The Case of the Tricky Trimathlon

"**The Case of the Tricky Trimathlon**" is the 14th episode of the second season of *The InBESTigators*, and the 34th overall.

## Synopsis

After he accidentally signs up for the Trimathlon, Kyle surprises everyone by doing well, until he mysteriously can't find his cheat sheet.

## Plot

The episode begins with Ava and Maudie initiating yet another case report from the Inbestigators, where Maudie explains that something incredible happened to Ezra last Monday, and Ava explains that he had won an eraser pen, however, Maudie was not referring to that, even that is a very incredible thing to receive. The story then moves to school, where Ezra demonstrates how the pen works, writing his own name and then erasing it with the eraser of his pen. James reveals that his cousin has a pen, in which when he erases, the friction generates heat, which completely erases the ink, and Kyle considers this incredible, even though he doesn't understand anything. Maudie finally realizes how amazing it is to win an eraser, however, what she meant is that Ezra, along with Kyle, James, Ruby, Amelia and Diet were in the room during the break waiting for Miss Tan.

Miss Tan finally arrives at the room, after Mr. McGillick has monopolized the microwave, and as she sits at the table, congratulates everyone for signing up for the Trimathlon, which cheers up Ezra, where this competition is online with a math theme, where schools face off with the tablet, and for those who love this subject, like Ezra, it's the best thing in life. However, Kyle, which does not likes math, disagrees saying that they had signed up for the Triathlon, a sports competition, however, Ezra says that they signed up for the Trimathlon. Kyle, seeing this, is angry to see that he lost a lot of time in the group and decides to leave, but Miss Tan intervenes saying that she chose him to compete with Ezra in the first round, which shocks the two, because she wants to a lot that Kyle tries to answer some math questions. So she decides that James will stay with Ruby and Amelia with Diet, where, in the first round, three pairs from the school compete against each other and whoever wins will be qualified to compete with the pairs from the other schools. Ezra, knowing that Kyle is not very good, asks Miss Tan if he cannot be with the others, but she denies it, where the two consider it unfair, however, she has already made the decision.

Kyle tries to argue, but Miss Tan says that instead of talking, it is better to study to prepare for the questions, where Kyle eats Miss Tan's lunch, and she asks to return it. Then, on the first day of study, Ezra starts to solve with Kyle an invented question, where Kyle starts to get distracted by the content of the question, which is that Matt buys a donut, making Kyle want to eat a donut. Then, James being mean to both of them, starts laughing and sends sarcastically good luck, leaving Ezra disappointed. The next morning, Ezra comments on a plan to make Kyle pretend to be sick and not have to go to school for 3 months, which is actually a bad plan, where Ava and Maudie say that Kyle has the ability to face the Trimathlon, however, he just gets distracted, and they suggest that Ezra create a cheat sheet for him, who is an allowed guide in Trimathlon. So, Ezra decides to create a cheat sheet with his new pen and gives it to Kyle when they go to study together, but he refuses to study with the cheat sheet, and Ezra angry, says that this is like a sports competition, however, Ezra is the Kyle's partner and refuses to read the rules, which makes Kyle finally realize how upset Ezra is and decides to practice with it, and asks where it is, and Ezra finds it on the floor, and Kyle thanks him. Before the Trimathlon, he started to practice a lot with the cheat sheet.

The next day, the first round of Trimathlon begins, and Kyle starts to feel very nervous, and Ezra deicide to comfort him by saying that everything will be all right. A signal blew, starting the first round of the Trimathlon, where Ezra answers the first question, which is to decipher the next number in the sequence (630, 760, 890, ...). Seeing that it is added to 130, Ezra answers the question and gets it right. However, Kyle tries to answer the next question, which is to find the 10% of 570, and he gets anxious, but then he finally takes the cheat sheet, and seeing that it is 570 divided by 10, it is 57, and he gets it right the question. They did not miss any questions during the entire round, however, the other teams also did not miss any. Kyle would have to answer the last question, which is to find out how much is 27 - 4 x 3, and while trying to reason, James and Ruby have already answered the question. Seeing that 4 x 3 = 12, Kyle realizes that 27 - 12 equals 15, and gets the question right before Amelia and Diet, making Ezra and Kyle advance to the second round with James and Ruby, and Miss Tan feels proud.

Before everyone starts studying for the second round, James gets angry, thinking it is unfair that Kyle is using a cheat sheet and refuses Ruby's request to make a cheat sheet thinking they don't need it, where he was acting like an evil winner, and jealous that Kyle proved he is very good at math and starts to press Ruby, where she asks them to make a cheat sheet, but he refuses, and Ava is shocked to see that Ruby would have to study with the James, who was acting like an angry boss, and Ezra and Kyle, instead, had a lot of fun and laughed a lot, which made James tell them to be quiet because they are taking his and Ruby's concentration, and he started to pressure Ruby so much that she stayed to study during the break. Ezra and Kyle tell Ava and Maudie how Ruby felt and the two of them went to see her, and found her on the photocopier, and the same line that she is printing out a few things to help her study to prepare for the next round, and asks them to bring the lunch box for her to starve, and they accept to do that.

However, when they got there to give Ruby the lunchbox, the break was over, and Ezra says that everyone should go there, as the round will start in 20 minutes. Mr Barker interrupts by asking who was playing with the photo copier, as he found 100 photo-copies of blank paper. Maudie notes that Ruby was the last one to use it, but Ava interrupts saying that it's not time to talk about a photocopier but about the second round of Trimathlon. Everyone went into the room completely excited for the next round, including Ava, who gives a speech before the round begins. However, when Kyle goes to get his cheat sheet, he ends up taking a blank sheet. Ezra asks where he left the cheat sheet, and Kyle replies that it was, for sure, in his book. Maudie takes the blank sheet and places it on the window and sees that it was the cheat sheet, concluding that someone left it in a warm place and so, erased it. Kyle, upon seeing this, accuses James of the fact that he is jealous of him proving that he is very good at math, where James says he was playing football with him during the break, and may have accidentally left him in a hot place, but it was not the Kyle, but Ruby, which gets everyone confused.

Ruby apologizes to Kyle, where Maudie concludes that she wanted to make a copy because James was pushing her hard to beat Ezra and Kyle in the second round, so when everyone went to the break, Ruby took Kyle's cheat sheet and decided to put it on the photo-copier to copy it, because James doesn't want her to use a cheat sheet, which makes Ava say that this was too rude and says that he is not the boss. So, when Maudie and Ava came, Ruby ended up getting scared and accidentally hit the button that programs the photocopier to make 100 copies, causing Mr, Barker to notice the blank sheets, that was because as the photocopier it's very hot, it erased the cheat sheet, which shocks everyone. Ruby apologizes to Kyle, saying that when she saw the blank copies, she put it back in his book, but didn't notice what she did. Kyle is very upset and Ezra disappointed, but when answering, he surprises everyone again, where Kyle, upon seeing the first question, answers without needing the cheat sheet, making them both happy. Kyle started answering all the questions without needing the glue sheet, but he was missing a few, but James was missing a lot of questions, and because of that, he felt bad for not keeping his focus. So Ezra and Kyle won, which makes everyone happy.

Miss Tan was proud to see Kyle respond without the cheat sheet, saying he wouldn't need it anymore, however, Maudie and Ava say he really needs it, and Maudie recalls that she had left the cheat sheet in the freezer, thinking that if the heat extinguishes the paint, the cold must make it reappear, and she, when removing the cheat sheet, was completely right. Still, Ava says it is better for Ezra to make a new one with a normal pen, and Maudie agrees. Then, they finish the story by eating the cupcakes they were decorating during the story, and the episode ends.

## Cast & Characters

 Anna Cooke
 Aston Droomer
 Jamil Smyth-Secka
 Zac Mineo
 Ayiana Ncube
 Maria Angelico
 Clarke Richards
 Hannah Johnston
 Ethan Pham

## Features

### Locations

* Australia
	+ Unnamed Residential Area
		- Granny Flat
		- Middle Primary School

### Report Details

#### Characters

* Maudie Miller
* Ava Andrikides

## Trivia

* This episode was promoted on Jamil Smyth-Secka's official Instagram account on November 23, 2019, 1 day before its official premiere.
* This episode had a rerun on January 9, 2020.
* This is the first time at the season where Maudie reports the case along with Ava, as it was the only time in the season which they report together.
* The promotional image of the episode "The Case of the Missing Solar System" also promotes "The Case of the Tricky Trimathlon", by the fact that is shown everyone getting ready to start the Trimathlon, including the competition logo.
* This is the first episode in which there is something that everyone calls a breach of expectation, used during narrative texts:
	+ When Kyle decides to help Ezra by practising with the cheat sheet, he ends up realizing that the cheat sheet is gone, however, Ezra finds it easily, where he makes the viewer think that the crime would occur at that moment.

### Cultural References

* Ezra reveals that he has an eraser pen, which is rarely used in everyday life, and as James explained, the rubbing of the eraser generates heat, erasing what is written.
* Kyle mentions Triathlon, a combination of sports such as racing, invasion sports, swimming, among others.
	+ The Trimathlon is a play on words of Triathlon, but instead of being a sports competition, is a maths competition.
* The term *cheat sheet* is widely used in everyday life to describe several things:
	+ It is a type of cheating during knowledge tests, the rule of which is not to look at materials such as a book or notebook.
	+ In more general usage, a crib sheet is any short (one- or two-page) reference to terms, commands, or symbols where the user is expected to understand the use of such terms but not necessarily to have memorised all of them.
* The sound effects used when someone hits or misses a question are taken from the internet and are widely used in YouTube videos.

### Continuity

* The tablet on which Ezra and Kyle use to answer Trimathlon questions has also been seen in other episodes:
	+ "The Case of the Pestering Prank Caller": It is shown when Ezra tries to convince Maudie to let him buy the Franklin Cube, and at least tries to explain what it is.
	+ "The Case of the Science Sabotage": Ezra and Maudie, at the beginning of the episode, are seen watching funny videos on the tablet, until Annie's arrival.
	+ "The Case of the Soccer Saga": Ezra uses it to edit Kyle's video during the training match for the videobook.
* Ezra also shows again to being excited for science events, which he showed that for the first time in "The Case of the Science Sabotage".
* The quote "What?" was told by Ava and Ezra in other episodes:
	+ "The Case of the Soccer Saga": Ezra had told this quote after he gets extremely confused by Maudie's explanation during the case report.
	+ "The Case of the Interrupting Intern": Ava also had told "What?" when Amelia tells that someone had stolen her bike and also when Maudie discovers that Elijah tricked both Ava, Ezra and Kyle.
* When Maudie takes the cheat sheet out of the freezer, the whole loaf of bread that Kyle used during the story in "The Case of the Lousy Lunch Orders" is seen again.
* The scene in which Maudie and Ava prepare to eat the cupcakes is similar to that in which Maudie and Kyle, in "The Case of the Disappearing Deliveries", end the case report by eating the peanut butter and salmon sandwiches.

## Blooper Reels

* While telling the last question of the first round of the Trimathlon, Abby (Ava) ends up missing her line "*And the final question was Kyle's*" and instead, she said: "*And the last question was Kyle's*".

## References

1. ↑ Jamil Smyth-Secka on Instagram: "Kyle🤦🏽‍♂️make sure to watch the latest episodes on Abc me". *Instagram*. (November 23, 2019)
2. ↑ What’s On TV? Monday 6 January – Sunday 12 January. *ACTF*. (January 7, 2020)