The Potato Chip Puzzles: The Puzzling World of Winston Breen (12 page)

When the Brookville student had run off to join his teammates, Mr. Regal swung his glare around again to Mr. Garvey, who was trying to counter Mr. Regal’s fury with an equal measure of calm.

Mr. Garvey said, “Someone gave us the gift of a flat tire as well.”

Mr. Regal looked disbelieving, and reluctant to be anything other than angry. “Oh, really,” he said. “And yet here you are, well ahead of us.”

“We got ours right out of the gate, as we left the potato chip factory. Step around my car and you can see the spare tire for yourself. Believe me, we’re a lot further behind than I want to be. It was a bottle—a glass bottle someone put under my tire. What about you?”

Mr. Regal slowly nodded his head. “That’s what happened to us, too.”

“As you left the planetarium?”

“No. We stopped at a deli for some snacks and drinks. We weren’t in there more than five minutes. When we came out and backed up the car, there was a popping sound.”

“I don’t suppose you saw any other teams there,” Mr. Garvey said.

“No. There was no one else in the store.”

“Anyone else in the parking lot?”

“Don’t you think I looked after I realized what had happened? There were other cars, but I don’t know who they belonged to. I didn’t see any other teams.”

Mr. Garvey said, “We seem to have a very determined cheater in our midst.”

Mr. Regal flushed again. “I should damn well say so. Obviously we were targeted because we were in the lead. We were the first ones to solve the planetarium puzzle, I’m sure of it. They can’t compete with us on a level playing field, so they do these underhanded,
devious . . .
” He couldn’t finish. He brought his clenched hands up in front of him as if he wished he had someone to strangle. He found his voice again and said, “I hope I catch that cheater in the act. I really do.”

“I understand the feeling,” Mr. Garvey said.

Mr. Regal took a deep breath in an attempt to get himself under control. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I have a puzzle to solve . . . and a contest to win.” He gave Mr. Garvey a challenging stare, as if Mr. Garvey might suggest that they couldn’t possibly win now. When Mr. Garvey said nothing, Mr. Regal turned his back and stormed away.

Mal said in a low voice, “All these teachers are crazy.”

“Maybe they think the losers are going to be shipped to a desert island somewhere,” Winston said.

Mr. Garvey watched the angry Mr. Regal for a moment and then slid into the driver’s seat. Winston saw he was suppressing a smile. “What a nice guy,” Mr. Garvey said as he started his car. “I wish him well.”

He pulled out of the parking space. Winston took one last look at Sutherland Farms. He saw the girls from Greater Oaks—Bethany, Giselle, and Elvie—walking through the parking lot with their red-headed teacher. They must have finished the maze a few minutes ago. Winston ducked instinctively, but the girls weren’t looking in his direction.

Mr. Garvey stopped at the edge of the parking lot. “Where am I going?” he said.

“Huh?” said Jake. “Oh.” He began fiddling with the computer. “The next puzzle is at . . . oh, cool! Adventureland!”

“Adventureland! Awesome!” Winston and Mal grinned at each other. Adventureland was a seriously fun amusement park a couple of towns over. Winston and his family drifted over there a couple of times a year on humid summer nights.

Mr. Garvey grunted. “The first day of summer vacation that place is going to be jam-packed.”

“Do we get in free there, too?” Winston asked.

“Yep. Just show them the computer.”

“All summer long?” Mal asked.

Jake and Winston laughed. “Probably just today,” Winston said. Mal snapped his fingers in mock disappointment.

“Okay,” said Mr. Garvey. “I know where that is. Let’s get going.” He pulled out of the parking lot, and a few minutes later they were on a highway.

Winston gazed out the window and found himself thinking about the smile that Mr. Garvey had not entirely suppressed after speaking to the Brookville teacher. It was clear that Mr. Garvey considered the Brookville Brains’ flat tire to be good news. The Brains had gotten pretty far ahead while Winston’s team dealt with their own setbacks. Now they had caught up, and then some. By hurting the Brookville Brains, the cheater had inadvertently helped Winston.

He knew he shouldn’t feel happy that Brookville had had such trouble, but a part of him couldn’t help it. He remembered the stab of frustration he felt when he saw the Brains running out of the planetarium. He had wondered how his team would ever catch up. Well, now they had. He wondered where Brendan Root was and if his team had also had a run-in with the cheater. He hoped not . . . mostly. But he had to admit it wouldn’t be entirely bad if Brendan’s team was held in place for a little while.

If Winston and his team won now, would it be fair? It wasn’t like
they
had cheated. Quite the opposite; they had been thrown out of the race not once but twice. If they managed to cross the finish line despite everything that had happened to them, they would darn well have earned the grand prize.

Of course, they were a long way from winning. He wouldn’t count that prize money just yet.

Winston gazed out the window and soon fell into a game he played on long trips, as he watched the license plates on passing cars.

 

“Wait a second,” Winston said. His dreamlike examination of passing license plates was interrupted by a random thought that had dropped from nowhere, demanding attention and pushing everything else to the side. “Wait a second,” he said again, trying to lasso that thought, tie it down, figure out the words to express it.

Everybody waited, and then Mal said, “Yeeess?”

Winston said slowly, “The Brookville Brains were the first to solve the planetarium puzzle, right?”

“That’s what they said,” Mr. Garvey sniffed. “Doesn’t make it true.”

“They were one of the first, anyway. We saw them run out. And there were still a few teams in the theater when we got in there.”

Mr. Garvey conceded the point with a shrug. “All right, fine,” he said.

Winston felt his way along. “They had four good tires when they left the planetarium. Right? They drove to a deli, and they bought some drinks or whatever. While they were inside, someone came along and did to them what he’d already done to us.”

“Gave them a back-tire wedgie,” said Mal.

“Yes, he gave them a”—Winston stopped, completely derailed. He looked at Mal. “Is that really what a bottle under the tire is called?”

Mal shook his head. “I just made it up.”

Winston stared at his friend for a moment and then continued. “I thought the cheater was a kid on one of the other teams, that he was cheating without anyone on his team knowing about it.”

Jake said, “That’s what I thought, too. That’s what I
still
think.”

“But it can’t be,” said Winston. “The entire team is cheating together.” He paused to give his next statement maximum impact. “Including the teacher,” he said.

“Wait a minute!” Mr. Garvey said. “You don’t know that.”

Jake turned around in his seat. “I don’t get it either,” he said. “How hard is it to pop a bottle under someone’s tire or move a couple of signs? A kid can do that all by himself.”

Winston said, “Whoever gave the Brookville team a flat tire had to follow them to the deli first. Did a kid drive the car?”

They thought about that. Mr. Garvey said, “Come on, Winston. I know there’s a lot of money at stake here, but a schoolteacher isn’t going to resort to cheating.”

Jake gave a snort of laughter.

Mr. Garvey turned and gave him a curious look. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. Winston recognized a wisp of threat in that voice.

Jake must have noticed it, too. “Nothing,” he said, turning to look out the window.

But Mr. Garvey persisted. “Is there something you want to say, Jake?”

For a moment, Winston thought Jake was going to keep looking out the window, saying nothing. But he said, “What you did to the girls’ team was cheating. Leaving them in the wrong place.”

“It was nothing of the sort,” Mr. Garvey said. “It wasn’t a very nice thing to do, perhaps, but it was hardly cheating. All these teams are very competitive. We’re all looking for a way to get an edge on our opponents.” He concentrated on the road long enough to change lanes. “Do you think if the girls’ teacher had discovered the real puzzle location, while we were standing in that little hallway, that she would have come back and told us the right place to go?”

“Yes,” Jake said simply. “We all said we would look for the puzzle together.”

Mr. Garvey shook his head. “Don’t you believe it, Jake. Don’t you believe it. They would have left us there, same as we did to them.”

Jake turned and looked out the window again. There was no point arguing. Jake thought Mr. Garvey was wrong, and Mr. Garvey thought Jake was wrong, and neither of them was going to convince the other.

“That said,” Mr. Garvey announced, “I have a hard time believing a teacher would sink so low as to give somebody a flat tire.
That’s
cheating. I still think it’s one kid, not the entire team, and certainly not a teacher.”

“How could a kid follow Brookville to the deli without a teacher’s help?” Winston asked.

“Who said anybody
followed
them to the deli?” Mr. Garvey said. “It doesn’t have to be that complicated. Another team decides to go to that same deli. The cheater is on that team. He sees Brookville’s car, so he decides to give it a”—he almost said
a back-tire wedgie,
but caught himself at the last moment—“a flat tire. The rest of the team is in the deli. No one sees him do it. This kid’s got a lucky streak a mile wide. But it’s still just a kid playing some nasty tricks, trying to get ahead.”

Mal said, “So that would put the cheater on Brendan Root’s team, wouldn’t it?”

“What? Why?” asked Winston.

“They left the planetarium a minute after the Brookville team.

Didn’t they? If anybody is going to follow Brookville to the deli, it’s them.”

“Yeah,” said Jake. “But we already decided that Brendan’s team
can’t
be the cheater’s team.”

“We did? How did we figure that out?”

“Brendan’s team was at the potato chip factory when we got there. The person who gave us the flat tire arrived
after
us.”

“Oh,” said Mal. He stared up at the ceiling of the car, trying to work it all out. “Then I have no idea,” he said. “All I know is, this is giving me a headache.”

“We’re probably wrong about everything,” said Winston.

“As long as we’re not wrong about these puzzles,” said Mr. Garvey. “That’s all I care about.”

 

Mr. Garvey had predicted that Adventureland would be jam-packed. He was wrong. It was several light-years
beyond
jam-packed. Every parking spot was taken, and a half dozen harried park employees were now waving cars to an adjoining grassy field.

Winston and his team emerged from Mr. Garvey’s car and looked off to where the rides of Adventureland swirled and twirled. They were still incredibly far away.

“All right, let’s hustle,” said Mr. Garvey, and he began a quick jog toward the entrance. The boys followed suit.

“Nobody said anything about exercise,” Mal groused. He was already falling behind.

“I’ll buy you all some nice cold sodas when we get there,” said Mr. Garvey. “Just keep moving.”

Winston kept moving. He hoped they found this puzzle quickly—that the signs were big and that they saw them right away. Adventureland was a large park. If they had to search the whole place from front to back for a picture of Smiling Potato Chip Guy, they could be here for a long, long time.

“Hey, look there,” said Jake, pointing. Brendan Root and his team were standing in the big grassy field, gazing around, looking lost and confused. Winston understood: They were searching for their car. They were
leaving
Adventureland—they had already solved the puzzle.

Winston stopped running. “Mr. Garvey, can I talk to them for a second?”

“What? Why?” Mr. Garvey said, irritated at another potential distraction.

“I want to know if they’ve had a flat tire.”