Page 86 of Knight Moves

It didn’t.

“I don’t know,” Mike finally said, throwing his hands up in frustration. “What in the heck do a bunch of kings and queens have to do with chemistry?”

“Well, there are also knights and horses, which indicates medieval times,” Hala pointed out. “Maybe it’s highlighting an important discovery in chemistry that happened in that time frame?”

“But what?” Wally said. “Nothing leaps to mind. You got something, Angel?”

I shook my head. “I’ve got nothing.”

“Okay, what if we come at it from an entirely different angle?” Frankie said. “What do all those nobles have in common other than the fact that they’re really rich?”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Wally, Mike, and I looked at each other in stunned shock. “Noble!” we shouted at her in unison.

We gave each other high fives until we realized the rest of the group was looking at us as if we’d lost our minds.

“The noble gases,” Wally explained. “Frankie, you’re a genius. Noble gases are the only nonmetal elements in the periodic table. There should be enough of them to get us across the platform. And, by the way, helium is a noble gas, and it’s at the front of the door. So that theory works.”

I nodded excitedly. “Exactly. All we have to do is decode the gases from the Greek and we’ll know which block to step on.” I threw a worried glance at Mike and Wally. “Except I don’t know what order the noble gases go in. Do you, either of you?”

Mike shook his head, but Wally grinned and tapped his head. “I got it right up here, baby.” He started walking along the first row, sliding into his commanding general role. “Okay, I see it now. That’s why they mixed up the rows—to make it harder for us.”

“That wasn’t hard enough?” Hala said.

I walked over beside Wally, looking at the blocks in a new light. “What are you looking for?”

“We have to go from the bottom up like Kira suggested, since helium is in front of the door. So if we start with the last of the noble gases, that would make it oganesson or Og.” He stopped in front of a block that had the Greek letters omega and gamma. “This is it. Here I go.”

Blowing out a nervous breath, he stepped onto the block. It sank, but stayed white. No voice came over the loudspeaker indicating a penalty.

We all cheered.

“Way to go Wally!” I said.

“Okay, I’m going to make my way across slowly,” he said jumping on the next blocks. “Radon, Rn, xenon, Xe, krypton, Kr, argon, Ar, neon, Ne, and helium, He.” He paused on the last block and raised his hands in the air. “Just like that, I’m safely at the door. It worked! But now what do I do?”

“Can you open the door?” Bo called.

“Not from up here on the block. It’s a short jump down, and it looks like there is a white area where I can safely land.”

“Well, do it!” Jax shouted.

Wally jumped down, and the door slid open. “It worked,” he yelled. “The door is now open.”

“I’ll go next,” Kira said.

Wally stayed at the foot of the platform telling her which block to jump on until she made it across. She jumped down next to him, and suddenly the door slid shut.

“What the heck?” Wally said. “The door just closed.” Kira banged on the door, but it wouldn’t open.

“What happened?” Bo asked. “Why did it close?”

“I don’t know,” Kira said. “When I jumped down next to Wally, it closed.”

“Jax, go next,” I said. “See if you can figure out what happened to the door.”

He crossed the blocks, and when he jumped down next to Kira and Wally, the door slid open.

“What in the world?” Wally said.

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