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This Friday night you'll be:
The “Twisted Text” section looks like a good place to start, but you'll need to outsmart some students to do so.
In the “Local Bee” section, each of the six contestants were eliminated because they spelled a homophone of the correct word.
The first contestant accidentally spelled “mussels” (a collection of bivalve mollusks) instead of “muscles” (a group of contractile tissues).
The contestants words and the correct words are:
“MUSSELS” instead of “MUSCLES”
“PROFIT” instead of “PROPHET”
“ALOUD” instead of “ALLOWED”
“GAMBLES” instead of “GAMBOLS”
“COMPLIMENT” instead of “COMPLEMENT”
“PRINCIPLES” instead of “PRINCIPALS”
Once you find the correct bee words in the Twisted Text, look at the shape that each word makes. Does that shape resemble anything else in the paper?
Using the word shapes in the "Twisted Text" grids with the tic tac toe board will generate a string of six Xs and Os.
The leftmost Twisted Text includes the word “ALLOWED” along the top and left side of the box.
If you draw that shape, it looks like the bottom right square of the tic-tac-toe board. There’s an “X” in that square, so the first part of the answer is “X."
When you combine the Twisted Text and tic-tac-toe board, you can find:
-The first Twisted Text is pointing you toward the bottom right square of the tic-tac-toe board, which is an “X.”
- The second Twisted Text is pointing you toward the top right square of the tic-tac-toe board, which is an “O.”
- The third Twisted Text is pointing you toward the bottom middle square of the tic-tac-toe board, which is an “X.”
- The fourth Twisted Text is pointing you toward the top left square of the tic-tac-toe board, which is an “O.”
- The fifth Twisted Text is pointing you toward the bottom left square of the tic-tac-toe board, which is an “X.”
- The sixth Twisted Text is pointing you toward the middle right square of the tic-tac-toe board, which is an “X.”
This generates the string XOXOXX.
The Hincks Bot will point you to what to do with the string of X’s and O’s.
You’ll need to use your X’s and O’s with each quote from the participants of the spelling bee.
Each quote is six words long, and you want to keep the second and the fourth words. So the first two words are “FINISH” and “THE.”
When you look at all the quotes using your X’s and O’s, you’ll get these messages:
-“FINISH THE”
-“PAT TURN”
-“THEN PLAY”
-“SURE LOCK”
-“ANSWERS ON”
-“KEY BORED”
Correct the spelling and put a few of the words together to create the phrase, "FINISH THE PATTERN THEN PLAY SHERLOCK ANSWERS ON KEYBOARD."
"FINISH THE PATTERN THEN PLAY SHERLOCK ANSWERS ON KEYBOARD" leads you to a two part puzzle: 1) finishing the pattern and 2) playing the Sherlock answers.
First, to finish the pattern, there is a pattern of numbers that's been started on the keyboard in the "Chart Toppers" section.
Moving from the left of the keyboard towards the right, you add 1 to the current key to get the next key, and then subtract 2, add 2, subtract 2, add 3, subtract 2, add 4... Follow that pattern to fill in all the numbers on the keyboard.
(Pattern: +1, -2, +2. -2, +3, -2, +4, -2, +5, -2, +6, -2, +7, -2...)
The numbers written on the keys from left to right should be:
1, 2, 0, 2, 0, 3, 1, 5, 3, 8, 6, 12, 10, 17, 15, 23, 21, 30, 28, 38.
Now that you have the pattern finished on the keyboard keys, it's time to figure out which keys are important. This is where the second part of this puzzle comes into play and the Sherlock answers will be helpful.
Notice the bullet points on the keyboard keys elsewhere in the gazette?
They're also found in the Quiz section.
Answer the quiz as if you're Sherlock Holmes.
If you're not too familiar with Sherlock Holmes:
-He's too busy solving mysteries to eat breakfast
-Likes chatting with Dr. Waston
-Smokes a pipe
-Enjoys unraveling mysteries
-Often has a game afoot
Use the Sherlock answers to select the correct keys on the keyboard with the first key on the keyboard representing the first bullet point in Questions 1 and the second to last key on the keyboard representing the last bullet point of Question 5.
The keys that correspond to Sherlock’s answers are:
- The first key (which has the number 1 written on it)
- The eighth key (5)
- The twelfth key (12)
- The fourteenth key (17)
- The nineteenth key (28)
Use the numbers written on the correct keys to select the tracks.
Stringing together the letters from tracks 1, 5, 12, 17, and 28 generates: evlosnehtsnuonreporpotesnesnonhctam
The Chart Topper article indicated that the soundtrack only makes sense when played backwards.
Played backwards the tracks say to, "matchnonsensetopropernounsthensolve."
MATCH NONSENSE TO PROPER NOUNS THEN SOLVE
Where is there “nonsense” within the paper?
The director calls some of the pirate dialog “nonsense” because real pirates say “Arrr.” Try to find some proper nouns that might relate to the letters that the actors are using.
The letters and the nouns that you’ll need are:
- Zs and “Zodiac”
- Vs and “Violet”
- Es and “Eckhoff”
- Qs and “Quinn”
- Ns and “Network”
The actors use different numbers of letters when they say the incorrect dialog.
For each incorrect letter, count how many letters there are, and then take the letter of that position in the proper noun.
The letters that you need are
- “A” is the fifth letter in “Zodiac”
- “L” is the fourth letter in “Violet”
- “O” is the fifth letter in “Eckhoff”
- “N” is the fourth letter in “Quinn”
- “E” is the second letter in “Network”
Making the final answer “ALONE.”
Aw, looks like you don’t have any plans for Friday night…yet.