“It’s as I feared — she’s going to win,” said my daughter.

“Yeah, Reece is going to wipe out those two,” my son agreed dejectedly.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I said, pointing to a giant contraption that was being wheeled out of the left-hand opening in the backdrop by twelve guards.

It looked like a small hexagonal bandstand, about ten feet in diameter, consisting of a wooden stage with steps, and six vertical posts supporting a conical roof. The stage extended out like a catwalk for another ten feet, with two wooden posts at its end supporting a sloping roof.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” said the ringmaster, “it is time for the final of our tournament. We’ve tested the rebels’ strength and their skill — now we will find out who has the better brain! Please bring forward Eustace Greaves, Lena Kovács and Reese Fairchild.”

When the rebels had assembled, the ringmaster walked to the end of the catwalk and showed them a crossbow fixed at chest height between the wooden posts. It was pointed at the hexagonal stage.

“A bolt from this crossbow will kill anyone unlucky enough to be standing on the stage,” he said. “You will see that its trigger mechanism is connected to a steel cable which runs up to the roof and along inside it to the stage.”

He walked along the catwalk to the stage and pointed to the underside of the roof, where a great many metal handles with numbers written on them hung down from steel cables.

“Grabbing and pulling many of these handles will pull the steel cable and release the bolt,” he continued. “But many of them do nothing.”

“You will each be presented with a maths problem and will have five minutes to decide which two of the handles represent the correct answer. Pulling the handles will keep you in the tournament — or seal your fate.”

My attention turned back to the rebels. Reece looked particularly worried; this was not the kind of challenge she was expecting in the final.

“We’ll go in age order,” said the ringmaster, taking off his hat and turning it over to demonstrate that it was empty to Lena and the audience. He snapped his fingers and a load of paper slips miraculously appeared in the hat.

Lena picked one, and unfolded it.

“5 times 9 — well that’s easy,” she said, relieved.

Lena limped up onto the stage and looked up at the handles. There were two with 45 written on them, but they were too high for her to pull. She raised her hands and confidently jumped up, grabbing both handles at the same time. As she expected, nothing happened, and she swung on them a few times and grinned, before releasing them and leaving the stage.

Eustace put his hand in the hat and pulled out a slip.

“Factors of 15, excluding 1 and 15,” he read out loud.

Walking up onto the stage, he muttered to himself, and then looking confident he looked up, searching for the correct handles to pull.

“What’s the answer?” I asked my son.

“No idea, Dad — I’m no good at maths,” replied my son.

“3 and 5,” answered my daughter promptly.

“Correct!” I exclaimed.

Eustace got it correct too, and climbed back down the steps. Now it was Reece’s turn.

“128 divided by 8,” she read. “Shit!”

Reece stood still, thinking out loud, for a full four minutes before the ringmaster coughed, breaking her chain of thought.

She looked at him, and then up at where he was pointing. The timer on the screen above had just counted down past 58 seconds.

Reece rushed up onto the stage, and frantically looked up at the handles. She latched onto two of them, and paused to take a breath.

The audience was silent as she pulled. And nothing happened. She sighed with relief and slowly walked off the stage.

“16, in case you were wondering,” said my daughter to my son, jabbing him in the side.

“Yeah, I got that one, sis!” he replied, punching her lightly.

It was Lena’s turn again.

“20 percent of 525,” she read off of the slip.

Lena walked back onto the stage and began to think out loud.

“So, 20 percent is one fifth. A fifth of 500 is 100, and a fifth of 25 is 5, so the answer is 105.”

After running through it again in her head, she committed and pulled the handles, then turned and walked back off the stage.

Eustace bagged an easy one next, and was done in under a minute.

“Ha!” he scoffed. “323 plus 418 equals 741.”

“Oh no, I hope they’re not getting blasé about this,” said my wife, concerned.

Reece reached into the hat for the second time, sweating.

“6 exclamation mark,” she read, her brow furrowed. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Factorial,” said Eustace helpfully, without thinking.

“Oy! No cheating please!” scolded the ringmaster.

“Oh, that’s a lot of help, thanks!” Reece spat at Eustace sarcastically as the sweat ran down her face.

Reece had no idea what ‘factorial’ meant. But then neither did I, so I could easily relate to her distress.

I looked over at my daughter — she was smiling as she stared at Reece and savoured her discomfort.

In no time at all, the ringmaster gave another loud cough, and Reece rushed up onto the stage. She looked around the arena in a panic, hoping someone would come to her rescue. Several people started shouting out answers and she strained to hear them over the general excitement of the audience, many of whom were anticipating her death.

Suddenly my daughter got to her feet and shouted shrilly, “360, it’s 360!”

Reece must have heard her, and as the timer counted down past ten seconds she desperately searched for the handles, found them, jumped up and pulled them together.

There was a loud click and a zing as the crossbow bolt fired, followed by a low thump as it made its way through Reece’s chest and emerged from her back.

Reece stood in disbelief for five seconds listening to the audience applaud, then her grip on the handles gave way and she slumped to the floor, dead.

“There’s a lesson here kids — always pay attention in maths class!” I quipped.

“Oh yeah, did you Dad?” said my son.

“Well, no, but I should have. Maths can have life-changing consequences it seems.”

“Indeed,” said my daughter with an evil grin. “Somehow I forgot to do the final multiplication by two, and look what happened. What a pity!”

As the guards dragged Reece’s body off the stage and back to her post, the ringmaster loaded a new bolt into the crossbow before offering Lena his hat.

Lena gingerly picked out her next slip.

“The square root of 169,” she read. “Phew!”

She looked shaken, but after some careful thought, made her way onto the stage to pull the handles marked with 13, before returning to the ringmaster.

Eustace picked out a slip.

“Cosine of 90 degrees,” he read out loud.

Eustace thought for three minutes before climbing the steps onto the stage and looking up at the handles.

“Well, there’s no -1,” he muttered.

After hesitating for another minute, he shrugged his shoulders and finally chose to pull the handles marked with 1.

“Damn!” was his last word as the crossbow bolt pieced his heart.

“He got sine and cosine mixed up,” said my daughter matter-of-factly. “He should have chosen 0.”

I took her word for it.

As the audience cheered and the victory fanfare played, I suddenly realised that it was over — Lena had won!