by Adam Wallace
ROUND ONE
We sat across from the other team.
‘What’s wrong, poor kid? Bit warm in here?’
I stared at Nasty Jefferson.
‘I’m fine, Princess and the pea. I’m just a bit …’
‘Nervous?’ he interrupted. ‘Concerned the only word you will say is toilet?’
I was. I totally was. Well, toilet and other random words. Or nothing at all, and I didn’t know what would be worse.
I hung my head.
‘Chin up, Brown,’ Mr Jefferson said. ‘We have a competition to win.
You must lead your team.’
He gave me an encouraging smile.
It made me feel better.
Not for long though.
TOP FIVE REASONS THE
COMPETITION WAS TERRIBLE
1. I was really nervous and the Quizmaster had the biggest shiniest teeth ever, which were really distracting.
2. I didn’t answer ONE question in the first five rounds. Even if I knew the answer, which I did to quite a few, I was so scared of what would come out of my mouth I never even buzzed in.
3. The Jeffersons were really good and smart and kept us in the competition.
4. I knew if I wasn’t so nervous I would have been gooder … gooder? AAAAAGGGGGHH! So dumb today!
5. I was desperate. In a break between rounds, I tried to set up the Quizmaster by slipping a card into his back pocket, so I could impress him later with my reveal. But …
‘Do NOT squeeze my buttocks! Five point penalty to Snootyville Grammar!’
And then I had my lightning round. Everyone had to do one. My topic was geography.
‘Name the capital city of Romania.’
‘Incorrect! Name the world’s tallest mountain.’
‘Incorrect. Name the continents.’
Okay, I totally knew this one. It was time for Jamie Brown to take charge.
I breathed deep and …
DAMMIT!!!
And on it went. It was one minute of pure torture. It was so embarrassing, but I just couldn’t stop it. The Jeffersons’ plan was working. They were smirking away, and Mr Jefferson was not happy.
‘Stop trying to be funny and simply answer the questions, Brown.
Why are you attempting to lose on purpose?’
I tried to explain to him that it was all nerves, but he wouldn’t listen.
‘La la la la laaaaaa, I’m not listening to you!’
Ooooookay then.
Somehow, well, because of the Jeffersons, we reached the final. We were up against Snobtown College.
I stood off to the side in the break. Harmison and Dakota tried to make me feel better, but I was a lost cause.
The cleaner was mopping the stage – and the desk under me – keeping it nice for the cameras. The Quizmaster walked by, about to eat an apple, and they bumped into each other.
After they untangled, the cleaner turned and winked at me.
Weird.
Dakota and Harmison shrugged, said good luck, then went and sat back down.
So did I.
It was time for the final.
CHAPTER 24
IT’S THE
FINAL
COUNTDOWN
The final started. The Jeffersons were on fire.
‘CORRECT!’
‘CORRECT!’
‘That answer is … CORRECT!’
As good as they were though, the other team was better, and had four decent players. By the time the final round of questions arrived, we were six points down. Every right answer was worth two points … every wrong answer meant you lost two points!
The Quizmaster took his questions from his shirt pocket.
It started. With five questions to go, we were still six points down.
You could have cut the tension in the air with those dodgy pre-school scissors!
The cleaner walked behind us.
‘It might be time for the captain to start answering questions,’ he said.
Then he mopped the back of Nasty Jefferson’s head and walked off.
Weird. But he was right. Nervous or not, set up or not, I was me and I was the captain.
‘What is the English translation of the Spanish word … toalete?’
I had to stand tall. I was as scared as anything, but I buzzed.
Now I had to answer. I got nervous again. Only one word popped into my head. I shut my eyes and spoke.
‘CORRECT!’
HUH???????
Another question.
‘A person who did much to increase the popularity of the toilet was Thomas …?’
I felt more confident. I buzzed again.
‘CORRECT!’
Woah! What a fluke! And, best of all, we were ONLY TWO POINTS DOWN WITH THREE QUESTIONS TO GO!
The other team was getting worried, and the Jeffersons were in shock. This wasn’t part of the plan.
I was on a roll though, and not a toilet roll, or a ham and cheese roll, but a question-answering roll.
Next question.
‘Name one of the twelve apostles.’
‘CORRECT, although I don’t know why you said “the”. Whatever. SCORES ARE TIED!!!’
The crowd was going nuts. Harmison, Dakota and all my British Bulldogs friends were cheering their heads off … not literally, they weren’t zombies.
Mum and Dad and Katie and Dakota’s parents were cheering too, and even Mr Jefferson looked happy.
The second last question. Scores level. Nasty Jefferson tried to steal the glory and used my technique.
‘Name a word that rhymes with quitter.’
BUZZZZ.
‘INCORRECT!’.
Then he fainted.
Two points down.
One question left.
‘If you are given something in place of or instead of another thing, it is given in …?’
‘CORRECT! IT IS GIVEN IN LIEU!!!’
‘Scores are tied at the end of the final. This is so exciting! We will now have a tie-break question. The captain must buzz in and the first correct answer wins. There will be no points off for an incorrect answer, so simply have a go even if you are not sure.
Are you ready, Haughton Smatherson the Fourth?’
The kid from Snobtown College nodded. He looked as nervous as I felt. Between us we had enough nervous sweat to fill an Olympic swimming pool, and you wouldn’t want to swallow a mouthful of THAT water when you were swimming.
I was nervous because I realised I was out of toilet words.
‘Are you ready, Jamie Brown?’
I nodded, but I was in trouble. Jefferson’s plan was working. He woke up out of his faint.
The Quizmaster pulled the tie-break question from his pants pocket.
‘Name the person nominated as the greatest card trickster in the world for twenty-one years straight.’
OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!! I KNEW THIS ONE! I ACTUALLY KNEW IT, AND HOVEL STREET WAS GOING TO HELP ME WIN IN SNOOTYVILLE! THIS WAS AWESOME!
BUZZ!!!
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA - GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHH- HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH- HHHHHHHH!!!’
The other kid had buzzed in first!
He answered.
‘The greatest card trickster in the world for twenty-one years straight was Yevgeny Dosdonovic.’
‘INCORRECT!’ Dosdonovic’s reign lasted twenty years and eleven months.’
I breathed a massive sigh of relief, right into Jefferson’s face. He gagged, but we were still in the game.
‘If Snootyville Grammar answers correctly, they will win Academic Challenge. If they are incorrect, there will be a new tie-break question. As Snobtown College answered incorrectly, any member of Snootyville Grammar may buzz in with the answer.’
Jefferson went for his glory buzz, but I delicately blocked his hand …
… and kicked my own buzzer.
Nasty Jefferson glared at me. ‘If you get this wrong, poor trash, you will pay the price.’
I smiled at him.
&
nbsp; ‘Sorry, little Lord Fauntleroy, there’s no price to pay. The greatest card trickster in the world for twenty-one years straight was my hero, the amazing Mr Igor Kravoski.’
He paused for what seemed like twenty-one years straight.
‘CORRECT! SNOOTYVILLE GRAMMAR WINS ACADEMIC CHALLENGE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS!!!’
It was the greatest moment of my life.
CHAPTER 25
A VISITOR
VISITS
I was exhausted when we got home. We sat and talked about the day. Mum and Dad were so proud of me, which was awesome.
Then the doorbell rang.
We went to the door, hoping it wasn’t Security again, or the Jeffersons, trying to ruin the day.
It wasn’t.
It was the cleaner, but all cleaned up. Mum screamed and gave him a huge hug.
‘Well that was unexpected,’ Dad said. ‘You two know each other?’
Mum let go of the cleaner and looked at us with tears in her eyes.
‘Yes we know each other,’ she said. ‘Marcus, Jamie, Katie, this is …
…BARNABY
VON BARNABUS!’
We all ooooohed and aaaaaaahed and went inside. Barnaby was so nice. He said he had taken the job at the school as a cleaner when he knew we were coming. He wanted to be able to keep an eye on me, and make sure the other kids weren’t giving me too hard a time.
I thought about all the times he had helped and/or stuck up for me and/or mopped Jefferson in the face.
He also said that he knew about my nerves and my toilet problems (speaking-wise!) after overhearing me argue with the Jeffersons at Academic Challenge training.
‘And how about at the actual challenge?’ I asked. ‘How did you know I should start answering?’
He smiled.
‘Jamie, I never condone cheating, ever. Do you hear me? But those Jeffersons had set you up. They paid to see the questions, and they paid to have every question suit their own knowledge. They even researched all the other teams’ strengths and had the questions altered for that reason as well.’
‘How did you know all this?’ asked Dad.
Barnaby smiled.
‘I’m the cleaner. Kids laugh at me, they tease me, but they also think nothing of me. So I hear things they don’t want anyone else to hear. I see letters they don’t want anyone else to see. I know everything about that school, because everyone thinks I know nothing. They don’t know it, but by their attitude they are making me the most powerful person at that school! Anyway, it was all rigged. Especially the last round. They wanted the glory. So …’
He trailed off. Mum got it first.
‘No way,’ she said, eyes wide. ‘Not when you bumped into the Quizmaster? Not the old switcheroony?’
Barnaby nodded. Mum laughed.
‘I told you he was brilliant at sleight of hand, Jamie. Just like you!’
He was brilliant. As he bumped the Quizmaster, Barnaby had:
Flicked open the Quizmaster’s shirt pocket
Taken out the old questions
Put the old questions in his overalls
Taken out the new questions
Put the new questions back into the Quizmaster’s pocket
Stolen the Quizmaster’s apple, taken a bite and thrown it away
Closed the pocket and patted it nicely
He had just hoped the new questions were in the right order. I was rapt he had helped, but it made me feel like a bit of a fraud. Barnaby could tell I was upset.
‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘the Jeffersons hadn’t planned on a tie-breaker, so they hadn’t changed that question. And neither had I, it was in his pants pocket. I couldn’t and didn’t want to get it.’
It took a few seconds, but then I understood. It had been me. I had answered the final question. Hovel Street had saved me.
Barnaby nodded. Mum and Dad said again and again how proud they were of me. It was so amazing. Barnaby stayed. He said that he couldn’t yet reveal his identity to the world, as that would only cause trouble … so he actually was kind of like Batman!
He said he would stay on as the cleaner, in disguise, and, if I wanted, he would be my new teacher.
‘You have the greatest mentor, Jamie. Mr Kravoski is a genius, but I do have a few tricks of my own. I know snooty people, I know how they work. They are going to want you out. When they find out how rich you are, they’re going to try and get your money. They don’t like change, and they don’t like those who are different. My question is, are you up for the challenge? Do you think the Browns can stay in Snootyville?’
Mum, Dad, Katie and I all cheered, which meant yes. Get ready, Snootyville. The Browns have moved uptown and we’re not leaving!
CHAPTER 26
PAGE 186
FINDS ITS
PLACE
