Cheater?

The one who had volunteered to conduct the test was the old man who had done the introduction.

"Certainly sir, it's an honour."

"Alright everyone line up, then you will be given your hats so you can't see your own colour."

After arranging themselves by height James found himself in second place, at least he would be able to get his answer out of the way quickly.

"You may now begin."

Elias checked the colour of the hat of every person in front of him.

'I see seven white and seven black; I guess it really is 50/50 for me in the end. So let's see, black means an odd number of white hats I guess. Please no-one mess this up for me.'

"Black"

'Okay, black means an odd number of white hats, I only see six though.'

"White"

The same thought process went through each person one by one, comparing the already called hats to what they could see and working out the difference.

"14 out of 15, you pass! How did you do it?"

"We realised that we didn--" James ran forwards and put his hand over Silas' mouth before he ruined their chance to pass the test.

"We can't say out loud here, or other groups may hear, I don't want to be disqualified after I've already passed the test."

'Sneaky old bastard, think you can get me with that one? Try again.'

"Haha, well done on seeing through the final stage." The old man turned to look at James with a pensive stare.

"Are you the one who answered the question?"

"It was a team effort really, we all had a part to play in succeeding."

'No way am I admitting it was me alone, at least you can't fault me on that answer as it was technically true. Why even ask me anyway when you have your lackey watching us?'

"We introduced the question this year, it usually takes a few years before someone cracks them, but it seems we have some promising students.

Congratulations, you all pass with flying colours!"

The other fourteen students all began to celebrate, safe to say they drew the attention of most of the other students, all of which still had their tests ongoing.

"I understand you're all happy, but please don't distract the other students too much."

"There's no way they passed without cheating! I don't believe it!"

A boy from one of the surrounding groups stood up and threw down his accusation, apparently, he didn't believe they could have found the answer so quickly.

After all, these were all twelve to thirteen-year-old youths; their lateral thinking had barely developed yet. It was more based on experience than anything, which unfortunately for them James was anything but lacking in.

"If you can tell me how they cheated I will pass your group right now, however, if you cannot then your group will be disqualified. It's easy enough to throw out an accusation, but you need to be able to defend it."

James turned to look at his accuser and saw that it was a boy from the group Mary had been placed in. At this rate, he was going to have her sent home because he couldn't hold his jealousy.

'I suppose I better do something; she hasn't done anything to me on purpose after all.'

"It seems to be a bit unfair to punish the rest of the group for one boy's actions."

"He is part of the group. Therefore we will hold his group responsible."

"Group responsibility should only go so far, he acted of his own volition and made no prior discussions with his group about it. You could say he was operating independently of the group's collective will when he accused us.

They were placed in the group with no ability to choose their teammates either; I believe that should have absolved them of all group responsibility in the first place."

"Hmm, you make a strong argument. Okay then, I apologise to the rest of you for my rash actions, the responsibility rests alone on this young man. The rest of you will still be able to take the test and pass with thirteen correct guesses out of fourteen."

"Thank you for your kindness."

James wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, that was a close one.

'Seriously, I'd never hear the end of it if I didn't try and help her out, I'd probably go back to find my house on fire or something.'

"Well, what do you have to say then young man? What is the reasoning for your outburst?"

"I, I uh, I don't have one. I'm sorry, please let me take the test!" The young man fell to his knees and began crawling towards the older man pawing at his legs.

"You allowed your arrogance to get the better of you; I'm sure you thought something along the lines of 'If I can't do it then there is no way they can.' This alone has led to your current situation, and you have no one to blame except yourself."

After saying his part the examiner instructed for the boy to be taken away, he would only distract other students with his begging if he stayed.

After a few more minutes of chatter within the other groups, there were more and more people showing a look of defeat on their face, there were others that were looking confident, but they couldn't have been that confident if they weren't attempting the test.

There were a few others who were observing all the other groups; it seemed they were waiting for it to get busy to try and cover their plans to cheat.

"Okay everyone, time is up. Line up and you will be given your hats."

While a large number of people stood up to take their tests, there was also a large number of people who had decided to sit out of the exam knowing they wouldn't be able to pass it. After all, they had a 1/16384 chance of correctly guessing fourteen hat colours in a row.

While they may not have known the exact numbers they still knew that it was damn near impossible.