The Potato Chip Puzzles: The Puzzling World of Winston Breen (5 page)

Jake and Mal were dropped off shortly after eight o’clock. Winston’s mother had already left for work. His dad worked at home in the summer—soon he would go edit magazine articles, but right now he was cleaning up breakfast. And Winston’s little sister, Katie, was sitting on the sofa, her arms crossed in an exaggerated mope. Her school wasn’t participating in the big contest. Perhaps her principal never figured out the code, or elementary schools weren’t sent the code in the first place. Either way, she was ticked.

She spent the morning trying to convince Winston to take her along. When that didn’t work, she tried getting her parents to
make
Winston take her along. That didn’t work, either. Now she wasn’t talking to him, and instead of being happy that it was the first day of summer vacation, she was acting like she was locked in a Siberian prison.

“Hi, Katie,” said Jake as he walked in.

“Hmmph,” Katie said back, crossing her arms tighter.

Seeing that she was angry about something, Mal instinctively had to make things worse. “Katie!” he shouted. “Give me a hug!” He advanced toward her, his arms outstretched.

Katie was shocked right out of her mood. “Gah!” she said, leaping onto the back of the sofa and jumping off the other side. “Get away from me! Gross!” She ran up the stairs to her room, slamming her door as hard as she could.

Winston’s father poked his head in. “What was that?” he said.

“Your daughter loves me,” said Mal.

“Oh.” Nathan Breen was used to Mal. He went back to whatever he was doing in the kitchen without further comment.

The wait continued, although at least now Winston had his friends with him. The three boys briefly considered playing their video game, but they were too restless. They paced around and tried to guess what might happen today. Winston told them about the oddball publicity stunts Dmitri Simon had pulled off in the past.

“So it’s impossible to say what we’ll be asked to do,” Winston said.

“We should bring a bunch of random stuff with us. Maybe some of it will come in handy,” said Jake.

“A box of paper clips,” said Mal. “A birthday cake. A scuba diving suit.”

Jake stared at Mal. “I meant random stuff that’s not completely crazy.”

“What’s crazy about a scuba diving suit?” Mal wanted to know. “You’ll apologize when we have to swim to the bottom of the river to get a clue.”

They bantered and bickered a while more. Winston wondered, not for the first time, if he should tell Mal and Jake how close they had come to getting kicked off the team. He’d gone back and forth on that over the last several days. Ultimately, he decided to keep his mouth shut. He only hoped that Mr. Garvey would do likewise. But Winston could practically hear the teacher sighing and saying “My
smart
students would have known that” as they all faced a tough puzzle.

Winston wished again that he had been able to choose the team’s chaperone. And he supposed that Mr. Garvey still wished he could have chosen his own team. Well, they’d all have to find a way to work together.

Mr. Garvey pulled in at eight twenty-five. The three boys and Winston’s father filed onto the porch to meet him. “And here’s my team,” said Mr. Garvey, smiling as he got out of his car. There were hellos all around. Mr. Garvey and Nathan Breen shook hands. The two men made a minute’s worth of small talk. If Mr. Garvey was still upset at Winston’s insistence on including Mal and Jake, he kept it well hidden.

“Shotgun!” Mal called, so he took the passenger seat while Winston and Jake got in the back. There was a small cargo area behind them, holding a baby seat (it was always strange to be reminded that teachers had families of their own), a couple of grocery bags containing snacks, and a small cooler.

“What’s with the food?” asked Jake as Mr. Garvey got into the driver’s seat.

“Ah,” said Mr. Garvey, starting the car. “That’s called thinking ahead. I’m guessing this is going to be an all-day affair, so I’ve loaded up on supplies. If we don’t have to stop for food, we’ll have that much more of an edge on our competition.”

“Do you have a Porta Potti back there?” Mal asked.

Mr. Garvey gave Mal a sideways look. “We might take a little break now and again, if need be,” he said. “Here,” he continued, handing Mal a piece of paper. “You just volunteered to be the team navigator.”

“I did?” said Mal. “Oh. I did.” He took the paper and unfolded it. It was a map. “Okay,” he said. “Step one: Leave the driveway.”

Mr. Garvey did as he was told. As they drove along, Mr. Garvey said, “Let me explain a few things about how today is going to work.” Winston already didn’t like the sound of that. The teacher continued, “I know you all think summer vacation has started. As far as I’m concerned, however, today is a school day. This is a field trip, and I’m the guy in charge. All right?”

“All right,” said Winston. He and Jake shared a bemused look.

“I told Winston a couple of days ago, and I’ll tell you two right now: We’re here to win. And if you boys stay serious and focused, and if you listen to me and do what I say, we
will
win.” Mr. Garvey drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I hope we have fun today, don’t get me wrong. But our first priority is not to have fun. What did I just say?”

Mal said, with a tone of disbelief, “We’re not supposed to have fun.”

“You can have fun,” Mr. Garvey corrected him. “Of course you can have fun. But that is not the main reason we are here. We are here to get these puzzles solved. We’re going to do it quickly, we’re going to do it efficiently. That . . .
that
is what we’re here to do.”

As pep talks went, this was more alarming than inspiring. Sure, Winston wanted to win, but he was troubled by Mr. Garvey’s fervor, and he was sure that Mal and Jake were, too.

Mr. Garvey seemed to sense that. He said, “Jake, I’m sure your baseball coach says something like that before every game. Right?”

“Something like that,” Jake said. He made a face at Winston that said, “Not even close.”

The math teacher wanted to close the subject. He said, “All right. Let’s warm up our brains a little. Winston, do you have any puzzles for us?”

Winston looked around. They were coming up to a red light near a small row of stores. He studied the stores for a few moments and said, “You see that store where you can buy kitchen stuff ?”

“Yeah,” Jake said.

“You might go there if you wanted to buy a PLATE.”

“Okay. . . .”

Winston continued, “You can add a letter to the word PLATE and then scramble all the letters. You’ll wind up with something you can buy in the art supply store right next door. Then you can add a letter to
that
word, scramble the letters again, and get something you can buy in the office supply store. Then you can do it one more time—take the item from the office supply store, add a letter, scramble, and you’ll get something you can buy in the garden center. Can you get them all?”

“Holy moly,” said Mal. “Not before the light turns green.”

 

SIMON’S SNACK FOODS
was in Maplewood, the next town over. The factory was huge, with pipes jutting out of the walls and roof. Every pipe emitted smoke or steam in various shades of gray. Winston imagined that Dmitri Simon would have a crazy, Willy Wonka-like factory, but this was a disappointingly normal brick building. Also, Winston had expected an overwhelming odor of frying potato chips, but the air here was just air.

The office building, on the other hand, was more eye-catching. It was glass and steel, and had been designed by someone with a sense of humor. It went off at all kinds of odd angles and had shiny metal beams sticking out for no particular reason. The office was attached to the factory, and the effect was that of a flashy sports car towing a dump truck.

In the parking lot, there was a section roped off for visitors. As they got out of the car, Mr. Garvey said, “I want us all to stay together.” The universal command of teachers escorting students on a field trip.

The pretty receptionist pointed them down a long hallway before Mr. Garvey could even speak. “All the puzzlers are meeting in the main conference room,” she said. “You’ll see the signs.”

“How many puzzlers are there?” asked Mr. Garvey.

“I have no idea. You’ll meet them all soon enough.” She pointed again, all but declaring that question time was over.

They passed a number of small offices as they walked down the hall. Phones were ringing, and men and women were at their desks doing who knew what. They followed the signs and wound up outside a closed door with a sign that said “Puzzlers Welcome.” Winston felt an electric tingle in his bloodstream. They were minutes away from the true start of the day.

Mr. Garvey said, “All right, boys. Best behavior. No spitballs or flamethrowers.”

“I left my flamethrower at home,” said Mal.

“Mine’s broken,” said Jake.

Mr. Garvey nodded, accepting this bit of humor. He opened the door.

The main conference room had a hundred seats or more. Groups of three or four seats were fastened to their own little tables facing a small stage. The stage, at the moment, was empty.

There were a couple dozen kids here with their adult chaper-ones. Some kids were pacing, while others sat and chatted with their teammates. There was a tension in the air, the kind that precedes an exciting event you know is supposed to happen at any moment.

Mr. Garvey led his team to one of the empty tables. Nearby teams eyed them curiously. Winston saw that all the kids were about his age—no little kids from an elementary school and no high-schoolers, either. So Dmitri Simon must have restricted the contest to middle schools, after all. This was good.

“I wonder how many teams there’ll be,” said Jake. He swiveled back and forth in his chair, restless. A lot of kids were swiveling.

“They must be coming from all over the state, don’t you think?” said Winston.

“I hope not,” said Mr. Garvey. “The fewer the better.” Something across the room caught his attention. “Oh, no,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Lincoln is here,” Mr. Garvey said with quiet horror.

“Abraham?” asked Mal.

The math teacher set his jaw, as if jokes were not appropriate at a time like this. “Lincoln Junior High. Well, of course they would be here. That’s Rod Denham, their Mathlete adviser. I bet he has three kids from their math team here.”

“Are they good?” Jake asked.

“They’re very good. In fact”—there was the slightest pause before Mr. Garvey said, “we’ve never beaten them.” He shook his head, as if this news could hardly be worse.

The teacher in question, Rod Denham, was a short, wide fellow wearing a brown sportcoat. He was talking with two boys and a girl, all of whom were listening intently. Mr. Denham must have felt them staring—he suddenly glanced over and, seeing Mr. Garvey, waved, an ironic smirk on his face.

“Oh, he saw us,” Mr. Garvey said unhappily. “Be good for a moment, I have to say hello.” Mr. Garvey got up and approached his rival with a wide smile, his arms spread in warm greeting.

Winston guessed that Mr. Garvey regretted, more than ever, not replacing all three of them with students from his math class. Well, it was too late now. He swiveled in his chair and watched more teams come in.

“You’re Winston Breen!” said a voice behind him.

Winston swiveled around, and so did Mal and Jake. A boy was standing there. His hair was unbrushed and pointing every which way, and he wore an expression of wide-eyed delight. He said, “Right? You’re Winston Breen! I knew you’d be here today. You
had
to be.”

Winston said, “Uh.”

The boy continued, glowing like a child meeting Santa Claus. “I read about you in the paper. When you found that buried treasure? Remember?”