The Potato Chip Puzzles_ The Puzzling World of Winston Breen - Eric Berlin [77]
“Oh, for crying out loud,” said Dmitri Simon. “Go get him! Can’t the three of you stop one guy from leaving a room? I don’t want that guy running around my building! You go that way and you go that way,” he yelled at his men as they stumbled their way out of every possible exit. “Watch the parking lot! Don’t let him get back to his car!”
Winston walked shakily back up to his team. Mal said to him, “It doesn’t matter. Even if he gets back to his car, he’s not going anywhere.”
“What?” Winston said. “Why not?”
“Maybe you’ll notice that last bottle is no longer in the plastic bag.”
Jake gasped. “You didn’t!”
“Oh, yes.” Mal grinned. “I gave him a back-tire wedgie.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EVERYONE COULD TELL Dmitri Simon was angry—not just at the people who screwed up his game by cheating, but at himself for allowing it to happen. He regained his smile just a little after Carl Lester was recovered in the parking lot, but he was no longer the boisterous Santa Claus they had all met at the start of the day.
He announced that everyone should go enjoy the picnic, but that he and his men would be speaking to each team in an effort to figure out what had happened . . . and who, if anybody, should be awarded the prize money.
The teams were led to a large field behind the factory. Winston accepted some congratulations and claps on the back from kids on other teams. Mal tried to get everyone to lift Winston up on their shoulders, as if he had just caught the winning pass in the Super Bowl, but there were no takers, least of all Winston.
The employees of Simon’s Snack Foods were already behind the factory, sitting at picnic tables and eating hamburgers. Music was playing, and several large barrels contained bags of potato chips and pretzels. Winston wondered if Simon’s workers were sick to death of eating salty snacks.
The boys and their teacher claimed a picnic table and sat.
“What’s going to happen now?” Jake asked.
“Now I am going to have about seventeen hamburgers,” said Mal. “I’ve had enough cereal bars to last a lifetime.”
“You had two cereal bars,” Mr. Garvey said. “Two. And having that food handy saved us valuable time. We wouldn’t have won if we’d stopped off for lunch somewhere.”
“We didn’t win,” Jake said. “Not until Simon says we did.”
“We’ll see about that,” Mr. Garvey said. “Go get your food. I’ll watch the table.”
So the boys got in the long line for food. Dmitri Simon had, as usual, pulled out all the stops. There were three grills serving up all kinds of picnic fare, but before you even got there, there were two tables stocked with salads and side dishes. The mood wasn’t as celebratory as Simon surely had hoped, but everything looked delicious.
They waited patiently in line, paper plates and plastic utensils in hand. As they approached the grills, Jake said, “Look over there.”
Across the field, Brendan Root had a picnic table to himself. He was slouched over, head in hands. His teacher was gone, and his teammates, the two brothers, were sticking to themselves. Winston wondered how Brendan was even going to get home.
“Let me get a hot dog, too, please,” Winston said to the man serving the food.
A few minutes later, bearing an extra plate and a can of soda, Winston said to Brendan, “I brought you some food.”
Brendan looked up. His eyes were red—he’d been crying. He had stopped now, but his great and happy enthusiasm was a long way off. “Thanks,” he said dimly. “I’m not really hungry.”
“Maybe you will be later,” Winston said as he sat down. Jake and Mal had gone back to Mr. Garvey.
Brendan watched Winston work on his burger for a few moments and pushed the food around on his own plate. “People think I cheated,” he said.