Mr. Lemoncello's Very First Game

Set in the summer of 1968, this novel tells the origin story of Luigi L. Lemoncello, the boy who will one day become a legendary game maker.

13-year-old Luigi is the sixth of 10 children in the Lemoncello family, who live in a cramped apartment in the Little Italy section of Alexandriaville, Ohio. While his older siblings are serious, straight-A students with clear ambitions, Luigi loves making up stories, solving puzzles, and playing games, which everyone considers odd. His father, Angelo, works three jobs to support the family: a shift at the Belkin Bicycle Factory, night janitor at Mr. Willoughby's department store, and weekend projectionist at the Willoughby Bijou Theater. The family is perpetually short on money, and Mr. Willoughby has demanded repayment for a broken window and mirror caused by one of Luigi's improvised games.

Luigi's best friends are Bruno Depinna, whose family runs a butcher shop, and Chester Raymo, a brainy gadget enthusiast. The three call themselves the three musketeers. When Luigi introduces a homemade card game called First Letters to his younger siblings at dinner, his oldest sister Mary mocks him for wasting time on games. Chad Chiltington, a wealthy 15-year-old, and Jimmy Willoughby, son of the town's most powerful businessman, confront the boys in their alley and tear up Luigi's game cards. Luigi shrugs it off and vows his next idea will be better.

The family's financial pressures intensify when Angelo is laid off from the bicycle factory. Luigi overhears his parents discussing the lost income and feels guilty, convinced he is the family member least likely to succeed. When the annual 10-day summer carnival arrives, Luigi is drawn to a balloon-pop game called Balloon-centration, run by a flamboyant carnival barker named Professor Marvelmous (real name Clarence O'Hara). The game combines dart-throwing with rebus puzzles, pictorial riddles in which images represent words, hidden behind balloons. Using 50 cents pooled from his friends, Luigi solves the puzzle with minimal clues, impressing the professor and the crowd. Professor Marvelmous offers Luigi a job as his apprentice for the remaining nine days at $1.65 per hour, and Luigi proves himself a natural showman, improvising rhyming patter and entertaining customers.

Luigi meets Maggie Keeley, the professor's niece, a girl a year or two older than Luigi who aspires to be a fashion designer and dreams of studying in Paris. Together they win a WALX radio contest, claiming 144 packs of bubble gum. Luigi plugs the Balloon-centration booth on the live broadcast, drawing larger crowds that evening. The professor also gives Maggie a handcrafted wooden puzzle box, a two-foot cube covered in ornate carvings with a brass keyhole on top but no visible key. Luigi discovers that one of the box's carved rosettes twists free to serve as the key, unlocking a sliding-tile puzzle that activates a clockwork mechanism. The mechanism opens one small door per day, each containing a tiny prize: stuffed animals or, oddly, pennies. Later, Luigi coaches Maggie through a second WALX contest, and they split the $50 prize. Luigi gives $10 to his mother to cover the remaining repair debt.

Luigi invites his entire family to the carnival as his guests. They win a toaster, and for once Luigi feels like a hero rather than the family oddball. When Chad and Jimmy try to bully their way to the front of the booth line, Luigi puts on the black silk top hat Maggie made for him and stands his ground. Chad backs down but warns that things will get serious.

Inspired by Vinny Ciccarelli, a shy nine-year-old library regular, Luigi adapts his board game for outdoor play on the sidewalk. The neighborhood turns out in force, but Chad and Jimmy have alerted the mayor and police. An officer shuts the game down, citing city ordinances. Mary berates Luigi publicly, but his parents privately tell him they are proud. Professor Marvelmous encourages him to bounce back with an even bigger idea.

The friends attempt another WALX contest. Bruno solves the clue and finds the prize at the Willoughby Bijou Theater, but Jimmy, whose father owns the radio station, disqualifies Bruno, claiming he found the wrong card while Chad produces the supposedly correct one. The contest is rigged. Bruno, furious and bitter, quits the group, arguing that those in power always control who wins. He takes a job at the Willoughby-owned diner and betrays Luigi by revealing his plans to Chad and Jimmy.

Mr. Willoughby himself arrives at the alley and fires Angelo from both his remaining jobs, citing Luigi's disruptive sidewalk game and the fact that Angelo had snuck his son into the theater for free. Luigi's siblings blame him, and he retreats to his room, giving away his game cards and abandoning all game-making.

Chester and Maggie coax Luigi out of hiding by showing him a cryptic telegram from Professor Marvelmous hinting at a grand quest. Remembering the professor's advice, Luigi puts his top hat back on and rejoins his friends. His youngest sister, Sofia, helps him crack a hidden code: The first letters of the 10 puzzle-box prizes spell "LOOK 4 1 MORE." They find a hidden compartment in the box containing a combination lock above a rebus clue. Maggie enters the answer only she and her uncle would know, and inside they find a rhyming clue that launches a multi-step treasure hunt across Alexandriaville.

The clues lead from the carnival fairgrounds to the public library, where a bookmarked page reveals that a rare 1943 copper penny can be worth over $40,000, and then back to the fairgrounds, where they dig up a safe-deposit box key for the Gold Leaf Bank. Jimmy tails them, so Luigi has Chester lead Jimmy on a chase across town on the Pump 'N' Pedal, a custom bicycle with pump-action handlebars that Chester and Angelo built. While Chester decoys Jimmy, Luigi and Maggie enter the bank, but Chad, now working as its janitor, has guards throw them out. Luigi returns with his friends and his dog, Fusilli, creating a theatrical distraction that lets him slip downstairs to the safe-deposit room. Vinny's mother, who manages the room, provides the bank's guard key because Luigi had been kind to her shy son at the carnival.

Inside the box, Luigi finds a note from Professor Marvelmous to Maggie expressing his wish to fund her education and her dream of studying fashion abroad. Beside the note is a single 1943 copper penny worth over $40,000. Chester, thinking ahead, had called the WALX newsroom, and a reporter waits outside. Maggie tells the story on air, preventing any interference from Chad or the bank staff.

That evening, the neighborhood celebrates. Mr. Charles Belkin, owner of the Belkin Bicycle Factory, arrives after spotting Chester riding the Pump 'N' Pedal. Belkin offers to mass-produce the bike, hiring back laid-off workers including Angelo at triple his old salary, with a two-percent royalty for Angelo and Chester on every bike sold. Bruno shows up, ashamed of his betrayal, and Luigi welcomes him back, remembering the professor's lesson about compassion. In an epilogue, Luigi returns to the library to work on a new board game called Family Frenzy, designed so that players realize they are stronger working together than competing against one another, planting the seeds of the game-making career that will define his life.