Betty Wexter Metapuzzle – Where's Waldo?

by Dave Shukan

The puzzles in this round have the titles indicated below, with the corresponding solutions:

puzzle titles	solutions
At Sea	EARTH
At the Beach	WAHOO
Campsite	TUESDAY
Department Store	SLOTH
Museum	HISTORIC
Safari Park	RUNTS
Ski Slopes	ARSONISTS
Train Station	CHEF

The puzzle titles are specific location names in the book Where's Waldo? Searching on a sufficiently robust subset of the titles will reveal the title of the book, which might also be identified by the iconic red and white stripes on the grid and the references to "spy[ing] people" and "picking them out from the crowd" in the text of the dossier.

When arranged in the order that their corresponding scenes appear in the book, the associated solution words display the acronym WATCHERS. There are 12 locations in the book. Eight of those locations contain a total of 25 children called "Waldo Watchers" that appear once each throughout the book as published, according to Amazon.com, in April 2007 (note the date of the Itinerary, though this is not critical for solving). Those Waldo Watchers are lined up in a drawing at the beginning of the book, to identify what they look like. That line-up provides an ordering mechanism. (Four of the locations in the book do not contain any Waldo Watchers, and are not used.) Note also the sentence in the Dossier: "People should think of the children!"

First step – Obtain a copy of the book. In case that proved to be unduly difficult, teams were given a library card at the beginning of the Hunt with instructions that they can request a book by name, and if they request "Where's Waldo?" a copy will be delivered to them. [NOTE: In the actual Hunt, given the placement of the meta near the end, the release schedule of the puzzles in Dossier 6, and the need to move things along, all teams were given the book before any team called it in.]

Second step – Locate the 25 Watchers throughout the book.

Third step – Fill the Itinerary grid with the solution words, in order of Waldo's travels, starting at the arrow.

Fourth step – Note that each Watcher falls within one of the grid spaces in the Itinerary when the Itinerary is overlaid on the book. The grid within the physical copy of the Itinerary is the same size as each scene in the book (it may help to disassemble the book to overlay the grid precisely).

Final step – Assign letters to each Watcher in the line-up at the beginning of the book, according to the Itinerary grid letter they are associated with when found later in the book. The line-up will then spell the solution phrase: SHE SAW OTTO FLOSS AT THE SHORE.

The final answer is: SHE SAW OTTO FLOSS AT THE SHORE.