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“What happened?” he asked breathlessly as he arrived.

“All is well,” Dmitri Simon assured him. “Your boys confirmed exactly what you said. Congratulations.” Simon shook hands with Mr. Garvey, who looked weak with relief. As Dmitri Simon walked away to tell his men the news, Mr. Garvey all but collapsed against the picnic table, a hand over his heart.

“I can’t have another day like this for a while,” he said.

“We won,” Winston said. He was still getting used to it. After everything that had happened, they’d looked down and discovered they had crossed the finish line. Incredible!

“We won half,” Jake reminded them.

Mr. Garvey laughed and groaned at the same time. The laughing finally edged out the groaning, but he also looked a little green around the edges—as if he was thinking, Did we have to offer the girls quite so much?

Winston was ready to fall asleep right there in the grassy field. He was exhausted from all the running around and the drama that had followed, and now on top of that, he was full of hamburgers and potato salad. Yes, he would be sleeping well tonight.

A couple more kids congratulated Winston as they walked by. The full story was out now. The people from the potato chip company had set up a microphone, and Dmitri Simon introduced Winston’s team as the winners of the contest and called the girls up, too, as he related the strange story of how the two teams came to split the prize. He also decided to give ten thousand dollars to each of the other schools—even Brendan Root’s school. “I made a few mistakes today,” Simon said. “I should have given you a way to get in touch with me so we could have taken care of this cheater business. Failing that, I should have at least allowed those computers to accept the last answer from more than one team. Yeah, I screwed up, but at least I can make amends to all of you. What do you think of that?”

Everyone in the crowd thought that was just fine. Even the teams with the sourest expressions were now delighted. The only person who looked at all unhappy was Dmitri Simon’s accountant, but Simon ignored him.

Bethany no longer glared at Winston. Right before she left, they traded e-mail addresses, and then they didn’t know whether to hug or shake hands or what. They settled on waving. Jake and Mal would have normally spent several minutes poking fun at him for that, but they had their own awkward and clunky good-byes with Giselle and Elvie, so nobody made fun of anybody—unless you counted Mr. Garvey, whose sideways smile told them he was deeply amused by all of this.

Finally the picnic was over, and everyone meandered back to the parking lot. Jake and Mal were up ahead somewhere, so Winston found himself walking along with Mr. Garvey.

“A good day,” the teacher said, tired but satisfied. “A lot of ups and downs but, all in all, a very good day. Wouldn’t you say?” He mussed Winston’s hair.

“I was worried when Dmitri Simon came over that maybe what we said wouldn’t match what you told him,” Winston said.

Mr. Garvey nodded ruefully. “You thought I left out the part about asking for help from the girls.”

Winston didn’t say anything. It sounded bad to have it said aloud.

“I won’t say I didn’t think about it,” Mr. Garvey said. “All I had to do was say we solved the final puzzle all by ourselves—which is true—and we’d have fifty thousand dollars instead of twenty-five.” He cleared his throat. “That’s a lot of money.”

Winston said, “But you thought they’d ask me those same questions, and our stories wouldn’t match?”

“Actually, that never crossed my mind. To be honest, I thought they would take my word for it, whatever I said.” He stopped walking. Up ahead, Jake punched Mal in the arm for some reason. Mr. Garvey said, “I made a bad impression on you kids.”

“What do you mean?” Winston said, although he thought he knew.

The teacher shook his head. “I see the way the kids look at me sometimes. In the classroom, in the hallway. They think I’m a bad teacher. I give homework on Fridays. I don’t let students off the hook when it’s clear they don