"I do," he said, and his face was serious as he looked over at me. "I got to put my hands all over you in Paris, then we had a mini-date in Pompeii. Went all the way in Egypt after you clung to me in the pyramids. Night two in Turkey, and then we fought in Cambodia. Waste of a perfectly good twelve hours in a hotel room, if you ask me."
I chuckled. "That was all you."
"I know it was," he said, and grimaced. "This box is the wrong one," he told me. "Cambodia wasn't until the seventh leg." And he showed me the stringed instrument.
Something pinged my memory again, and I squinted up at the top of the stairs, where Brodie and Tesla were descending back down to the bottom, their empty litter at hand. I looked over at their boxes - two remained. And Cambodia was seventh…
I turned and grabbed Liam's arm as he opened the next box, my fingers digging in to his skin. "Brodie and Tesla made a mistake," I whispered at him. "They've got the order wrong."
"They do?"
I nodded. "When we go up again, look at their mat."
His eyes flared with excitement. "I guess now that they don't have anyone to copy off of, they're forced to rely on their own brains."
"Then Brodie and Tesla are screwed," I told him with a grin. "My brother's a lot of things, but brains is not his strong suit."
"We need to hurry," he told me, heading for the next box and prying the massive lid off.
I thought for a minute, then leaned in. "What if we leave the item in the box and take it up the stairs? The rules didn't mention anything about that. Brodie and Tesla won't be able to see what we've got in what order, and so they won't be able to copy off of us once they figure out that they've done something wrong."
Liam grinned at me. "Sneaky. I love it."
"Let's do it, then," I said, opening the next box.
It took a few more before we found the large book that signified our stop in Dublin and the visit to the University Library. We left it in the box and hauled it up the stairs, going as fast as we could despite our cramping legs. There were only seventy-two steps (I counted) but it might as well have been three hundred. We dumped our box and raced down for the next one. After that was a chandelier, for the opera house in Paris. As we headed up again, we passed Tesla and Brodie, who were on their way back up with their next object. They were slowing down, their faces covered in sweat. I couldn't blame them - we were on our third pass up and this task was killing my legs. But we couldn't afford to slow down. Not when victory was this close.
My heart hammered in my chest as we dropped off our box, and then took the box containing the small temple up the stairs. Once we got to the Trojan horse, my legs were cramping and moving slower and slower. Liam's face was shining with sweat, his black hair sticking to his brow. I was exhausted, but sheer adrenaline kept me going.
As soon as we dumped our Trojan horse, I watched, my entire body tense, as Brodie and Tesla called over the judge. The woman picked through their pieces, then shook her head. "No. Try again."
I bit back my squeal of excitement. They had it wrong. There was time to fix this. We could still win.
We headed down the stairs at breakneck speed, and I watched as Brodie's gaze moved to our still-boxed objects. Nice try, big brother, I thought to myself. There was not going to be any copying off of my hard work today. Liam and I were both gasping for breath by the time we made it up the stairs with the stringed guitar-thing from Cambodia. I glanced over at Brodie's mat, and they had maneuvered things again, the Trojan horse now occupying the completely wrong spot.
"I'm sorry, no," the judge said again, and I smiled to myself to hear Brodie swear.
Excitement made our feet pound down the stairs, even though we were exhausted at this point. We grabbed the last box and hauled it onto the litter with weak, trembling arms.
"One more, Katy," Liam encouraged me. "We can do this. We can."
I nodded, saving my breath for the climb up those horrible stairs, and we continued forward. Each step felt enormous, and I counted them off in my head. Twenty steps, and I was gasping like a fish out of water. Thirty steps, and my sweaty hands were slipping on the wooden beams of the litter. Fifty steps, and my legs were cramped so tight that every step felt like knives. But I kept going, and Liam hadn't slowed down a bit. Sixty five steps, and we were close enough to see Brodie and Tesla standing over their mat. My brother had his hands twisted in his blond hair, and he looked utterly frustrated. Tesla had her tattooed arms crossed over her chest, giving Brodie a furious look, as if it was his fault. I felt a twinge of pity for my brother. Just a twinge.