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

Kevin’s score was now 6:32. Last place.

“Next…let’s hear from Jia Lee.” Jia stepped up to the podium—but her normal haughty confidence was marred by a furrow in her brow as she stared at the scoreboard and tried to calculate minutes and seconds in her head. “Jia, when you were a member of the Red Team, you made no secret of the fact that you often disagreed with the decisions made by your team leader.”

“That’s true.”

“You had eighteen seconds on the trapeze. How did you choose to play your strategy today?”

Jia looked hard at the board and shook her head. “I saw I was in second-last place, and…well, it hadn’t occurred to me that putting Kevin below the line would have pushed me above. So I thought my best bet for staying above the white line,” she turned her card, “was to add my penalty to Sue’s score.”

Sue’s time went from 4:09 to 4:27, and she dropped from third place to fourth by a mere two seconds.

It was Sue’s turn at the podium next. Her typical poise was gone, and instead she was a bedraggled, shivering wreck. “Sue,” Monty said, “you made good time through the course, though you seemed to struggle in the pool.”

“It was freezing, Monty. You’d be surprised how it feels. It actually hurts. My legs just went numb.”

“You managed to hang on to your trapeze the longest of all the women, thirty-one seconds. What did you choose to do with that half a minute?”

Sue looked back at the seated contestants, shook her head once, and began to sniffle. When she tried to speak, her voice was small and choked. “I saw how close I was to the bottom of the list, and I knew there was an elimination…and I thought the same thing as Jia. I’m sorry.” She turned her card.

It read Jia Lee.

Jia’s score went from 4:25 to 4:56, and dropped back down below Sue’s.

“There’s one contestant left to hear from,” Monty said, “but before we do, there’s one more thing I’d like to add. A single player won’t be going home as a result of this challenge.” John almost felt encouraged by those words, until the stiltedness of their delivery registered. “Instead…there will be two.”

Cameras swung to the scoreboard, and the white line leapt up to the center of the list. Jia, now firmly below it, gasped and covered her face with her hands. John stared at the scores in dismay. Kevin had hung on that trapeze longer than any of them. If he added that time to John’s or Ricardo’s score, was it possible they’d fall low enough to displace Jia and end up on the chopping block? Minutes, seconds, it was all too difficult to add in the heat of the moment.

“Kevin, you received a penalty from half of your competitors. What’s going through your mind right now?”

“Can’t say as I’m surprised,” Kevin asserted, shooting a grim look over his shoulder toward John. “This is a game, and it makes sense to gang up on the biggest threat so you can take him out. When you got more looks, brains and talent than everyone else, and they all know it, that’s the price you pay.”

“He’s gonna get voted off,” Ricardo whispered gleefully, but Bev answered, “You can’t count on it—not yet.”

“One thing’s for sure,” Monty said, “you had the greatest amount of stamina when it came to holding on to that trapeze. You stayed on for a massive two minutes, twelve seconds.”

John tried to add that time to his own score and compare it to Jia’s, but it was no use. Minutes, seconds. He couldn’t even think.

“And so,” Monty said, “the results of this challenge hinge…on your strategy.”

“Oh, great,” Jia groaned.

“Kevin Kazan, what did you choose to do with your hundred and thirty-two seconds?”

Kevin swung fully around to look at each of his competitors in turn, then faced Monty again, and said, “I knew them other players had alliances, Monty. I knew I had to watch my back. And so I chose…” he flipped his card. And he paused.

And he smiled.

“…to keep my points for myself.”

The scoreboard flickered, and Kevin’s time went from 6:32 to 4:20, launching him up past Bev, past Jia, and even past Sue. All the way to third place.

BIG TOP CHALLENGE

1. Professor Topaz 2:59

2 Ricardo the Magnificent 3:08

3. Kevin Kazan 4:20

_________________

4. Sue Wozniak 4:27

5. Jia Lee 4:56

6. The Math Wizard 5:41

John stared at the numbers, sure that there must be some error. That Kevin couldn’t possibly be in third place after John, Ricardo and even Bev saddled him with a penalty. But Sue started to cry again, and Bev muttered, “Aw, nuts,” and the frigid certainty that the scoreboard was indeed correct settled in John’s gut, colder even than a pool of ice cubes and cherry Kool-Aid.

___

A long, hot shower helped to dispel the chill of the Kool-Aid dip, but it didn’t do much to mitigate the dread John felt in knowing that although he himself had managed to land in Magic Mansion’s Final Four…so had devious, resentful, and perhaps even dangerous Kevin. He would need to be careful. And he would need to do his best to keep his energy calm, to ensure he drew as little destructive spite to himself as possible. He accepted the heartfelt congratulations of the crew for his performance in the Big Top Challenge with as much humility as possible, then he adjusted his route to swing past the bar and help himself to the very good scotch. No one stopped him from commandeering the bottle. In fact, crafts services gave him a turkey club to enjoy along with it.

John paused in front of his door and balanced his tray on his hip while he dug his key out of his robe pocket, but when he finally found it and raised it to the lock, he saw his door was ever so slightly ajar.

Cameras. No doubt someone had tucked one into every nook and