“Cool, you’re up,” she says with droopy eyes, and unloads the flowers onto the table. Her cart is full of neatly folded pink towels and our team shirts.
“Do you need help?” I ask, looking for a sign that she still hates this camp for ruining her life.
“No. It’s my job. I can do it.”
“But you don’t have to wait on me.” I help her anyway, taking the piles from the cart. “Thanks for all this,” I say giving her the best smile I can. “I like your headband.”
She tilts her head. “This thing? It’s part of my uniform.”
“I like it.”
She smiles a little and looks at me with a weird expression. Maybe she’s not used to the kids here being nice to her. “Thanks,” she says and carries yesterday’s carnations out the door.
I stare at the daisies. It’s weird. I’m used to getting flowers every day now. I’m used to scrambled apples and floating sparkles over my bed. The competition is seven days away, and as soon as the Piedmont National Finals are over, I might have to go back to Crimson. If we don’t finish in the top five, then we won’t advance to the Global Championships. I won’t get to enroll at PIPS. I’ll get sent home to be programmed for math.
I shove the thought out of my head. No room for that right now. We have to get to the bottom of the staircase. Ander and Jax are probably waiting for us.
“What do you think’s going on?” Ander asks, as we walk into the dining hall. “Andora’s message last night was strange.”
I feel a pang in my stomach. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe they want to pump us up. We only have a week left.”
“Yeah, that’s probably it.”
Seraphina and Gregor slip into their seats as Master Freeman steps up to the microphone. I’m expecting more balloons, confetti, or a laser show. The bells chime in a quiet rhythm, but that’s all we get.
“Good morning, State Champions. I address you this way as a reminder that you have come here as the brightest and most creative sixth graders in your states. Over the past five weeks, you’ve worked together to solve a task using skills from each of our six categories. You have seven days to put the finishing touches on your solutions. Just one week from tomorrow, you will present to the judges at our Piedmont Rehearsal. Parents and family members have received their invitations, and I’m sure they are as anxious as we are to see the solutions you’ve created.”
We glance at each other. I don’t think any of us can believe we’ll see our families and show everyone our play in one week!
“This year, the Piedmont Organization has made a change to the rules of the Piedmont National Finals.”
The bells ring again louder this time. Still, nothing can mask the sounds of two-hundred and fifty kids and their preceptors shuffling in their seats.
“In previous Piedmont National Finals, all fifty teams have competed for a chance to advance to the Global Championships. This year, however, the Piedmont Rehearsal will not be just a practice. All fifty teams will be judged. The teams who receive at least one-hundred and fifty points out of a possible two hundred at Rehearsal Judging will be allowed to compete in The Piedmont National Finals.”
What?
“We believe the amendment to the rules will encourage our teams to push themselves even harder during the final week of camp. Good luck with your final preparations. Preceptors, you will receive your Rehearsal Judging times later today.”
“That’s not fair!” I exclaim, way louder than I should.
Ander’s mouth hangs open. “They can’t do that! Can they, Seraphina?”
Seraphina looks as shocked as the rest of us. “I can’t believe they changed the rules with just seven days to go! They’ve never done anything like this before.”
“So there’s a chance we might not get to compete at the Finals?” asks Jax.
“Yes,” Gregor replies. “There’s a very real possibility that you will not receive enough points to compete.”
Mare shakes her head. “This is not right.”
“No!” I cry. “We have to compete!”
Ander jumps up from his chair. His eyebrows are practically touching. “We have to get to the National Finals!”
“We can still do it,” says Jillian. “We can get the one-hundred and fifty points.”
“No problem,” says Mare. “We’re doing a play, remember?”
“That’s the spirit,” says Seraphina.
I don’t get it! “Why did they have to change the rules?”
Witch Girl is watching me, and leans over close to us. “What’s the big deal? Any team who can’t get at least one-hundred and fifty points doesn’t deserve to compete at the finals anyway. You’d have to present the judges a pile of junk not to get that.”
I don’t answer her. None of us do.
Seraphina stands up. “Come on. Let’s get some scrambled apples and head over to the shed. We have some practicing to do.”
Who cares about scrambled apples? They don’t even sound good anymore.
PILES
My team heads outside to the shed where the air gets hotter and stickier the closer we get. I take an elastic band off my wrist and pull my hair back into a ponytail. Gregor reaches inside his pocket for the keys. There’s a small part of me that doesn’t want him to open the door. I’m not sure I want to go inside. I want to jump on an aero-cart and drive as fast as I can, to let the breeze un-jumble my brain, the part that doesn’t get why Master Freeman changed the rules. But I know I can’t. He did change the rules, so I have to walk inside the shed and begin rehearsing. If we’re going to have a chance to compete at the National Finals, we have to get those points at Rehearsal Judging first.
I look at my teammates’ discouraged faces. This is not a good way to begin practicing. “Hold on guys. Wait a second. I hate this new rule too, but let’s not get mad. Maybe Witch Girl is right. What’s the big deal? Our solution is good. We just have to practice really hard.”
“Yeah,” says Ander. “She’s right. We can do this.”
The keys jingle in the lock until it clicks. Gregor pushes the door open and turns on the light. I look to the center of the room at the Ghost Gallery. The tarp we’ve been using to cover it is crumpled on the floor like a puddle. I don’t understand at first. It takes me a second to realize what’s happened. But then it hits me and I catch my breath.
Our Ghost Gallery is smashed into a million pieces.
Ander screams. “What the—”
“What happened?” shouts Mare.
I stand frozen, not able to believe what I’m seeing. A letter G with a red drip lies near my foot next to a letter Y and a letter L. Our Ghost Gallery box, the whole thing—the coffin, the oven, the rocket, the gallery . . . it’s all destroyed. My hopes for making it to the National Finals crash to the ground.
Seraphina runs to the pile. Jax sifts through the mess, picking up pieces of metal and wood. There are a ton of them, cracked and smashed and mixed together with nails and pieces of paint.
Gregor clears his throat. “It appears as though your object may not have been as strong as you thought.”
Why doesn’t he just punch us in our stomachs?
“Yes, it was!” Ander screams. “It didn’t just crash to the floor!”
“How else would you explain this pile of junk?”
Jax swings around. His face is flaming red. “It’s not a pile of junk! We worked hard on this.”
Seraphina glares at Gregor. “I know you did, Jax—all of you did.”
I finally find my voice. “What happened? It couldn’t have just fallen apart.”
Jax crouches near the remains of the Ghost Gallery and tries to put a metal crank back together. “I know it didn’t collapse. It was secure last night when we covered it up.”
Mare and Ander kneel down next to him. “I checked and doub
le checked the whole structure,” says Mare. “It was built like a tank.”
“Really?” Gregor crosses his arms across his chest. “Well, it’s not like a tank anymore. I would suggest you decide what your next course of action will be.”
Seraphina takes out her phone. “I’ll call the maintenance crew and ask them to take all of this to the dumpsters.”
“No!” I scream, running to the desecrated pile. “You can’t throw it away. It’s our solution!”
Jillian blinks back tears. “Kia, it’s in a million pieces. We’ll never be able to put it all back together.”
“Then I’ll do it myself!” I brush the small pieces into their own pile. “That’s what got me to this competition in the first place. I know I worked harder than any of you to get here, and I can work harder on this too. You can’t stop me! Seraphina, please don’t throw it away!”
My team looks at me wide-eyed. Ander adds a piece to my pile. “We’ll ride over to Piedmont Pantry and get some more paint and wood and nails and cranks—”
“No, unfortunately that’s against camp rules,” says Gregor. “Only one trip per team is allowed.”
“But they’ll make an exception for us,” says Jillian, her eyes now filled with tears. “Won’t they?”
“No, they won’t. That rule has been challenged many times. Teams have run out of materials before and needed more. Their petitions have never been approved. Part of the challenge in this competition is managing your supplies.”
“Well, part of problem solving is perseverance,” says Ander. “I’ll call Master Freeman myself.”
Seraphina steps in. “You don’t have to Ander. I will petition the committee on your behalf. Gregor, please round up containers for the team. If their petition gets denied, they may need to reuse some of these parts. Kia’s right. We can’t throw away all their hard work.”
“Very well, but I think they must start working on another solution since their petition will probably get denied.”
“Another solution?” asks Ander. “You mean start over?”
“I am not starting all over!” says Mare.
Seraphina lets out a big breath. “No need to panic. Let’s find out about the petition first. I’ll know today if you’ll be allowed to make another trip to the Pantry.”
Jillian wipes her eyes. “I hope so. I loved our Ghost Gallery.”
I look at the mess, and then at my team. “I’ll stay up all night to make another one. It won’t take as long as the first time since we already know how to build it.”
“We all will,” says Ander.
“Yeah,” says Mare. “Who needs sleep?”
“Well then, I’ll submit our petition.”
“And I will retrieve the containers,” says Gregor. “The sooner this pile of junk is cleaned up the better.”
Ander makes a nasty face at him. Too bad he doesn’t notice before he walks out the door. No one says anything for a few minutes, but I can’t stand the silence. “I can’t believe it’s destroyed.”
“We were completely done,” says Mare. “All we had to do was practice. Now we have to rebuild this whole thing.”
“We’ll never have enough time,” says Jillian. “Even if we can get more supplies.”
“Yes, we will. Mare will make us another schedule,” I say. “It worked before. It can work now too. Right, Mare?”
“Right,” she says. “I’ll make another schedule, but first let’s sort this stuff into piles. One for wood, one for nails and one for metal pieces. Then when we’re done, I’ll write out a schedule for the next seven days.”
Seven days. It’s fine. We were going to use this time to practice. Another small setback. So what if our whole object is destroyed? We’ll just have to work even harder than we planned, just like Master Freeman said this morning. We must push ourselves this last week. We can do it. Seven days to rebuild, rehearse, and be ready. It’s okay. It’s going to be fine.
BLAME GAMES
Gregor sets the plastic bins down with a thud near the pile that used to be our Ghost Gallery. “Seraphina and I are meeting with Master Freeman in twenty minutes. We’ll return with his response shortly.” He exits the shed, and we begin filling the bins with scraps of wood and metal.
“Jax is right,” says Ander. “I don’t think the Ghost Gallery fell apart by itself. And even if it did, it wouldn’t crash into so many pieces.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I say, examining a piece of my mangled artwork. If the wooden box fell off the bracket, it would crash to the ground. The sides might break apart, but they wouldn’t split into tiny slivers.”
Jax peers into the crevices of a metal crank. “And why would these metal pieces be smashed? If the cranks broke apart, they might have cracked in a couple places, not been crushed. Look at this one. It looks like it’s been flattened by a steam roller.”
“Let me see that,” says Ander, grabbing the piece out of his hand. “You’re right. Even if the box fell on this piece, it wouldn’t end up this flat.”
“So how did it get like that?” asks Jillian.
Jax closes the shed door. “I think someone did it.”
“On purpose?” asks Jillian. “Like who?”
“I don’t know,” says Jax.
“But why would someone do that?” she asks. “All of the kids here know how much work this is—no one would do this to another team.”
“Are you sure about that?” I ask. “What if another team thought our solution was better than theirs?”
“So?” asks Jillian.
Mare nods. “Maybe they would try to eliminate their competition.”
“But we don’t know where the other teams have been storing their materials. How could any of them know about our stuff?” asks Jillian.
“They could if they’ve been spying on us!” says Mare.
“Or if someone’s big mouth told them,” says Ander. “It’s all my fault! I told Witch Girl from Michigan we were doing a play. It must have been them. They did it and it’s all because of me!” He storms off to the back corner and sits down with his head buried in his knees. I’m sure he must be crying.
“Ander, come on,” says Jillian. “It’s not your fault.”
He doesn’t look up.
I feel sick to my stomach. “The Michigan team probably was spying on us. When they found out we were doing a play, I bet they wanted to wreck our sets so we wouldn’t beat them. That’s why they destroyed our Ghost Gallery!”
“That’s so mean,” says Jillian.
“I knew Witch Girl was evil,” says Mare. “I’m going to find her and—
“And what?” asks Jax. “Yell at her? Fight her? You can’t prove her team did this.”
Jillian kneels next to Ander. He looks up and explodes. “You all hate me. I know you do! Well, that’s okay because I hate me too. I’m so stupid. We were going to win this competition, and now we don’t even have anything to show the judges.”
“We don’t hate you,” says Mare. “They smashed all this. You didn’t.”
“But they wouldn’t have known we even had sets for a play if it weren’t for me.”
“Maybe they would have destroyed whatever object we created,” says Jax.
“He’s right,” says Jillian. “It’s not your fault.”
I know I should agree with Jillian. I should tell Ander that I’m not mad at him. But I can’t. It probably is his fault, and now we have nothing.
We kneel on the floor trying to organize the mess. Ander eventually walks over but I don’t look at him.
“Hopefully Seraphina and Gregor will come back and say we can go to the Piedmont Pantry and grab more supplies,” says Mare.
“And then we can rebuild,” says Jax.
“We can rehearse during our breaks,” says Jillian. “We know our lines. It will be easy. At le
ast our costumes are okay.”
“Are they?” I ask.
Mare beats me to the cupboard. She pulls out five zippered bags, perfectly intact. “Here’s our paperwork too. At least they didn’t wreck any of this.”
“See?” says Jillian. “It’s not so bad.”
I stare at the floor and I think maybe Mare’s right. We’ll just work hard. It was fun building the Ghost Gallery the first time. We can do it again. I’m almost ready to forgive Ander, to say that I don’t blame him when Seraphina and Gregor march in.
Ander scrambles to his feet. “What did they say?”
Gregor speaks with no expression on his face at all. “Your petition has been denied.”
“No!” Ander screams. “Why?”
“I’m so sorry,” says Seraphina. “We did our best to plead your case. Master Freeman wouldn’t budge.”
I bite my ring finger nail. “Why not?”
“He told us what we already knew. No exceptions can be made to the rules. They were established decades ago by Lexland and Andora Appelonia and he would not go against them,” says Gregor.
“But what about the rule he changed yesterday, the one about the Rehearsal Judging?” I ask.
“Yeah,” says Ander. “He changed that one.”
“I challenged that point too,” says Seraphina. “Master Freeman believes that rule was changed to further challenge the teams.”
“So—” says Mare.
“He feels that by denying your request for more supplies, we are further challenging you. He said you are The New York team—the Crimson Five—and you’ll find a way to come back stronger.”
Ander throws up his arms. “I knew they were going to judge us harder. It isn’t fair!”
I fall back down on the floor. Ander’s right. This isn’t fair—and it’s all his fault. If he hadn’t told Witch Girl that we were doing a play, then her team never would have worried that our solution was better than theirs. They never would have spied on us to see where our set was. They never would have found it, and they never would have wrecked it. Why did he have to have such a big mouth?
Spin the Golden Light Bulb Page 13
