HAVANA FAMILY BANQUET (2): THE GAME.

At the Havana family banquet, all the younger generation who had become eighteen years would participate in a game. The game had four sections. The banquet would take place from the 2nd Friday of the month to the last Friday.

The game is only played on Fridays; two sections for each Friday and on the last Friday the winner was announced and the reward was given. The activities that were to be carried out in the game wasn't constant, a new activity was picked every year by Rosalind.

This year Ashley and Liam were not participating as they had received their settlement fee and were now considered adults.

Rosalind cleared her throat and signalled to the butler.

The butler claps his hands and some maids enter holding a huge glass bowl of water. Inside the bowl were green balls floating, In each ball contained an activity that hadn't been done in any banquet. Grandmother Rosalind picked out a ball and pressed a button on the top. She pressed the button and the ball cracked open revealing a green slip of paper.

Grandmother Rosalind reads the slip, clears her throat and says, ' For the first section of the game of this year's Banquet is.. Cards. And this year's participants are Ava, Arthur, Bella and Arianna.'

Arianna hands Arian to her mother.

' Good luck Ari, I mean Olivia. Make us proud.' Ashley says.

' Thank you As.. I mean Breanna.' Arianna replies.

' That's right, show them what you've got.' Riona says.

Ava smiles haughtily. She had been practicing for this night for a long time. She was definitely going to win.

Arthur was not in the very least interested in the game. He was engrossed in a far more interesting video game till he was told to get ready for the banquet.

Bella was nervous as she was very mediocre in social activities like games.

Arianna called on all the gods she knew to help her win because she really needed the cash.

The butler clears his throat and speaks in his extremely thick British accent, ' Each of you will be represented according to a shades of green colour. Ava your shade is Evergreen, Arthur yours is apple green, Bella yours is forest green and Arianna yours is emerald green. Each of you should sit at your respective colour.'

On the floor was four small low stools with cushions on top that had a different shade of green on each, they were arranged in a rectangular form. At the centre was a wooden table.

The four sits down and the butler shuffles the cards. And gives each of them four and placed one on the table.

' You are familiar with the rules of this game. We are playing by elimination method. When there is a winner in a round, the others count their cards and the one with the highest amount gets eliminated. Let the game begin. Good luck.' Grandmother Rosalind says.

***********

I guess my luck is very good not to mention how many years of experience I have.

Back in middle school, I played this game for money ( What most people call gambling, but hey!! Don't judge me.) I did lose money a few times but then I became invincible. I have a single tactic : If it's only two or three players, play your best card. But if there are more than 3, save the best for the last.

The opening card was triangle, I looked at my cards, I have three triangles and a star.

Ava plays a card, Arthur takes from the stack, Bella plays and I also take from the bank.

The game goes on for a while till I have seven cards with me.

I can see that Bella has 3, Arthur has 4 and Ava is left with two.

' Your turn Olivia. Quite a lot you've got there' Ava says with a stupid smirk on her face.

I play my card ' General market.' I say. I have noticed one thing in the game, Star was rare. This will be my winning shot.

I gave two more general market, till I dropped my " I need " card. ' I need star.' I say.

They al look at me like I had just spat on their faces.

This went on till I dropped my last card. ' Checkup.' I say.

Butler Qinn counts the cards and Arthur is eliminated.

I used the same tactic like before but the difference is I didn't wait till my seventh card, I started on my fifth and won again.

This time Bella got eliminated, it was down to just me and Ava. Time to use the reverse of my previous strategy: Best cards first.

We started the final round and I noticed something. Ava was trying to use my tactic. Not the best cards first but best cards last.

* Tsk Tsk* Trying to copy the master.

As expected, I was soon down to my last card.

I smiled at her and said, ' Your turn Ava, quite a lot you've got there.' I say.

I could hear Riona snickering.

Then I won.

' Congratulations Olivia. Moving on!' Grandmother says.

I could see Ash and Rio giving me thumbs up and mom and dad smiled at me. Arian was sleeping peacefully.

Grandmother picked the next ball.

Grandmother looked at the slip and frowned.

I suddenly felt nervous. What was in that slip that made my almighty Grandmother change her expression.

' The second section of today's banquet is Escape room.' Grandmother says.

Gasps suddenly flood the room as the adults look at us with worry and pity. What was so important about this activity?

************

AUTHOR'S NOTE

For those of you who aren't familiar with the card game. I will like to explain it.

It might be different from the card game you are used to but this is how we play it in my country.

The game has several cards that have one of these five shapes: Square, Cross, Star, Rectangle, Circle.

And on this cards are numbers from 1 to 14, some of the number have special function.

If it's two players,

A card with number one means " hold on."It means you can play another card and the other player has two hold on.

A card with number 2 means " Pick two." It means that the next player has to pick two from the deck of cards ( which we normally call market.) If the second player also have a card with the number two he can play it and defend himself.

A card with the number 5 means " pick three." Just like the pick two card, it means the second player has to pick three from the market. It can also be defended.

A card with number 8 means "suspension." It has the same function as hold on.

A card with number 14 means " general market." It means the second person has to pick a card from the market.

There is one last type of card. It is called " I need." Unlike the others, it doesn't have a shape on it and it's number is 20. If you play the I need card, you can ask for any shape you want.

If it's three or more players and you are player one,

" Hold on", "Suspension", " Pick two" and " pick three" will only affect player two. While "general market" affects all the players except you.

This is how the game is played:

1: Shuffle the cards.

2: Distribute part of the cards to players. ( You can share 4 each, 5 each, etc.)

3: Place the remaining cards in such a way that the number and shape on the card is facing down.

4: Pick out a card from the top and place it at the centre. That is the starting card.

5: If your starting card ( for example), has the number three and a circle shape. You can play any card that has a circle or the number three.

6: Keep going till one person wins.

P.S : If there are more than three players, there is two ways to play the game:

ELIMINATION METHOD; After one person wins, you count the numbers on the cards of each person. The person with the largest number is eliminated and the remaining can continue playing.

CONTINUATION METHOD: After one person wins, the game goes on till another person wins. It keeps going till we've reached the final loser. The winners then continue playing.

This method is much more longer than the elimination method.

It's a fun game, you should try it. By the way, the game is also called "WHOT" Same pronunciation as What.