Redemption of a Prince - Carol Moncado
1
Nicolette Major once thought she would marry a prince. Now she’d be happy working for his sister-in-law.
Either way, one thing she never expected to do was sit in a pub on Trilunium Trivia Night.
And participate.
To prepare for a job interview with a member of the royal family.
She knew the trivia as well as anyone - and better than many - but a pub trivia night wasn’t her thing.
However, if she wanted to get this job with the Trilunium Resort, she had a feeling she needed to know all the trivia ever. What better place to brush up a week before her interview than trivia night?
“Hi.” A woman a few years younger than Nikki sat down next to her. “I’m Sally. Everyone calls me Sal. I’m on your team.”
Nikki held out her hand. “I’m Nikki.”
“Nice to meet you.”
An older woman sat down on the other side. “I’m Sal’s grandmother, Sally.”
“That’s why everyone calls me Sal and her Nanny,” the younger woman said. “How good are you at Trilunium trivia?”
“Pretty good, I think, but I’ve never done something like this before.”
“Well, Nanny knows everything,” Sal reassured her. “She was a finalist to be a writer for the new Trilunium books.”
Sally nodded. “I’ve been reading the books since I was a small child. I always made up stories about them in my head. One day I found the online TriluniMunity and started posting my stories there. Sal encouraged me to enter the contest.”
“She got to attend the press conference at the palace last week when Princess Minerva was announced as the next author of the Trilunium books.”
“How cool!” Nikki meant it. “That’s awesome.”
“Not as awesome as being chosen,” Sally said with an over dramatic sigh. “But the princess must be an excellent writer. The royalties will all go to The Literacy Council, so that’s a good thing.”
“It is,” Nikki agreed.
A man stood on the stage. “We’ll be starting in just a moment. If your team doesn’t have at least three members, please raise your hand. If your team has less than six members, and you wouldn’t mind an extra new friend or two, please raise your hand. We have several people still looking for teams, but we’re out of tables.”
Sal raised her hand then looked at Nikki while keeping it raised. “Do you mind?”
Nikki shook her head. “Not at all.”
They were given a middle-aged couple. They each wore t-shirts designed to look like the tops of Prince Aaron and Queen Charlotte costumes.
About the time they introduced themselves as Kelly and Clark, the same man stepped back to the microphone with a big grin on his face. “Who’s ready to get started?”
Cheers sounded around the room.
“All right. Let’s explain how this is going to work. There will be three rounds. The first round will be ten questions. The top half of the teams will go on. The second round will have ten slightly harder questions. The top two teams will continue. Those ten questions will be of varying difficulty and worth different point values.”
He took a sip of water. “In case of a tie in the first round, all teams involved will go on. In case of a second-round tie, total points will be used. If a tie remains, a timed question of medium difficulty will be asked to break the tie, with the fastest correct answer going on. The final round will be best of seven difficult questions. The first team to four questions correct will win. If they both get the answer right, the team with the fastest time will get the point.”
So they had to be right and fast.
“We’ve got this,” Sally told them all quietly. “I could have written these questions before most of the people here were born.”
Nikki had to smile at her confidence.
“But one of you needs to handle this.” She held up the tablet. “Who’s best with the technology?”
“Nanny still has a flip phone,” Sal explained. “She’s a whiz on a computer, but not a tablet or smart phone.”
“All of you need to call me Nanny tonight,” Sally went on. “It’ll be too confusing otherwise.”
“Every team should have their tablet on and their stylus ready to write. The first question is up in five, four, three...”
They huddled around Sal who had taken control of the tablet.
The picture of Sofós Voskós disappeared, and the first question appeared.
Nikki tried to process it quickly and thought she did well with the answer coming almost immediately, but Sal was already writing the answer down before Nikki could whisper it.
“Yes,” they all whispered