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“Hmm?” said their teacher, starting the car, not looking around.

“Did any of the other teams quit when you told them about the cheater?”

Mr. Garvey said carefully, “Two other teams decided this fellow maybe made things a little riskier than they preferred. Mal, Jake, get in the car already!” Mal and Jake slid in, troubled looks on their faces.

“Who else quit?” Winston asked.

Mr. Garvey backed up, and the car bounced in the grassy field. He said, “That private school that dresses so fancy, what’s their name? The ones we met in the maze.”

“The Demilla Academy?”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Garvey. “Their teacher agreed that his students’ safety had to be considered. So they bowed out. So did another school, New Easton Junior High. A girl on that team apparently had her own run-in with our friend. Frightened her quite badly.” That, Winston knew, would be Krissy Huang, who’d been locked in the bathroom.

Jake asked, “Did you show them that stuff to warn them about the cheater, or to get rid of the competition?” There was a sharp tone in his voice.

There was a brief snarl of traffic at the exit. Mr. Garvey used the opportunity to look at Jake in the backseat. “I did the responsible thing. I told them about the cheater and that he had some of our names and license plate numbers. That’s all. Now, let’s move on to the next puzzle, and let’s win this contest. Shall we?” He turned around in the driver’s seat and zoomed out of the amusement park, as if hoping to leave this conversation back in the parking lot.

The boys got the message, and a strange, tense silence filled the car. Winston watched the road go by. Mr. Garvey was right . . . sort of. They had to tell the others about the cheater and the notes he’d taken. But he had the vague idea that Mr. Garvey did more than that. Winston could easily see him presenting the memo pad in such a way as to convince teams to quit the race. Three teams out of ten had given up after Mr. Garvey spoke to them. Bethany and the other girls had changed their minds soon after, but still. Mr. Garvey sure had a talent for getting teams to drop of out of the game.

He wants us to quit, you know. That’s what Elvie had said, regarding the cheater. And she was right. Who would be happiest about seeing teams drop out of the race? The cheater . . . and whoever the cheater was working with.

Was there a chance that Mr. Garvey was working with the man in the green jacket?

No. No. Stop it, Winston told himself. For heaven’s sake—their team had been the very first hit by the cheater, when they were given the back-tire wedgie. Mr. Garvey wasn’t working with the cheater. That was insane.

But Winston was sure that his teacher tried to frighten other teams into dropping out of the contest. And that meant, for at least a few minutes, his goals and the goals of the man in the green jacket had been the same. Winston glanced at his teacher and decided that bringing up this observation wasn’t a very good idea.

“Where are we going now?” Mr. Garvey asked. “Where’s the next puzzle?”

“Oh, right. I’ve got it, hang on.” Mal had the computer and busied himself pushing buttons. “Now we’re supposed to go to a police station! A precinct back in Glenville.” He recited the address.

“A police station?” Mr. Garvey mused. “What on earth kind of puzzle could Simon put there?”

“Maybe they’ll put us in jail,” said Mal, “and we’ll have to break out.”

“How far behind are we now?” Mr. Garvey asked. “What does that computer say about who’s winning?”

Mal pushed more buttons and let out an excited gasp. “We’re coming up on puzzle number four, right?” he said. “Listen to this! Nobody has solved it yet.”

The air in the car filled with a new urgency. They could catch up. They were, in fact, catching up.

“It must be really hard,” said Winston.

Jake said, “Brendan Root and those guys . . . they must have been there for half an hour or more by now.”

“They must be stuck,” said Mr. Garvey, his voice as hopeful as a child opening his birthday presents.