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“Are you okay?” Winston said, appalled at himself for not noticing his friend sooner.

“I’ll live,” Jake said in a low voice. “I just want to get back to the car.”

“That’s exactly where we’re going,” said Mr. Garvey, steering Winston away with that hand clamped on his shoulder. Winston looked back at Bethany and her teammates. If Winston was going to shout out the answer, he’d better do it in the next five seconds.

But he couldn’t. If he shouted out the word, he’d be giving it not just to Bethany’s team but to four or five other teams besides. Mr. Garvey would kill him, and Jake and Mal would help. No, he couldn’t just yell the answer. Bethany would have to work something out on her own. There was nothing Winston could do. He let Mr. Garvey steer them away from the Ferris wheel and the angry glare of the guard.

“So what happened?” Winston asked Jake as they walked. “That was the cheater, wasn’t it?”

“Did you put him under citizen’s arrest?” Mal asked.

“Citizen’s arrest, yeah,” Jake said, rolling his eyes. “Now I’m an honorary police officer.”

“So what happened?” Winston asked again.

“It’s a lucky thing we’re not all driving to the hospital right now,” Mr. Garvey said.

Jake put a hand up to his swollen eye. “I wanted to keep him from getting out of the park,” he said. “That’s all.”

“Did he know you were chasing him?” Winston asked.

Jake laughed, a brief and bewildered sound. “I guess he did! The guy was like an animal that escaped from the zoo. If he couldn’t go around a group of people, he’d crash right through them. The guy was scary.”

Mal shook his head in amazement. “I would have just stopped and waved good-bye to him.” He demonstrated this, waving his arm vigorously. “Good-bye, crazy, scary, cheating person! Don’t come back!”

“That would have been a very good idea,” Mr. Garvey said.

“Maybe I should have,” Jake said. “I really thought we had to stop him. I knew I wasn’t going to beat him up or anything like that, but I was hoping I could knock him down or something.”

“What would that have accomplished, Jake?” Mr. Garvey asked, shaking his head.

“If I stopped him, even for thirty seconds, I thought maybe a security guard would step in and grab him.”

“He was so much bigger than you,” Winston said.

Jake told them his idea was to slam his body into the guy, so that they both fell to the ground. “When I caught up to him, though, I tried this football-style tackle. I got my arms around him.” He demonstrated, extending his arms out wide as if to deliver a bear hug to an actual bear. Winston was amazed at Jake’s nonchalant bravery. There was no way Winston could have done any of this. He would have done exactly what Mal suggested: wave good-bye.

“That’s when the guy smacked me,” Jake said. “I thought I was going to fall—I did fall, but not before our legs all got tangled up together. I tripped and hit the sidewalk. But the cheater went flying.” Jake smiled at the memory. “His whole body was up in the air for a moment. It’s too bad he was facing away from me—I would have loved to have seen his face. He landed on the ground, and he lost the bag he was carrying.”

“Is this it?” Winston asked, pointing to the white plastic bag Jake was carrying. “You stole his bag?”

“No. I mean, I wanted to steal his bag. He had a shoulder bag, and he dropped it when he fell. I tried to grab it, but he got there first and smacked me again.” He added in a low voice, “That really hurt.” He put a hand up to his face. “Then he ran off,” he concluded.

Mal said, “Man, if we see this guy again, I am totally going to . . . stick my tongue out at him. And then run away.”

Jake told them that for a moment he could only lie there, sick with pain. “Then Mr. Garvey showed up. He helped me get on my feet.”

“How long did you strangle him?” Mal asked Mr. Garvey.

Jake said, “You know, I didn’t even get yelled at, now that I think about it.”

“You were lying in a heap on the ground,” Mr. Garvey said, a bit defensively. “Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“That must be the secret,” Mal said. “Next time I forget to do my