“Ahmad!” Winnie cried, but he was already underwater. The river ran into his mouth, weirdly briny in a way that reminded him of pickles. He choked and sputtered and gasped for air. His lungs felt like there were pins and needles jabbing into them. Was this what it felt like to drown?

He tried to focus on keeping the marble between his fingers, but he could hardly feel his fingers from the shock and sting of the cold water.

After a few seconds he was yanked upward, gasping and coughing, back into the boat.

“I can’t believe you,” Winnie scolded him, anxiously patting him on the shoulders. “That was the bravest and most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen someone do in my life. Boys, I tell you.”

But Ahmad was only focused on his hands. “I lost it,” he chanted unhappily. “I lost it, I lost it, I lost . . . no, I didn’t lose it!”

He held up the marble triumphantly. The metallic, now miniature Machi Men attached to its sides waved their arms and hands.

Grinning widely, Winnie and Ahmad waved back.

“We did it, Winnie,” Ahmad said, sniffling.

Winnie laughed. “Now to get you dried off!”

But before they could make another move, the water abruptly slid away from the ship, receding so that they could see—once again—the long dock and alleyways of the shore.

And, hovering dramatically, without a hair out of place or a droplet on her sleeve, was the MasterMind.

CHAPTER TEN

WELL DONE, CHAMPIONS!” THE MasterMind said, extending both arms forward toward Winnie and Ahmad with a gleeful smile on her face.

She was floating on a decked-out hoverboard, framed on every side with incredible blasters and iridescent lights. Standing there like that, she looked she was trying to be a jovial uncle at Eid, the type that pinched your cheek and smacked your back and stuffed a sweet in your mouth while pressing money in your hand.

She totally failed. Particularly since no uncle Ahmad knew, even the ones with questionable taste, ever wore zebra-print leggings with a rainbow T-shirt that had “Bad things come in small packages” across the front. She was also wearing one of those bucket hats he usually saw sweet grandmas in Chinatown wearing on really sunny days.

“Who is this clown?” Vijay Bhai muttered out of the side of his mouth.

Ahmad sighed. “Our worst nightmare.”

Vijay Bhai gave a low chuckle. “I’ve seen worse.”

Winnie crossed her arms over her chest. She would have looked intimidating if it wasn’t for her soaked hair and flushed face. “You seem like you enjoyed all that trouble you caused it.”

The MasterMind smirked. “You’re right. I do.”

She stepped elegantly forward, and with every footfall, the water seemed to cringe back from direct contact with so much as the tip of her boots. Even it was nervous around her. Ahmad swallowed hard.