The fifth game day had arrived, and I felt more anxious than I had on the fourth. I was determined to keep Amie and my other pack members safe. I made sure to stay close to Amie as we entered the stadium and waited for our instructions.

‘Is it just me, or are we getting more attention than usual?’ Sam asked after a while. I noticed the same and nodded.

‘I think it’s due to a certain red wolf,’ Ramses told us with a grin. We all looked at Amie.

‘Me?’ she asked.

‘What do you know?’ I asked.

‘I was at one of the social gatherings yesterday,’ Ramses began. We all nodded; it was natural for an unmated wolf to make sure they met as many new wolves as possible when given the chance. ‘I heard a lot of talk about our Beta. They were saying how irritating she had been, and that both her red fur, her agility, and speed impressed them all. I would say you have a lot of new admirers,’ he told Amie. Great, as if one lovesick Alpha wasn’t enough competition, now I needed to compete with half of the males around me.

‘It will pass. Someone else will do something, and their attention will be on them,’ Amie said. I should have known it wouldn’t go to her head. There was some static from the speakers, and all of our attention was diverted to the incoming message.

“Welcome to the fifth game. After today, we have reached the halfway point of the games, and you should have gotten used to things. This game will be performed by every pack separately. We have set up ten identical rooms. Please wait for an official to call you for your turn. We wish you all luck.” We looked at each other, and I relaxed. No one would get hurt; if they did, it would be because we messed up, and I knew we were better than that.

‘What do you think we will have to do?’ Jake asked.

‘Wrestle crocodiles?’ Sam suggested.

‘No,’ Jake said, then laughed nervously. ‘They wouldn’t do that, right?’

‘Probably not,’ Ramses agreed.

‘Oh, stop it. No, they won’t make us wrestle wild animals,’ Amie told them.

‘I wouldn’t put it past them,’ I jokingly said. We had barely gotten comfortable when an official walked up to us. We had never been called this early before. I didn’t know if it was a bad or a good sign, or just a coincidence. We were led to a door and told to go inside. The room inside was sixteen by sixteen feet. There were things everywhere, and my first instinct was to assume our task was to clean and organize it.

‘It looks like our ‘will be useful someday’ kitchen drawer has become a room,’ Sam said. I chuckled; it was a good description. The things in the room didn’t have a theme or any logic to why they should all be there. There were balls, books on different subjects, toys, wood planks, a ladder, paper, bowls, kitchen utensils, tables, chairs—everything in heaps and piles.

‘If they ask us to clean this mess, I say we give up. I’m fine with taking a penalty point for that,’ Amie said. I was about to agree when the speaker came to life.

“For your next game, your objective is to create a Rube Goldberg machine. It needs to have a minimum of five distinguishable stages, and the last one will make the red bell in the right corner of the ceiling ring. You will be judged on creativity, teamwork, and speed. There is no time limitation. If your machine fails to ring the bell, your points will be cut in half. If you are ready or want to give up, knock on the door. Good luck to you.”

‘They want us to build a machine? Like a robot?’ Sam asked.

‘No, a Rube Goldberg machine,’ Jake said, and he sounded like Christmas had come early.

‘Okay?’ I asked. I had no idea what we needed to do.

‘Like when you set up dominoes, and they fall down and end up tripping a marble that falls into a bowl,’ he explained. ‘Mari and I can spend hours building them at home. I tried to get Cade to join us, but he doesn’t see the fun in spending hours building a thing just to destroy it.’ Amie smiled.

‘Right. I see videos of those online sometimes. There are a lot of things falling over, and in the end, it butters your toast or something,’ Ramses said.

‘Exactly. You can make them super complicated, or really easy.’

‘We need five stages, so five different things to fall over, roll, or whatever,’ I said.

‘But we get more points for creativity, so let’s add a couple more stages,’ Amie suggested. Jake happily nodded.

‘Jake, you are our expert, so we will take our lead from you,’ I said. I was happy to turn the leadership over to him for this. I thought we would spend some time following Jake’s direction, and that would be it. I was wrong. After the first fumbling tries to set up the first stages, we all got into it. We started looking around, finding new things to add, giving new ideas to each other, debating color choices. We started having fun. When we ended up using the only ladder as a ramp for our cookbook domino stage, Amie got onto my shoulders so we could build up to reach the bell in the corner of the room. When we were happy and took a step back from our build, it looked impressive. I walked up and knocked on the door.

“Please trigger your machine,” the speaker said. I nodded at Jake, who walked up and blew on a piece of paper. It swung to cover a fan, which made a pendulum swing back. The pendulum pushed a toy car down a ramp. The toy car bumped a marble that fell into a funnel. After going round and round a couple of times, the marble dropped onto a plate that stood just on the edge and tipped it over. The plate pulled a string which dislodged a wedge from below the first cookbook. It tipped forward, hitting the next cookbook, and so it continued until the last one. As the last cookbook fell on the floor, it hit a wooden spoon. The spoon flipped a switch, turning on a heating gun. It burnt through a string, causing a toy plane tied to another string to swing forward. Then, the toy plane hit the bell, and the clear sound was heard; we all cheered.

“Congratulations, Blue Mountain pack. You have succeeded with the game. Your time was one hour and thirty-seven minutes. You may join the rest of your pack.” We all smiled at each other. This hadn’t felt like part of the Games; it had just been fun and relaxing. As we got to the viewing room with the big screens, I could see not all packs had as relaxing a time as we had. Some seemed to not know what a Rube Goldberg machine was, and I didn’t blame them. They were trying to figure it out, but failing. Others tried to get things in order but then ended up triggering a part of their machine, causing it all to trigger, and them to have to start over. We were lucky we had Jake, who had experience and who had told us to put in blocks between the stages before we were ready, so when we had triggered a stage accidentally, it hadn’t triggered the rest.

“Good work today, Jake,” I said out loud.

“Thank you, Alpha,” he said and looked proud. I remembered I had doubted Amie’s plan to go with a diverse team on our second day here. I should have known she would be right. Jake and Amie, two wolves who wouldn’t have been picked in a team focused on strength, had been very useful, and we would have failed, or done a lot worse, without them.

‘This was fun,’ Amie mindlinked me.

‘It was,’ I agreed as an Alpha on the screen threw a chair at the bell before furiously going over to bang on the door.

“Slow Creek pack gives up. No points will be awarded,” the speaker announced.

‘I feel a little sorry for them. He looks like he is about to lose his mind,’ Amie commented.

‘I have a feeling I would have been the same if Jake hadn’t explained it all to us,’ I confessed.

‘Maybe,’ she said and handed me a bag with roasted nuts. I looked at her. ‘Focus on the screens; this is fun,’ she told me.

‘Really, Red? Gloating?’ I asked and started eating.

‘Not gloating, making the best of the situation. I’m excited to see how that pack does; they seem to have things under control. That pack doesn’t, but it’s amusing to watch the small temper tantrums their Alpha is throwing.’ I followed her pointing finger, and she was right. They were all amusing to watch, all for different reasons.