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 you’ve missed.”

I stared at it speechless. What the hell was this? I surveyed the age 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 Painite.

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!”