The New Champion (16 page)

Pack number three sat in a blue hall that spoked four different ways. Jig picked purple, but after four stairs and a short passageway, dead end. Back to red. Up fourteen steps, which had them all panting. The red morphed into purple, then into blue that led up and up.

Even Jig was slowing down. Thank goodness. The packs weren't that heavy alone, but combined, they had some heft. As Cameron ran, the rope drawstrings dug further into his shoulders and the lumpy contents slapped at his back.

How many steps had they climbed? How many up ramps had they run? Next, a green straightaway. Then blue stairs. Red stairs. Yellow ramp. Orange stairs. Green straightaway. Some dead ends, some through passages.

They made a big sweeping red curve and came foot-to-foot with their last pack and face-to-face with six doors, one red, one orange, one yellow, one green, one blue, and one purple.

“Thank . . . heavens.” Dacey leaned over, hands on thighs, and gasped for air.

“Instructions say we have to bring the pack to the very highest door,” said Estella, who'd apparently thought to bring the stunt card. “And none of these look higher than the others.”

“I bet they shove a penalty at us if we open the wrong one,” said Dacey.

“Nothing about that in the instructions.” Jig pulled open the red door to a solid brick wall.

It was the blue for the Blue Team. Cameron knew it, but they wouldn't be certain until they'd compared everything.

Estella opened the orange and leaned in. “Just three steps, then another dead end.”

“One of them has to go up more,” said Clio. “Everyone, open a door, but just look in. Remember, we have to stay together.”

Cameron pulled open the blue and leaned way in. Three stairs went up to a landing that seemed to continue to the right.

“Yellow's a dead end,” called Estella.

“So's green,” said Jig.

“Blue keeps going,” said Cameron.

“So does purple. C'mon.” Clio led them up five stairs, down a short purple hall to another door, a higher door. She opened it to what looked like a dead-end room. “Go in? Or try blue?”

“Blue,” said Cameron. “We're the Blue Team.”

Out through purple, in through blue, up three steps, hairpin curve right, around a hotel-length hall, sharp left, up a ramp. Definitely higher than purple. The flight of rainbow-lit stairs rose to a large darkened room that ended with a golden door. The highest door, no question.

Estella reached for it. The door went dark. “Ahh!”

“What?”

“Who?”

A mass of people streamed in, dressed, as far as Cameron could tell, in black, skintight clothes from hoods on down. And what was over their eyes? Night vision goggles?

“No worries,” came Bill's voice. “They're here to help. Let them.”

The four people around Cameron grabbed his packs and opened them. One sat him in a chair while another put a helmet on his head; yet another, gloves on his hands. The fourth person was shoving straps or something over his feet. “Stand and pull them up,” the person said.

Cameron did. He felt hands buckling him into what felt like a harness. Someone handed him a bar. They moved him forward, and the gold door gradually lit until it glowed. Cameron was in line behind Estella and Clio. Shortest to tallest?

Only two people flanked each of them now. They guided the five of them by the elbows through the golden door and onto a platform. They stopped.

This year there was no slide. The Rainbow Maze was open all around them. Above them, cables and pulleys.

Within ten seconds the people had them hooked to a zip line. The platform below them dropped.

“Aah!”

Cameron's stomach spent only an instant in his throat before the rush took over, the wind stinging his eyes, blowing back his hair, whooshing past his ears. He was flying! Soaring! At breakneck speed!

He dared to look around at the whizzing blur of the mountain, the sunflowers, the elephant, jack-o'-lanterns, three-story birthday cake. They dipped down, down, down—

Oof!
Into a tight curve. Then the zip line seemed to lift them higher only to quick-fall some more. Around and around and—

Would they let him do this again? And again? The feeling. The colors. The ground. The ground? Too soon, way too soon, there was the ground. How would they slow down? How would they stop?

But the ground opened. They were going below. To the losers' dungeon?

Suddenly, abruptly, they slowed. The line had mostly leveled out. They soared slowly at first, then faster and faster on a line that remained level about ten feet from the ground. It had to be powered somehow.

“Whee!” yelled Dacey.

“Who needs the slide?” said Jig.

Cameron just grinned. But where was this taking them? Were they out? Ejected? On the street? Or maybe, possibly, had they made up the time they needed? Should he even dare to hope?

They slowed again. The area grew darker and darker, then pitch-black. Bodies fussed around him to the sound of clicking and unclicking, then whirring and hissing.

“Huh?”

A seat moved in under him. A roller-coaster-type bar clamped down on his lap.

The whirring and hissing continued, and the room began lighting from above. The roof was opening, and they were sitting in individual baskets of mini hot-air balloons. The balloons started rising and rising and rising until they were soaring over the armor, over the peacocks, over the pigs, over the nose, over everything in the puzzle-stunt room.

“Yes!” Cameron shouted.

No one, though, had said they'd won.

C
ould that have been a losers' treat? Was the Orange Team already celebrating to the tune of horns, the shower of confetti? Were they dancing around a sign that flashed
WINNERS!

The sign! The horns! The confetti! It was theirs!

A platform slid underneath them. The people in the skintight suits released them from their balloons. Off with the helmets. Off with the gloves. Off with the zip-line harnesses.

On with the jumping and screaming and shouting! On with the dancing and hugging. In with Bill, throwing aside a mop and a broom and a feather duster. He ran in circles. He turned a cartwheel. “You did it! I didn't think it was possible. I lied. You were more than six minutes behind. I didn't want you to freak out and, and yet they were still debating flightless birds when you picked up your first packs. They never did remember the lemon juice.”

Bill gathered them in a huddle. He put an arm around Cameron and stuck his other arm in the middle. The hands piled up. “So this is how it is to win. I couldn't be prouder. Blue Team on three,” he said. “One, two, three . . .”

“Blue Team,” they all yelled, and broke huddle.

More jumping, more shouting, more dancing, and then Jig dropped to the floor and put his head in his hands.

Cameron had almost hit the celebration wall, too. Half of him wanted to continue, but the other half needed a bed.

They all collapsed on the ground.

“Anything you want to know?” Bill said.

Probably, but Cameron's brain had switched off.

“Those questions?” asked Dacey. “Exactly which three were easy?”

Bill smiled. “It wasn't the questions themselves,” he said. “It was your choices. The Orange Team won only two of the head-to-heads, so their cutoff number for flightless birds wasn't four. Theirs was eight. And we could have given you seventy decibels and three hundred golf ball dimples. Who'd think they could fit between three and five hundred dimples on something that small? But they do.”

“And glaciers?” asked Estella.

“Forty-seven countries. Sixty decibels in normal conversation. About forty species of flightless birds. And the first documented jungle gym appeared in 1920. The harder version of that had you guessing before or after 1899.”

A set of doors slid open. Cameron struggled up with the others. In came four of the only five people who could understand what they were feeling—Gil, Bianca, Lavinia, and Thorn.

No way Bianca would remember him, but she broke free of the pack, walked right up, and gave him a hug. “Cameron! I told you!” She turned to the others. “I had a feeling about him at his regional. I was so right! How are you? All excited and exhausted with mush for brains that want to explode and celebrate at the same time? Well, probably not you. You're smarter than me. I watched. We all watched.” She leaned over and whispered, “If it weren't for you, well, you and Clio, the three of them would still be arguing.” She straightened. “And look at me. I'm hogging you. Come meet my friends.”

This was a different Gil from the one last year on TV. This Gil was taller, and he looked more confident. If only the Games could give Cameron that, too. Not the taller—he'd get that eventually—but the confidence. Maybe he'd already grown some. It was going to take a chisel to knock the grin from his face.

Lavinia, last year's runner-up, gave him a hug. She looked more relaxed than Cameron remembered. “Bianca must really like you,” she said. “The whole time, she told us to watch you. How did you impress her so much?”

Cameron shook his head. “I barely said anything. You can't exactly talk a lot around her.”

Lavinia laughed. “You just proved my theory.”

Thorn joined them. “What theory? About the strong, silent types?”

“That,” Lavinia said, “and chemistry, too. I think Cameron is—”

Bill came up to them. “Wait till you see lunch. Hope you're hungry, Cameron.”

Hungry? He was hungry for Lavinia to finish that last sentence. Cameron is what?

Too late. The conversation dropped. Well, mostly. Jig was still trying to hang all over Bianca, and even though she was smiling and talking, she was also leaning away. Bill casually came between the two of them, thumped Jig on the back, and let Bianca make her escape to join Clio as they walked down a hallway.

If he'd had his camera, Cameron would have zoomed in on Bill's hand, keeping Jig from doubling back for Bianca. He'd have taken some frames of Lavinia's bouncing hair and edited that against the stiff ponytail she had last year. He'd have shot Thorn's feet where his expensive shoes met the frayed hem of his jeans. And Gil? Where was he?

Cameron glanced around to his right but felt someone come up on his left.

“So you're Bianca's favorite?” he said.

Cameron felt his head start to sweat even more. “I don't know.”

“It's a good thing,” said Gil. “I was. She tells me all the time.” He laughed. “What did you think when your brother showed up?”

“That I wished he'd go away.”

Gil pointed they'd be turning right down the next hallway. “You can blame me for that.”

“Why?”

“Last year I made some comment about having an unfair disadvantage, that no one else had his worst nightmare dogging him every step of the way.”

“You said that?” Cameron would have remembered.

“Probably a boring version of that so it didn't make TV. But one of the Golly people heard me and thought, Oh, wouldn't it be fun to make all the contestants as crazy as Rocky made Gil.”

“And he's here again.”

“No big deal. I'm past that. But you have to deal with Spencer every day.”

Cameron nodded. “If I'd been competing against anyone else, I probably wouldn't have blown it.”

Gil had them turn down a short hallway with an open door and food smells coming straight at them. “You didn't blow anything. You're here, right?” Gil slowed and let Cameron through the door first.

Before he could get his second foot in, Walker pounced on him from the side. “Do you know who that was? Do you know who you were talking to?”

Before he could answer, his parents were all over him with the we're-so-proud thing and the you-were-so-good thing, and he actually believed them because—

It hit him. Cameron really was one of the final five; everyone would watch him this year. And even with all the hugging and holding on, he felt his knees buckle for a second. He couldn't freak out now. He had to keep going. He had to stop thinking.

“Where's the food?” he said.

“Food? What food?” His mom took him by the shoulders and spun him around.

He zeroed in on the trio of chocolate volcanoes—dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate. He wanted to run his hand along them all, then lick it off. Behind them, well, he'd never seen so much food in his life.

“Just like last year,” said Gil, coming up from behind. “One tip: Choose wisely. You don't want a food coma for the next round. And they'll have it out for you again afterward.” He patted him on the back. “Time for me to see Rocky.”

Walker grabbed his arm. “That was him again! That was Gil!”

Cameron laughed. “What are you going to eat?”

“Everything,” Walker said. “Unless Spencer eats it all first.”

Where was Spencer? Probably looking for Bianca again, but no. He wasn't with her. He was alone in the food line. Cameron went up to him. “What looks good?”

Spencer stabbed a fat hamburger and put it on his plate. “Pretty much everything.” He added some chicken fingers and a mound of potato salad.

“What's the deal?” said Cameron. “You beat me in Who's There? You were the first one done. You looked like you were back in Spencer mode, having fun even.”

“I was in the heat of competition. Got a taste of what could've been. Not so much now. Just run along and play.”

Cameron stepped back and got a plate. He turned toward another food table but walked up to Spencer instead. “You know,” he said, his heart beating nearly as fast as on the Rainbow Maze, “I didn't sign up for this, and I didn't cheat you out of a spot. If it wasn't me here, it still wouldn't be you.”

Spencer took Cameron's plate for himself and added some barbecued brisket and a bun. He moved to the next table and grabbed a handful of cookies. “You don't have to remind me. And you definitely don't need to baby me like Mom and Dad. Let me sulk for five minutes, and I'll be fine.”

“Yeah. You will be.” Cameron was tempted to find Bianca to cheer him up, but it wouldn't hurt Spencer to feel this way for a while. Cameron had pretty much felt it for his whole life. Not anymore. Well, probably not. Well, maybe sometimes. But not today.

He got two plates he would keep this time.

His dad came up and ruffled his hair again. “Hey, champ! Is Spencer okay?”

Really? Cameron's reign as Kid for a Day was over? “He just needs a few minutes.” So did Cameron. “I'm going to the pizza table. They have your favorite over there, fried chicken.”

Cameron didn't really want pizza. He wanted to get away. But pizza was always good. He took a piece loaded with hamburger. Then he took some egg rolls and a taco and had a world culture thing going with his two plates.

Spencer was at a round table by himself. Cameron sat two chairs away. He took a bite, then realized their whole family would be there in a minute. “How much did they give you?”

Spencer barely looked up. “A thousand bucks for showing up. Three thousand more for beating you.” He lifted his head. “Then, because two of us won, we split another pot of five thousand dollars. So five thousand in all. If those other three doofuses had kicked it, we would have split twenty-five thousand dollars instead.”

“Not a bad day's work.”

Spencer laughed. “Not at all.”

“You know I didn't sign my name on the contract.”

“What contract?”

Was he kidding? “The one where we split things fifty-fifty?”

“So?”

“You already got some money, maybe even more than I'll get.”

Spencer shrugged. “Your point?”

“I'm keeping what I win.” There, he'd said it. “I'm not splitting anything.”

“You didn't seriously think I could make you.”

Cameron shrugged.

Spencer gave him a shove and returned to sulk mode in time for their mom and dad and Walker to see.

Between bites, his parents recapped the action. The gushing was good at first, but then it became like too much chocolate cake, losing its specialness after two huge slices.

Chocolate. He hadn't had that yet. He went over to the volcanoes. Golly even had individual spigots rigged up, so he could stick his fingers under running chocolate without recirculating contaminated lava.

He took a swipe of the dark chocolate, then washed it down with the milk chocolate. The plan was to end with the white chocolate, but Spencer came up and stuck his finger under there. Cameron stuck his finger underneath, too.

A food service person ran up. “You can't share. We have food safety laws against that.”

“He's my brother,” said Spencer. “It's what we do.”

They licked their fingers, and the food service guy backed off.

“So I'm looking at your competition.” Spencer stared at the volcano. “Unless a series of freak sunspots blind you, you're in the top three. Dacey has no chance. Her person, Laura Ramirez, told me she freezes when it gets tough.”

“She obviously didn't freeze in the stadium. She's here.”

Spencer took another swipe of chocolate. “I just know what Laura told me. When Dacey flubbed up at pageants, she'd accuse Laura of being lazy and paying off the judges. And Laura would smile and drive Dacey crazy. Don't worry about Estella, either. She might be good, but she's still in meltdown over that ex-boyfriend. When we were waiting, Stephen said she was going to freak out, but I have to give her credit. She whipped him.”