The New Champion Read online

  “Schein?” he said, like he was asking her if he was right.

  “Shine? Like the sun shines?”

  “That’s the way it sounds.”

  Bianca shook her head. “Nah. Not Shiny. And CS doesn’t have any rhythm. Ooh. Maybe your middle name!”

  “No,” said Cameron. “It’s Stanley.”

  “Ugh.”

  “I know.”

  “So that makes you CSS. Like ‘kiss,’ but with a C.” She shook her head. “You probably don’t kiss many girls.”

  You think?

  “Not yet, I mean,” she said.

  Huh?

  “Oh, you will be hot one day. Those lips will get some action.”

  Could he turn any redder?

  “Look at you with those green eyes, hiding behind all that curly hair. And you’re smart, right?”

  “He is,” said Walker, still holding the camera.

  Bianca smiled even bigger, then looked beyond Cameron’s camera to the professional one that had been filming them the whole time. “I have a feeling about this guy,” she said. “His name is Cameron Schein. You need to watch him. He’s going to be hot one day. Right now he’s just preheating.”

  A woman came up. “Time to go, Bianca.”

  Bianca held out her hand. “Sharpie, please?”

  The woman handed her the marker, and she stepped over to Walker. She steadied her hand on his and signed the camera: Bianca LaBlanc.

  “Ready now?” said the woman.

  Bianca held up a finger. “Both cameras are rolling, right?”

  She paused to make sure. Then she planted a big kiss on Cameron’s cheek. “A kiss for luck.” Then she gave him a hug. “This is not for the cameras,” she whispered, “just for you. I’m rooting for you, and I don’t say that to everyone.” She pulled back. “Good luck, Cameron Schein. See you in Orchard Heights.”

  And for a minute Cameron believed every word she said.

  “You what?” said Spencer, death-clutching his Last-Chance Lottery card.

  Cameron pointed to the lipstick lips on his cheek, then to the signature on his camera.

  Spencer shook his head. “First you win my ticket. Then Bianca kisses you. Next thing you’ll be promoted to king of England.”

  They didn’t live in England, and kings don’t exactly get promoted, but Cameron wasn’t going to stop Spencer’s rant. It was too much fun to watch.

  “Which way’d she go?”

  Walker pointed behind him. “Thataway.”

  Spencer turned on his heels to race after Bianca. He came back about fifteen minutes later. “How’d you talk to her? She was surrounded by a million people.”

  Cameron shrugged. “She wasn’t here, and then she was.”

  Spencer held out his ticket to Cameron. “Touch this. Just for a second. Just for luck.”

  Cameron brushed his fingers over it.

  “No,” said Spencer. “Really rub it.”

  If Cameron had rubbed any harder, it would’ve ignited. At least Spencer wasn’t sulking anymore. When Spencer sulked, he wanted everyone to suffer.

  The day Cameron got his guaranteed ticket and Spencer got nothing, it had been like a historic moment. Cameron printed out his confirmation and wanted to wave it in Spencer’s face, but he didn’t. Still, Spencer tore it up. Again, Cameron printed and Spencer tore.

  “Cut it out,” Cameron said.

  “Make me.”

  That was about as possible as leaping over the house. Instead, Cameron set the printer to make one hundred copies, hoping Spencer would get tired.

  Spencer got tired all right. He unplugged the printer, ran with it to his room, and locked the door behind him.

  If Cameron had picked the lock, Spencer would’ve found a way, as usual, to make something Cameron’s fault. “Mom!” he’d have yelled. “Cameron broke the printer, but don’t worry. I fixed it.” He’d have come out golden again.

  Not that Cameron needed the confirmation sheet right then, but he wanted that page in his hands.

  Cameron put his mouth to Spencer’s door. “What do you want?”

  “Everything you win.”

  “Seriously. What do you want?”

  “Half.”

  To hold that confirmation letter, Cameron would have paid a lot more than half the ten-dollar gift certificate they’d probably give him as they ushered him out of the Games. “Fine. Half of my gift certificate.”

  Silence.

  “I said fine.”

  A minute later Spencer opened his door just enough to shove a piece of paper out. It wasn’t Cameron’s confirmation. It was a contract: I hereby give Spencer 50% of anything I win in the Gollywhopper Games.

  Spencer sailed a pen out the door. “Sign it.”

  Cameron scribbled Camden Slide at the bottom so it wouldn’t be legal. It was good enough for Spencer, though.

  Spencer shoved out the printer.

  “By the way,” Cameron said, “the deal’s off if you win anything.”

  “Try getting that in writing.”

  Cameron hadn’t bothered. What did it matter anyway? For one thing, Spencer’s chance of getting in? Near zero. And second, Cameron’s chance of winning more than a measly gift certificate? Near zero as well.

  “Attention,” came a voice over a loudspeaker. “If you are wearing an official Gollywhopper Games bib, you and your adult may enter the arena.”

  “Well, this is a real pickle,” said his dad. He looked from Cameron to Spencer to Walker and back to Cameron. “I thought everyone would go in after the Last-Chance Lottery. When do you need to be inside, Cameron?”

  Like he knew?

  They headed to his registration lady. “We’re in a bit of a bind,” said his mom. “We have one adult per kid plus one kid left over and we don’t know whether or not the other one will get in and that’s not making any sense, is it?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “What we need to know is this,” said Spencer, taking over. He pointed at Cameron. “Does he need to go in right now, or can he wait until I win a walk-in spot?”

  The woman looked at Cameron. “Doors close five minutes after we identify all the Last-Chance Lottery winners. Be inside by then.”

  Cameron held back a growl. Strains of music leaked from the arena. Streams of people flooded the entrance. Cameron was ready for the party, his invitation was pinned to his chest, and old Aunt Marilyn was nowhere in sight.

  “I’m getting inside some way,” said Spencer.

  Cameron didn’t bother to tell him about the face recognition program.

  “Hey, Mom,” said Walker, “if you’d had me one year and eight months sooner, maybe we’d all go in.”

  “You’ll have fun with Aunt Marilyn. She has pinball machines at her house. If Spencer’s not in, the three of us will take her to lunch, then go play mini golf or see a movie.”

  “Aunt Marilyn’s coming?” Cameron blurted out.

  “On her way,” said his mom. “What did you think?”

  “Nothing. I just thought if Spencer got lucky and Aunt Marilyn couldn’t come, I’d be waiting out here with you and Walker.”

  His mom laughed. “You need to stop worrying about things like that.”

  Maybe so, but if . . .

  Did Cameron really want to focus on that? Now? He was going in! But when? They waited near a basketball player statue, where Aunt Marilyn was supposed to meet them, every second ticking louder in his head. “What time is it?” he finally asked.

  His dad looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes until they start the lottery.”

  A guy with a Golly Toy and Game Company badge stopped and pointed to Cameron’s bib. “If you didn’t hear, you can go in now.”

  “Thanks,” said his dad, “but if my other son gets in, we want to find him. No cell phones allowed, you know.”

  “Wait if you want,” said the guy, “but you won’t sit with him. Walk-ins have a separate area. If I were you, I’d find a seat near the walk-in section—two
twenty-six—and watch the lottery process on the big screen.”

  His mom nodded. “She’ll be here any minute.”

  His dad nodded. “We’ll be in two twenty-seven,” he said.

  Cameron headed toward the music.

  It was a rock band, the first live band of any kind Cameron had heard outside his school’s clashing mess of clarinets, tubas, and his own decent trumpet notes.

  His hands craved to hold his videocam—to zoom in on the guitar picks and the drumsticks and the fingers beating time on the mic—but he’d had to check the camera at the door along with his dad’s cell phone and watch. Golly people were bar coding and storing pretty much everything except underwear. Even hearing aids and eyeglasses went through special scrutiny after reports, last year, of transmission/receiver devices.

  In the next line, a mom had raised a big stink about handing over her purse, but the guard said, “If you don’t want your child to compete, that’s your right.” She handed it over.

  By the time they got to section 227, the whole world knew to wait there. In 225, too. Instead, Cameron and his dad moved to an emptier area with a better view of 226.

  Cameron’s attention, though, was riveted to the live feed of the band on the four-sided video screen suspended from the ceiling. His guessing game—Which Angle Will They Show Next?—came to an abrupt halt when the band finished its last song and the video screen switched to live shots of the audience.

  People jumped and screamed when they saw themselves and went even crazier when Golly workers ran on, cleared the band’s equipment, then divided the seating areas with orange construction fencing into sections A, B, C, and D. The only difference from the original Games? Chairs now filled the arena floor. Where would the announcer stand?

  Apparently, he wouldn’t. “Around the country,” boomed a voice over the speakers, “in one hundred arenas from Alaska to Florida, from Hawaii to Maine, at the exact same moment, it’s the Gollywhopper Games Last-Chance Lottery!”

  Cameron cheered with everyone else.

  “We switch you to local coverage, where you’ll watch as lottery cardholders learn their fates. I’m Randy Wright, your voice of the Gollywhopper Games. See you soon.”

  The screen divided into a tic-tac-toe board showing nine shots from outside the arena. The center square faded out. On popped Bianca.

  Cameron wanted to stand and shout, “She kissed me,” but no one would believe him, no one would care, and he didn’t want to hear a ton of people say, “Me, too!”

  “Hi, everyone!” Bianca beamed, and the whole place exploded.

  When Cameron didn’t think it could get any louder, the lights went down, and a spotlight hit a glitzed-out mini hot-air balloon that descended, then hovered. From inside, Bianca waved, her white-blond hair catching a breeze.

  “Welcome to your Gollywhopper Regional,” she said over the cheers. “I’m Bianca LaBlanc, and I get the lucky job of being your local announcer. Three of my friends are at other regionals across the country. Lavinia, Thorn, and Gil!”

  The video screen showed four of the finalists from last year, everyone except Rocky, the kicked-out cheater. They each said hi, then popped off the screen, leaving only Bianca.

  “I love these regionals,” she said, “because not everyone has a cousin like Curt, who drove me all the way across the country to do the Games. I heard about this girl who didn’t have a driver’s license but started driving herself when her mom wouldn’t take her, except that was dumb because without her mom she wouldn’t have had an adult, so—”

  Bianca held her hand up to her ear. “Yeah. They’re saying, ‘Stick to the script, Bianca.’ But I’m not such a good script person. I’ll try, though. Okay?”

  The decibel level soared and didn’t die down until Bianca started talking again.

  “At this very minute we’re holding at least one Gollywhopper Regional in each state—one hundred regionals in all, but do you really want to know that?”

  “No!” yelled the crowd.

  “You want to know which people out there are coming in here. Am I right or what?”

  To the roar of cheers, the eight squares surrounding Bianca showed kids running their Last-Chance Lottery cards through scanners. Some looked ready to cry when a red light came, but the girl who got a green light started screaming.

  “Woo-hoo! She’s in!” said Bianca. “So are—” Bianca touched her headphone. “The people in my ear say three hundred ten others will get green lights, and they will sit . . .”

  It seemed everyone, including Cameron, pointed to the vacant section in the corner.

  “Fooled you!” said Bianca. “Okay, yeah. Most of them will sit there, but the rest are so, so lucky. They get floor chairs. You wanna be lucky, too? You want to sit on the chairs?”

  “Yeah!”

  Bianca laughed. “How do you know it’s not bad luck?”

  The crowd quieted fast. “Of course it’s not bad luck.” Bianca chattered on. “Unless you cheat to get there, and then you’re outta here faster than um, um, something really fast. And yeah. Script. So we have all these cameras and people watching you. When I say, ‘Go,’ look only under your own seat, and peel off the piece of red tape. Go!”

  Cameron peeled off his tape. It was just a piece of tape. So was his dad’s. But the guy in front of him had a green token. He jumped and hooted. Then he jumped and hooted again when Bianca told all the green-token people to run to the arena floor.

  “Maybe they’re trying to make it less crowded?” Cameron’s dad said.

  Cameron shook his head. It wouldn’t be like Golly to have people win something without winning something.

  The video screen switched back to the Last-Chance Lottery.

  “There it is again!” said his dad. “C’mon, Spencer! Next year he’ll be too old, you know.”

  And next year Golly wouldn’t necessarily have the Games. Anyway, where had “C’mon, Cameron!” been before he’d peeled his red tape?

  Cameron curled the fingers on his left hand into a mock camera lens, held it to his eye, and panned the arena as if he were filming. There were kids racing up the stairs, stairs running alongside the seats, seats climbing to the rafters, where panels of billowing fabric contrasted with the harsh metal of the catwalk and the supports that held the video screen. He really did want to make a movie of his experience. Maybe if he found pictures online just like this, he could manipulate them and—

  He dropped his hand. There was Spencer on the screen with his mom and Walker and Aunt Marilyn. He poked his dad and pointed.

  “Fingers crossed?” said his dad.

  Cameron didn’t answer and didn’t cross his fingers.

  Spencer’s ticket went in. The light turned green, then flashed really fast.

  “What the—?” said his dad.

  A Golly worker handed Spencer a green token. Not only was he in, but the fast flash sent him to the chairs. Was it really a surprise that Spencer had beaten the odds again?

  Spencer threw his hands triumphantly over his head. His dad grabbed Cameron and gave him a hug. “He did it! He got chairs!”

  What had Cameron done? Rubbed all his luck onto Spencer and kept zero for himself? Still, Spencer down there meant he wasn’t up here in Cameron’s face. And splitting his winnings? Not anymore now that Spencer had won, at least, his own gift certificate.

  Soon the nine squares on the video screen morphed into a single picture of Bianca holding her microphone. “Congratulations to the three hundred ten contestants who just walked in. And now I have one question for you: Are you ready?” she called.

  “Yeah!”

  “I said, ‘Are you ready?’”

  Cameron didn’t know if he could yell any louder.

  “Let’s play the Gollywhopper Games!”

  Had it taken this long for University Stadium to quiet down last year? It sounded as loud as a lawn mower chewing a buzz saw, as 1,000 cats having their tails smashed, as 9,999 kids plus that many adults getting all crazy f
or the Games.

  Cameron didn’t want to be one of those wimpy hushers who tried to quiet the crowd, but when Bianca held her finger against her lips and shhhed everyone, she just looked beautiful.

  It was like someone hit the mute button with a giant remote.

  “So I really wanna ditch my script and talk, but they told me I get a little sidetracked like the time in Austin when it was really hot and—” She laughed. “Sidetracked! So I need to say good-bye for now. But live! From University Stadium in Orchard Heights! The voice of the Gollywhopper Games! R-R-Randy Wright!”

  The screen cut to a shot of the deserted stadium. The camera panned up empty seats to a broadcast booth where Randy Wright was holding a microphone. “This was the action-packed setting for the Games last year,” he said. “And it will be again, next week, when it fills with one thousand contestants. Will one of them be you?”

  Cheers rolled around the arena.

  “These Games will test your skill, wits, and careful attention to instructions. Follow them. Exactly. They will appear on your video screen as I speak.”

  The words were already flowing.

  “First, to the seven hundred and eighty-four contestants on the floor . . .” Randy Wright’s voice trailed off to pause for the cheers from below.

  Cameron focused on “784” pulsing from the screen, his new least favorite number.

  “It’s your lucky day. Sit tight in your seats for the next twenty minutes, and you’ll skyrocket to question two. That’s right! You get a free pass for the first question.”

  Everyone in the stands moaned except his dad, who smiled and pointed to Spencer and their mom.

  The people on the arena floor shouted and jumped and—

  “Are you in your seats?” Randy Wright asked.

  —they sat instantaneously.

  “Hey, hey!” said Randy. “The only thing predictable about these Games? They’re unpredictable. The people on the floor got lucky with question one, but if you’re still here for question two, advantage goes to you and you alone.”

  The cheers quieted as Randy Wright explained the same musical chairs format they’d used last year. A multiple-choice question with four possible answers would appear on the video screen. Decide which one was right, head to the concession area, and walk (not run; runners get eliminated) to whichever lettered section—A, B, C, or D—matched the answer.