Magic Mansion by Jordan Price (best fiction books to read .txt) 📕

neck and neck before with John, was only now turning away from the Gold Team pegboard. He had a brown three-point peg in his teeth. He raced back as Jia leapt through her hoop and bit a peg from the Red Team’s board.

And spat it out.

“Crazy-assed chick,” Kevin muttered, through his mouthguard. “What she doin’?”

Jia spat another, and another, and finally settled on the fourth peg she’d chosen. She turned to run back, and John saw she’d decided to keep a two-point white.

John eyed Iain on the sidelines, a cellphone on each ear in a heated discussion with his unseen superiors. Evidently the producers weren’t the only ones who knew how to deliver a twist.

Jia returned and Kevin was off yet again as the timer ticked past the midway point. Over on Gold Team, Ricardo spat his brown peg into the tiger’s mouth, then looked up to watch Kevin bang through the hoop, while on his own team, Bev struggled across the platforms. Just as Kevin lunged for the pegs, a dry wind kicked up and engulfed him in dust. He doubled over, knuckling at his contact lenses, and Iain paused in his multi-phone conversation. “You need a medic?”

Kevin straightened up and blinked away tears, and then shook his head and barked out, “I’m good.” But the momentary lapse had allowed Bev to catch up to him. The hairs on the back of John’s neck prickled, and he turned to see Ricardo watching Kevin’s struggle with a self-satisfied smile.

At least this slip-up wasn’t as obvious as the mylar dove. Though calling it a slip-up was probably quite a stretch.

Kevin grasped a peg and turned toward his team. The peg was green. Bev began her laborious jog back to her tiger with a two-point white peg in her mouth.

“If they disqualify your pegs,” John told Jia, “then that’s it. We lose.”

“And how is that different from every other challenge?”

She had a point.

Bev was no sprinter, and despite the momentary reprieve the dust cloud had given the Gold Team, Kevin outpaced her easily. John glanced over at Ricardo, who was giving Sue a pep talk as she readied herself for her third circuit. Ricardo caught John’s eye and gave a slight shrug—busted. It was time for John to run again before he could come up with a response.

Jump, jump, jump, clear the hoop, roll the ball. Sue had grasped a peg and was on her way back, running hard, when suddenly she went sprawling. Monty’s voice, saying, “Sue is down!” rose over the collective indrawn breath of everyone who’d seen what happened, but Iain called out, “keep going,” and so John left Sue to the care of the medics, stepped up to the pegboard and located yet another brown. How suspicious would it look if he took a third brown peg? Maybe he should settle for green this time…but without knowing whether Jia’s pegs would count or not, could he risk losing yet another challenge? In John’s pause, Sue must have made it back to her starting line, and the sound of Ricardo leaping from platform to platform with unerring accuracy and speed rang through the yard.

John grasped a brown peg and ran back toward the tiger.

“That’s nine points Professor Topaz scored for Red Team!” Monty cried. So much for flying under the radar.

Jia was hopping the platforms as Kevin readied himself in case he might be able to make one more circuit—though the timer now had less than thirty seconds to go. Jia made it to the pegboard, spat out a green peg, and kept the second peg she’d chosen. John saw it was a brown.

Kevin looked back over his shoulder at John. His eyes were red. “Wanna tell me where the other browns are?”

John stared at him blankly.

“No? You sure? ’Cos you don’t wanna mess wit’ me, old man.”

“It’s random,” John said calmly. But Kevin didn’t buy it. He gave a derisive scoff, then set off for yet another leap through the course as Jia brought home a brown.

Ricardo came in with another white, and Bev set off for her final circuit, but as Kevin grabbed another peg and pounded back toward the Red Team’s start line for all he was worth, she’d barely struggled through the hoop. Kevin’s hard-won peg was a low-scoring green. But he gave John a pointed look as he spat it into the tiger’s maw anyway.

The airhorn sounded to end the challenge. Bev spat the green peg she’d been carrying out on the lawn, threw her arms in the air, and slowed to a walk. “Good try, Bev,” Ricardo shouted. “Good try.”

“Everybody take five,” Iain called out. “Medic, go have a look at Sue’s knee. Jia—you’re a royal pain in my ass, you know that, don’t you?”

Jia tossed her hair.

Kevin dropped his spitty mouthguard into an assistant’s bucket, and said, “The two of you should leave the strategy to me.”

“And you should leave the comedy to Chip Challenge,” Jia said. “Your precious strategy is a joke. It hasn’t panned out once.”

John relieved himself of his mouthguards, and kept an eye on his opponents as Jia and Kevin squabbled. Gold Team was huddled together, hanging on Bev’s every word. No doubt she’d pieced together each team’s score.

And no doubt it all came down to Jia being disqualified or not.

Stylists came around to blot Jia’s brow and tousle John’s hair more attractively, and a medic brought Kevin some eye drops. The remaining contestants—only six of them now—were lined up opposite the scoreboard, three men in back, three women in front. John couldn’t say anything to Ricardo, even though they were standing side by side. Because the cameras were on him—and he was just as close to Kevin.

Once the crew cleared the set, Iain said, “Go ahead.”

“It was a very close race,” Monty said. “Let’s take a look at how each team fared. Gold Team—”

“Cut,” Iain said. “Marlene doesn’t like the way you pronounced ‘fared.’ Do over.”

“Faired,” Monty said, missing the R completely. “Faired.”

“Replace it with ‘did.’”

“Got it.”

“Go