The Potato Chip Puzzles by Eric Berlin

Author:Eric Berlin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-10-28T05:10:28+00:00

Winston said, “Which three bad guys have rewards that total up to exactly a hundred dollars?”

(Answer, page 242.)

Jake was still staring at the posters when from behind them came a series of loud popping sounds. The two boys wrenched around, trying to find the source. The panicky, overdramatic part of Winston’s brain insisted these were gunshots, but the rational side, less than a second later, placed the sound as mere firecrackers.

But the firecrackers had been lit among the crowd of people waiting to get on the Ferris wheel, and the result was the same as gunfire—several moments of yelling and chaos as the mob scattered like a flock of panicky birds. Winston spotted Mr. Garvey, pressed up against the fence to avoid getting trampled. The guy running the Sun Wheel had been helping people into one of the empty cars, and now he came running back to see what was happening.

Winston and Jake fought the crowd and made their way to their teacher. The staccato pops and bangs ended as suddenly as they had begun, the final explosions lingering in the summer air, along with several blossoms of gray smoke.

Winston looked around. Who had set off the firecrackers? He couldn’t tell. He expected to see a couple of teenage boys, standing off to the side, laughing at the panic they had caused. But there was nobody.

People started coming back to the ride, and Mr. Garvey dismissed the event. “All right,” he said. “Is Mal back yet? I’d like to get out of here already.” He craned his neck, trying to figure out which car Mal was in while the ride was temporarily stopped.

At that moment, the guy running the ride said loudly, “Where’s my key?” He was standing at the ride’s mechanism, looking around, a bewildered expression on his face. He was in his early twenties or maybe not even that old, and had a scruff of beard and a pierced lip. “Hey!” he said. He turned to the people coming back to the ride. “Did you take my key? That’s not cool, man. I need that.”

Winston and Jake and Mr. Garvey watched the fellow pat his pockets and scan the ground for the missing key. Mr. Garvey’s face reflected terrible understanding. He elbowed his way in and said, “What key? What did you lose?”

“The key to the ride! What do you think? The key to the Ferris wheel, man!”

Winston looked up at the ride and finally saw Mal. He was still in his car, fifty feet in the air.

The cheater. The cheater had set off the firecrackers, distracted everybody, and then snatched the key to the ride. A whole bunch of teams had people on that ride, and the cheater had bamboozled all of them in one go.

Mal, trapped on the Sun Wheel, was yelling something and pointing urgently. Winston tried to focus on what he was saying. It sounded like . . . “There! There!”

Winston and Jake whirled around, and they saw him, just for a fraction of

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