Siphico's Riddle Chap 2 - Word Puzzle

Miss Tyler's long black skirt skimmed the floor. He couldn’t remember a time when she’d worn any other colour. Black eye-shadow. Dash of rouge. Smidgen of crimson lipstick.

‘Settle down! Hogwarts is in Rowling’s world. We’re not in the business of that kind of magic, but we do create magic with words. English magic. This morning we’re going to have fun with everything you’ve learned this year in English. We’re going to do a word puzzle, and later on, crosswords. Who of you have done a word puzzle before?’

Miss Tyler’s announcement gathered dust. Eventually, five students raised their hands.

‘Not many I see. Okay, who knows what a crossword puzzle is? Those who know, keep quiet.'

Benjamin Cohen lifted a hand, ‘Isn’t it one of those funny looking black and white squares in newspapers and magazines?’

Miss Tyler giggled, ‘Yes, Banjo. It is one of those funny black and white things. But a crossword is much more than that. It measures your knowledge of words. The game was invented by Arthur Wynne in 1913 and was called a word-cross puzzle at first. A huge crossword puzzle frenzy hit the world in the 1920’s and since then, crosswords have appeared in almost every daily newspaper, in some form or the other, throughout the world.’

Siphico leaned forward. Crosswords. He’d seen them in the papers but never took note of them. A delightful machine called a television set occupied his mind. Miss Tyler handed out sheets of paper with a simple design.

‘The objectiveof this exercise, is to fill in the missing letters so that each word reads in any direction. Its not easy. There are no clues. See if you can find the answers. Go for it.’


ROTAS
O
T
A
S

Siphico stared at the grid before answering. The words crackled, tweaked, twisted and danced into place. Three minutes later he leered at the answers and smiled. An odd combination of words. He raised a hand.

Miss Tyler collected his paper, scrutinised each letter, leered at him, baffled by the answers he had written.

Fifteen minutes later she collected the last paper and after a few minutes, announced, ‘Siphico, please stand.’

Siphico got to his feet. His fingers trembled. He disliked being the centre of attraction.

‘How did you find the words so quickly, Siphico?’ Miss Tyler asked.

‘They just came to me.’

‘Impressive young man. A little history about this particular word puzzle. It was found in Pompei. It’s unusual because the words can be read in any direction. A little trivia, the ten letter word square has yet to be created by computer or man.’

She opened the blackboard and revealed the answer to the wordpuzzle.

R O T A S
O P E R A
T E N E T
A R E P O
S A T O R

‘Let’s do another, shall we? This time I really want you to take your time and think. Some clues will trick you, others will lead you in the right direction, and others are red herrings…’

The bell rang. Siphico leaped from his seat and headed for the door. Miss Tyler called him back. He glared through large white golf balls with painted black dots.

‘Don’t stress. Would you like to do another crossword? To be honest, I want to see how good you really are.’

‘I don’t mind, Miss Tyler.’

She pulled an envelope from her black bag and it fell out of her hands. Siphico noticed the address an instant before she whisked the envelope away:

READERS WORLD
R50 000 WORD PUZZLE
COMPETITION

She pulled out the puzzle. ‘Don’t read the clues right now. Put it in your case for homework. Think of it as a returnable favour, okay. ’

He nodded and filed the document into his case. At the door he stopped and turned,

“You said "a returnable favour"?'

'Name it?'

'If I do this for you will you write my exam for me?’

Excerpt from
Siphico's Riddle -
Also see
Nida's Charm