Page 27 of The Ruthless Rivalry

“Is that…safe to drink?” I ask, eyeing the concoction warily.

“Perfectly safe! Probably. It’s my own special recipe. I call it ‘Bedlam Brew.’ Go on, try it!”

I hesitate for a moment, eyeing the drink with suspicion. It’s Alfie, after all, and who knows what kind of concoction he’s whipped up. But then again, maybe it’ll help with the last of these bruises…or maybe I’ll wake up with an extra limb.

Screw it. What’s the worst that could happen? Besides, at least it was better than another round of awkward small talk. With a shrug, I ladle some of the shimmering liquid into a cup and take a cautious sip. It tastes like a mix of cotton candy, lemonade, and something I can’t quite place—maybe a hint of cinnamon? The flavors dance on my tongue, fizzing and popping like tiny fireworks.

Alright, this…isn’t terrible.

“Wow,” I say, genuinely impressed. “That’s actually really good. How did you make this?”

Alfie waggles his eyebrows mysteriously. “A magician never reveals his secrets. But I will say it involves pixie dust and a dash of chaos.”

I narrow my eyes, eyeing the cup with a mix of suspicion and caution. Alfie’s the kind of person who’d sprinkle fairy dust on me for fun, and I’m still fishing specks of leftover glitter out of my hair. After a moment’s hesitation, I put the cup down with a quiet thud.

“So, oh wise founder of Club Bedlam,” I say, helping myself to a cupcake instead, “what happens now that I’m an official member?”

Alfie’s eyes light up. “That’s the best part. Anything and everything! You are now a part of a group of dreamers, professionals of misdirection, and creatives alike.”

Okay…

“Anything and everything?” I repeat, intrigued. “Care to be a bit more specific?”

He grins, plucking a jelly bean from the bowl and popping it into his mouth. “Well, my dear Alex, that’s entirely up to you. Club Bedlam is what you make of it. We’re here to embrace the absurd, challenge the ordinary, and sprinkle a little magic into the mundane.”

He gestures grandly around the tent. “This is our sanctuary, our playground, our laboratory of the bizarre. Maybe you want to perfect the art of pancake juggling, or perhaps you’re interested in composing symphonies for kazoos. The only limit is your imagination!”

“Pancake juggling? Is that even a thing?”

“It wasn’t until about five days ago,” Alfie says with a wink.

“And how did that go?”

“Well, let’s just say I now have a newfound appreciation for the complexities of breakfast foods in motion,” Alfie replies, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “And the chef from the dining hall has banned me from requisitioning any more pancakes for the foreseeable future.”

I snort, despite the ridiculousness of it all, picturing Alfie trying to juggle floppy pancakes as they disintegrate mid-air. “So what else have you been up to in here?” I ask, happy to have a distraction from a rough few days.

Alfie’s eyes light up. He grabs my hand and pulls me toward a corner of the tent I hadn’t noticed before. “Since you’re officially part of the club now, I can share my latest project with you,” he says, giving me a friendly nudge.

As we reach the corner, I come face-to-face with something that can only be described as a contraption. It looks like it was cobbled together from parts scavenged out of a junkyard: an old bicycle wheel, a mess of gears and pulleys, a fishbowl filled with marbles, and a gramophone horn pointed suspiciously at the ceiling.

Alfie steps back, a wide grin plastered on his face. “Behold!” he announces, raising his hands like he’s unveiling a masterpiece. “The Serendipity Engine!”

I blink, trying to make sense of the bizarre machine. “The…what now?”

“The Serendipity Engine,” he repeats, giving the contraption a proud pat. “It’s designed to generate happy accidents and fortuitous coincidences.”

I glance at him, then back at the bizarre machine. “And this…does thathow,exactly?”

Alfie’s smile grows wider, clearly delighted by my interest. “Well, you start by pedaling here,” he says, demonstrating by touching the bicycle wheel. “That activates the Possibility Pump, which agitates the Probability Pearls in the fishbowl.”

As he rotates the wheel, the marbles in the fishbowl begin to swirl and bounce off each other, creating a mesmerizing light show.

“The vibrations from the Probability Pearls are then amplified by the Serendipity Speaker,” he continues, gesturing to thegramophone horn. “And voila! Random bursts of good fortune are released into the world!”

I shoot him a pointed look. “That’s…certainly creative. But does it actually work?”

“Well, that’s the beauty of it. How can we ever truly know? Maybe that unexpected smile from a stranger, or finding a forgotten bill in your pocket, or running into an old friend—perhaps those are all courtesy of the Serendipity Engine!”

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