The Spice Club was technically a club for students interested in mystery-solving, detective work, and puzzle games. In practice, it was a money-printing machine that had somehow become the most popular club in school.
It started three years ago when L—actual name Lawliet, though nobody really called him that except teachers—got bored and decided to create a puzzle hunt event. By the second year, it had evolved into something bigger. By the third year, which was now, it had become an institution.
The profits came from merchandise—t-shirts, hoodies, mystery-themed stickers, water bottles—all designed by Sarah, our quiet member who somehow managed inventory and shipping while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. The merch sales spiked around Valentine's Day and major school events. Between that and funding from both the school administration and student council, the Spice Club had a budget that would make most clubs jealous.
Today was Mystery Day. The third annual. Thirty teams. One treasure hunt spread across the entire campus with clues hidden in lockers, taped under desks, encoded in QR codes, and woven into conversations with club members.
I was standing in the club's main room—a converted storage space that we'd decorated with posters of famous fictional detectives—watching chaos unfold.
"Okay, everyone gather around!" Marcus, our club president this year, was holding a clipboard and looking stressed. "Teams have been randomly assigned by computer. You have the starting clue. You have until 4 PM. If you solve all the clues in the correct sequence, you reach the final destination. First team there wins the grand prize."
"Which is?" someone called out.
"One percent of Spice Club merchandise sales for the next quarter—which, by our last estimate, is approximately ten thousand dollars—a gift hamper of Hershey's chocolate, and a ten-thousand-dollar prize from the school's special events fund," Sarah said, reading from her tablet without looking up.
The room went quiet for a second. That was a lot of money.
"Also," Jenny added, "there are multiple possible clue chains. You might get starting clue A and have three different paths forward. Other teams might get starting clue B with their own paths. The algorithm is randomized, so theoretically everyone has an equal shot. Just don't go following another team's clues unless you want to end up at the wrong location."
David was setting up the announcement system—a microphone that would broadcast across campus when someone reached each checkpoint. "This is going to be amazing," he said, more to himself than anyone else.
I was here as a club member. Last year, I'd been assigned to help a team—Haley and Alex, actually—and I'd given them a clue that was so cryptic and deliberately misleading that they'd ended up searching the wrong wing of the school for forty minutes. They came in dead last. Alex hadn't forgiven me. Haley had just looked disappointed, like she'd expected better.
This year, L had insisted I not do as much chaos while helping teams.. "You cause chaos," he'd said, still lying on the couch in the club room. "Controlled chaos, but chaos nonetheless."
"That's not fair," I'd protested. "I want my entertainment."
"You sabotage them on purpose, anyway the puzzles are hard ".
He wasn't wrong.
The teams were assigned via email that morning. When I saw that Haley and Alex had been paired together, I actually laughed. Then I realized I was the one who'd deliberately set each of them up to fail last year,so this was either poetic justice or the universe finally evening the score.
Haley showed up to the event like she was doing me a favor by being there. "I need the money," she announced to nobody in particular.
Alex just looked annoyed at being paired with her sister.
"You two got lucky," I told them. "You're on the same team this year."
"Because we're equally mediocre?" Haley asked.
"Because I set it up this way. While the algorithm is supposed to be random, I tweaked it a bit to get this pairing. I knew you both would bicker the whole time, and that would be entertaining.
Alex raised her eyebrow. "You sabotaged us on purpose?"
"Yes."
"That's very on-brand for you," she said, which was somehow worse than if she'd yelled at me.
At 12:00 PM, Marcus released all thirty teams. They scattered across campus like ants, armed with their starting clues and pure determination.
The Spice Club had prepared better this year. We'd learned from previous events that people got exhausted and started making mistakes—sometimes literally fainting if they skipped lunch. So at key locations around campus, we'd set up stations with free muffins. They were from the bakery down the street, decent quality, and somehow had become iconic to Mystery Day.
Haley immediately grabbed a muffin from the station in the main hallway.
"Aren't you supposed to be solving?" Alex asked.
"I'm solving," Haley said, mouth half-full. "But I'm not solving hungry."
She continued eating muffins throughout the event. Every time they hit a new station, every time they were between clues—there she was with a muffin. By 2:30 PM, she'd eaten maybe six of them.
Sanjay Patel, a junior with the focus of someone taking this very seriously, was leading his team through clues with methodical precision. He was two checkpoints ahead of most teams. I watched him from the club room, tracking progress on our master chart.
But Haley and Alex were moving faster than expected.
"They're already at checkpoint three," Jenny said, pointing at her laptop where the GPS locations of each team were displaying in real time. "That's ahead of schedule."
"Is Haley actually smart or is she just eating her way to clarity?" David wondered aloud.
"Both," I said. "She's calmer when she's not hungry. Clearer thinking. If she actually bothered to eat instead of starving, she'd probably be smarter in general.
(External POV)
At one point, Ryan went out and saw this other kid in the school who was trying his luck in the hunt ,He completely derailed that team by giving them false information. They asked for a hint, and He pointed them toward the east wing instead of the west. The team realized about fifteen minutes later that something was wrong, but by then they'd lost momentum.
He enjoyed this quite a lot "Ah Amateurs"
L, who was supposed to be helping run the event but had instead taken a nap on the school's roof, had apparently been found by Haley and Alex around 2:15 PM.
"They're heading up to the roof," Sarah said, watching the GPS blip move upward on the building schematic.
"Why would they go to the roof?" Marcus asked.
"Doesn't L generally sleep there?" Jenny asked
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Ryan Pov)
I didn't hear this directly, but Alex told me later what happened:
They'd been stuck on a clue that involved a series of numbers encoded in a poem. The poem was about seasons, and the numbers corresponded to months, but there were too many possible interpretations. Haley had eaten another muffin (there was one on the roof, because L always kept snacks up there) and realized that L was probably on the roof napping.
"He's not helpful," Alex had said.
"He doesn't care about being helpful," Haley replied. "But he knows how all the clues work. If we show him what we have, he might accidentally tell us the right thing."
They found L exactly where expected, lying on a concrete bench with his eyes closed, looking like he'd never opened them in his life.
"The event started at twelve," Alex said.
"I'm aware," L replied without opening his eyes.
"We need help with a clue."
"Then you should ask the Spice Club."
"We're asking you."
L sighed like they'd asked him to solve world peace. "Show me."
Haley read the clue. L listened with his eyes still closed, then said: "It's not as complicated as you think. Look at the structure, not the content."
That's it. That's all he said. But it was enough. Haley realized that the structure of the poem was what mattered—the line breaks and stanzas, not the actual words. Once she saw that, the code became obvious.
"You're helpful in the worst way possible," Alex told L.
"I know," he said, already closing his eyes again.
By 3:15 PM, things were getting interesting. Haley and Alex had caught up to Sanjay's team. Multiple teams were converging on similar checkpoints because of the randomized clue paths. The competition was actually tight.
David was updating the board in real time as teams moved through locations. There was genuine suspense now.
"Okay, Sanjay's team just hit checkpoint six," he reported. "Haley and Alex... also hit checkpoint six."
"Different clue chains?" Marcus asked.
"Different. But same location. This is the first time we've had convergence this deep in the hunt, usually barely one team finishes the puzzle hunt"
I was watching the chaos unfold, and I realized something: last year, when I'd sabotaged Haley and Alex, I'd done it because it was funny. This year, watching them actually work together, watching Haley use eating as a strategy and Alex crack the logic problems, watching them function as a team—it was actually impressive.
They beat Sanjay by eight minutes.
The final destination was the library, a specific section in the archives where we'd hidden the final clue. But there were multiple paths to get there, and the team had to solve one last puzzle to officially claim the victory.
Haley and Alex arrived at 3:47 PM. They opened the box, found the final clue—a riddle about the school's history that required knowledge most people wouldn't have. Haley stared at it for a moment, then said something that made Alex laugh.
"It's about the founding year. Remember when Ryan was explaining how he deduces stuff? He always says the obvious answer is hidden in plain sight."
She didn't know why she'd suddenly remembered one of my good habits, but it worked. The clue referenced the school's founding year multiple times. The answer was sitting right there.
They called the answering station at 3:49 PM.
David's voice crackled over the campus microphone: "Checkpoint final complete—Haley Dunphy and Alex Dunphy!"
The announcement echoed across the school. Teams still searching immediately understood they'd lost. Sanjay, arriving at the final destination two minutes later, saw Haley and Alex already sitting in the victory zone with smug satisfaction.
"You won because you ate muffins," he said.
"Yes," Haley agreed, pulling out another muffin (where she was getting them, nobody knew). "Sometimes the simple solutions are the best."
"Also because I'm smart," Alex added.
"Also that," Haley conceded.
The celebration happened in the club room at 4:30 PM. Sarah presented them with the chocolate hamper, and Marcus explained the merchandise share paperwork. It was real money, real business, real success.
"How does it feel?" I asked Haley as she was leaving.
"Like I made ten thousand dollars by eating muffins and remembering that you're unnecessarily cryptic," she said. "So pretty great."
"For what it's worth, you and Alex actually work well together."
"We do when we're not being siblings," Alex said, overhearing. "And when Haley's blood sugar isn't in freefall."
L showed up exactly as everyone was leaving, despite having contributed nothing to the event except one cryptic hint.
"Mystery Day was successful," he announced.
"You slept through most of it," Jenny said.
"Exactly," L said. "Which means my presence wasn't required. The event ran smoothly without me trying to optimize it."
"That's not how events work," Marcus protested.
"It's how they should work," L replied, and walked out.
That night, I was reading in my room when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Haley: "Thanks for sabotaging us last year. If you hadn't been so annoying about it, we probably wouldn't have practiced enough to win today."
I replied: "That's not how causation works."
She sent back: "Neither is making clues cryptic enough to destroy people, but you do it anyway."
She was right. I texted back: "Fair. Congratulations on the win."
"Thank you. Also, buy our merch. You owe us."
I did buy a hoodie. It looked ridiculous on me, but it also looked like a win, and Haley had earned it.
[Status Screen: Update]
Mikhail Tal – Advanced (4,500 / 25,000)
Kazuma Satou – Advanced (8,500 / 25,000)
Patrick Jane – Intermediate (4,750 / 30,000)
Sometimes the most effective strategy is just eating enough to think clearly and remembering that other people's chaos can become your advantage.