The Potato Chip Puzzles_ The Puzzling World of Winston Breen - Eric Berlin [69]
But Jake had a funny look on this face while he laid this all out, and when he was done, there were a few seconds or a minute where Mr. Garvey didn’t react at all, as if he couldn’t figure out how to react.
He finally looked at Winston and said, “You gave them help on the amusement park thing?”
Winston nodded his head. He was still ready to leap backward if he had to.
But Mr. Garvey said, “Then Jake’s right. They might help us back. We need to ask them. Come on. We’re running out of time.” And then he was up and walking briskly across the width of the town green, heading for the girls sitting on their own park bench.
The boys trailed slightly behind. Winston said to Jake, “I can’t believe you told him that.”
Jake grinned. “What could he do?” he asked, talking low so that their teacher couldn’t hear. “Is he going to get angry? How dumb would that be? If you hadn’t helped the girls, there would be nobody we could turn to. Now we might be able to get some help of our own. He should get down on his knees and thank you.”
“I’d like to see that,” said Mal.
They were getting close to where the girls were sitting, and Winston could see Mr. Garvey slow down a tad. What was he going to say to them? Winston might have lent them some assistance, but Mr. Garvey was still the guy who left them standing stupidly in a dark hallway.
The frosty look on Miss Norris’s face as they approached the bench was further indication that this wasn’t going to be easy. Winston cast a glance over to Brendan Root’s team. Brendan was no longer pacing. The whole team was sitting on the park bench, huddled over the same piece of paper. Did that mean they were on the brink of solving the sixth puzzle? He fought the urge to run over there and ask.
Mr. Garvey cleared his throat. “Miss Norris,” he said. “We have a little problem and perhaps you could”—the words got stuck somewhere as he looked at the chilly expression on Miss Norris’s face. He backed up and tried again. “Perhaps you might find it in your heart to help us.”
“Help you,” Miss Norris repeated tonelessly.
Mr. Garvey held up the dead computer and explained what had happened. The boys sent embarrassed glances toward the girls—it made them all look stupid as dirt that they had allowed the computer to break—and Bethany and her friends sent smirky, amused glances right back.
“So what can we do?” said Miss Norris. “Even if I was inclined to help.”
That didn’t sound good, but Mr. Garvey pressed on. “You wouldn’t just be helping me,” he said. “You’d be helping yourself. How close are you to solving the sixth puzzle?”
Miss Norris looked at Mr. Garvey suspiciously, not sure she should answer. But she finally decided to see where this was going and said, “We’re still looking for a breakthrough.”
Giselle piped up. “We thought maybe there’s a message spelled out in these words.”
“But we can’t find it,” said Elvie.
Mr. Garvey clapped his hands together, a salesman looking to close the deal. “Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said. “We have that last puzzle solved. We know the answer. Winston here came through in a big way.” Winston smiled sheepishly as Mr. Garvey slapped him on the shoulder. “But we can’t submit the answer with our dead computer. Meanwhile, that team over there”—he pointed to Brendan Root and company—“has been working on the final answer for a long time and are surely minutes away from getting it.” He took a deep breath and said it: “If you submit the sixth answer for us . . . we’ll split the prize money with you.”
There was a stunned pause. The first to recover was Bethany. “You want to tell us the last answer?” she said.
Mr. Garvey completely misread the tone of her voice. “Of course!” he said, a big smile emerging on his face.