzle, they’ll be just as stuck.”

“Small consolation.” He scowled at the ride, shaking his head. “Nothing to do but wait.” He kept scanning the Ferris wheel, as if maybe he could climb up the outside of it and carry Mal back down.

They stood there a few moments, and then Winston said, “Can we go look at the games?” He pointed to the carnival booths a few feet away—kids lining up to throw darts at balloons and squirt water guns into the gaping mouths of clowns.

“Just stay where I can see you,” Mr. Garvey said. “The second Mal steps off that ride, we are running for the gate. We are going to leave Lincoln Junior High in the dust.” He kept glancing over at Rod Denham and his kids. Any minute now they might discover the solution and start cheering. Of course, Lincoln had a kid on the Ferris wheel, too—even if they solved the puzzle, they couldn’t go anywhere.

Jake and Winston promised they wouldn’t stray far and walked over to watch a couple of little kids try to catch plastic fish with a long pole. “Do you think we might win this?” Jake asked.

Winston shrugged. “If I was going to bet money, I’d have to put it on Brendan Root’s team. They’re way out in front.”

“Only one puzzle ahead.”

“There’s only six puzzles. Being one puzzle ahead is pretty good.”

A little girl caught a fat purple fish and claimed a tiny stuffed animal as her prize. She jumped with delight, and then she and her mother walked away.

“I used to love these games,” said Jake. “Now they’re just boring.”

“My puzzle is still here, though,” said Winston, gesturing to one of the other booths.

“Your puzzle? What?”

“I spotted it years ago. Come on.” Winston led Jake down to a different game. A couple of teenagers were using long-barreled rifles to shoot at targets. The booth was done up like a sheriff’s office in an old Western; posters on the back wall showed a bunch of villains and the reward you would theoretically get for capturing them.

Winston said, “Which three bad guys have rewards that total up to exactly a hundred dollars?”

(Answer, page 242.)

Jake was still staring at the posters when from behind them came a series of loud popping sounds. The two boys wrenched around, trying to find the source. The panicky, overdramatic part of Winston’s brain insisted these were gunshots, but the rational side, less than a second later, placed the sound as mere firecrackers.

But the firecrackers had been lit among the crowd of people waiting to get on the Ferris wheel, and the result was the same as gunfire—several moments of yelling and chaos as the mob scattered like a flock of panicky birds. Winston spotted Mr. Garvey, pressed up against the fence to avoid getting trampled. The guy running the Sun Wheel had been helping