Kylie took the words aside and arranged them in the order Matt had suggested. Looking at the words that were left over, she was able to push the message a little bit further. “To find them . . .”

“Enter the house . . . ,” Frankie continued, reaching forward to grab the appropriate tiles to build after Matt and Kylie’s bits.

“And have some fun,” Miguel finished. Danny stood with his camera to get the entire message in the shot, reading the final form out loud.

“I have Elephant and Nacho. To find them, enter the house and have some fun.”

“We did it!” Kylie cheered, and everybody stood up and exchanged high fives.

“Great job,” Becca said. “We couldn’t have done it without everybody’s help. I bet you anything the Game Master didn’t expect us to crack that one so quickly.”

“But now we have to go inside,” Kylie said, looking nervously to the front door of the house. “If we want to see what the next puzzle is and keep this crazy game going.”

“Are we seriously going to just . . . obey whatever the Game Master tells us to do?” Frankie asked. “I can’t help but feel like it’s a bad idea to just waltz on in there. . . .”

“We have to,” Miguel reminded them. “Elephant and Nacho are in there somewhere. The only way to figure it out is to follow the clues all together.”

“Wait,” Becca said, a mischievous grin blooming on her face. “What if we pulled one over on the Game Master?”

Becca

“We should split up,” Becca suggested, which caused the group to cast doubtful stares. Kylie twirled her hair around her finger with a confused expression, and Matt raised an eyebrow at Becca.

“Are you kidding?” Frankie said. “That’s like, rule number one in a horror movie. Don’t split up! Why would we do that, especially when the Game Master clearly wants us to stick together?”

“But that’s exactly why,” Becca explained. “The Game Master wouldn’t expect for us to split up to search for Elephant and Nacho. Maybe if we do, we’ll end up covering more ground and finding the animals sooner.”

The group was quiet as they thought it over. Becca could tell she almost had them convinced—nobody wanted to spend any more time here than absolutely necessary, and this would be a way to potentially cut the game in half.

“Look,” she said a little more gently. “We know the game, and we know how tricky the Game Master can be. Think about it—last time we came so close to catching them! We are capable of beating the game and figuring out who the Game Master is. We can do it! Divide and conquer!”