"Melvine?" I asked.
"Don't worry about him. We're pretty impervious to heat," Markie said, waving away my concern. "It's one of the first things you learn in fourth grade. That's the Fire Elemental class."
Schlein appeared on the center of the circle of contestants. He held up the brown potato, and tossed it to the Troll. The Troll caught it between thumb and forefinger and threw it to the next contestant in line, who passed it on at once. It didn't look like a challenging contest to start.
I was wrong. Before the vegetable had made a complete round it started glowing slightly. Sweat breaking out on the face of the Imp told me that it had grown almost too hot for him already. He tossed it away and rubbed his palms together. Disdainfully, the Pervect received the missile and sent it on. The Jahk threw it to the Gargoyle with a pained shriek.
"That hurts!" she cried.
"Come on, sweetie, suck it up!" Tanda advised the image. "You're a Jahk!"
The Gargoyle had no trouble holding onto the potato, but he wasn't very good at throwing. The bald male had to dive for the potato, and tossed it in his hands until he all but batted it toward the shark.
Faster and faster the glowing spud went around the ring. It burst into flames on the sixth round. The Troll yelped and started batting at the fur on his arms. Flames licked up and down his limbs. He had set himself on fire. While he was batting out the fire, the potato hit the ground.
"You're out!" Schlein's voice called.
"Aarrrgggghhh!" the Troll snarled. He stomped away. Gingerly, the Imp snatched up the potato and flicked it in the direction of the Pervect.
The Pervect held out his hands for it. I thought it was pretty brave of him, since fire is one of the few things that could harm his kind. At the last moment the flaming missile took a curve. Someone in the circle was trying to keep it away from him. The Pervect snarled and reached for it with his own magikal force. The missile did a right angle in mid air and headed for his palms. It looked like he had it in the bag, but at the moment before impact he winced, closing his eyes. The potato dropped straight down, hitting the ground. The Pervect opened his eyes, looked at his empty palms, and glared at the others.
"Who did that?" he demanded. The others all favored him with innocent expressions that changed to gleeful leers.
"All's fair in love and Sink or Swim" Schlein's cheerful voice said.
The Pervect gave his fellow contestants one killing glance, and stalked off to join the Troll on the sidelines.
The Jahk did better in the next circuit, speedily handing off the flickering potato to the Gargoyle. It looked like the Bald Guy with Muscles was going to make it one more round. His jaw was set. Bravely, he conveyed it to the shark then dropped to his knees. He held up his hands, and the crystal balls zoomed in to show them. The palms were blistered and swollen to twice their normal size. I cringed in sympathy.
"Medic!" shouted Schlein.
A couple of Sittacomedians in whites came racing onto the stage with a stretcher between them. The Bald Man waved them away, though perspiration ran down his face like a waterfall.
"It's just a scratch," he insisted.
In unison, Bunny, Tananda and Markie stated, "Men."
He was out. The Jahk joined him next, followed by the shark, who lost half a row of teeth three rounds later. Fortunately, he had several other rows of gleaming white fangs.
The Imp, still in the game, grinned madly at the departure of his fellow contestants. He underhanded the now incandescent potato to the Gargoyle. He made it look so easy I was suspicious. Imps were no more immune to heat than Klahds or Jahks. What was going on? It seemed as though I wasn't the only one who wondered about it. A green-skinned, tunic-clad official I hadn't noticed before came marching out onto the floor, and grabbed the Imp by the wrist. He examined the pink male's palms.
"He's wearing Burn Cream!" announced the Sittacomedian.
"No, never!" the Imp protested as he was hauled off the stage. "It wasn't me! They told me it was all right! I didn't do it! It's just magik!"
"Aw, pick a lie and stick with it," Tananda jeered him.
"Cheating!" Schlein said, clucking his tongue regretfully. "That means that Garonamus is disqualified!"
The Geek's bubble over the arena suddenly enlarged. We watched as he shook his head ruefully and scratched the team name off his slate. The bubble shrank to a pinpoint.
The official came marching on, picked up the white-gleaming potato and tossed to the Gargoyle. "Game on!"
The circle had shrunk just that quickly from eight to two contestants. Melvine seemed to be enjoying himself, returning the glowing potato almost the instant it hit his palms. He started pitching fancy throws, lobbing it overhand or pitching sliders in the direction of the slow-moving Gargoyle.
"Is that the best you can do?" he taunted the stone figure.
"Shut up, little man," the Gargoyle grunted, stooping for the potato just in time.
A humming arose.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Uh-oh, folks," Schlein said. "We're running into magik time! The potato is close to detonation. Will one of these brave competitors give it up before they're both blown into little pieces?"
"D'ja hear him?" Melvine said. "You can give up now!"
"No, you give up," the Gargoyle countered. "You're just flesh."
"No Cupy is just flesh, pal! We're Cupies!" Melvine heaved the flaming sphere into the air and hit it like a tennis ball. The Gargoyle caught it in one massive hand. The stone face seemed to contract for a moment.
Schlein leaned into his microphone. "These two just won't stop! I'm very impressed! This has got to change the odds for the Sorcerer's Apprentices. Odds-maker, what do you say?"
The Geek appeared again. He didn't seem impressed. He looked upset. "This moves the Apprentices up to four to one," he gritted out.
I twisted my lips. He assumed they were going to fail. Not MY apprentices!
The humming grew louder and more shrill.
Schlein yelled, "When will they stop?"
But Melvine and the Gargoyle still would not quit. The potato flicked back and forth between them so rapidly it looked like a solid line of flame. The two moved within a couple feet of one another, with the magicians covering the event picking up tight images of their faces and hands. Melvine was sweating now. The Gargoyle looked as though he was, too, until I realized it was the heat from the potato. It was actually melting the stone!
The huge, underslung jaw was set. He clapped his hands on the missile then batted it back. I could see that his palms were beginning to slag. In a moment they would melt off.
The Gargoyle knew it, too. He batted the potato one more time to Melvine then retired, flapping his hands to cool them. Melvine received the potato then floated it in the air over his head while he accepted the applause of the crowd.
Schlein's voice boomed over the noise.
"It looks like—yes, it is—Melvine of the Sorcerer's Apprentices is the winner! But what about the potato?"
Melvine looked up at it. The hum had risen to a scream. Red numerals appeared in the air. The audience chanted along as they counted down.
"Ten, nine, eight, seven…"
"It's going to blow," Schlein said, cheerfully. "Everybody duck! Bye-bye, Melvine!"
Melvine's face hardened into the stubborn expression I had learned to associate with his refusal to acknowledge what someone else had just said. He glanced upward then thrust his hand toward the blazing globe of fire. It shot upwards, with Melvine close behind.
One of the crystal balls following the match must have been operated by a wizard adept at flying, because it never lost sight of them. They flew up and out of the open arena, heading for the clouds. Melvine waited until he was well above the crowd then stuck his fingers in his ears.
High above him, the potato detonated deafeningly, sending flaming sparks off in a hundred directions.
"Wow, what a finish!" Schlein said. "Melvine, of the Sorcerer's Apprentices!"
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I found myself cheering wildly along with the others. "That was amazing!"
"Very stylish," Markie said, applauding. "Did you teach him that, Skeeve?"
"Well, not really—" I began.
"He sure did," Bunny said proudly. "Melvine learned it from seeing him save us all from that explosion!"
Schlein appeared among us again, wiping his brow. "Well, that was dramatic, my friends. We've never come so close to having the potato blow in the head-to-head competition. I have to tell you, most of the first row was already heading for the door when—can you believe it?—that Cupy drove it right up into the stratosphere! Wait, I'm getting a message from the judges." He put a finger in one ear and seemed to be listening. "Yes, they are awarding an extra point for style to the Sorcerer's Apprentices. Way to go, guys!"
I cheered and stamped my feet. "Great job, Melvine!" I yelled.
This game show stuff wasn't that bad after all. I sat back to enjoy it. I had always felt that most of the sporting events Bunny viewed were kind of stupid. I felt no connection to images seen in a crystal ball, but this—these were my own students.
The next round was a challenge between paired teams. The Shock Jahks and Sharkbait went up first, chosen by small white feathers that floated out of the air and lit on the team captain's heads. One from each team had to walk on a tightrope while the others passed items up that had to be assembled before the walker reached the other side. In deference to the shark's mode of locomotion, she was enclosed in a tube of magikal force.
"Touch any side, and it will be as if you fell off," Schlein warned. "The loser will get one penalty point. Once you reach the far platform, you must have a working Jack-in-the-box in your hands. Set it off to get a bonus point!"
We watched breathlessly as the 'walkers' moved forward. The shark assembled her items by magik as they floated in the air next to one of her lidless eyes.
The Shock Jahks didn't seem to have much in the way of magikal ability. If an item fell out of their uppermost member's hands, it fell down again. Still, teams appeared evenly matched. I was on the edge of my seat as they neared the second platform.
"It's the Jahks—no, the Sharks! No! The Jahks are pulling ahead! Hang in there, the shark just flicked her way through the last hoop—Ooh, no! She touched it! Too bad! Penalty!"
There was a loud HONK!
"With one moment left, the Jahk skips ahead and rings the bell! Wow, what an upset! Sharkbait, favored to win, drops out of this round. They'll be on the Wheel of Misfortune later today."
I peered at the flying shark's obstacle course. It seemed to me that the last ring of magik she had to swim through was just a little lower than the others, making it impossible for her to dodge. I shook my head. Maybe I was imagining the inequality. The angle at which we were viewing the contest was an oblique one.
The rest of the teams played out the tightrope game. The feathers chose my students next.
"Have you ever been on a tightrope before?" the female commentator demanded as the Sorcerer's Apprentices made their way out onto the main floor of the Arena.
"Do we look like circus performers?" Pologne asked haughtily. "We're graduate students!"
The female beamed into the crystal balls tracking them. "And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! They're graduate students! But who's going to walk the high wire? You?" she asked Bee.
"Well, personally, ma'am, I'm afraid of heights," Bee replied politely.
"Then, who?"
The Apprentices went into a huddle on the sidelines.
"And—break!" Freezia shouted perkily.
Jinetta withdrew from the circle, took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and marched to the narrow tower. Up, up went the former cheerleader, fifty, sixty, seventy feet. At last she reached the platform. I could see that she was trembling as she surveyed the narrow string before her. She breathed out a whisper.
"Is she praying?" Markie asked.
"No," I said, reading my former student's lips. "She just said 'spoo.'" I grinned. She couldn't fall now. To think that a haughty Pervect would rely in a moment of crisis on the discovery of a lowly Klahd—I was proud of both of them.
"The Sorcerer's Apprentices will face one of our most formidable teams," Schlein announced. "The Bald Guy with Muscles!"
The shiny-domed male hitched one arm through a rung of the ladder and waved to the cheering audience. He swung himself up effortlessly, and stepped out onto the wire.
"Come on!" he roared. "Let's get this over with!"
Naturally, a one-man team couldn't supply himself with the necessary components to build his Jack-in-the-box. A host of boiler-suited stagehands jogged out and assembled beneath his tower.
"Ready?" Schlein shouted. "Go!"
Jinetta tiptoed out onto the swaying wire. The others ran along underneath. Bee seemed to calculate the speed of the wind whistling down into the mountain bowl before throwing the components up to Jinetta. Tolk flicked his share of the pieces up to her with a toss of his head.
"Come on, come on, come on!" I could hear him calling as he ran. "You can do it! You can do it!"
Among the items Jinetta needed was a piece of string. It would be too light to throw without magikal aid, but Freezia had no trouble whisking it up to her sorority sister. Jinetta tottered along, keeping one eye on the wire and one on what she was doing as she wound the string around the spindle. She tucked the clown-faced doll under her arm, and lost her grip on a small brass box. It fell, but Tolk took a flying leap and caught it before it hit the ground. Pologne pointed her finger at him, and the box rose up within grabbing distance of Jinetta.
"Everyone levitate the pieces around her," Pologne said.
"I can't tell where to put this one!" Jinetta wailed.
"I think I see where it goes," Bee said. "Slide it underneath the black lever there!"
Pologne twisted her hands around, and the box followed the motions.
"Runners can't help with assembly," Schlein announced in disapproving tones.
"Drat!" Pologne said. "Jinny!"
"I see it!" Jinetta slotted the box into place and shoved the clown down onto a piece she had just attached.
They were only yards away from the other platform. The Bald Guy with Muscles had no magik, but he seemed to be working just as fast as Jinetta with magik and five helpers. Seeing his progress, the Pervect began to panic. Her hands shook, and small pieces rained down.
Her team, my students, were right there with her. Bee kept them organized, telling who to send up their next piece when. He had the last section, the wooden flap that formed the top of the box.
"And—one!" he cried. He hefted the piece upward. Freezia took it over and flew it to hover beside Jinetta.
Three feet. Jinetta tiptoed along. She began to crank the handle on the box's side. The Bald Guy was two notes behind her. With a grim look in her direction he started cranking faster. So did she. It was a race to see whose song would finish first. Jinetta all but leaped off the wire onto the platform just as the clown's head popped out of the box one heartbeat ahead of the Bald Guy's.
"We have a winner!" Schlein crowed. Graciously he escorted Jinetta down from her platform. "Too bad, Bald Guy! Next up, the Dragonettes face off against the Gargoyle Girls!"
The Geek's bubble inflated again to take center stage. The Deveel tried to look gracious about it, but I could tell he was taken aback that the group had prevailed against the muscular male. He clapped his hands, and the fiery letters rearranged themselves. My students were now at a respectable nine to five against.
I held up my glass of wine.
"To the Sorcerer's Apprentices," I said.
"To you," Bunny said. "Those kids could never have pulled it together without you."
"They did all the work," I said modestly.
"Oh, really? Who scoped out the sites ahead of time? Who sat up all night working on curricula so they would learn something?"
"C'mon," I said, embarrassed. "Let's talk about something e
lse."
"Do you remember when that team from Crocodilia blew the Jack-in-the-box round?" Markie asked, adroitly changing the subject.
"Wait a minute—yes, I do," Tananda laughed. "That was hilarious."
"What happened?" I asked, curious.
"Oh, the whole thing was a mismatch," Tananda said. "Their feet aren't made for walking on something narrow. They should have given that poor female a tube like the shark's. Watching her scooting along the wire upright, going 'Ooch! Ooch! Ooch!' every step! I was on the floor!"
"And at the last minute she dropped it," Markie said. "It was a hoot. Her teammates dove for that box like dolphins after a fish. Too late. Crash!"
Since I was now passionately interested, the ladies shared their favorite Sink or Swim stories with me. I kept half an eye on the broadcast, waiting for the next moment when my students had another chance to shine. I was enjoying it all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
"I think the dragon's cheating."
BILGEWATER*
"And now," Schlein announced, gathering our attention once more, "today's third round! This is a free-for-all involving all of the groups still in the running. If one of the losers from the previous round wins, they get to give their penalty point to the team they triumph over! If they lose again, they're out of the game, so this is a crucial contest!"
All seven of the surviving teams assembled on the vast floor. Schlein settled to the floor in their midst, beaming with all of his shiny white teeth.
"You all have a designated area to which you must go. Your team name is on a sign overhead." Schlein gestured, and the names lit up around the perimeter of the huge room. "That's all. Or is it all?" he asked, with a witty look at the crystal ball which must have been next to his shoulder. "In order to get there, you have to get past your opponents, who must prevent you getting to your safe spot. Anything goes! And to make this REALLY interesting, we are bringing in some of our house champions! Welcome the She Spider!"
I gasped as a tremendous black arachnid lowered itself into the Arena. It was so big the hairs on the joints of its legs looked like marlinspikes. Its multiple eyes glinted. Schlein stepped up and pointed toward a complicated gizmo that the stagehands wheeled into place behind her.
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