Bringing Down the Mouse (22 page)

Charlie stifled a grin and was about to turn back to Jeremy, when he noticed Sam standing a few feet to Dylan's right, also watching the display with an amused look in her gray eyes.

Charlie felt something inside of him click.

He turned back to Jeremy and handed him the plastic bag full of tickets.

“Hold this for me? I'll be right back.”

And then he was strolling forward toward Dylan and the milk bottle game. His adrenaline was pumping, but he kept his limbs from shaking as he slid up to the counter a few feet away from Dylan, and signaled to the carnie. The carny leaned toward him, and Charlie whispered into the man's ear.

“Set it back up, but this time, put the heavy bottle on top.”

The carny stared at him.

“Sorry?”

“You heard me. Look, I know how this game works. And if you don't want everyone else to know, put the heavy bottle on top.”

The carnie thought for a moment. Then he shrugged, walked over to the bottles, and restacked them into a pyramid. Charlie steeled his nerves again and strolled over to where Dylan was standing.

“Hey, Dylan. You mind if I try one throw?”

Dylan, Liam, and Dusty turned as one. Dylan peered down at Charlie, and then a huge laugh burst from his mouth.

“Hah! You, Numbers? This is hilarious! You couldn't knock over an empty soda can! Sure, give it your best shot!”

Dylan stepped back, palms out, sarcastic look in his eyes, as if he was handing Charlie the keys to the world. Charlie grabbed a baseball from the counter, squared his feet, took aim, and then let fly.

It wasn't a great throw by any means, but it was straight, just hard enough, and it hit the bottles near the base of the pyramid. The pyramid wobbled back,
then suddenly collapsed, all six bottles tumbling down. There was a moment of silence, and then laughter and applause from all around. Dylan stared at Charlie in utter shock.

“How the heck did you do that?”

“I don't know,” Charlie responded over the rush in his ears. “Like you said, I just gave it my best shot.”

Without another word, he strolled back to where Jeremy was standing and took the plastic bag from his aghast friend. Jeremy stared at him, trying to find words. Charlie glanced back toward Sam, and even better, she was covering her mouth because she was laughing so hard.

Charlie gave Jeremy a friendly punch in the shoulder, then tucked the bag of tickets under his arm and headed for the exit. In his head, it was like a dozen carnies were shouting at him at once.

Winner. Winner. Winner!

THE SKY WAS A
dull purple by the time most of the crowd had filed out of the midway tent and down the few remaining yards of Solar Avenue to the steps of Moon Base Alpha. As settings went, the Moon Base's steps were as official a place for an awards ceremony as Charlie could have imagined; the imposing pyramid-shaped building gave off a feeling of importance. From where Charlie was standing next to Jeremy in a crowd of kids at least twenty thick, everything felt very real and intense.

“Come on, man,” Jeremy mumbled, for what had to be the hundredth time. “We're going to be late for the monorail, and Warden Walker is going to have our butts. What the heck are we doing here, anyway?”

Charlie didn't answer. Instead, he glanced around the crowd, picking out the faces of the rest of his team. Finn and Magic were together a few feet to his right, and Greg, Sam, Jake, and Daniel were behind them, below the bottom step. Charlie didn't see Miranda anywhere, but he assumed she was watching from somewhere. None of them would be there without her, of course; she had to be savoring the moment.

“I mean, you can't really care about some stupid midway game contest, can you? Some kid's gonna win a free T-shirt or something, and we're all standing around waiting to shake his hand?”

Again, Charlie didn't answer, because something was happening beyond the top of the steps; the main doors to the Moon Base slid upward, and out stepped two men. The first, Charlie recognized: gray curly hair, a dark suit, a wide smile, and friendly green eyes. He was the same man from the YouTube video that Miranda had shown Charlie the first time he'd been introduced to the Carnival Killers. This time, instead of standing near the Loopy Wheel, he was strolling along, holding a thin envelope in his right hand.

The second man he didn't recognize: tall, dark-haired, with wire-rimmed glasses and a jaw that ended in an almost perfect triangle. He walked in step with the
gray-haired man, but instead of an envelope, he held what looked to be a heavy burlap sack. The sack was imprinted with lettering, dark and clear, that Charlie could read even from that distance:
INCREDO LAND CHARITIES
. Charlie wondered what a sack like that could possibly contain, and what it had to do with the ceremony.

He wouldn't have to wonder long, because as soon as the two men reached the lip of the steps, someone handed the gray-haired man in the suit a wireless microphone. The man smiled at the crowd, then cleared his throat.

“Thank you all for coming, and for a wonderful day at the midway tent. As you all know, our annual promotion has now come to a close, and I'm here to announce the lucky winner who will get a spin at the Wheel of Wonder!”

A smattering of applause rang out. Jeremy sighed, rather loudly, but Charlie ignored him. The man pinned the microphone under one arm, causing a loud spike of feedback but freeing his hands. He then tore into the envelope and pulled out a little piece of white paper. He read the name on the paper to himself, and then retrieved the microphone.

“And our winner, with six hundred and thirty prize tickets: Charlie Lewis, from Nagassack Middle School in Newton, Massachusetts!”

Jeremy gasped. Jeremy hadn't even seen Charlie turn in all his tickets; Charlie had handed them over to a booth attendant on the way out of the midway tent, filling out his name and school affiliation while Jeremy was busy getting photographed next to a bulgy-eyed space alien.

Charlie's stomach flipped over, and then he was being pushed forward by a hand in the small of his back. He heard Finn whisper a hearty congratulations, and then he was moving up the steps, as if on autopilot. When he reached the top, the gray-haired man shook his hand, then handed the microphone to the stranger with the glasses and the burlap sack.

The stranger smiled at Charlie.

“Young man, congratulations. Tomorrow morning, nine a.m., you'll be spinning the wheel for a chance at a wonderful prize.”

Charlie stared out at the crowd, savoring the moment. He was barely listening as the man continued, his mind already speeding ahead to that wheel and what it was going to be like standing there, spinning it, surreptitiously reaching for the iPhone in his pocket.

“Eight lifetime tickets to Incredo Land, which in itself is a priceless prize. But on top of that, we have a special, surprise announcement to make. This year, Incredo Land will be making a donation to the Tampa
chapter of the American Red Cross. And as part of our promotional effort to raise awareness for this wonderful cause, we're also matching that donation with a cash prize for today's midway game winner. Something as spectacular as the future itself! This!”

With a flourish, he overturned the burlap sack, spilling its contents onto the porch at his feet. A hush went through the crowd, and Charlie's eyes shot open.

“Fifty thousand dollars!” the man crowed into the microphone as Charlie and the rest of the crowd took in the banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Two Incredo Land lackeys in gray work shirts moved to scoop up the bills and shove them back in the sack as the man continued to talk. “Donated by our corporate headquarters this year, and this year only, to celebrate the fact that the Tampa Red Cross raised over two million dollars in the Tampa area over the past twelve months! On the stage tomorrow, next to the wheel, we'll have a box set up to take donations for the Tampa Red Cross, but right now, it's all about you, Charlie! Congratulations!”

Charlie's throat constricted.
Fifty thousand dollars.
He watched as a pair of photographers began photographing the money, obviously for publicity purposes. Cash made a much better picture than a check in an envelope. It was doubtful they'd be handing that kind
of money over to a kid; they'd be giving it to the kid's parent or guardian for safekeeping. Charlie felt his face flush from the inside.

Miranda had mentioned there would be a cash prize, but she'd said it was nominal, something small and unimportant, and that it would be donated to charity—specifically, to her education program.
Fifty thousand dollars?
That was real money.

“That's right, Charlie,” the man continued. “Tomorrow morning, you'll be spinning the wheel with a chance to win those tickets, and fifty thousand dollars in cash!”

Charlie's head swam. He looked out into the crowd. Jeremy was still staring at him, mouth wide open, awed. Finn, Magic, Sam, and the rest were clapping, surprised as well, but obviously thrilled. He blinked hard, not knowing what to think.

So much money.
When it was just tickets, and maybe a trivial amount of money given to charity, well, it was easy to see it all as an exciting caper, mind over matter, using their brains to beat a beatable game. But this kind of prize changed everything. And using his iPhone tomorrow to beat the wheel, for fifty thousand dollars in cash . . .

Charlie blinked again, and suddenly, right in the center of the crowd, he saw her. Those dark bangs glowing
in the blue light from the castle looming in the distance, those cat eyes flashing as they stared right into his own, those white teeth gleaming in that frighteningly perfect smile.

Miranda. She was looking right into his mind, and for a brief moment, her red lips straightened, and her head nodded, imperceptibly. She was proud of him, but more than that, she was telling him that he wasn't finished yet, that tomorrow morning he was going to spin that wheel. The one missing piece, the diameter of the wheel, which Charlie needed to know to make his equation work, that was just a detail, one that Miranda had a way of providing. Because it was obvious now, Miranda had thought all of this through. Every step.

The dark-haired, bespectacled man continued into the microphone.

“Tomorrow morning, Charlie, you'll have a one in five chance of winning it all.”

Charlie shivered, because he knew the truth. The man was wrong. With the diameter of the wheel and his dad's iPhone in his pocket, it wasn't going to be a one in five chance.

It was going to be a mathematical certainty. Numbers doing what numbers were supposed to do.

Winner. Winner. Winner . . .

YOU GOT TEN MINUTES,
lovebirds. If you hear me whistle, get out, fast.”

Charlie pressed his back against the brick wall, watching the shadows play across the narrow alley. He could hear Sam breathing next to him in short, nervous gasps as she slid along the wall next to him, feeling her way over the rough bricks with the palms of her hands. Charlie was happy to let her lead. He'd never been all that coordinated, and his night vision was pretty near pathetic. Even in the dull blue glow from the Castle in the distance and the drifting neon light from Solar Avenue just a dozen yards behind them, he was pretty near blind. The scruffy-haired park employee moving through the alley ahead of them, leading without ever
looking back, was just a shape in the darkness; Charlie couldn't make out the spikes of his hair, let alone the scar above his lip. If he'd known the guy's name, he might have called out to him to slow down, but then again, he probably wouldn't have had the guts. He didn't want to talk to him any more than he had to. He still wasn't sure what the man's job was at the park, or what Miranda had offered him to get him to help them, but Charlie was certain that he wanted very little to do with the guy. He was pretty sure Sam felt the same way, because she hadn't gotten closer than three feet to him since he'd let them into the park through a back gate in a shadowy corner of the docking station. When he'd brought them to the alley, just a few buildings down from Moon Base Alpha, and pointed toward the warehouselike structure where they'd need to go, they had simply followed, wordlessly, staying as small and invisible as possible. Nobody would think twice, seeing a park employee wandering around after closing, but two kids would be a lot harder to explain.