Games for Money
Games for Money
He led us into a warm room. With a swift movement of his arm, he indicated for us to sit down. We nervously sat down. He said.
"Bring me my schedule."
I wrinkled my brow in confusion. What schedule? Was something mentioned in the letter? I was about to examine the letter when a woman walked in and gave him a calendar-like book.
Not an instruction for us.
"You have a meeting in five minutes sir.", the woman said, " with-"
"ok, ok" , the man cut through, "I'll come. Give these children the letter."
"These children sir?"
He nodded and rose.
"Good luck.", he said as an afterthought." For your sake, I sincerely hope you do well."
"In what sir?", Malhaar asked.
"You'll know soon enough", he said with a smirk and left.
The woman was still there, so I looked at her instead. She smiled and gave us a letter. It, like the two earlier ones, had a paper rose pinned to it. I made to open it but she gave me a warning look and motioned for us to leave, which we gladly did.
I backed into an alley with Malhaar following me. There I opened the letter.
"What? What rubbish is this?" she screamed.
The letter said this:
"
Welcome, to the games for money. It is a series of tests. The winner will take home the Myanmar Painite.
The first round will begin at midnight.
To find out what it is,
Think about what youve missed.
I stared at it speechless. What the hell was this? I surveyed the page carefully. That's when I noticed a watermark on the bottom left corner. It said, 'printed through MS. Word'. This was it! This must be a font.
"Malhaar, run. We gotta go. We have only half an hour to pull this off!"
"Where?", she asked.
"To our dormitory."
"Why?"
"Because I need to use your computer. "
"Here you go", she said opening her computer for me.
I smiled and opened word. It took us twenty-five minutes. At the very end of the fonts tab, we saw a script. Bookshelf 7. We selected it and tried.
Malhaar smiled.
It was done.
The note read:
"Welcome, to the games for money. It is a series of tests. The winner will take home the Myanmar Pinite.
The first round will begin at midnight.
To find out what it is,
Think about what you've missed."
I raked my brains. What had I missed? It was definitely familiar. Almost like…. Like…
"It was listening skills", I said.
"but you were there when Alpana took that."
"Well, I was sort of writing something else", I said meekly.
"unbelievable", Malhaar said shaking her head.
I ignored that comment and pulled out a sheaf of paper.
"So, it's listening skills "
She nodded in confirmation.
Suddenly, her computer gave a long beep. A man came on screen.
"It's started!"