The Potato Chip Puzzles: The Puzzling World of Winston Breen Read Free

didn’t need to get his team together—he knew exactly who his teammates were going to be. All he had to do now was tell them. Winston took off running down the hallway.

CHAPTER TWO
     
    THE NEXT PERIOD WAS social studies, the one class he shared with Mal and Jake, his two best friends. The bell rang, and the hallway filled with kids. Winston ran as fast as he could through the crowd, weaving between groups of kids like someone in urgent need of a bathroom. That wasn’t the problem, but it sure felt like something might explode, if he didn’t tell his friends the exciting news.
    When he reached the classroom, Mal and Jake were already sitting there, laughing about something. Winston started talking even before he reached them. He barely knew which wonderful thing to share first, and he wound up saying something like, “There’s a puzzle thing, and we can be the team! And all the money’s for the school!”
    His friends gawked at him like he was insane.
    “Was that English?” said Mal.
    “I heard the word puzzle ,” said Jake.
    “There’s a surprise,” said Mal.
    Winston took a breath, sat down at his desk, and tried again. This time he managed to tell the story in something resembling a logical order, though he had to speed up the ending a little as their teacher, Mr. Nelson, breezed in, shutting the door behind him.
    Tossing his briefcase onto his chair, Mr. Nelson said, “All right, all right, the school year may be coming to an end, but this is still my time, and we have work to do.” There was a murmur of disapproval from Winston’s classmates but no real surprise. Mr. Nelson wasn’t one of those teachers who played games with the kids during the final week of school. He intended to teach them right up to the last bell on the last day. Indeed, if the bell system in the school ever broke down, Mr. Nelson would likely keep lecturing until the end of the world.
    Winston tried to squeak in the conclusion to his story. He whispered, “And I can choose whoever I want for the team. You guys in?”
    Mr. Nelson pegged him with a chilly stare. “Winston Breen, who should be speaking?”
    Winston sat a little more attentively. “Not me,” he said.
    “Kee-rect,” Mr. Nelson said. He turned to the class at large. “We’re going to go over your final essays today. How have some of you managed to get through this entire school year without learning how to write? Let’s take a few examples here. . . .”
    Winston was still vibrating like a tuning fork. He’d blurted out his story about the puzzle hunt, but he didn’t know if his friends would be able to join him. He looked at them, eyebrows raised in a querying Well . . . ?
    Jake glanced over at him, saw his expression, and nodded, smiling. He was in. Mal saw the exchange and nodded too. Winston sat back, pleased beyond measure. He had his team. Friday was going to be a great day.

    The next class was science, but Winston wasn’t there for very long. In a way, he was never there. He was off in daydream land from the first minute, wondering what would happen on Friday. Would they simply be handed a bunch of puzzles to solve? Would they have to run around looking for things? He envisioned a hundred kids set loose in the Simon’s Snack Foods factory, dashing between giant popcorn poppers and potato chip fryers, dodging splashes of hot oil in search of a vital clue.
    How many other schools had received the code, and how many had cracked it? Would some of the teams have bigger kids from high school? Winston thought he could stand his ground in a puzzle competition against kids his own age. He wasn’t sure if that would be true against high-schoolers.
    He was brought back to reality by a knock on the classroom door.
    Mr. Garvey, a math teacher who taught the advanced kids, peeked in. “I wonder if I might speak to Mr. Breen for a moment,” he said. The class turned, and everyone gave Winston a look that was half curiosity and half pity.
    The science teacher