The Battle

Dr. Regis Blackgaard has opened his new amusement house, Blackgaard's Castle, and children are pouring through the doors by the dozens. Whit and Eugene finally pay it a visit, and neither of them likes what they see. The displays have been thrown together with no logic or flow at all, the noise is deafening, and the games run on computers that Blackgaard claims he knows nothing about. When Whit questions whether a fortune-telling machine belongs in a place built for kids, Blackgaard waves the concern away. Children have too much structure in their lives already, he insists. What they need is pure, uninhibited fun. A shoving match breaks out in front of the fortune teller, and Blackgaard settles it by announcing free ice cream for everyone, then smiles and asks Whit how he likes that method of breaking up a fight.

Walking home rather than taking the bus, Whit tells Eugene that the rowdy boys do not worry him. Lucy does. She has been spending nearly all her time at the castle with Richard Maxwell, and neither Whit nor Eugene has yet found the words to warn her about him. Whit also still does not know why she deceived him and Connie, though he now suspects Richard had a hand in it.

He suspects rightly. Richard has been buying Lucy sodas and ice cream and asking her friendly little questions, and Lucy has been answering them even though something about it makes her feel like a spy. What Richard wants is Applesauce, the secret program that runs everything at Whit's End. Lucy has told him that a big computer hidden in Whit's office controls the whole place, and that Whit guards the program closely. Blackgaard is not satisfied, and he presses Richard to squeeze more out of the girl who has a crush on him. Then Richard reveals what he has been saving: a friend at the phone company has told him that Whit's computer has a modem, and Richard has both the number and a modem of his own already hooked up.

The moment they dial in, a voice greets them as though Whit himself were speaking, and Richard loads Applesauce. Level one runs a systems check that sends every machine at Whit's End into chaos before the whole building shuts down. Then the program asks for a password, and the two intruders have no idea what it is. Richard breaks the connection fast, afraid the shutdown could be traced back to them, and Blackgaard fumes that Whittaker would of course have installed a safeguard.

Whit and Eugene arrive home to find the lights out and Connie shaken. She swears she never touched anything and only went upstairs to get everyone safely out of the building. Lucy comes by wanting to talk to Whit, but he is busy hunting for the fault, and when Connie gently suggests that spending so much time with Richard may not be wise, Lucy snaps that it is none of her business and leaves.

Back at the castle, Lucy goes looking for Richard and finds him in the dark hallway outside Blackgaard's office. Through the door she hears everything - Blackgaard ordering Richard to use her, to charm her, to get the password whatever it takes, and vowing that he will have Applesauce even if he has to tear down Whit's End brick by brick. A cat named Sasha nearly gives her away, but Lucy slips out with one thought in her head. She has to warn Mr. Whittaker.

Blackgaard, meanwhile, decides to buy himself some time. He has Richard dial into Whit's computer again and finds a command called power drain, which empties the power out of a single machine. He aims it at the Imagination Station. Upstairs at Whit's End, Whit and Eugene are running checks on that very machine and cannot understand why it alone has gone dead. Then Blackgaard spots a second command, power boost. Richard warns him that a sudden surge through dead circuits could make the whole thing explode, and that someone might be inside. Blackgaard orders him to push the button anyway. When Richard refuses, Blackgaard shoves him aside and pushes it himself.

Lucy reaches Whit's End just as Whit steps toward the Imagination Station. She shouts a warning about the power surge, Whit shouts at her to get out, and the explosion comes anyway.

Nearly four hours later, Whit, Connie, and Eugene are still waiting at the hospital when Dr. Farber tells them that Lucy is badly bruised and may have a concussion, but she should be all right. Relief lasts only a moment. The sheriff arrives with a court order, explaining that there must be an investigation. Whit tells him the order is unnecessary. He has already decided to conduct an investigation of his own, because his place was built to help kids and this time it has done the opposite. Until further notice, Whit's End is closed.