Their first piece of good luck happened during dinner (hot dogs with color-coded toppings: mustard, ketchup, relish, and dyed-blue sauerkraut). Word spread that one of the Red team members had an extra 1996 dime and that he would sell it to another team for the right price. Gabe and his bunkmates went over to his table.
“Yeah, I’ve got a 1996 dime. What’s it worth?” the Red team kid asked.
“It’s a dime,” said Wesley. “So it’s worth ten cents.” He laughed.
The boy rolled his eyes. “What’s it worth to you? I’m not selling it for ten cents.”
“A pack of Twizzlers?” Gabe asked.
The boy considered. “I heard you guys got the dictionary word already. Twizzlers, the dictionary word, and a metaphor, and you’ve got a deal.”
“No way!” said Nikhil. “We’re not trading two items for one and giving you Twizzlers.”
“Yeah,” said Wesley. “Forget it.” He stood up to walk away.
“All right,” said the Red kid. “Just the dictionary word and the metaphor, then.”
Gabe narrowed his eyes. The dictionary word could be looked up easily, so Red was bound to find it whether they gave it to them or not. But a metaphor was harder—even some of the people in Poetry Writing had trouble writing metaphors, and the one Gabe had come up with, “The atmosphere blankets the earth,” was too good to just give away. “Just the dictionary word,” he said firmly. “You have to find your own metaphor.”
The boy chewed on this along with his ketchup-covered hot dog. “I’m going to check to make sure it’s the right word,” he said between bites.
Gabe tried not to smile. If the Red team looked up the word to check it, it would be the same as looking up the word to find it. He glanced at his bunkmates and saw that they were thinking the same thing. “It’ll be the right word,” he promised. “Deal?”
They went back to their table with one more item from their list complete.