The Hammer of Thor

Hearth challenges the giants to an arcade game contest—any game of the contestants’ choosing. The giant gets a perfect score in skee-ball, but Hearth blows his score away in pinball, which the giants whine isn’t fair until Magnus points out Hearth never said the contestants had to play the same game. Next, Blitz does a makeover on the “ugliest” giant in the room, winning by a landslide. For the last challenge, Utgard-Loki pits Magnus and Alex against the bowling champions for a doubles game. The winner will take the usual prize, “which is, of course, the losers’ heads” (328).

Magnus and Alex go first, neither getting their balls anywhere near the pins. The champions each bowl a strike, and Alex makes a show of going to the restroom, actually turning into a horsefly to eavesdrop on conversations. The champions’ lane is normal, but the pins in Magnus and Alex’s lane are the White Mountains in New Hampshire on Midgard. Having no idea how to bowl across worlds, Magnus throws his second ball into the champions’ lane, cracking the floor and making the giants bowl gutter balls.