The New Champion (12 page)

Dacey pulled up right behind him. “No-o-o!”

“Heh-heh,” said Jig. “Your worst nightmare.”

The fenced-in field, about the size of Cameron's school's band room, looked mucky and slick. So did the ten motorized pigs running around inside. Cameron leaned through the fence to touch the ground. “It's not muddy.”

“It's not?” Dacey asked.

He stood. “The ground only looks muddy. It's ridged, but it's hard.”

“Which isn't getting us anywhere.” Estella pointed to the far side of the fence. “Gloves, I think.”

The gloves were more like socks. No place for fingers. No place for thumbs.

“This is so gross,” said Dacey.

She was right. The outsides of the “gloves” were greasy, and the insides were just as slimy, as if they'd been soaking in oil overnight. The pigs were shiny, too. They almost looked real, about a foot and a half long, their heads about that same distance from the ground. They were rigged to dart around fast. Not only that, but they were quaking and shaking and sort of heaving as they moved.

Jig hurdled the four-foot fence, caught up with a pig, and reached down several inches in front like he was anticipating it moving into his hands. The pig veered away as if it had radar.

“Let me show you how,” said Dacey. “Unfortunately, I've been privileged to do this before. More than once. Word to the wise: Don't enter the Miss Ragin' Razorback contest.” She ran up to a pig, lowered her hands, and her sock gloves slid off.

“Wedge them between your fingers from the back side.” Clio grabbed Dacey's hand. “Like this.”

“Thanks.” She gave Clio a smile that almost looked genuine. “Okay. So now you stand straddle-legged, reach down, and stab at them.” She did, but the pig was out of there before she clapped her hands together.

“Thanks for the lesson,” said Jig. “Just go for it, everyone.”

Cameron targeted a pig. He reached toward its nose with one hand and its tail with the other, but he lost it before he got traction. The little sucker accelerated away. There had to be Golly people with remote controls making this impossible. No one had even come close.

“Hey!” said Estella. “Listen to my idea.”

Cameron straightened for a second to stretch his back.

“These piggies can't run wild if there's no place for them to run. We need to corner them. That corner over there.” She pointed to the right.

They gathered in a
C
and tried to herd the pigs to the opposite corner, but a few sidestepped them and scooted behind.

“It won't work if we don't have them all,” said Estella. “The others will just run loose.”

“Where's she going?” said Dacey.

Clio had thrown off her gloves, had climbed the fence, and was coming back with a large camel. She handed it to Jig. “I don't think they can climb. We need to barricade them into a corner.”

Jig set the camel upright, but Clio laid it on its side, turning it into a wall.

They each climbed the fence and came back with an object. They added a stoplight, stoplight-sized hot dog, jack-in-the-box, foot, and cheese wedge. Then they worked together, moving the wall of objects forward and shoving the pigs to a corner. The pigs were still shuddering and moving, but they were also bumping into one another.

“Enough,” said Clio. “We need room for ourselves.”

There was enough room for two. Dacey and Jig went first. What should have been easy still wasn't. The wiggling pigs kept slipping from their greasy gloves.

“If only I didn't need to keep my fingers clenched together,” said Dacey.

“Just clench a couple of them,” said Clio.

And maybe if they grabbed smaller parts—

Cameron needed to say that out loud. “The pigs aren't real. Grab the ears; you can't hurt them.”

“Yeah! Did you hear that?” Clio said much louder.

“Hear what?” said Jig.

“Grab their ears or their feet. Nothing against that in the rules.”

Jig got a hand on an ear and a foot, but why'd he let it go? Maybe he didn't. The pig was wriggling and shaking. He held on the second time. “Where does this thing go?”

“Right in front of you,” said Estella.

Just outside the field was the pigpen, a giant, hollowed-out, writing type of pen all decked out with pictures of pigs and, more important, with ten compartments. Jig leaned over the fence and shoved his pig into one of them. The pig shut down.

“That's one,” said Clio.

“Two!” Dacey said.

In quick succession they each got their second pigs. Now there was enough room for the other three to get in.

Cameron butt-slid over the camel and came toe-to-toe with a pig. It darted to his right but bumped into Estella's leg. “Hold still, Estella.” She did, and he grabbed an ear and a leg like he'd seen Jig do. “Five!”

“Six!” said Clio. And about ten seconds later: “Seven!”

Again there was too much space. The remaining three pigs were darting around again.

“Either move in the hot dog and foot or come help us corner these,” Estella said.

Jig barely nudged the hot dog. Clio and Dacey climbed the fence to help.

Cameron didn't want to lose the pig he almost had. He charged at it with one leg and somehow knocked it on its side. Its wheels were spinning, and its body was wriggling; but it was going nowhere. He picked it up. “Eight!”

“What's the deal, Estella?” said Dacey. “Get a pig already.”

“You're doing fine,” said Clio. “Try what Cameron did. Try to knock one on its side. Kick it if you want. It's not alive.”

“But they look so alive,” said Estella. “All wriggly and pink like newborns.”

“They're mechanical pigs,” said Jig. “Get over it.”

Cameron stepped next to her and herded the pig a little closer to the corner. Clio joined him, and within a minute Estella had numbers nine and ten in the pen.

Puzzle time! But nothing happened.

“Bill! Where's the envelope?” yelled Jig.

“Yeah,” said Dacey. “I swear, Cameron, if you were wrong about—”

“Stop it!” said Clio. “Maybe it's the numbers on their bellies.”

“What numbers?” said Dacey.

“See?” said Clio. “The first one has a five. The next one has an eight.” She picked both up. “We should each move two of them in case that's part of the rules.”

They took out all the pigs and replaced them, one at a time, in numerical order.

“Here goes number ten,” said Estella. She slid in the last pig, and a wide banner unfurled from a beam that seemed suspended in midair.

Cameron's heart raced.
Please don't say Puzzle #1.
He couldn't bear the blame if he'd failed them.

“W
e did it!” Dacey and Jig high-fived as if they had made this happen by themselves.

Spanning the width of the banner were eight pictures: a nest, microscope, chicken coop with one rooster inside, empty egg carton, cup and saucer, sleeve, hayloft, and a bumpy, green thing. Underneath it read “PUZZLE #2.”

Bill appeared from behind the banner, throwing towels so they could clean up. “Brilliant use of resources,” he said. “But you're neck and neck with the other team. Go!” And he slid back around.

Jig pointed to the banner. “Our puzzle, I presume.”

“That's it?” said Dacey. “Just pictures?”

“Obviously,” said Estella.

Dacey waved a hand in the air. “Ooh! I've got it. It's one of those picture puzzles!”

“Well, duh,” said Jig.

“No,” she said. “Those rebuses. Like a picture of a skirt, then a minus sign, then the letter
S
, then a plus sign, then a map of the Mediterranean, which would equal ‘curtsy.'”

“Where'd you come up with that one?” said Jig. “Curtsy. Ha!”

“Well, pardon my third-grade teacher,” Dacey said.

Estella shook her head. “So that's what fills your brain. Rebuses from third grade.”

Okay then. No way Cameron would admit to learning in first grade that the Brazilian gold frog is the size of a dime.

“Sorry,” said Clio, “but does that really matter?”

“It doesn't,” Estella said, “because the puzzle is not a rebus.”

Dacey put a hand on her hip. “Why not?”

“Where are the minuses? Where are the pluses?”

“Where are the choices?” Clio said.

Cameron pointed to the banner. Very small, in the bottom-right corner, almost fading into the fabric, was an arrow at the end of a line that trailed right, then looped back onto itself.

The choices were on a table behind the banner. Had it been there before? Didn't matter. They had choices! JinxTrap, LionPaws, and DoomTomb.

Clio picked up all three and brought them around to the picture side of the banner.

“Eight pictures, eight letters in each choice,” Estella said, glaring at Dacey. “That has to mean something.”

“Fine,” said Dacey. “So it's not a rebus, but what's wrong with first impressions? It's not like we'll solve things bein' mute like him.” Dacey pointed to Cameron.

“He gave us
da
,” said Estella.

Cameron was in a no-win situation. If he stayed quiet, Dacey would be right. And if he spoke up now, she'd take the credit.

“Look,” said Clio, pointing to the puzzle, saving him from Dacey. “Somehow, these objects spell out the answer, but I don't see it yet. ‘Nest' starts with
N
and ends with
T
, and two of the choices have
N
's, and two have
T
's, but none of them start or end with those letters. In fact, none of the beginning letters of these pictures mesh with our choices. Anyone else?”

This would have been Cameron's opening, if he'd had something. Eight letters, eight objects. DoomTomb had repeated letters, but no objects repeated. Um, um . . . New tactic. If he were shooting these actual objects with his videocam, he'd focus on the straw of the nest next to soft bird feathers, then the rigid microscope with a human eye close to its lens. But that wasn't getting him anywhere.

“It's horrible,” Dacey said. “My mind's stuck on that rebus idea, and it won't move off.”

“Don't say that,” said Estella, “or we'll all get stuck.”

“I can talk,” said Dacey. “I can talk about runnin' out of eggs and lookin' at plankton through a microscope, and what are all these nests in little rooms? Bird condo?”

“I think it's a chicken coop,” said Cameron.

Dacey opened her eyes wide at him. “He speaks.”

Cameron sucked in a breath.

“But not so much.”

Estella gave her a dirty look. “He's right. Why else would there be a rooster?”

“Okay. So we can add chickens and eggs, and is anyone keepin' track of this?”

“No,” said Clio, “but go on. You're doing good. It's making me think.”

Dacey smiled. “So now there's an empty egg carton. It's like some of these have a theme and then not. You can't exactly connect nests and eggs with a sleeve or a teacup and saucer. But then we go back to the farm.” She looked at Cameron. “What do you call that?”

“A hayloft?”

“Good call,” said Dacey.

Cameron almost fainted from the shock of her compliment.

“And last, Mr. Interpreter of Pictures, you think that's a peapod?”

“Probably,” said Cameron, “but it would help if they put some peas next to it.”

“Well, duh,” Dacey said. “Of course it would help.”

Thank goodness he hadn't wasted a good faint on her. He sneaked a look to see if anyone was snickering with her; but Clio was staring at the puzzle, and Estella was staring at Jig, who was sitting on the ground, leaning back on the fence with a smirk on his face.

“Lazy, good-for-nothing, like that pig I went out with,” Estella said under her breath.

Either this wasn't Jig the Intense, or last year's TV people had created an illusion of intensity through the miracle of editing. They could have filmed Jig's fist-pumping when the Red Team guy twisted his ankle and Jig thought he might get in. Or when the goo hit Bianca and she had a brief meltdown. With the right footage, anyone could have made Jig look like a team player. Maybe he was the type who stayed lazy until he needed to get intense.

And now Dacey was on the ground, whispering to him. He could only hope she was trying to inspire him to bring his A game, but it looked like they were conspiring about something else. Forget them; otherwise, they'd all be doomed. DoomTomb doomed. Back to the puzzle.

Clio and Estella had been throwing around lame ideas—about farms and things you find around the house—but at least they were talking. They weren't looking at this right, though. When he pretended with the videocam and added the bird and—

“It's like each picture is incomplete,” he said under his breath, or so he thought.

Estella grabbed his arm. “Incomplete?”

“Yeah!” Clio said. “An egg carton without eggs and a nest without birds! Why'd they leave out the details?”

“There
is
a rooster in the chicken coop,” said Estella.

Clio nodded. “But maybe he's there so we understand the picture. Like the pitchfork in the hayloft that doesn't have any hay. Maybe it's what's
missing
from the pictures.” She patted him on the back.

Jig and Dacey came closer.

“Nice of you to join us,” said Estella. “We are not your Little Red Hens.”

“Huh?” said Jig.

“The story. No one would help the Little Red Hen bake her bread, so she ate it herself.”

Dacey sighed. “Why on earth . . . ?”

“Look,” Clio said. “This isn't divas on parade, and I'm talking to you, too, Jig. So either start working, or you two may as well let your alternates take your place.”

“FYI,” said Dacey, “we were working.”

“On what?” said Estella.

Clio must have borrowed “the look” Cameron hated to see from his mom. But she used it for only a second. “So what's missing from each picture?”

Jig stepped up like he was suddenly running the show. “Picture number one, the bird's missing. Two, the microscope has a slide there, so maybe someone to look at it. Three, no chickens in the chicken house. Or hens, I should say. Little red hens, the three of you fine workers. Right, Estella?”

She ignored him.

“No eggs in the egg carton. Nothing to drink in the cup. A sleeve without the rest of the shirt or without an arm. No hay in the hayloft. And we can't see the peas in the pod.”

“Who's we?” Estella said.

“Drop it.” Clio went around the puzzle and came back with pens and paper. She handed them to Cameron. “Write down what's missing as we repeat. Write it big.”

He wrote as Clio dictated.

 

1. Bird

2. Person

3. Chicken/hen

4. Eggs

5. Drink

6. Arm/shirt

7. Hay

8. Peas

 

“It still doesn't spell anything,” said Dacey.

Even Estella didn't give her the stink eye.

“I don't want to be rude and think out loud again.” Dacey paused and looked at Estella.

“Go ahead.”

“But it's hard for me to shut my mouth and be productive at the same time. It seems the list is both specific and general.”

“What does that mean?” asked Estella.

Dacey shot her a glance.

“No, really, genuinely,” Estella said. “Explain.”

“Chickens, eggs, arms, hay, and peas are objects. Birds and people and drinks are categories. So maybe we need to get specific with those, too.”