Mr. Lemoncello and the Titanium Ticket Read online

  (not to mention fifthwith)

  invited to participate in the games

  and general shenanigans at my

  twenty-fifth anniversary

  Gameworks Company Picnic,

  even though nobody in your family currently works there.

  See you on Saturday.

  And, yes, there will be balloons.

  Warmly, because my air conditioner is broken,

  Luigi L. Lemoncello

  * * *

  * * *

  That Friday at school, just about everybody was buzzing about the big event or drilling themselves on Lemoncello-style puzzles. They all wanted to be one of the first four kids to see what was inside the new building and maybe win the titanium ticket (even though nobody knew what it was a ticket to).

  “Last year, the picnic was so awesome!” Simon heard people say. “This year, it’ll be even more amazing! The new sidewalk board game sounds lit! And Mr. Lemoncello is coming to town!”

  Some kids in the cafeteria were rolling dice and chasing each other around board games. Others were playing Lemoncello video games on their devices. Over at his table, Jack McClintock was having his buddies flash him more rebus cards.

  “Hit me again!” Jack shouted.

  Up came the new card.

  “Think before you speak!” said Jack. “Next one.”

  “Too little, too late!”

  “Correct again,” said his friend. “Dude, you are on a roll.”

  “I’ve been practicing. Let’s just do one more. Don’t want to wear myself out. Need to save something for tomorrow…”

  “Good strategy. Here you go. Last puzzle.”

  Jack stared at the card. For like ten seconds.

  Simon scribbled his answer in his notebook.

  “It’s some kind of math problem,” he heard Jack mutter.

  “It’s okay if you can’t solve it, Jack,” said his friend. “The label on the back says this one is a black diamond. That means it’s extremely difficult.”

  “Probably because no one understands it.”

  “Correct!” shouted his friend. “There’s no ‘one’ under ‘stands.’ No one understands! Jack, you are a genius. A genuine genius.”

  Jack looked confused for a second. But he snapped out of it pretty quickly. “Yeah. I’m good. But I still can’t crack that riddle Ms. Pulliam put up on the board.”

  Ms. Elizabeth Pulliam, who taught math, was always challenging her classes with riddles and puzzles.

  “Nobody else could solve it, either,” said his friend.

  Curious as usual, Simon strolled down the hall to Ms. Pulliam’s room while everyone else finished lunch. He stepped into the empty classroom and read what Ms. Pulliam had posted on her bulletin board with a question mark magnet:

  Two fathers and two sons sat down to eat eggs for breakfast. They ate exactly three eggs. Each person ate only one egg. How?

  Simon grinned. He knew the answer.

  It was actually kind of simple.

  Since the room was empty, and nobody could see him doing it, he wrote his answer on a yellow sticky note from a pad he found on Ms. Pulliam’s desk:

  One of the fathers is also a grandfather. His son is the father of the other son.

  Simon stuck his answer on the board, right underneath the riddle.

  And then he actually giggled.

  Solving puzzles? It was a blast.

  Simon woke up early on Saturday morning and reread his engraved invitation from Mr. Lemoncello—for the fifteenth time.

  Did every kid in town get one? he wondered.

  Probably not. Most of their parents worked at the factory. They were automatically invited to the picnic. He tucked the thick card into the back pocket of his jeans and made his way down to the kitchen.

  His grandmother was already there, waiting for him.

  “I know breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” she whispered, “but I think you should skip it this morning, Simon. Your grandfather is sound asleep. Go grab your bike and head over to the park, honey. The company picnic is always an all-day affair. They’ll have lots of food. I remember the one time we went.”

  “You went to a Lemoncello company picnic?”

  She nodded. “That was a long time ago….”

  Her eyes teared up.

  “Are you okay, Grandma?”

  “Yes, dear. Just my allergies. Go on now. Have fun.” She held open the back door. “Try not to make too much noise until you’re down at the corner. Your grandfather needs his beauty sleep.”

  Simon nodded and tiptoed down the back steps. He jumped on his bicycle and coasted out of the driveway. He pedaled as quietly as he could until he reached the corner. That’s when he started pumping his legs hard, racing over to Riverview Park, an eight-acre green strip between the Hudson River and the town’s small downtown district.

  As he got closer, Simon could see a crowd already starting to assemble near a sea of colorful tents and pop-up pavilions. Even though it was early morning, he could smell popcorn, roasted peanuts, and flash-fried funnel cakes. It was as if the circus and the county fair had both come to town on the same day.

  Simon leaned his bike against a rack where some kids he recognized from school were stowing their bikes, too.

  “Yo, did you hear about Jack McClintock?” said one.

  “Yeah,” said the other. “He cracked Ms. Pulliam’s riddle. One of the fathers was also a grandfather. His son was the father of the other son.”

  “Jack’s a genius!”

  “Totally. Come on. We need to go check in.”

  The two guys took off running.

  Simon jogged behind them. Of course Jack McClintock copied my answer off that sticky note, which he probably tossed in the trash, he thought. He’s not a real puzzle solver. He just memorizes answers.

  A cool shadow fell over Simon. Something had just blocked out the sharply angled morning sun.

  Simon looked up.

  A bright-yellow hot-air balloon was descending from the sky. It was shaped like a giant, floating lemon! The real Mr. Lemoncello, not a hologram, was riding in its gondola basket, waving his top hat at the cheering crowd.

  “Halloo!” Mr. Lemoncello cried out. “It’s so splendiferously delightful to be back here in Hudson Hills. Now, if you’ll kindly clear a space, I need to land this hot-air balloon before I run out of hot air, which, according to anyone who has ever heard me speak in public, is virtually impossible. Stand back. I’m tossing over a sandbag! Oopsy. That was my sandwich bag. Peanut butter and banana! Here comes the sandbag.”

  Simon heard a loud THUD, followed by a sloppy SQUISH.

  “Oh, my. The sandbag landed on top of the sandwich bag. Guess I’ll be eating mashed bananas for lunch. Again!”

  Simon made his way into the crowd circling Mr. Lemoncello’s landing site. Since he was short, he was able to worm his way to the front just as the hot-air balloon touched down.

  Simon had never seen Mr. Lemoncello in person—just on TV and in that hologram at the factory. Now he was only ten feet away! Simon thought he might faint. Especially when the genius game maker whirled around and looked straight at him. His coal-black eyes were twinkling.

  “Ah, halloo there, young fellow. Could you kindly tie off this line?”

  Mr. Lemoncello tossed Simon a coiled rope.

  “I’ve got that,” said Soraiya’s dad, coming over to take the rope out of Simon’s hands. “You need to go register for the games, Simon.”

  “Exactamundo!” cried Mr. Lemoncello from his balloon basket, where he was busily signing autographs for eager fans. “What on earth—or, for that matter, Pluto—are you waiting for, Simon? An engraved invitation? Oh. Right. If I’m not mistaken, you already have one! Go!”

/>   Moving fast—as if somebody (or something) else were in charge of his legs—Simon chugged into the registration tent.

  Where he bumped into a thick wall of eager kids.

  There were four bunched-up lines totaling maybe three hundred gamers. The lines snaked up to cafeteria-sized folding tables where volunteers from the Gameworks Factory sat with clipboards and stacks of numbered bibs for the contestants to wear.

  “Once you’re registered,” said the lady with a megaphone who seemed to be in charge, “you can play any three games you choose in the preliminary rounds. The top scorers from those rounds will move on to the Slippery-Sloppery Sidewalk Board Game on Main Street. That contest will start at two o’clock sharp. And you’ll need to wear plastic jumpsuits or you’ll ruin your clothes. The top four finishers in that event will be the first to see what’s inside Mr. Lemoncello’s top-secret new building behind the factory, where they’ll have a chance to win a titanium ticket!”

  Everybody inside the tent applauded.

  Simon’s line shuffled forward.

  When it did, he found himself standing side by side with Jack McClintock, whose line wasn’t budging.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Jack. “These aren’t the lines for the porta-potties!”

  His clump of friends laughed.

  Jack narrowed his eyes into a squint. “You’re not actually thinking about signing up for the games, are you?”

  “Maybe,” said Simon, without adding, After all, Mr. Lemoncello did personally invite me.

  “Did you hear that, guys? The town clown thinks he can play games with top-gun gunners like us.”

  “Ha! Let him try,” said one of Jack’s friends. He was wearing a black T-shirt with skulls and crossbones printed all over it. “We’ll crush him.”

  “These preliminary rounds are for serious gamers only,” Jack told Simon. “You should go home and play with your blocks. Why embarrass yourself? Everyone knows you’re a joke—just like your crackpot grandfather!”

  Simon’s line started moving again while Jack’s remained stuck.

  “Quit now, Skrindle, or you’ll regret it later!” Jack shouted as Simon inched forward.

  The only thing I might regret, thought Simon, would be losing to you!

  Finally, he made it to the sign-up table.

  “Hi there,” said a friendly man with a name tag that ID’d him as Alex Renzulli from shipping and receiving. “Ready to play some games?”

  “Yes, sir,” Simon told Mr. Renzulli.

  “Okeydoke. Just fill in the blanks and sign your name.” He slid a clipboard across the table. Simon wrote down his name, address, and date of birth, then signed his name.

  He slid the clipboard back to Mr. Renzulli.

  “Fantabulous,” said Mr. Renzulli. “You are number one-six-six. Pin this to the front of your shirt. Your scorecard is tucked inside the plastic pocket on the back of the bib.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “And don’t forget to grab a brochure. It lists all your options. They’re all jumbo-sized versions of Lemoncello games, most of them made right here in Hudson Hills. We’ve got everything from Incredibly Kooky Kujenga to Three-D Thingama-Jigsaw Puzzlerama. Pick any three.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Renzulli,” said Simon.

  “My pleasure, Simon. Truly. My pleasure.”

  Simon stepped away from the table, opened the glossy pamphlet, and studied his options.

  “Hey, Simon!” It was Soraiya. “You made it!”

  “Yeah,” said Simon, shyly tapping the square of plasticky paper pinned to his T-shirt. “I’m number one-six-six.”

  “I’m number one. Dad had to get here early to help set up. What game do you want to play first?”

  Simon glanced down at the brochure.

  He didn’t recognize any of the Lemoncello games on the list because his grandfather wouldn’t allow any of them in the house.

  So he shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you want to play first?”

  Soraiya grabbed his hand. “Come on. I know something you’ll be great at! Me too!”

  “Incredibly Kooky Kujenga is Mr. Lemoncello’s take on the Tumbling Tower–type game,” Soraiya explained as they entered the game’s tent.

  “Sounds awesome,” said Simon.

  “It is. But Mr. Lemoncello doesn’t use solid wooden planks in his version. That wouldn’t be wacky enough. He substitutes wobbly gummy blocks. And since this is a jumbo version of the game, today those blocks will be the size of bricks. Long, wiggly bricks. There’s Dad. He volunteered to host this tent.”

  Simon saw Mr. Mitchell instructing two other volunteers to stack fifty-four gummy blocks in eighteen alternating layers of three. The blocks rested on their long sides at a right angle to the three planks on the layer below.

  “When it’s your turn,” Soraiya explained, “you remove one squiggly piece from any layer of the tower and place it on top. Play continues until someone pulls a block that causes the whole tower to come tumbling down.”

  “So,” said Simon, “this is basically an exercise in structural engineering?”

  “Exactly! By the way, did you know that ‘kujenga’ is a Swahili word meaning ‘to build’?”

  Simon shook his head.

  “It’s true. I did research. I always do research. You’ll probably be great at this. You’re good at figuring out puzzles and building stuff.”

  “Well, I don’t know if—”

  “I saw that thing you constructed in the library. The one Jack McClintock totally trashed with his pool noodle. It was amazing.”

  “Thanks, I guess….”

  “Hey, you should be proud. If that had been my Ferris wheel, I would’ve been proud.”

  The first four players started circling the jiggling tower. They took turns carefully extracting rubbery planks and then putting each piece on the top layer, making sure it was facing the opposite direction to the ones below.

  It took about ten moves for the tower to come crashing down. The last player to make a move before the tower fell won.

  “That’s ten points for Carolyn Hudson!” shouted Mr. Mitchell. He officially noted and initialed the score on the card tucked into the plastic pouch behind Carolyn Hudson’s number bib.

  “Who’s next?”

  Soraiya shot up her hand.

  “Okay, honey. Number one in my heart and on her bib, Soraiya Mitchell. Who else?”

  Soraiya turned to Simon. “What’re you waiting for? You miss all the shots you don’t take.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Simon, surrendering. He raised his hand.

  “Number one-six-six, Simon Skrindle. Fantabulous. Step up to the tower. Who else?”

  A bunch of hands shot up. Mr. Mitchell picked two. “Number thirty-seven, Odessa Pearce. And number one-oh-seven, Augusta Westhoff. You’ll be our next four players.”

  Mr. Mitchell’s assistants had already restacked the fifty-four blubbery bricks.

  “Player with the lowest number goes first,” said Mr. Mitchell. “That’s you, Soraiya. Play will then continue clockwise around the tower.”

  That meant Simon would go fourth.

  Soraiya delicately plucked a piece from the side of the tower and placed it on top. Odessa slid out a middle piece. Augusta went for one on the edge. In three turns, another three-piece layer was added to the top of the tower.

  Simon studied the architecture of the tower and went for an edge piece he felt confident was not crucial to the tower’s support. It felt like he was poking a jiggly cube of cold Jell-O in the fridge. He shoved the brick out with the palm of one hand, pulled it free with his other hand, then placed the slimy thing on top of the tower in the opposite direction to the layer that used to be the top.

  Play continued for three more turns. Twelve more pieces were remove
d from their original positions. The tower was now five stories taller than it used to be. It was also looking less and less stable.

  “Your turn, Simon,” said Mr. Mitchell in the hushed tones of a TV golf announcer. Things were getting tense.

  Simon tapped a gelatinous green block in the center of a layer.

  And a bright-red LED inside the translucent slab started to throb.

  Everyone in the tent who had ever played Kooky Kujenga gasped.

  “Uh-oh,” said Mr. Mitchell. “Simon, looks like you just picked the wobbler!”

  To make his teetering-tower game even more exciting, Mr. Lemoncello had included one battery-powered brick that would quiver and quake the instant a player poked it.

  “If you can successfully remove and place that plank,” said Mr. Mitchell, “you will earn double points—if, of course, you go on to win the game!”

  “Oooh,” the crowd whispered in awe.

  Simon did his best to steady his hand. He needed to carefully slide the shimmying brick out of the stack before it knocked out the two blocks along its sides.

  He deftly extracted the wobbler with another delicate push and pluck.

  The jiggly, blinking block was out of the tower.

  Now all Simon had to do was gently, very gently, set the slab (which was wiggling like a real live gummy worm) on the tippy top of the tower, positioning it just so at the center of what would become the new highest level. A fraction of an inch off-center and the wobbler would shake the tower to its core and topple the swaying stack.

  Simon took a deep breath.

  Carefully, very carefully, he laid the shimmying brick down.

  The tower did not collapse.

  The audience oohed.

  And Simon breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was Soraiya’s turn again.

  “Well played, Simon,” she said admiringly.

  “Thanks.”

  Soraiya studied the tower.

  “The wobbler jiggles elastically,” she said aloud, even though it sounded like she was talking to herself. Then she mumbled a bunch of stuff about “angular velocity vectors” and “the precision of wobble” being different to “the line of nodes rotation.”