Class Dis-Mythed

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 Bu

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 gri

"The Sorcerer's Apprentices will face one of our most formidable teams," Schlein a

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.

"Ru

"Drat!" Pologne said. "Ji

"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 wi

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," Bu

"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 else."

"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!"