The Prizewinners of Piedmont Place

by Bill Doyle

  “A toddler wandering the store alone?” Cal rolled his eyes. “Come on!”

  Imo shrugged. “Could be true. All those Circles and aisles make a pretty confusing maze. I mean, have you ever been in one of those stores?”

  “Uh, yes,” Cal answered. “Maybe three or four times…with you.”

  “And how many of those times did we get lost?” Imo countered. “Three or four?”

  Secretly, Cal admitted Imo had a point. “I still think that story’s a lie.”

  “Just because you make everything up doesn’t mean other people do,” Imo fired back.

  Mrs. T. held up her hands. “Okay, okay. It doesn’t matter if this stuff is true. We just need to figure out a path through the store that will take us to the things we want.”

  “I’m on it,” Cal said. He ran up to his bedroom, grabbed his whiteboard, and brought it back to the living room. The board was where Cal came up with some of his best ideas—like the master plan to convince his parents they needed a swimming pool. (That plan had failed in the first stage: “Persuade parents to wear sweaters during a heat wave so they get really, really hot.”)

  Cal uncapped his marker and got ready to write down ideas from Mrs. T. “Okay, shoot,” he said.

  Now that his parents were on board with the contest, Cal figured he would have to give up a little control. But his mom shook her head.

  “We’ll all come up with ideas,” Mrs. T. said. “But mostly it’s got to be you, Cal. Think of your dad and me as the team owners, and you’re the quarterback. Okay?”

  “Better than okay,” Cal said. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Imo didn’t seem as enthusiastic about this way of thinking. But she finally nodded. “All right, all right,” she groaned. “What should we do first, oh, mighty QB?”

  Cal wrote one word on the board: MAP.

  Because they weren’t allowed to visit the store before the contest and they couldn’t find a map of it online, Cal came up with a plan to make their own map. That way, they could plot their course.

  He asked Mrs. T. to hunt for pictures online from other Wish Shoppes—and she found quite a few. Most were of people goofing around, holding up a compass or scratching their heads as if hopelessly lost. A few held up wish lists that included things like “I wish I could find my way out of here!” Mrs. T. printed out the photos, and the family pieced them together into a weird kind of map.

  Imo and Cal taped it to the living room wall and stood back to take a look.

  “Holy Aristotle,” Cal breathed. “That map is huge.”

  “Just like the store,” Mrs. T. said. “After all, it covers more land than downtown Hawkins.”

  To train their brains to find what they wanted, Cal asked Imo to invent scavenger hunts around the house. He timed family members as they darted in and out of rooms, up and down stairs, looking for the strange items on Imo’s lists.

  “Here, Dad,” Imo said, and handed Mr. T. a checklist. “You have to find old floss, a green feather, and a toy army figure.”

  Cal was pretty athletic, but no one in the family had ever prepped for a competition quite like this. They were sloppy at first, tripping over their own feet and panicking when time started to run out.

  When Bug ran into Imo carrying a bucket of sand from the sandbox and it fell into the dishwasher, Cal was struck by a bad thought. The chaos would be three million times worse at the Wish Shoppe. With so many amazing possibilities of things they could put in their carts—like toys, TVs, or tennis racquets—plus the time pressure, Cal realized they would be a mess.

  “One thing,” he said that night at the dinner table. The family was exhausted and just about to dig into Bug’s second-favorite meal, meat loaf.

  “What one thing?” Imo asked, pouring ketchup on her meat loaf.

  “That’s the answer,” Cal said. “We need to stick with the one thing that each of us wants on the day of the contest. Otherwise we’re going to get distracted and make mistakes. After we get that, we can grab whatever else we want if there’s time.”

  “Excellent advice,” Mr. T. said. When everyone agreed, he added, “Please pass the rice.”

  The next day, the family spent hours plotting routes on the map. They stuck with just the Circles that had things they wanted: gym equipment, musical instruments, science gear, video games, and…Bug still wasn’t clear on what he wanted.

  “We can forget about this whole side of the store,” Cal said, pointing to the map. “All the Circles we want to hit, like the Fun and Games Circle and the Fitness Circle, are over here.”

  “But what if we get lost?” Imo said. “And wind up on the other side?”

  “We won’t,” Cal said. “We’re going to be too prepped for that.”

  Cal decided they should get ready for any possible tricks Mr. Vance might throw their way at the final elimination. Like doing everything backward, including talking.

  “No emoc!” Cal said. “Nuf s’ti!”

  Imo threw a couch pillow at him. “Bmud s’taht!”

  They kept practicing, pretending to shop while skipping, singing, and spinning. The Talaskas trained all day, every day.

  The night before the contest, Cal studied the map of the store…for what felt like the billionth time. He barely noticed that his dad was behind him and had his glasses on a slant.

  Mr. T. was mumbling something about “memorizing the entire store.” But Cal was too busy staring at the map and didn’t really hear him. He focused on the Fun and Games Circle. That was where he would grab the Wonder World Video Game System. Once Cal had that, he would toss into the cart anything else that would fit.

  But there was one thing he dreamed of grabbing tomorrow more than anything—and that was respect. Cal wanted the Wylots and everyone else in Hawkins to treat his family like the winners he knew they were.

  In fact, Cal wanted it so deeply, he imagined he could see the word RESPECT floating over the map.

  “I’m coming for you,” Cal said, tapping the map, and then he went to bed.

  On the morning of the Great Grab Contest, the Talaskas woke up and brushed their teeth, as they always did. But Cal noticed something different.

  There wasn’t fighting over who was next in line for the bathroom. No frantic search for a missing sock. No BTAs. Cal’s family was like a well-oiled machine.

  We’re just like the Rivales, he thought. Then Bug smeared toothpaste in Imo’s hair, and Cal thought, Well, not exactly.

  Cal, Imo, and Bug came downstairs to the kitchen, where their parents were waiting. Mr. T. started ringing the family bell like crazy.

  “Surprise!” Mrs. T. said. “If we’re going to be a strong team today, we should look the part. Your dad and I made costumes!”

  Mr. T. pointed to six piles of clothing on the table. Five of them had a purple velvet belt and a purple velvet shirt with a family member’s name on the front and TALASKA on the back. There was even a new purple collar for Butler.

  “Hmm,” Cal said. Was this a good idea? But Imo had already pulled her shirt on top of her overalls, and Bug was putting the collar on Butler.

  Why not? Cal thought. He slid the belt through the loops in his pants and reached for his shirt. It was baggy in places and tight in others, but he loved it. He felt like a superhero.

  “Thanks!” he said to his parents. “We’ve got forty-five minutes to get to the Wish Shoppe. Plenty of time, but we should hit the road right after we eat.”

  They wolfed down a breakfast of pancakes and, feeling pumped, hustled out to the driveway. But when they got there, it was as if someone let all the air out of their balloon.

  Or tire.

  “Oh no,” Cal said.

  The Flying Monkey’s front-right tire had finally collapsed. The car was hunched over to one side, the tire rim resting on the gravel.

  Imo crouched and touched the tire’s gaping hole. “I can’t patch it. The hole’s too big. The Flying Monkey is grounded.”

  “And so are our hopes of getting to the W
ish Shoppe on time,” Mrs. T. groaned. Then her eyes went to Mr. T.’s face. “Honey, are you okay?”

  As Cal watched, a vein on Mr. T.’s neck popped out and his cheek started twitching. Mr. T. opened his mouth, and Cal thought about when he poured soda too quickly into a glass—how the fizz would overflow and go everywhere. That seemed to be happening with his dad.

  As Mr. T. stared at the deflated tire, he looked like everything inside him was about to overflow.

  “Honey?” Mrs. T. said again.

  Mr. T. clamped his mouth shut in a tight line. Then he stomped toward the house, counting to ten. Actually, he went way past ten and just kept going and going.

  This can’t be the way things end, Cal thought. His mind raced through possible solutions.

  “We could walk,” Cal said.

  Imo shook her head. “Way too far.”

  “Bikes?”

  Imo shook her head again. Cal remembered that their mom didn’t have one and she couldn’t ride double.

  “Let’s get a lift from someone,” Cal said. As if on cue, a van started up in the driveway next door and backed into the street. It was the Rivales! They must be heading out to the Wish Shoppe, thought Cal.

  “Wait!” he shouted. Waving his arms, he ran with Imo to the sidewalk. But the Rivales must have thought the Talaskas were just saying hello. They waved back in perfect unison and drove down the street.

  Imo looked at the other houses. “Everyone else is gone!” she said miserably.

  She was right. Cal thought about calling James’s sister for a ride. But she didn’t have a cell phone. And James and his dad were already at the Wish Shoppe with the Donegan Diner food truck. “Can we call a taxi?” Cal asked Mrs. T.

  His mom smiled and shook her head. “This is Piedmont Place, honey!”

  Cal kicked the ground. His mom was right. There wasn’t a taxi within an hour of them. By then, the Talaskas would be disqualified from the contest and the Rivales would take their place.

  “Rabbo!” Butler barked while spinning around and around. Bug joined in. “Rabbo! Rabbo! Rabbo!”

  Cal turned to see what Butler and Bug were so excited about.

  Holy Aristotle.

  “Wait a second,” Mr. T. said from near the house. His face looked almost calm again. “Is that a…?”

  “I think it is,” Cal answered.

  A car tire was rolling down Piedmont Place.

  “What the provolone is going on?” Mrs. T. asked.

  Like a homing pigeon, the tire angled toward the Talaskas’ driveway, but it missed and bounced off the curb. The force sent it wobbling for a few more feet, and then it fell over.

  Mr. T. trotted into the street and turned the tire upright. Imo joined him, and they rolled the tire to the Flying Monkey.

  “Does it fit?” Cal asked.

  Imo nodded, dumbfounded. “It’s perfect, in my opinion. Where did this come from?”

  That was when Cal noticed the writing along the inside rim of the tire. “The Butler did it!” had been scrawled in purple ink.

  “Someone really wants us to make it to the Wish Shoppe,” Cal said. “But who?”

  No one had an answer, and the family had to get moving. Right now!

  Imo and Mr. T. put on the new tire, and the Talaskas climbed into the Flying Monkey. When Mr. T. turned the key, the song “We Are Family” boomed out of the busted CD player. It had never sounded so good.

  “Are we going to make it, Dad?” Imo asked.

  Mr. T. nodded. But the way he gripped the steering wheel made it clear he wasn’t sure.

  When the Talaskas pulled into a parking space at the Wish Shoppe and poured out of the car, it was 8:58 AM. Two minutes to spare. The first thing Cal noticed was the hundreds of butterfly-shaped balloons that formed a wall between the parking lot and the store. They floated and flapped in the wind, tugging gently on the strings that tied them to the ground.

  Three news vans and a crowd of about two hundred people, including the Wylots, the Rivales, and Mr. Vance, were already gathered next to the balloons.

  Like the Talaskas, the Wylots were in costume. They had on the long fur coats from their video and wore bandanas around their necks. Cal and his family hustled over to them. Leslie glanced at her watch and frowned, clearly upset the Talaskas were on time.

  Cal spotted James and his dad behind the Wylots. James and Cal exchanged thumbs-ups. “Go get ’em, Captain!” James called.

  “Um, what’s he doing here?” Leslie pointed at Butler. Bug stepped in front of him, as if trying to protect the dog from lightning that might fire out of her finger.

  “Family members who were in the videos get to be in the contest,” Cal said. He wasn’t sure if that was a rule. He had just never thought about leaving Butler home.

  Leslie opened her mouth to say something nasty or challenge him when—

  Bug looked up into her eyes and softly barked, “Rabbo.” He wrapped his arms around Butler’s neck, and Butler pressed his head against Bug’s.

  “Aw, how adorable!” Mrs. MacGuire cooed from the crowd. Cal had to admit that it was pretty darn cute. And even Leslie couldn’t resist.

  She seemed torn. Finally, she held up her hands and said, “Whatever! Let Butler do it!”

  “I thought the Butler already did it!” someone said, and the audience laughed.

  Cal nodded his thanks to Leslie, who was already back to her usual nasty self. She rolled her eyes at Cal just as the butterfly balloons were pulled back like a curtain. They revealed something—no, make that someone—amazing….

  King Wonder!

  The owner of Wish Shoppe was here, in the flesh. With a gold crown perched on his silver head, King sat upon his Throne of Savings. The chair was made of giant dollar signs, and he waved a gold scepter with a butterfly on top.

  Mr. Vance tapped his shoulder, and King’s dreamy eyes came into focus. “Oh good-good-good!” King said in a high-pitched voice. “Now we can begin!”

  He waved to the news cameras, and they all pointed in his direction.

  “Welcome, one and all!” King announced. “Welcome to the Great Grab Contest at the Wish Shoppe Circles of Dreams, where shopping is so easy, you’ll forget where you are!”

  There was a snicker or two from the audience. King cleared his throat. “It’s a beautiful day here along the River of Low Prices, the largest man-made river in the world!”

  The “river” was six feet wide and three feet deep and ran all the way around the store. The water was clear, as in a swimming pool, and dollar signs had been painted along the bottom—as if high prices had tried getting into the store and sunk to the bottom instead.

  Mr. Vance leaned in to whisper in King’s ear. “Fine, fine…make that the largest man-made river in the general area!” King said. He smiled warmly at Mr. Vance. “What would we do without our trusty Vice President of Fun?”

  Cal noticed that the Wylots grinned at each other.

  “Our two finalist families, the Wylots and the…” King paused. “We’re sorry, but we’re having trouble saying this other name….”

  Why does King say we when he’s talking about himself? Cal wanted to ask, but his dad responded before he could. “We’re the Talaskas,” Mr. T. said.

  “It rhymes with Nelson, you’re fired,” Mr. Wylot said, as if trying to be helpful.

  “It does? Really?” King asked, appearing confused. Then he continued, “As you know, there will be one final elimination round, and only one family will get to keep what they grab today. At first, we thought we might ask a trivia question to eliminate one family. Maybe a question about the rarest purple flowering plant on the Apalachicola River.”

  “That’s the Florida skullcap,” Mrs. T. said instantly.

  The crowd gasped as people checked her answer on their cell phones. “She’s right,” Maisy Franklin, the librarian, said in awe.

  We won! Cal thought.

  But King was still talking. “Then we decided no, no, no. We should do something
physical. You know, really get the old blood pumping. Like walking on your hands for a hundred feet.”

  Bug flipped over. And darted around the concrete on his hands.

  We won! Cal thought again.

  “But…we thought no,” King said. “That’s not right, either. We figured it should be more interesting. We decided the elimination should happen inside the store while the Great Grab is taking place.”

  “Here comes the twist,” Mrs. T. said.

  King sat back and waved his scepter at Mr. Vance, a signal for him to take over.

  “Thanks, King,” Mr. Vance said. “Our shoppers know there are nine Circles of Dreams inside every Wish Shoppe. But do they know how to find them fast? To prove you’re the perfect shoppers we love, you must visit each Circle in the store and take the ribbons with your family’s name. You’ll find them in the center of the Circles. You’re not allowed to touch the other family’s ribbons.”

  Panic seeped into Cal’s body. And he could feel the rest of his family tense up, too. They had planned on going only to the Circles where they wanted things, not all the Circles in the store!

  “Of course,” Mr. Vance said with a chuckle, “you can grab whatever you’d like along the way and put it in your cart!”

  When he said cart, two men in Wish Shoppe uniforms appeared, pushing two jumbo-sized shopping carts. They rolled one over to each family. Cal could see a digital timer, set to twenty minutes, stuck below the handle.

  As Imo examined the cart, Mr. Vance asked her, “Are you excited, little girl?”

  The cameras pointed at her, and Imo suddenly looked like one of the Rivales. Her face went blank and she froze.

  “Awesome!” Mr. Vance said, as if Imo had just said something very interesting. He turned back to the other family members. “You have twenty minutes to grab what you want and get back to the starting point. Everything you grab must be in your cart, and everyone in your family has to cross the line together. If you don’t return within twenty minutes with all nine Circle ribbons, you get nothing.”