Vijay Bhai stared at him calmly. “Try it, Ahmad,” he said quietly. “You can’t win this game unless you take chances.”

“These clouds worry me,” Winnie called from behind him. “We need to figure this out fast!”

“Hold on a moment!” Ahmad yelled back, cupping the marble in his hands as the moisture made his palms slippery. He needed to keep a good grip on it so he could think.

The rest of the equipment that Madame Nasirah had tucked into their satchels was proving to be useless in this challenge. But what if the marble was also part of that equipment? Was this what they were looking for?

“Winnie, I think I’ve got something!”

Winnie sloshed toward him, tossing out her arms to balance on the swaying deck. “What is it? What did you get?”

She squinted at the marble in his hand.

“A marble?” she asked. “How can that possibly help? These are giants, Ahmad.”

“It’s magnetic. I used to collect marbles when I was a kid. I’m sure of it. These guys are giants, but they are metal giants. This is the key, Winnie. I can feel it.”

Winnie’s brow was furrowed doubtfully. “Okay. I get that. But I’m not sure how something so small could be used to fish out those huge men.”

She glanced at Vijay Bhai, who had moved from his hair to wringing out his sleeve, and leaned in closer to whisper, “Also, you really need to explain this whole uncle but not an uncle thing to me.”

Ahmad nodded. It was a fair point, about fishing out the men, and one he hadn’t figured out yet—not that he could explain the whole Vijay thing either. He closed his hands over the marble and rubbed them together, feeling the marble slide over his skin. And then, he closed his eyes, too.

“Grow,” he whispered. “Please. Grow.”

“Uh, Ahmad . . . ,” Winnie began, and then gasped as the marble rolled out from between Ahmad’s fingers.

“No!” Ahmad cried, and reached out for it, but it toppled off the deck and into the water, without even a splash.

“So much for that,” Winnie sighed. “Sorry, Ahmad.”

Ahmad stared mournfully into the water. “It felt like we were on the right track,” he whispered.

The boat began to tremble, listing from side to side. Winnie and Ahmad grasped each other’s arms, and Ahmad felt Vijay Bhai grasp the back of his shirt.

“Steady,” Vijay Bhai warned.

“I think something is under the boat!” Winnie shouted.

The Machi Men, in a panic, were thrashing back and forth. The kids clung to each other as the water seethed around their small craft.

“We have to do something,” Winnie said angrily. “We can’t let them down like this.”

“But what else can we do? We’ve tried everything we were given.”

“Not everything . . . we could . . .” Ahmad frantically reached for his knapsack, tugging out the bag of food.