A Card for Trade
The little girl was taller than the little boy. As they entered the comic book store, she looked over her shoulder at him. “Just let me talk, okay?”
The boy said, “Okay. You’re always so smart.”
She took off her backpack and led him the length of a gaming area with a dozen long folding tables and empty chairs pushed up against them and then past a rack on a wall with a sign NEW RELEASES above the comics. The business smelled like a library first thing after opening. It was cooler deep in the store than the sidewalk outside, but it was still July, so the man at the buying counter was sweating.
“You buy cards?” she said to the man.
“Yep.” He indicated the long glass case he leaned on and the sleeved trading cards lined up inside it. “All kinds. But I’m picky.”
She put down the backpack, pink and white with a cat’s face and a large bow on its head, and unzipped it. She removed a card, handed her backpack to the boy, and put the card on the glass case countertop. “How much?”
The man said, “This should be in a sleeve. You don’t know much about collectible cards, do you, sweetie?”
He put a clear plastic glove on one hand and picked up the card. He turned it over, looked at the back, and turned it over to look at the front again. “This isn’t even for a game. Where did you get it?”
“It was my father’s.”
The boy said, “He died. Last Christmas.”
When the girl looked at him, he did not meet her stare. “It’s her birthday, mister.”
The man said, “Oh yeah? How old are you? And happy birthday. Anyway, this isn’t for a game.”
“But how much?” the girl said.
The man put the card back down in front of her. She picked it up. He said, “I sell trading cards, kid. They have numbers on them and powers and abilities and stats like that. This card of yours, it’s just a fish.”
She pointed at the cards in the case. “That’s just a fish, too.”
“Yeah, but that’s a chase card. See the number there? The gold star? And it has HP. Yours doesn’t have anything like that. The back is just a pattern. What is it, a Russian card? Egyptian? I don’t know.”
“Okay. How much then?”
The man said, “Pay attention. Nothing. You’re starting to piss me off, girlie. You’re not listening to what the grown-up is telling you.”
The comic store’s door opened, and a young woman came in. The little girl took her card back from the countertop. She and the little boy stood apart from the counter as the woman made a purchase saved for her behind the counter. When she finally left, the little girl and the little boy approached the counter again.
“I’ll take a thousand dollars,” the little girl said.
The man laughed. “I’m sure you would, you arrogant little brat.”
The boy said, “It’s her birthday.”
The little girl didn’t say anything.
The man turned his back on them, removed a pair of card packs from a box on the shelf behind him, and slammed them on the countertop. The little boy jumped.
“Two boosters from the last expansion.” The man held out his gloved hand. He snapped his fingers on the hand without a glove. “That’s it. Gimme the card and get out of my store.”
The little girl pulled the card back toward her chest. “I’m going to Bullwinkle World. It’s in Minnesota.”
“We’re going to Bullwinkle World,” the boy said.
“You’re going to go to hell,” the man said. “I’m not funding your little field trip, and I’m tired of you two beggars. I have a store to run, so forget it—no boosters. I’m not buying.”
The boy said, “Please, mister? Maybe change your mind?”
As the boy spoke, the little girl put her palm over her father’s card and whispered something that the man didn’t hear. He was speaking to the boy—“Out, you little waste of space”—when the space with the game tables and the empty chairs was suddenly filled.
A koi, easily thirty feet long, materialized in the gaming area. Its head, with blank eyes and a gaping mouth that seemed to be suffocating on air, was almost on top of the countertop, a few feet from the man. At the end of its long, ivory-white body, its massive tail thumped against the store’s window. Folding tables and chairs collapsed under its sudden weight. Shining white and orange scales fell from the koi’s form like leaves off a tree. One of the orange ones stuck to the sweating man’s forehead.
He shouted but without words. The koi’s mouth, as if gasping, opened wide, and then the fish lunged at the man’s head.
As quickly as it arrived, it vanished again.
The man groaned, looking first at the little girl and then at the gaming area. Broken chairs and tables littered the open space. The little girl crossed her arms, and as she did, he snatched the card out of her hand. He glanced at the fish on it, the same as the one that had appeared before him, and then held it above his head as if she might reach for it.
“I don’t know what you did,” he said; his voice was dry and afraid, “but you’re not doing it again.”
“So, how much now?” she said.
The man blinked. “Are you putting me on? I’m gonna call a cop. You owe me for all the damage you just did with that magic crap.”
The boy, his face resigned, reached into the little girl’s backpack, took out another card, and handed it to her. The man watched this transaction carefully. He was sweating much harder now.
Stepping back out of reach, the girl held up the card so the man could see it. The creature on it was a tentacled beast with a bulbous head and a beak. It resembled a cross between an octopus and a rooster. He cleared his throat, which made the girl take another step away and into the gaming area.
The man said, “What is that?”
“A kraken,” the little girl said.
“A kraken. Yeah. Okay. I knew that. How—how big is it supposed to be?”
The little girl looked at the card then shrugged. “It doesn’t have any numbers or stats like that. But I think it’s about five-thousand feet or so.”
She held a hand over it, and the man looked at the boy, who just shook his head. The man looked back at the little girl and shook his head, too. She paused.
“How much do you want for it?” the man asked.
The boy looked at the little girl and said, “What a birthday. You’re always so smart.”
