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Winston moved all the pieces until he was able to checkmate the king. He clicked the timer when it was each player’s turn to move and brought the game to a close. We all looked around the room, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did.

I rechecked the chessboard, the table, the timer, and flipped through the pad of paper, but found nothing. What was I missing?

“Why is there a pad of paper here?” I murmured aloud.

“Maybe we need to write down the solution,” Clarissa said. “Can you write down the solution, Winston?”

“Of course, if someone could hand me a pen,” he said.

“There’s one at the Scrabble table,” Mia said, racing over to pick it up.

Winston took the pen and wrote down QF7+, KD8, BC7#.

“The box combination lock,” Alessa said. “This could be the combination.”

I took the paper from Winston and headed for the box. I examined the lock and determined that Winston’s solution matched the lock options on the pedestal box. “The solution works, with one caveat. There are only eight digits on the lock, and there are eleven in Winston’s solution.”

“Try using just the white moves,” Winston suggested. “That should equal eight.”

“OK, I’ll set the combination as you read me the white moves,” I said.

Winston listed each character, and I entered them on the lock. As I entered the last digit, we were rewarded with a clicking sound. To my surprise, Winston grinned, slapping me on the back and giving me a high five. That might have been the most positive interaction we’d ever had.

I carefully lifted the lid. A small green metal crossbow lay nestled on a white velvet cloth, along with another dart. I gently lifted the crossbow from the box and handed it to Gio.

“You’re the man for this job,” I said. “So, from this point on, it’s your show.”

“Fair enough, but what’s the plan? Which balloon do I shoot? All of them?”

“There wouldn’t be time,” I said. “We have seventeen minutes left. By my calculation, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to pop them all in time, even as good a shot as you are.”

“Well, we can’t just give up,” Mia said, putting her hands on her hips. “Not after going through all of this.”

“Perhaps we should look and see if there’s anything else in the room that might pop the balloons,” Winston suggested.

We did a quick search but found nothing. Inspired, Gio grabbed a laser pistol and started the shooting game again, this time firing at a balloon. When he shot at the balloons, it caused them to glow slightly but didn’t pop them.

“That’s strange,” Alessa commented.

“Maybe we can stack the tables, stand on them, and pull down the balloons?” Mia said.

A quick examination of the game tables proved all were too low and anchored solidly to the floor.

“What about the Scrabble game?” Clarissa asked. “It’s the only puzzle we didn’t solve. I bet the answer to this resides at the Scrabble game.”

We gathered around the table and began to examine the game more closely. As I’d noted earlier, the game was nearly over. Only one player had letters left to play. All the other tiles had been played, leaving a crowded and nearly full board. The tray with tiles had seven letters: M, J, G, E, Z, I, H. A piece of paper with the handwritten words48 pointssat at the lower right edge of the board.

“That’s where I found the pen,” Mia said. “Lying right next to this piece of paper with these words on it.”

“Maybe it means we need to pop balloon number forty-eight,” Clarissa suggested.

“We wouldn’t know which way to start counting to find balloon number forty-eight,” Winston said. “It would take hours to count and then pop random balloons. There has to be another solution.”

I picked up the paper, making sure there was nothing on the back side. “The clue must be here somewhere. Read the board carefully and check the tiles in the last tray. Maybe something will pop out at us.”

We crowded around the board, looking for a clue. Clarissa and Winston focused on moving the tiles in the tray around, trying to form a word, since they had both admitted they were Scrabble addicts.

Time ticked past, and the pressure began to affect everyone. I’d come up with absolutely nothing, and neither had anyone else. I noted their actions had become more abrupt, almost frenetic. I felt their frustration. It was difficult to know the answer we needed was buried in the details right in front of us.