• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“No, that’s Mal,” Winston said. During that last treasure hunt, Ray had met both his friends, and he’d found Mal to be more annoying than a cloud of mosquitoes. Ray gave a little grunt, like he was sorry it hadn’t been Mal who’d been smacked around. Winston finished his recap of the events by talking about the cheater’s list and how Winston’s name had been on it.

“Are you saying this guy is after you specifically?”

“It looks that way. Me and a bunch of others.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I thought I was.”

“You know what I mean,” Ray said. “The police who are actually police. I’m retired, you know that.”

“That didn’t occur to me,” Winston said. “I just thought of you.”

Ray grunted again. “All right. What do you want? To trace a phone call? I can’t do that. Besides, how would that even help you?”

Winston said, “The cheater called me. Or somebody working with the cheater. I want to know who made that phone call.”

Ray was silent for a moment or two before saying, “Well, first of all, you can’t trace a phone call without a court order, and I can’t get a court order because I’m not on the job anymore. Second of all, you can only trace a phone call that’s happening at that moment. This phone call happened when? Last week?”

“A few days ago,” Winston said, his heart sinking.

“Yeah,” said Ray. “You can’t trace that call.”

“So there’s nothing you can do,” Winston said.

“Oh, now,” Ray said. “I didn’t say that. This guy, whoever he is, really beat up a kid?”

“And he gave at least two teams flat tires,” Winston said, “and he sabotaged the Ferris wheel over at Adventureland. We have to find out who he is.”

There was a silence as Ray thought for a moment. “All right,” he said. “What’s your phone number?”

“My home number or the cell phone I’m on now?”

“Both.”

Winston said his home number, and then had to ask Mr. Garvey for his cell phone number, which he relayed to Ray. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I know a guy,” Ray said. “He might be able to do something. I’ll call you back.” And before Winston could ask another question, Ray hung up.

“Is he going to help?” Jake asked when Winston closed Mr. Garvey’s phone.

“I think so,” he said.

“How is our old pal Ray?” Mal said.

Winston thought of that small grunt Ray made after he’d asked if Mal had been beaten up. “He says hi,” Winston said.

As they approached the police station, there was some conversation about whether or not the puzzle would be difficult to find. It was not. In fact, it was quite a spectacle and had attracted a crowd.

Winston pressed his nose against the car window, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. On the police station’s neatly manicured front lawn, a platform had been built with six makeshift jail cells. Each one held a prisoner. The prisoners were dressed like they had been brought here from a 1920s-era silent movie: They wore old-fashioned convict uniforms with wide, black-and-white horizontal stripes, and little black-and-white caps. The prisoners paced in their small cells, sometimes stopping to grasp the bars and stare out at the gathering audience.

At various points around the platform were advertisements for Simon’s Square Potato Chips. The onlookers must have been perplexed about the connection between potato chips and this mock outdoor prison.

Mr. Garvey parked. In his excitement, he went a little too fast and had to slam on the brakes—all the kids in the car lurched. They got out of the car. The weird homemade prison looked very far away.

“Come on, let’s run!” Jake said, and started doing just that.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Mr. Garvey shouted, and they all stopped abruptly. Winston nearly ran into Jake’s back. Then Mr. Garvey said, “Why am I telling you to wait? Go! Run! I’ll catch up.”

So they all ran again. “But stay together!” Mr. Garvey shouted after them.

It was hot out, but it was good to run, and great to feel like they were still in the game. Winston looked around for Brendan Root but didn’t see him anywhere. Maybe they had solved the puzzle in the last few minutes. Still, they were