“Oh no,” Ahmad gasped as the wall he was leaning against started reversing. He tried to tug himself backward, but he was stuck. “Winnie! Help!”

Winnie turned around and her eyes widened. “Ahmad!”

She started toward him and then paused, looking around frantically. She ran to the nearest wall and slapped it urgently.

“No, don’t do that!” Ahmad wheezed out as the wall pressed firmly into his chest. “Just come here and push me back out!”

“Wait a moment, if I can just find the right—”

Winnie’s hand connected with another wall. The walls stopped moving.

But Ahmad was still stuck in between them.

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no,” Winnie chanted. Her eyes were wild as her hands fluttered over Ahmad’s face. “Ahmad, are you okay? Speak to me!”

“I’m fine,” Ahmad managed, and then wheezed. “Just . . . really tight. Like a belt. Don’t worry.”

He managed to raise a finger and point toward the pond. Winnie groaned with dismay.

“It sank!”

There was nothing there but the slightest glimmer of blue.

“Go over . . . and . . . step on the tiles,” Ahmad gritted out. “Hurry.”

“But you’re stuck here.” Winnie hesitated. “What if that ball comes back this way?”

Ahmad widened his eyes at her, and she scurried off. She started to dance in the middle of the lowered tiles like a kid splashing in the middle of puddles.

“Oomph! Oomph! Oomph! Do you see anything yet?”

Ahmad made a grunt and hoped she could tell it was a no. He tried to focus on his own situation. He needed to get out of this jam before that huge marble came back. And fast. He wiggled his left foot, still protruding out the opposing end of the wall, experimentally.

Was it his imagination or was there a shaky tile under his heel?

Winnie turned to look back at him.

“Everything okay?” she called.

Ahmad managed a weak thumbs-up. She turned back to her puddle jumping as he slowly, painfully slid back his heel—

And then the passage started to tremble again.

Winnie gasped, “Oh no.” Her foot came down hard on the ground. There was an audible splash and, though Ahmad’s eyes were blurry from squirming against solid rock, he thought he could see the reassuring shimmer of cool water.

And something else. A flash of starlike gold.

“Grab it!” Ahmad called hoarsely. “Grab it, please!”

Winnie ducked down and held out her hands, like she was trying to coax one of those hated pigeons in Central Park toward her. The fish leapt upward into the air, shining between the gaps in her fingers like a ray of the sun. And then—plop, back into the water it went.

She looked up at Ahmad despairingly. “I missed it!”

“Try . . . again.” Ahmad kept inching his foot back. Yes, there was a groove in the floor! He could feel it for sure now. He craned his neck around and gasped. “Winnie! Hurry!”