Crumbling castle was perched upon a tall, green hill. It had once belonged to the king of Crescent Kingdom who died long ago and had no one to resume place as king. The people of Crescent Kingdom decided it would be best to drop the monarchy and follow a democracy instead. So Crumbling Castle was left empty and deserted.

Soon enough, rumours of the old castle were spread throughout the country. People everywhere believed it was haunted, and you would too, because usually, the

impression people get when they see old, deserted, broken down estates is that they are haunted.

Few people disagreed about this, and one particular family who did so was the Crumbs, who said that rumours were never true. They had a daughter named Atsuko. She enjoyed to explore the castle, and she would sometimes camp there as well.

One beautiful summer's morning, when the butterflies were flying about and the birds nested in Crumbling Castle's nooks, crannies and towers, Atsuko thought it would be a lovely day to camp up by the castle. Quickly she packed her sleeping bag, tent, bread, coconut water, water, a flashlight, sausages, and a lighter for the campfire. When everything was ready, she clambered

onto her bicycle and strapped a wagon that carried all her supplies to the bicycle. She rode her bike toward the hill, chuckling as pedestrians stared at her, gawping when they saw where she was headed.

Soon, she arrived at Crumbling Castle. It seemed to shine in the hot summer sun, despite its dirty stone walls. Atsuko began looking for a nice place to set up her small tent, and when she did, she carefully put it into place and laid out her luggage neatly within it. "Ah, I'm hungry. It must be lunch time."she said, pulling the bread and cheese out of her bag. She made herself a hearty sandwich, and then ran off to explore the castle (Even though she had been there many times, she had

never seen the whole place. Atsuko climbed carefully up the aging, rickety stairs and entered through the massive double doors of the castle. There was a long hallway which had numerous doors along it that had an inscription above the door which told where it led to. All of them were made of oak and were brown. The first one she decided to enter was the kitchen. It had an old-fashioned fireplace that the cooks used to cook meals. There were empty, mouldy cupboards and drawers, and filthy, grimy large windows. There was a disgusting stench in the air due to the rotting wooden floor of the room, so Atsuko decided to go somewhere else.

As she exited the kitchen, she noticed a door that was unlike any other in the castle. It was made of iron and it had no inscription. Curious to know what lay behind the abnormal door, Atsuko pushed open the heavy door. The room behind the door was dark, so the little girl swung herself into the room and felt around for a switch.

Just then, she realized that it was a castle of old times and light bulbs had not been invented. At the same time, the metal door swung forward and locked itself, leaving her in the room with a panicking heart . A cute, pale, white transparent cat that looked like a ghost popped out of the wall and said:

"You must be very brave if.. you dared,

enter this room without feeling scared,

Perhaps it was because you didn't know what lies behind,

For there's only deadly,dangerous things you'll find,

Now its too late, you've got to answer the maths riddle,

Correctly, or something from the floor in the middle,

Will decide your fate, if you should go to the next room,

Or if you should stay and meet your doom,

If you should win, I shall be happy because I shall be free,

From the state of a ghost, as a pet, you can keep me,

Shall you fail, you and I will be sorry, we'll be lost forever,

Exit this eerie room we shall never.

Welcome to the Escape Room, where you must try your best."

The ghost cat disappeared, multicoloured words and numbers appeared, and a pen and paper were roughly

thrown at her feet. Atsuko had understood the ghost cat's poem, so she knew she had to solve a puzzle of some sort, so, obviously, it must be the written words and numbers that were hanging in midair. She picked up the pen and paper as she read the task:

"SOLVE 3 times 5 plus 5 times 7 plus 7 times 9 plus 9 times eleven."

Anxiously, she scribbled down her calculations with the pen onto her paper:

'3*5=15 5*7=35 7*9=64 9*11=99 15+35+64+99=213'

STOP: Solve this puzzle before reading on.

Not knowing what to do now that she had her answer, she just said, "Is it, is it 213?"

"Alas, your answer is not correct!" shouted the now invisible ghost cat.

Suddenly, the middle of the floor slowly started turning into quick sand and started to spread.

"Hurry! Solve it again!" cried the ghost cat.

Quickly, Atsuko reread the question and then looked at her calculations.

"Oh dear, 9 times 7 isn't 64! It's 63! Now, 63 plus 99 plus 35 plus 15 is 212! Is it 212?"

"Right, its correct!" the ghost cat's voice echoed through the empty room. The quick sand disappeared

and a door appeared at the other end of the room.

"Open the door to the next room." the cat answered to Atsuko's thoughts.

Bolting across the room with the words following her at top speed, she flung the door open and crossed into the next room. It looked exactly like the previous room. Behind her, the words had flown in and the door had vanished. The words had turned into a long, colourful stream and glided in front of her. Slowly, so very slowly, they morphed into another question:

Ava's PIN code is a 4-digit number. The sum of the four digits is 22. Reading from left to right, the first and second digits are the same.The second digit is twice the third digit. The first digit is four times the fourth digit. What is

Ava's PIN code is a 4-digit number. The sum of the four numbers is 22. Reading from left to right, the first and second digits are the same. The second digit is twice the third digit. The first digit is four times the fourth digit. What is Ava's PIN code?

Ava's PIN code?

STOP: First solve the question before reading on! Do not read further!

"Hmmm...................there are 4 digits that add up to 22. The first 2 digits are equal......... I suppose they are the largest because they are twice the second digit and four times the fourth number. What if we say that the smallest number is 2, then the third digit would be two times 2, 4. And the first two numbers would both be 8. Wait, it should also add up to 22. 8 plus 8 plus 4 plus 2 is 22, yes, that must be the answer. Is it 8842?" said Atsuko.

"You are amazing! Quite right!" exclaimed the cat.

Again at the end of the room, a door appeared, leading

into a model of the other room. The exact same thing happened. The door disappeared and the words formed into a different question:

When two people play a game, each player starts with 10 points. The winner of each round gets 3 points and the loser of each round loses 3 points. Yuki and Kasumi play the game. Yuki wins exactly four rounds and Kasumi ends up with 16 points. How many games did they play in all?

STOP: Please do not read on until you have an answer to the above question. Then you may read on to see the solution and check your answer.

Atsuko hurriedly picked up her pen and paper and began to solve. Here's what she wrote:

Game start

K=10 Y=10

16-10=6 3+3=6 K won two games.

Y won 4 games= 4*3=12 12+10=22

K lost 4 games

Y lost 2 games

Total: 4+4+2+2= 12

"Is it 12?" Atsuko asked hopefully.

"Sadly, you are not correct." replied the ghost.

Atsuko could see that the floor was starting to crack from