9. All the Marbles

9 All the Marbles

"Okay, it all comes down to round three," announced Mr. Porky. "This last question is for both teams. Write your answer on the sheet of paper in front of you. It's worth six points." "Ooooooh!" everybody oooooohed. "Dirk has a five-point lead," continued Mr. Porky. "So if both teams get this question right, Dirk wins. If both teams get it wrong, Dirk also wins. If Dirk gets it right and Ella Mentry gets it wrong, Dirk still wins. But if Dirk gets it wrong and Ella Mentry gets it right, Ella Mentry wins. Does everybody understand?" "Yes," I lied. "We have to get this one right, Arlo," Andrea whispered to me. "Okay," said Mr. Porky. "This one is for all the marbles." Marbles? What did marbles have to do

with anything? "Get ready to lose, losers!" said Morgan Brocklebank, rubbing her hands together. "This will be the icing on the cake." Why is everybody always talking about marbles and cake? Was the winning team going to get marble cake? I was confused. In the audience, nobody was making a sound. It was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. That is, if anybody had brought pins with them. That would be weird. But everybody was on the edge of their seats. Well, not really. There might have been a few little kids on the edge of their seats, but most normal-size people were just sitting in the middle of their seats. Anyway, it was really tense. Andrea picked up our pencil and got ready to write the answer. "Okay, here's your final question," said

Mr. Porky. "And before I give it to you, let me just say that Porky's Pork Sausages will be on sale at your local supermarket next week." Everybody laughed even though he didn't say anything funny. "Okay, here's the final question," said Mr. Porky, reading from a card. "My birthday was January seventeenth. My wife was named Deborah. I played the violin, the harp, and the guitar. I was a slave owner. I died when I was eighty-four years old. Who am I? You have thirty seconds." That annoying music from the TV show Jeopardy! started playing.* I looked at Andrea. "Do you know who it is?" I asked. "No," she replied. "Do you?" "No." "Of course you don't," Andrea said. "You

didn't know any of the answers." I looked over at the Dirk dorks. They were whispering to each other. "Twenty seconds left," said Mr. Porky.

"You're the smart one," I whispered to Andrea. "You memorized the encyclopedia. You keep a dictionary on your desk at school. Your parents got a tutor to teach you all about the presidents. How can you not know the answer?" "I just don't, okay?" Andrea whispered back angrily. "You're part of this team too, you know. You were supposed to help, Arlo. Maybe if you weren't making paper airplanes and goofing off all week, you would know the answer!" "Fifteen seconds left," said Mr. Porky. The dumb Jeopardy! song was still playing. "Why are we wasting time arguing?" I whispered to Andrea. "We should be trying to come up with the answer." I saw Morgan Brocklebank write something on her paper. She and Tommy probably knew the answer. They were going