16. Mandy
Two years’ worth of work, undone with one cocky smile.
Normally, I don’t blame Clyde for what happened with me and Jed. It was Jed’s stubbornness and my misguided decision-making that broke us, but in this moment, it’s hard not to blame Clyde at least a little. He’s clearly needling his younger brother on purpose.
No matter the reason, watching Jed’s face return to being open and expressive. . .only to close off again hurts. It also makes me want to win, just so I can kick Clyde—hard. He has to know that Jed and I haven’t been speaking, and to come back and pose and smile and wink in front of most of the town. . .it feels low, even for him.
“Our first exercise will be one that will test your physical strength and the dexterity of your fingers.” Principal Lyons points at a large green tent, not far from where Clyde’s preening. “If you would all accompany me over here, we can begin.” He starts to walk.
“Dexterity of our fingers?” Tommy’s expression is hilarious. “What’s next? The strength of our sinews?” I’m chuckling as we walk closer, and that makes both Clyde and Jed frown.
Why are all men such babies? Is it reasonable to want a woman to like only them? To laugh for only them?
Please.
Principal Lyons has a real flair for the dramatic I didn’t notice until recently. He’s smiling broadly at first, and then his face becomes serious as he slowly whips the blue tarp away to reveal. . .
A pile of logs.
Or to be more precise, it’s a large tree that someone has split into seven round sections.
“What are we supposed to with that?” Tommy asks. “And how in the world is it going to show that we have dexterous fingers?” His eyes are wide and this time, because he’s louder, the entire audience laughs.
Principal Lyons is frowning, which is bad for Tommy, since he’s one of the main judges. “Over on the other side you’ll find axes. Each of you has ten minutes to chop these hunks of tree into blocks of firewood, and the person who has the most usable pieces at the end wins.” He glances at his watch. “Now, go.”
We’re splitting wood?
It must be from the story—they had to split wood at the beginning, right? But this is really stupid. It takes me a minute just to get an axe, with everyone rushing over and snatching one like the Big Bad Wolf is coming. In my entire life, I have never once split firewood. I suppose that means I’m spoiled, but this isn’t my task at home.
Plus, we have a furnace that my dad sprang for three years ago, so even he hasn’t had to cut much wood since then.
When I finally do manage to drag a large, round block of wood away from the others and heft my axe, then bring it down, the end of it sticks in the surface and it takes me a good minute and a half to free it again.
Meanwhile, Jed and Tommy have both split their rounds and then split them again into nice fat quarters. They’re well on their way to having eight or ten pieces of wood each. It’s a little reassuring to notice that Denise is just as bad as me. She’s staring at her wood, and eyeing it strangely, as if she might cow it with a good, strong glare.
But then she walks back to the woodpile and grabs a smallish piece. It doesn’t look like it’ll make much for her. Until she stacks it on top of her big round chunk and splits it in half.
I’m swearing under my breath as I bring my axe around again.
But I either have a faulty axe, or I’m just really, really bad at this, because when the ten minutes is up, I’ve managed to chunk off a few strange pieces of bark, but my main hunk of wood is mostly intact, whereas everyone else has managed to split at least one big round hunk into smaller pieces.
“Well, it was neck and neck, but it appears that our winner is Jedediah Brooks.” When I glance over, they’re actually weighing the wood that was split.
What a stupid game.
“And the clear loser for this game today is Amanda Saddler.” That’s not fun to hear, and neither are all the giggles and chuckles and jokes coming from both the audience and my co-competitors. “But let’s talk about why this task matters.” Principal Lyons points at his wife, which is really strange.
She starts talking right after, so I’m thinking they’ve been watching too many television programs. “What a great idea,” she says with a smile. “The next portion of our competition is about to begin, so the placing you held in this first portion will determine the position into which you enter the second part of our contest.”
Great.
Mrs. Lyons pulls a bowl out from behind the cage where Clyde’s still smiling, and holds it up. “This bowl holds the assignment for the next portion of our game. In the story, there was Hansel, Gretel, the bird who ate the bread crumbs, the witch, the stepmother, the father, and a bystander with a horse who saved the children at the end. As you all remember, we already have our Hansel.” She points at Clyde who waves and takes a bow. “But this bowl contains papers that will give each competitor information about their role in the story. You come and draw your papers one at a time in the proper order.” She holds out the bowl. “You can draw in the order you earned with the last game.”
“But how do we know what to draw?” Denise asks. “Even if I was first place, my draw would still just be luck, right?”
“You weren’t first, though.” Janet’s smiling.
“I haven’t even told you what the goal is,” Mrs. Lyons says. “So let me explain that now, before you all draw.” She smiles. “If you’re the witch or the stepmother, your goal is to kill all the other competitors.”
The crowd murmurs, and a few of them boo.
“If you’re Gretel, your goal is to save Hansel before he can be eaten.”
Clyde flexes and half bows over in his poorly made cage.
“If you’re the father, the horse, the bystander, or the bird, your goal is to survive by helping identify and eliminate the witch and stepmother. The witch will eventually have to kill everyone other than the stepmother to win.”
“How would we kill someone?” Jed asks.
The audience laughs.
“Just because you’re a loser doesn’t mean you’ll be the witch,” Clyde says. “Have a little more faith in yourself.”
Jed scowls.
“It’s a good question,” Mrs. Lyons says. “Should you draw the witch, you’ll be the only one in the game who can murder the others. The stepmother will help you, because she only wins if the witch wins, and if the witch inadvertently kills the stepmother, the witch will lose, so she must be careful to defend her ally. And here’s the real catch. The paper with the stepmother on it will tell whoever draws it which color paper is the witch. The Gretel card, on the other hand, will identify who the stepmother is. That means that the stepmother will be known to Gretel, and the witch will be known to the stepmother. The witch won’t know who’s on her side and who’s against her, just as the witch in the story was blind.”
“Lemme get this straight,” Jed says. “If we draw the witch, we know nothing, but we’re supposed to kill everyone but the stepmother?”
“Right,” Mrs. Lyons says. “So it would be wise for the stepmother to reveal herself in some way. Of course, the others will also be watching.”
Tommy’s frowning now, too.
“But,” Jed says, “if we’re Gretel, we have to. . .what? How can we win?”
“Great question,” Mrs. Lyons says. “The witch wins by killing everyone except the stepmother, but Gretel only wins if she can retrieve the necessary objects and slay the witch before dying herself.”
“So other than Gretel, the witch, and the stepmother, we’re all pawns?” Tommy asks.
Mrs. Lyons shrugs. “Sort of,” she says. “Except you’ll be doing activities that require you to be graded, and so anyone could conceivably still win for prom queen or king based on their overall scores.”
“What are the objects?” I ask.
“You’ll hear about them once we’ve drawn,” she says. “Be patient.”
Presumably those things are hidden beneath the additional tents. None of us look very excited, and the audience looks almost as irritated as we do. I think the Lyons let this get a little too complicated.
“Well, let’s get going,” Mrs. Lyons says, probably more worried about the half-confused, half-bored audience than I am. “Jed, you draw first. Then Tommy. After that, Janet, then Jerry, Greg, Denise, and finally Mandy.”
I’m dead last. Of course I am. Stupid wood-cutting chore.
I watch as Jed draws a blue card, Tommy, a green one. Then Janet draws black, Jerry draws white, Greg grabs purple, Denise grabs yellow, and all that’s left for me is bright red.
I read my card.
CONGRATS. YOU ARE GRETEL, YOUR STEPMOTHER’S CARD IS GREEN.
I scan around the circle, trying to remember who drew green. My eyes stop on Tommy, where he’s eyeing me curiously.
Great.
My best friend is the stepmother, one of two characters bent on destroying me. How typical for my life. My one real ally is my enemy. Now I just need to watch him to see whether he sends the witch a signal of some kind, but I can’t make it obvious that I’m watching him, or I’ll give myself away.
“Wait,” I ask. “How does the witch kill people? You never said.”
Mrs. Lyons says, “The witch’s paper comes with small stickers, and if he or she manages to put one on you, you’re dead.”
“I guess that means she’s not the witch,” Jed says. “Or she’d already know that, right?”
“Or she’s really smart and realized that no one would know what a sticker meant without her drawing attention to it.” Tommy shrugs.
Jed rolls his eyes.
We all shove our papers into our pockets.
“Now, our first task is one of art. You’re all going to make candy houses, and the audience is going to vote for which one is the best.” She points, and Principal Lyons yanks the cover off the largest tent-structure. It also happens the be the farthest from us. It’s nearly all the way across the arena by the stands. I’m sure that’s by design, so the paying spectators can see us fail miserably to stick a cookie house together with frosting.
“But that’s not all,” Principal Lyons says. Could he be any more corny? “Each seat here has the cookie parts necessary to build a house, and the individual sheets are equipped with frosting as well. But, each seat has only one type of candy decoration. In order to make the most beautiful house possible, you’ll have to negotiate with the others for a trade.”
Of all the ridiculous. . .
“Now, the fastest of you will get the best seats. Go.”
Oh, good grief. I wasn’t chosen for my athletic ability, but I hoped I’d at least beat Denise, Gregory and Jerry. When I come in dead last, it’s a little depressing. It also leaves me with the last seat of all, which has a huge bowl of. . .Bit-O-Honey? Really? How exactly am I supposed to do to decorate my house with a bowl full of sticky brown taffy?
Jed snagged Good and Plenty, which are bright pink and white pill-shaped treats. They’d make a great boundary on the rooftop, and a wonderful pavement item. He could also use them as bricks, I suppose. Tommy got Boston Baked beans, which are bright red peanuts covered with sugar. He could do basically the same things with those, but they’re more homogenous.
Denise pulled Lifesavers, Janet has Lemon Heads—little yellow balls. Jerry nabbed sugar babies—little, sticky brown balls, and Greg, who ran surprisingly fast, managed to get chiclets. Those may actually be the best choice of all.
Other than Tommy, no one will trade with me, leaving me with a pile of toffee and a handful of Boston Baked Beans to decorate my entire house once I’ve assembled it. Janet’s having trouble using the icing to hold things together, however, and I realize pretty quickly that I can lick either side of a Bit-O-Honey and it’ll hold even better than glue.
“How about now?” I ask Janet, eyeing her red, irritated face. “Want to trade for some Lemonheads now?”
She’s scowling, but she offers me a handful.
And now I’m ahead of her, and I have Boston Baked Beans and Lemonheads with which to decorate. I also realize that Bit-O-Honey is pretty decent to use for a paved walkway, and with my knife, I can even make it look like there are paving stones.
Pretty soon, little wrappers have nearly filled my trash bucket, and my house looks pretty decent, if I do say so myself.
“What happens to the first and last place houses?” Jed asks.
I glance at his, and I’m absolutely disgusted for thinking mine looked good. Jed’s looks like it was made by some kind of famous artist. His house looks like a Barbie mansion. He used every single piece of gingerbread they provided and it’s at least twice as big as mine.
“Four minutes left,” Principal Lyons says.
Jed swaps Greg for some chiclets, and hastily mashes down a driveway made of rainbow squares, and when they call time, it’s clear he’s going to be the winner.
I don’t even give other people’s houses much notice, because none of them can even compare. Until I glance over at Tommy.
Instead of making a house, he made what looks like a supermarket.
“What is that?” I hiss.
Tommy shrugs. “I had all these baked beans. I thought I’d make something that would be all brick, like a bank.”
A bank? When I turn to look it over directly, I recognize the building he copied. There’s even a sign that says ‘Vernal National Bank’ on the front in a combination of white Good and Plentys and Boston Baked Beans, outlined with the taffy he swapped me for. I can’t help shaking my head and smiling.
They have us carry our houses over to where the audience can see, and then we wait as they vote, but of course, Jed wins. Surprisingly, Tommy comes in second place. I manage to get dead last, again. Even with the chiclets, people kept saying mine was boring. This whole thing is turning out to be a little embarrassing, honestly.
“The next prize is one that all our competitors should be pretty good at,” Principal Lyons says.
“Wait,” Greg says. “What’s that?” He points at Janet’s arm.
There’s a tiny red sticker on her elbow.
“How exciting. We have our first murder.” Principal Lyon’s eyes are lit up like he’s announcing an ice cream party. He actually claps.
“That means,” Mrs. Lyons says, “that we need the other competitors to take a vote!”
“A. . .what?” I frown. “What are we voting on?”
“I forgot to mention that with every vote, you have the chance to out the stepmother.” Principal Lyons nods. “Or the witch, of course, but you don’t have the tools you need to vanquish her yet, so I’d recommend you only try to identify the stepmother. If you can find her, then the witch will lose her largest ally, because if you correctly identify her, you can cast her out.”
“Of course, she’s also the witch’s biggest liability,” I mutter.
“But Gretel already knows who the stepmother is,” Tommy complains, rather obviously, I think. “So that hardly seems fair.”
“It takes a vote to cast her out, though,” Principal Lyons says. “If Gretel comes right out and says he or she knows who the stepmother is, then she’ll die next and the witch will win.”
“The sticker’s red,” Jed says, “and Mandy had a red paper. I think Mandy’s the witch.”
“But the stickers could be multicolored,” Janet says, “for all we know. It could still be anyone. Plus, we don’t even want to find the witch yet.”
“Can Janet really be talking?” I ask. “She’s dead.”
“Oh, on the contrary, the deceased can guess,” Principal Lyons says.
I want to ask him what part of that is contrary to what I said. I asked a question.
“But,” he continues, “they can only talk about the circumstances surrounding their own death and any guesses they have. Then once this vote is finished, they’re out of play.”
“Let’s hope the witch was surreptitious with their murder, or Janet will be able to name him or her,” Principal Lyons says. “Janet, tell us what you think.”
“It was Jed,” she says. “I think he stuck it on me when he traded for those Lemonheads.”
“She’s just mad that I beat her,” Jed says. “She should’ve built a bigger house.”
“I traded you for Lemonheads too,” Tommy says. “And Jerry did, and Denise.”
Tommy’s defending Jed, which makes me suspicious of Jed, to be honest. Janet rolls her eyes, but I find it interesting she doesn’t actually know, which means whoever did stick something on her was sly about it.
“It doesn’t really matter who the witch is yet,” I say. “We can’t kill her anyway.”
“Or him,” Jerry says.
“I vote for Tommy as the stepmother,” I say, figuring I may as well accuse him.
“No, it’s definitely Jed who’s the stepmother,” Janet says.
“You just said he was the witch,” I say.
“Fine, then I think it was Greg,” Tommy says.
For the love.
Thanks to Janet’s inability to keep anything straight—not impressive, even if she prides herself on athleticism—and Tommy’s intentional tomfoolery, we bicker back and forth for another few moments, and then everyone votes for Greg. He was sitting right next to Janet, and he’s so innocuous that no one was really paying attention to anything he did.
“Greg is not the stepmother.” Principal Lyons sounds gleeful. “He was the bystander, so unfortunately, he’s now dead as well.”
“Wait,” I say. “Janet’s dead, and so is the bystander?”
“Just five of you left,” Mrs. Lyons says. “One of you is Gretel, and the stepmother and witch are both still in play.”
Fabulous.
“Our next task will be an obstacle course you must complete in the shortest time,” Principal Lyons says.
“But you said,” I say, “that not everything would be athletic.”
“You’ll be placed on teams,” Principal Lyons says, ignoring me. “The winning team will receive the broom.”
“The what?” I ask. “Why do we even want a broom?”
“The broom is the one thing that will slay the witch, and Gretel needs to obtain it or she loses.” Principal Lyons is smiling right at me. I’m worried he’s so obvious that everyone knows I’m Gretel, but no one seems to be picking up on that.
“But there are five of us,” Denise says. “How will we make teams?”
“Jed and Tommy have placed first and second in each event,” Principal Lyons says. “Jed can choose first, meaning he’ll have two people on his team, and Tommy will have just one.”
I’m almost surely going to be picked dead last. I think Tommy saw me glance at him, knowingly, and I wonder whether he’s figured out that I’m Gretel. He knows I accused him, at the very least.
I sigh.
Jed picks Jerry, which is probably smart, since we have no idea what the obstacle course will involve yet, and then I wait for Tommy to pick Denise. She’s the smart one, and if he knows I’m Gretel. . .
“Mandy,” Tommy says. “You’re on my team.”
I can’t help smiling, if only because I wasn’t chosen last. Then it hits me—he’s the stepmother, and now we’re partners in our attempt to recover the dumb broom. “Oh, great.”
When I reach his side, Tommy whispers, “You know I’m the stepmother, so that makes you Gretel.”
I want to swear. Loudly. Am I really that obvious?
“Jed’s the witch.”
My eyes fly up to his face. The stepmother knows who the witch is. . .and he just told me. Also, Janet was right, bless her heart.
Tommy’s smiling broadly. “Let’s take him down together.”
“But you’ll lose,” I say.
“Sure, but if you win, did I really lose?” Tommy smirks. “I said I like to win. I didn’t say I care about their version of what that means.”