The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman (11 page)

“They’re the exact colors of mustard, ketchup, and relish.”

“Oh. That’s not good. But you could be a walking ad for a barbecue,” said Lucy.

“I’m already a walking ad for cigarettes,” Duncan muttered.

“What?” said Lucy, but Duncan said it was nothing, just a joke, never mind.

“I’m pretty sure the answer to this is no,” April said, “and I know it’s going to sound completely weird, but I have to ask you a question: Did you ever own a T-shirt that said ‘SETTLE MARS’?”

“No,” said Duncan. “Why?”

“Long story,” said Lucy Woolery. “But basically, April met someone years ago at a motel pool. He was wearing a T-shirt that said SETTLE MARS. Anyway, you’re not the boy from the pool, I assume. You don’t have food allergies, like he did, do you? You never met my friend April before. You would probably remember if you had.”

“No, I don’t have food allergies,” said Duncan. “And I’ve never met your friend. I’m not that boy.”

He thought about how he had never been to a motel with a pool before, let alone a big fancy hotel with a pool on the roof, like this one. But still, he thought it was pretty great that he was here now. He lightly curled the fingers of his left hand, then flexed them. In the distance, Duncan could see his mother coming up the escalator, waving to him as soon as she picked him out of the crowd. He waved back.

Suddenly the tall doors of the ballroom were flung open from inside. “IT’S STARTING!” someone shouted, and everyone rushed through the doorway.

Duncan Dorfman, April Blunt, and Nate Saviano went in with the crowd, feeling themselves pushed into the enormous red-and-gold hotel ballroom. Row after row of tables were set up there, each one with a Scrabble game lying on it. Everyone went searching for their tables.

Nate Saviano’s father Larry stood for a moment just inside the doorway, looking around in wonder. “I remember this place like it was yesterday,” he said to no one in particular, for Nate had already gone deep inside.

A voice came over the loudspeaker. “Attention, players,” it said. “Welcome to the tournament. Everyone please find your tables and take your seats. Round one is about to begin.”

22 MINUTES ON THE CLOCK

T
he ballroom went dead silent. Duncan Dorfman, his heart wild in his chest, sat beside Carl and across the table from the Tile Hustlers. They did not look like hustlers at all, but still Duncan felt as if he were going to die. What was he doing at a major Scrabble tournament? He didn’t belong here.

Duncan shifted in his seat and something rustled in his back pocket. He reached in and pulled out a folded piece of looseleaf paper, having no idea how it had gotten there. Oh no, he thought, my mom put a humiliating note in my pants. It would be covered with hearts and would say something corny like,
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, DUNCAN, AND NO MATTER WHETHER YOU WIN OR LOSE, YOU ARE “TILE-RIFIC.” XOXOXO MOM

Duncan unfolded the note and saw that he was wrong. It was a note with doodles of space aliens all over the top—the same kind of cartoons that Andrew Tanizaki always drew. He read it to himself:

“What’s that?” asked Carl.

“Nothing.”

“‘Turnoment?’”
said Carl, reading over Duncan’s shoulder. “Oh, right, the Chinaman. He made you a sweet little drawing. Awww,” he said in a sarcastic voice.

Duncan carefully placed the note back in his pocket. He felt a little guilty that Andrew, who he no longer sat with at lunch, had given this to him. But he also felt pleased that he had. Though Duncan was nervous as he waited for the game to begin, he realized he would have felt even worse if he hadn’t had Andrew’s good-luck drawing.

The room was completely hushed now, all the kids focused and alert. Some of them, like Duncan, felt their hearts thumping in their chests.

“We are about to start,” said the director of the YST, a slightly red-faced, earnest man named Dave Hopper, speaking into a microphone. “Are there any final questions?”

Everyone looked around the ballroom. No, there were no questions.

But then, oh wait, wait, how annoying, there
was
a question. Just when you thought everyone had silently agreed
not
to ask questions, someone always ruined it. A boy’s hand had shot up from the corner. He looked very young, and he and his teammate, a girl, wore matching cowboy hats.

“What if you have to urinate?” the boy asked.

Some kids laughed, and someone else shouted out, “URINATE is an anagram of TAURINE!” but the director took the question seriously.

“I’m glad you asked that,” he said. “The answer is in the official rules, which I hope you’ve all read. But just to remind you: If a player has to go to the bathroom, the other teammate may continue playing, but the bathroom-goer must leave after his or her team has played, and before new tiles are drawn.”

Now, were there any more questions?

No, it seemed, there were not.

“Well,” said the director, “I guess that’s it. Good luck, everyone. Draw your first tiles.”

At each of the fifty tables, a player picked up a little tile bag, held it up high, and with the other hand reached inside and blindly swirled the letters around to pick a tile. The player then handed the bag to one of his or her opponents, who selected a tile, too.

At Duncan and Carl’s table, Carl drew a P. He handed the bag back to the Tile Hustlers, and the boy with freckles bursting all over his face drew an M. This meant that the Tile Hustlers would go first, since their letter was closest to A. The P and the M were returned to the bag. Duncan gave it a hard shake and placed it on the table. As soon as one of his opponents picked the first tile and looked at it, Duncan slapped his hand down on the button of the electronic timer. It made a
pock
sound, and the clock began counting down from twenty-two minutes.

All around the room came other
pocks.
There was very little talking anymore. Parents and family members sat behind velvet ropes along the sides of the ballroom, or they waited out in the atrium, where you could actually talk without someone angrily saying
“Shhh,”
like a murderous librarian.

Duncan held his breath as he drew all seven tiles in one big scoop. He and Carl had decided that, for the first turn, Duncan would simply draw tiles the regular way. He had gotten Carl to agree that he would keep pulling tiles like that until it became necessary to use his fingertips. Exhaling slowly now, he looked at the letters as he placed them on the rack. He had picked:

M

O

I

S

O

E

R

Together they looked like:

MOISOER

At first glance, it didn’t seem to be a great rack. There were certainly some interesting words that could be made from these letters: ISOMER, MOROSE, and even ROMEOS. But it would be a waste to use the S in any of those words. Duncan realized that if the Tile Hustlers played a word witha T in it—a common letter, there were six in each game—he and Carl would be able to make the eight-letter word ROOMIEST. Duncan scribbled a note to Carl, telling him this, and Carl squinted in understanding and nodded.

Duncan and Carl watched the board to see what the other team would do. Please let there bea T in their word, Duncan thought. Please let there be a T. Then we can start the game with a bingo.

The boy without the freckles began to lay down tiles. But when he was done, Duncan and Carl saw that he had placed the word DREAM. There wasn’t a single T among its letters. Too bad, Duncan thought. He and Carl had no good options now.

But Carl sat up straight. He took the pad and scribbled something on it, then pushed it toward Duncan, who read:

 

Carl Slater began picking tiles up off the rack. You were always supposed to discuss a move with your partner before you played it; you weren’t supposed to simply plunk down tiles wherever you liked. Duncan didn’t like that Carl was doing this, but then he saw what Carl had played, and he didn’t mind at all. Right under the AM in DREAM, Carl had placed the R and an O, making the tiny words AR and MO. Then he kept laying down letters horizontally. OMIES, he played. His word was:

ROOMIES

It was simple slang for “roommates,” and Duncan and Carl had become so focused on getting that T for ROOMIEST, that they’d almost missed what was right in front of them. Their opening move was worth a huge 69 points: 19 for ROOMIES, AR, and MO, plus a 50-point bonus for using all their letters. Carl hit the timer.

“Nice,” the freckled Tile Hustler said quietly.

“Thanks,” said Carl.

From then on, the game was played at a rapid pace. Back and forth the two teams went, laying down their tiles, writing down scores, hitting the timer. A few moves later, their opponents ended up puttinga T at the end of ROOMIES to make ROOMIEST after all. They kept going, using an A already on the board for the word OAR, until they had played the bingo DECORATE.

“Wow, great,” said Duncan.

“Thank you,” said the boy who’d laid the tiles down.

A girl at the adjoining table said,
“Shhhhhhh!”
There was a rule in Scrabble that you were supposed to talk as little as possible during games, which was why players wrote notes to each other. There was even a word for talking too much: “coffeehousing.” But once in a while you ignored the rules and coffeehoused anyway.

 

 

Behind the velvet rope at the side of the ballroom, a bald guy in dark glasses turned around to face Nate’s half-sister, Eloise, who had been sitting in her mother’s lap, making razzberry sounds with her lips, spit flying.

“Excuse me,” he said to Nate’s mother. “I’d really appreciate it if you could keep your baby under control. The back of my head feels like it’s on an ocean voyage. Plus, I’m trying to pay attention.”

“I’m sorry,” Nate’s mother said.

Another mother, a small Indian woman in a pink sari sitting beside the man, turned to him and politely asked, “Which is your team?”

The bald man seemed surprised by the question. “My team?” he said. “They’re . . . over there. Excuse me,” he said. Then he slipped out of the ballroom and into the atrium.

The two mothers watched him go.

“Strange man,” murmured the mother in the sari.

Nate’s mother nodded. “I think we should keep an eye on him.”

“Rachel,” said Dr. Steve to his wife. “Look at Nate; he’s smiling! His team must be doing well. That’ll make Larry happy.”

But Nate’s father Larry Saviano wasn’t watching. He had said he was too worried to stay behind the velvet rope, so throughout the first game he had been pacing the edges of the ballroom, glancing all around him. Right now he was on the other side of the room.

Nate, actually, wasn’t smiling at all. His mouth was pulled into a tight line that from a distance might have looked like a smile, but wasn’t. Nate had quickly realized that his opponents, the Evangelical Scrabblers—a brother and sister, Kaylie and Josh—were a strong team. Right before the game began, the Evangelical Scrabblers had stood beside the table holding hands and looking upward, their mouths moving in silent prayer. Nate and Maxie had watched, surprised. Nate knew it wasn’t the chandelier they were looking at, or even the ceiling.

Kaylie had picked a B to start, while Maxie picked an L.

Nate banged down on the clock button to start the other team’s timer, and right away the Evangelical Scrabblers moved their tiles around on their rack and busied themselves writing notes to each other. Within seconds, they had put down the word WINDOW, for 34 points.

“WINDOW,” Kaylie joked in her Southern accent. “My favorite opening.”

Maxie looked at her blankly. “What?” she said.

“It’s a pun,” Josh said in a similar accent. “A Scrabble pun. Get it? A window is an opening. And, see, this is our
opening
move.”

“Ohhhhh,” said Maxie, smiling. “I get it.”

Then both teams fell silent, concentrating hard. Maxie fiddled with her multiple ear studs. The game, as it turned out, was balanced in terms of the quality of tiles. But then near the end, the Evangelical Scrabblers played FIFE, and the first F landed on a triple-letter square that counted both across and down. The turn was worth a solid 31 points. The Big Apple Duo suddenly fell behind.

Sweat popped out all over Nate’s neck, and he told himself:
Think, think!
He and Maxie moved their tiles around on the rack, but time was passing. Nate began to see that unless something good happened fast, the game would be lost.

Their rack, unfortunately, looked like this:

ALALAIN

Maxie moved the tiles around again. But what turned up was:

INALALA

and then . . .

LILNAAA

The tiles were rotten, and they didn’t combine well with any of the letters that were already on the board. There was nothing to do, Nate understood, except dump as many of them as they could. All these tiles were one-pointers.