Page 69 of The Lookback
Jed snagged Good and Plenty, which are bright pink and white pill-shaped treats. They’d make a great boundary on the rooftop, and a wonderful pavement item. He could also use them as bricks, I suppose. Tommy got Boston Baked beans, which are bright red peanuts covered with sugar. He could do basically the same things with those, but they’re more homogenous.
Denise pulled Lifesavers, Janet has Lemon Heads—little yellow balls. Jerry nabbed sugar babies—little, sticky brown balls, and Greg, who ran surprisingly fast, managed to get chiclets. Those may actually be the best choice of all.
Other than Tommy, no one will trade with me, leaving me with a pile of toffee and a handful of Boston Baked Beans to decorate my entire house once I’ve assembled it. Janet’s having trouble using the icing to hold things together, however, and I realize pretty quickly that I can lick either side of a Bit-O-Honey and it’ll hold even better than glue.
“How about now?” I ask Janet, eyeing her red, irritated face. “Want to trade for some Lemonheads now?”
She’s scowling, but she offers me a handful.
And now I’m ahead of her, and I have Boston Baked Beans and Lemonheads with which to decorate. I also realize that Bit-O-Honey is pretty decent to use for a paved walkway, and with my knife, I can even make it look like there are paving stones.
Pretty soon, little wrappers have nearly filled my trash bucket, and my house looks pretty decent, if I do say so myself.
“What happens to the first and last place houses?” Jed asks.
I glance at his, and I’m absolutely disgusted for thinking mine looked good. Jed’s looks like it was made by some kind of famous artist. His house looks like a Barbie mansion. He used every single piece of gingerbread they provided and it’s at least twice as big as mine.
“Four minutes left,” Principal Lyons says.
Jed swaps Greg for some chiclets, and hastily mashes down a driveway made of rainbow squares, and when they call time, it’s clear he’s going to be the winner.
I don’t even give other people’s houses much notice, because none of them can even compare. Until I glance over at Tommy.
Instead of making a house, he made what looks like a supermarket.
“What is that?” I hiss.
Tommy shrugs. “I had all these baked beans. I thought I’d make something that would be all brick, like a bank.”
A bank? When I turn to look it over directly, I recognize the building he copied. There’s even a sign that says ‘Vernal National Bank’ on the front in a combination of white Good and Plentys and Boston Baked Beans, outlined with the taffy he swapped me for. I can’t help shaking my head and smiling.
They have us carry our houses over to where the audience can see, and then we wait as they vote, but of course, Jed wins. Surprisingly, Tommy comes in second place. I manage to get dead last,again. Even with the chiclets, people kept saying mine was boring. This whole thing is turning out to be a little embarrassing, honestly.
“The next prize is one that all our competitors should be pretty good at,” Principal Lyons says.
“Wait,” Greg says. “What’s that?” He points at Janet’s arm.
There’s a tiny red sticker on her elbow.
“How exciting. We have our first murder.” Principal Lyon’s eyes are lit up like he’s announcing an ice cream party. He actually claps.
“That means,” Mrs. Lyons says, “that we need the other competitors to take a vote!”
“A. . .what?” I frown. “What are we voting on?”
“I forgot to mention that with every vote, you have the chance to out the stepmother.” Principal Lyons nods. “Or the witch, of course, but you don’t have the tools you need to vanquish her yet, so I’d recommend you only try to identify the stepmother. If you can find her, then the witch will lose her largest ally, because if you correctly identify her, you can cast her out.”
“Of course, she’s also the witch’s biggest liability,” I mutter.
“But Gretel already knows who the stepmother is,” Tommy complains, rather obviously, I think. “So that hardly seems fair.”
“It takes a vote to cast her out, though,” Principal Lyons says. “If Gretel comes right out and says he or she knows who the stepmother is, then she’ll die next and the witch will win.”
“The sticker’s red,” Jed says, “and Mandy had a red paper. I think Mandy’s the witch.”
“But the stickers could be multicolored,” Janet says, “for all we know. It could still be anyone. Plus, we don’t even want to find the witch yet.”
“Can Janet really be talking?” I ask. “She’s dead.”
