“You feed them into machines that count them,” Roman said. “They print out a receipt. Or the ticket counters can store them on a card.”

“You really have over forty thousand?” Nate asked.

“Pretty much,” Roman said, avoiding eye contact. “I may have slipped back to just under forty.”

Was he hiding something? “Do any of the prizes cost that much?” Nate wondered.

“Not many,” Roman said. “I mostly earn the tickets for fun.”

“I can’t believe you shot like that twice in a row,” Risa said to Nate. “Can you do it every time?”

“Depends,” Nate said. “On a good day I could probably keep repeating. It’s weird. I’m either really coordinated or pretty average. Not a lot of middle ground.”

“But you were messing with me when we first played,” Roman said. “Setting us up.”

“Maybe a little,” Nate replied.

Chris came back and handed Nate a card. “You earned it. And no offense, but I’m never playing basketball against you again. Roman, we should talk.”

“Later,” Roman said to Nate.

Nate nodded at him, feeling a little bad for taking his tickets.

Chris, Roman, and Risa walked away together.

Summer, Pigeon, and Trevor approached carrying a bunch of tickets. Trevor and Summer had theirs bundled neatly. Pigeon’s were in tangled disarray, with several loose ribbons dragging.

“You just met some very interesting people,” Summer said. “We need to talk.”

Chapter Five

Tickets

Nate, Summer, Trevor, and Pigeon found an empty room clearly used for private parties. A pair of long, orange tables with adjacent benches filled much of the space. A discarded cake box sat on a counter, full of crumpled napkins and plastic cups. Small, colorful shapes flecked the white wallpaper, giving the impression of confetti.

Trevor closed the door, and they gathered at the end of one of the tables, two on each side. They knelt on the benches and hunched over the table so they could keep their heads together and talk low.

“What’s the story?” Nate asked.

“That guy you beat both times at basketball,” Summer began.

“Chris,” Nate supplied.

“He can jump like he’s sucking on Moon Rocks. Same with the girl.”

“Risa,” Trevor offered.

“We saw them arrive,” Pigeon said. “They came into Arcadeland by jumping the fence when they thought nobody was looking. And I mean jumping it. One leap.”

“We came to warn you,” Summer said. “We thought they would be good people to watch.”

“We figure they must be getting magic candy from here,” Pigeon said.

“Chris was acting strange,” Nate said. “Like he had a secret. Or like he suspected I had one. He was tough to read.”

“He and Roman were awesome at basketball,” Trevor said. “They’ve definitely had some practice.”

Nate met eyes with Trevor. “Chris and Risa seemed to be helping Roman. They were wondering how many tickets he had earned.”

“You think they use tickets to buy magic candy?” Trevor asked.

“We know something out of the ordinary is going on here,” Nate said.

“The tickets sound like a good place to start,” Pigeon said.

“Roman has almost forty thousand tickets,” Nate said. “And he’s still working hard to earn more. Should we go see if any prizes are worth that much?”

The others agreed. Nate led the way over to the redemption counter, where Todd was accepting tickets from a couple of young girls in exchange for plastic rings.

“That longboard is 10,000,” Summer reported.

“The little jukebox is 20,000,” Pigeon said, eyes roving the shelves. “I don’t see anything for more than that.”

“Hey, Todd?” Nate asked.

“Yeah?” he answered.

“What prize costs the most tickets?”

Todd winced as if thinking and rubbed the tattoo on his forearm. He eyed the shelves. “Jukebox is one of the highest ticket items. Works fairly well. I’m sort of an audiophile, and it sounds decent.”

“Is it the highest?” Nate pursued.

Leaning one hand on the glass counter that held all the cheaper items, Todd gave Nate a measuring stare. Then he glanced down at the cabinet. “There are some pretty expensive stamps toward the back.”

Nate crouched and examined the contents of the glass counter. Looking past the finger puppets, the suckers, the army men, the spider rings, the tiny bouncy balls, and the other items marked at 50 tickets or less, Nate saw two small signs proclaiming a value of 40,000, and a second pair marked 50,000. Behind the signs were four inkpads—one with a simple image of a submarine stenciled on the cover, one with a racecar, one with a fighter jet, and one with a tank. Beside each inkpad rested a stamp.

“Fifty thousand?” Nate asked.

Todd nodded. “We don’t generally draw attention to them. Most people who notice think they’re mismarked.”

“Inkpads?” Summer asked. “Like for stamps?”

“The pads aren’t for sale,” Todd explained. “Just the stamps. Forty thousand for the sub or the racecar. Fifty thousand for the tank or the jet.”

“For 50,000 tickets I get to stamp a tank on my hand?” Trevor deadpanned.

“More than once,” Todd replied. “It could potentially amount to a lifetime supply. But only four people get to win each stamp.”

“Are all the stamps available?” Nate asked.

Todd shook his head slightly. “Two of the jet slots are gone. One tank slot is gone. No racecar slots are taken yet. One sub slot is gone. I happen to know there are plenty of people currently working to win the empty slots.”

“Why?” Pigeon asked.

“I’m not allowed to fully explain,” Todd said. “Earning the stamp is sort of like getting into a club. The details are only for those who succeed. Are you guys here to redeem any of those tickets?”

Nate realized that they were all holding a lot of tickets. “No, later. We were just weighing our options.”

Todd looked at Nate. “Keep shooting baskets how you were, and you’ll be able to afford anything on display.” He drummed his hands on the counter. “Have fun. I need to check on some things in the back.”

Nate and his friends walked away.

“Should we get a receipt for all of these tickets?” Summer asked.