Chapter 6: The Last Word

The audience was on its feet.

The host let them scream for a while, because it was good television.

Then he raised a hand.

"The Last Word category," he said. "Ships and the Sea."

The board flipped.

I heard the sound I made into my own microphone. A little whimper.

Ships.

He pilots tugboats. He lives on one. He has charts in a rack over his stove.

I looked over.

Gannon was staring straight ahead, but the corner of his mouth was doing that thing.

"You have thirty seconds to write your wager," the host said.

A screen lit up at my podium with a stylus on a cord.

I knew the math. Everybody who watches the show knows the math.

If he bets it all and gets it right, he has $28,400.

To cover him, I have to bet $13,801.

My dad's rule was simple.

Never bet the whole tip jar. Keep a thousand back. Always.

I'd done it in my audition game.

I'd done it in every practice game in my apartment, with the TV on mute and a notepad on my knee.

If I kept a thousand, I'd bet $13,600.

If he went all in and we both got it right, I'd lose by two hundred dollars.

But he's a careful man. He counts things. He wouldn't go all in on a single question, not with a streak on the line.

Would he?

I wrote $13,600.

My hand was shaking so badly the six looked like a zero.

The question came up on the screen.

The host read it in his serious voice.

"This ship, launched in 1910, served for twenty-three years after her younger sister's famous sinking, and her crews nicknamed her Old Reliable."

Keep reading free with an account. Start His New Stepsister. His Biggest Threat. from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.