The Gollywhopper Games (15 page)

“O
ne one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand…” Gil counted to himself. If he could make it to twenty, he’d have a chance.

“Nine one thousand, ten one thousand, eleven…”

Still no Lavinia.

“Fourteen one thousand, fifte—”

Her door opened. She handed a bundle of sticks to the officials standing there. “I feel like such a fool. Did anyone else miss the orange door?”

“You all did,” said Carol. “Then Rocky…”

Gil couldn’t listen. Could barely breathe. Maybe Lavinia didn’t have all her sticks. Maybe she’d dropped some on the slide. Maybe…

The officials counted. They conferred. They looked at Gil. “Sorry,” said a woman. “We saw you drop those four sticks. If you had only dropped three…”

Gil didn’t know if she’d let her voice trail off or if he stopped hearing. Less than five seconds. One stick. Or Rocky’s guarantee. Guaranteed to work. Guaranteed to rattle Gil enough to pause five seconds.

It wasn’t the lost money. It wasn’t even the deal with his dad. He’d let Rocky beat him.

Gil leaned over, fists on his thighs.

Carol put a hand on his back and gave him a bottle of water. “You okay, Gil?”

“Dizzy from the slide, I guess.”

“You’re not the first,” she said, walking him to a chair against the wall. “You should’ve seen me—major brain roll. So sit and de-fuzz before Bill takes you to the After Lounge. Cameras are off you for a few minutes.”

With his elbows on his knees, he hung his head. Not fair. He should be exhilarated, energized. Instead, he needed to suck it in and pretend he was. For the cameras. He took a deep breath and looked up.

Lavinia was standing next to him, her eyes glazed with tears. “I wanted you and me to be last. I wanted it to be a real contest.”

Gil looked over at Rocky. “Win for me, Lavinia. Just beat him.” He struggled to his feet and gave her a hug. Then he turned to Carol. “Where’s Bill?”

Gil didn’t wait for her answer. He spotted Bill lurking outside the door. “Get me out of here,” he said, walking past him without stopping.

“This is the worst part of my job,” Bill said, catching up with him. “You get so close to the end, and you think, ‘What if?’”

Gil nodded. But that wasn’t exactly it. No one would understand except his mom and his dad. “Where is this Losers’ Lounge?”

Bill gave a chuckle. “Why does everyone want to call it that? The After Lounge is a floor above the spectator area. I’ll take you to see your parents. After that, you’ll join Bianca and Thorn, and you can watch the action live or from any monitor you want.”

Gil nodded. Continued the walk to the spectator area in silence, thankful Bill wasn’t trying to cheer him up with happy talk.

His mom and dad were waiting right by the door. Gil hadn’t needed a hug like this in a long time. “Sorry,” he said, taking a small step back.

“Sorry?” his dad said. “There is nothing, nothing to be sorry about. We’re so proud.”

His mom nodded, tears streaming from her eyes. “Are you okay?” she managed. “We were so worried. At the entrance of the maze. You froze. Were you sick? Nervous?”

Gil ached to tell them what Rocky had said, but he didn’t want to cause a scene right here. Rocky would deny it. “Nervous, I guess,” he said instead.

His dad draped a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t know if this will make you feel better or not, but I’ve been thinking about our deal ever since we made it.”

Gil looked at him, waited.

“We can start figuring a way to move out of town if you still want. It might be good.”

Gil had been waiting for months to hear those words, but they didn’t bring even a whisper of relief. Maybe he was too tired, too disappointed. Too angry. Gil tried a smile.

“Yeah,” said his dad. “We’ll talk about that later.”

Bill came up to them and pointed toward a projection on the wall flashing
5:00
off and on before it started counting down. “That’s our cue. Say your good-byes. You’ll see one another soon.”

Gil’s dad gave him another hug. So did his mom. “Even if you don’t believe it, I couldn’t be prouder,” she said.

Gil nodded.

At the four-and-a-half-minute mark, Bill escorted him up a flight of stairs to a near replica of the area where his parents were. “There’s just one rule we have up here. No talking during the competition. Whispering only. Go ahead in and relax.”

Bianca rushed up and threw her arms around him. “Gil, I’m so glad to see you. I mean, I’m sorry to see you, but I’m glad you’re here.”

Her energy put the first smile on his face. “I guess you can’t win ’em all.”

“I don’t think I can win anything,” she said. “At least I’ve never won anything. But it’s sort of cool up here. You see everything. Like when you dropped those sticks? I got so sick to my stomach and—”

“Be back in a minute,” Gil said. He couldn’t take
a play-by-play right now. He went over to Thorn, who was sitting with his back to the Games. “Hey.”

Thorn handed Gil a piece of paper.

• 1. Where does onion dip come from?
  
• 2. How do you make grilled cheese sandwiches?
  
• 3. Where can I learn to climb?
  
• 4. How do my clothes get clean?
  
• 5. Who can teach me to bowl?
  
• 6. How do you set up a computer?
  

Gil laughed. Handed the paper back to Thorn.

“At least it’s a start,” Thorn said. He wrote a number seven.

Gil drifted back to Bianca. “So where’s the best place to sit?” he asked.

She grabbed his wrist, pulling him a quarter way around the lounge. “They move the rooms over here so we can see everything. Except for that maze puzzle. We had to use the monitors to see most of it. Are you gonna watch?”

“Yeah,” Gil said. “If the next game is a puzzle, I’m
going to try to work it. I need to know if I would have beaten Rocky or Lavinia if I hadn’t messed up.” Gil took a stadium seat at the rail and looked down into a pair of muted blue rooms. Each one had a large work desk at the rear, then twenty-five smaller desks, arranged five by five. Those desks each supported a computer monitor with a different screen saver. “When do we get the puzzle?” Gil asked.

Bianca pointed to the arm of his chair. “It’s so cute. When the chimes ring, it pops open, and the puzzle’s inside.”

“Pencils? Paper?”

“On the table back there.”

The clock on the wall showed forty-three seconds until the next puzzle.

Gil got something to write with, sat back down, and watched Carol lead Lavinia and Rocky to two doors.

Carol’s voice came through speakers in their area. “In a minute,” she said, “you’ll go through your door and head to the large desk in the back of the room. Your puzzle will be there.”

“Yeah,” said Bianca. “You get to hear Carol and anyone with her, but if you want to hear Rocky and
Lavinia, you need these headphones.” She pointed to a pair near his knee.

He wouldn’t be using those. He wanted quiet. And definitely not all this coughing. “Is there any way not to hear Mr. Titus?”

“Is that who it is? He’s so annoying,” said Bianca. “He was coughing all during the menu puzzle, then I thought he was gone or dead because he was mostly quiet during the maze. But I guess he’s back. Prepare to be annoyed.”

The cough came again. Carol and Rocky looked up. Lavinia stayed focused on the door.

Blong!

The arm of Gil’s chair popped open. He pulled out the puzzle, then shut the arm. He wouldn’t look at it yet. Wouldn’t look at it until Rocky and Lavinia both got to their desks.

Rocky sat. Ripped open his envelope. Then Lavinia did. Gil opened his.

If Gil were down there, he’d be panicking again. Eventually, he’d push past his pounding heart and sweaty palms, and remember to take this puzzle one step at a time. But up here, he had nothing to lose. He’d never truly know how he would have finished.

Forget it.

He put on the headphones, tuned in to Rocky’s
microphone, and looked at the close-up monitor of his desk. He was doodling. Tapping his pencil and doodling. And humming.

Gil switched to Lavinia. She was silent, but she’d written
NAME?
at the top of her paper.

If Gil were doing it, he’d have two names up there: Golly Toy and Game Company and Thaddeus G. Golliwop. This was another company question, the first of today.

Which name would Gil start with?

The puzzle said:
Add “pole” to my first name nickname.
Companies don’t have nicknames. People do. Gil would go with Thaddeus G. Golliwop.

“Quwaah. Qua-qua-quaah…”

Someone give Mr. Titus a cough drop.

“Qu-qu-qua-kur…”

Gil switched the headphones back to Rocky, who stopped humming and started writing some words next to the lines in the poem. His hand, though, blocked what he’d written.

Aah! Gil couldn’t just sit there, watching nothing. He grabbed his pencil and listed the pictures on the twenty-five computer screens.

By the time he finished, Lavinia had finally written
Thaddeus G. Golliwop
at the top of her page.

Gil wasn’t even trying, and he was still one long step ahead of her. He looked at the puzzle again.
Add “pole” to my first name nickname….

Easy. They told him the nickname for Thaddeus in the Xenia’s Café puzzle. Tad. Tadpole.

Whatcha doing, Lavinia? It’s not Thad. Or Thaddie. Or Deus. Tad. It’s Tad.

“Quaah. Qu-quaah. Qu-queeh…”

“Will someone please take that man to the hospital?” whispered Bianca.

“Bah-ahchoo. Kah-kah-kah-quoh.”

Rocky didn’t seem to worry. He wrote more, and the camera, now at a different angle, showed everything.

Next to
There’s much in a name, so they say,
Rocky had written: Golly Toy and Game Company = stock market symbol = GOLTAGACO, which made some sense. But the words after four other lines made no sense:

Add “pole” to my first name nickname.
First name = GOL + POLE

Cut my second part short in this game.
TAGA

Now discount the two,
Discount = shorten = POLTAGA

And mix up the name that remains.
POLTAGA COMPANY…mix it up.

Rocky circled
POLTAGA COMPANY
, then started rearranging some of the letters:
GAC PAPY TAG MAP. MAP!

“And there he goes,” said Bianca.

Rocky popped out of his chair and weaved up and down the rows of computers, looking at each monitor. He paused an extra two seconds at the one with the map from the Octagon Map video game before he returned to his desk.

OCTAGON MAP
, he wrote. Then he crossed the corresponding letters from
POLTAGA COMPANY
, circled the
P L A Y
left, then charged out of his seat again, fists pumping in victory.

Gil sank back into his seat. Maybe it was just as well. Rocky wins. Then Gil tells his parents what Rocky said, and maybe they all learn the truth.

Rocky returned to the Octagon Map monitor. He laced his fingers together, turned them inside out, and stretched his arms to crack his knuckles before he sat down like a maestro about to perform a piano concerto in Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Titus started coughing again, but the sound was coming out in sharp barks instead of syllables.

Rocky shook his head and poised his fingers on the keyboard. All he had to do was type his answer, then bells would chime and alarms would ring and the heavens would open and shine on him, and poor Lavinia would be devastated. She probably thought she’d get this one right.

She was still scribbling on her pad of paper, no clue she might have already lost.

Rocky flashed a full-face grin into the camera and typed
PLAY OCTAGON MAP
. He pressed enter, and the screen flashed. The Octagon Map logo reappeared at the top half of the screen. The bottom read:

PLAY OCTAGON MAP
STARTING POINT?

Mr. Titus’s cough came back even sharper.

Rocky casually ran his finger across his throat exactly as he had when Gil had made him tell his dad to quit the signals.

“I know this!” said Rocky. “Get ready, Santa. This is gonna be one monster Christmas in August for me.” He typed
NORTH POLE
.