Mr. Lemoncello's All-Star Breakout Game: Chapters 24–34

“Cease and desist, Newspaperboy!” said Garbageman.

Garbageman lunged after him, missed, and landed in a thorny rosebush that snagged his trash-bag tights.

“Throw the next volley in front of his tires!” cried Sierra.

His rolled-up tube hit the pavement and the fuse sputtered out, doused by the banana slop oozing all over the asphalt.

She hobbled away and soon disappeared.

“Yes!” said Sierra, still stoked from her stint as a superhero.

Drummers beat out a cadence for a marching band.

Frankenstein’s monster lurched after Morgan, chasing her around the room, which resembled the foggy nighttime streets of London.

Grudgingly, Hannah slid the shiny CD into the music player.

“Oh, yeah!” boomed an electronically altered video game voice accompanied by triumphant synthesized trumpets, bells, and whistles.

Shaking her rustling pom-poms, Haley led Jaylen and Kai in a rousing cheer.

Haley Daley’s days as a cheerleader here in Alexandriaville, not to mention her cunning intelligence, have really helped turn the tide in Yorktown.

The teacher was standing in front of a chalkboard with “The Case of the Purloined Pen” written on it.
“Time for me to grade your homework,” she said, opening a desk drawer. “Wait. Oh, no! Someone stole my pen!”

“Oh, yeah!” blared the video game voice.

Confetti fell. Streamers unfurled.

“Maybe that’s why your ratings are slipping like they stepped on a banana peel,” sniped Jaylen.

“Oh, I will. Right after I defeat, trounce, and thrash you, Mr. Swell, if that really is your name.”

“Thanks,” said Peyton, switching into super- suave mode. “Have we met?”

From off on the horizon, a hologram of a pink unicorn with a glistening, wispy mane and sparkly spiral horn pranced to the center of the room.

“So cool,” said Morgan wistfully. “I sort of wish I were on their team....”

Charles could smell gunpowder wafting on the humid breeze.

Images appeared on the walls, turning the room into the smoldering countryside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

A somber holographic figure in a long frock coat and stovepipe hat strode to the center of the room.

Can we skip the folksy platitudes and cut to the chase?

The Lincoln hologram blinked and shuddered as if it were fast-forwarding through its programmed preamble.

“To turn the tide here at Gettysburg, you must find nine items hidden in the woods. A tin coffee cup. My spare stovepipe hat. A belt. A saber. A boot. A rifle. A glove. A tent. And, of course, an envelope with my Gettysburg Address, which I seem to have misplaced, I must humbly confess, at an unknown address.”

Charles’s meager team of two book nerds needed another hint.

“And please be sure you find all nine items in the forest before General Lee sends George Pickett and his infantry charging up yonder hill.”

I drank too much soda pop prior to the game’s commencement.

“Narwhals are sea creatures!” Andrew insisted, holding on to his ride’s opalescent spiral tusk.

All the quaint cottages had flower boxes outside their leaded windows.

Their roofs were thatched with straw.

There was a church with a steeple, as well as a bustling square filled with stalls where vendors hawked all sorts of medieval merchandise.

A hologram of a handsome young prince with shiny teeth approached on a prancing white steed.

The prince glided down gracefully from his gilded saddle and doffed his crown at Akimi.

The prince glided down gracefully from his gilded saddle and doffed his crown at Akimi.

“Thou art no milkmaid. Thou art a thief! For, verily, thy beauty hath stolen my heart.”

“Please, Father!” beseeched Prince Dirk. “Give us your blessing.”

Meanwhile, his two remaining teammates were thrashing around in the fake forest of Gettysburg, dodging cannonball blasts and mud clods while not finding a single one of the nine hidden objects, even though Charles could clearly see Abraham Lincoln’s spare stovepipe hat.

“You think he’s stuck down there?”
“It’s a distinct possibility,” said Mr. Lemoncello.