My strongest arm for throwing is my left, so I readied the first
tennis ball in that hand, lifted my arm and threw the ball as hard as I thought
was necessary for knocking over a set of six cups organised in a pyramided
shape. A couple of turns went by, but I couldn’t knock them all over. Amy
wasn’t having much luck either. Each ball managed to knock over the first two
layers, and make the ones on the bottom wobble slightly, but not falling over
completely. After each throw, the person resets the cups allowing us to take
another attempt at it. He was watching, knowing that we’re not going to win. He
smiled sympathetically, but on the other side of that smile was smugness and
deceit. He did explain to us that the cups get progressively heavier with each
layer down, so that is in a way a confession, but not a full statement telling
us that the game is designed to be impossible no matter how we go about it.
We threw five
balls at the cups with little success. Amy threw her sixth ball which came very
close to knocking over the last three cups. I actually thought that Amy was
going to win. That the game wasn’t rigged at all, just a very hard one to win
at, but then the cups steadied itself, and the game was over. Amy wasn’t going
to walk away with a prize this time.
‘Unlucky, Ma-am,’
the man said rebuilding the cups back up for someone else to have a go at it.
‘Would you like another go?’ he asked.
‘I’m good,’ she
said, noticing that I have one last ball to go before the game is over for me
too. This was it, I had to win this. I shouldn’t worry too much about Amy being
disappointed with me not winning a prize, but it would be nice if I could. With
each ball, I tried something new instead of throwing it full pelt each time in
a straight line. I tried spinning it, arching it, curving it. I tried all the
throws that I was capable of doing including as hard as I could, but not a
single one was successful.
‘Good luck,’ Amy said. I noticed
that the man was watching intently, wondering what throw I’ll be attempting
next. He is obviously enjoying my fails due to my actually putting effort in,
only to end up with nothing each time. Maybe I should have given myself that
little bit of an advantage. No, that would be unfair. If I do that and win and
collect my prize, whenever I see that prize, I will always know how I won it
and how it wasn’t fair and square.
‘Here goes
nothing, I guess,’ I said, not knowing what throw I would actually be doing. I
want to make this final throw count, but I’ve used up all the ones I know. I
think I might just resort to throwing this ball as hard as I could to get it
over and done with.
I raised my arm
up in the air, brought it backwards, and then forward as quickly as I could,
letting the tennis ball go at precisely the right time.
As it neared its
target, I stared at the cups with deep concentration, as if I was actually willing
them to fall down. I didn’t activate any powers, so I can’t do anything now
except watch what happens next.
The ball hit its target exactly
where I wanted it to and the all the cups were knocked from standing up
straight to either clattering to the floor or teetering on their edge, contemplating
whether to fall or not. The man was watching, fighting my connection with the
cups with mine. But in the end, gravity decided, and the cup fell to the floor,
securing me a win.
‘Blimey,’ Amy
said, ‘you won.’
I looked over to
the man and saw the expected look on his face. Shock and wonder. By not
expecting anyone to win, the sudden outcome hit him harder than I think even he
had imagined.
‘What prize would
you like, Amy?’ I asked, unable to stop smiling.
‘Oh, no, you
pick,’ she said, waving away my question with her hand, ‘you won the game so
you get to take home to prize.’
‘I can’t do
that,’ I said.’
‘You should, you
know that, don’t you,’ she said, before saying straight after, ‘I’ll have the lion
please.’ I laughed at the comical nature of it all before requesting the lion
that sat at the top shelf along with all the other top prizes that you could
only get your hands on if you knocked over all six cups, which I did. The man
reluctantly, silently, picked up the lion from its place and handed it over to
me where I handed it over to Amy.
‘Thanks,’ she
said. That couldn’t have gone any better. I made Amy happy by winning that lion
for her that I have only noticed is almost half the size of her.
‘Thanks,’ I said
to the man who was still in shock, and if I sensed it correctly, a little bit
of hate as well, but I might be adding it there myself with how happy I felt. He
tried to mask his reaction by passing it off as something else, but whatever
that was I had no clue of.
‘I’ve just
thought of something,’ Amy said as we were walking away from the stand and back
into the crowd.
‘What’s that?’
‘We should have
gotten this last for now we both won’t be able to go on any of the rides
together as one of us has to hold this whilst the other goes on the ride,’ she
explained.
‘I didn’t think
of that,’ I said admittedly. It was so obvious now that she mentioned it. Then
again, I don’t think any of us actually expected to be walking away with anything.
We only went there to let our coffees go down.
‘But then again
we weren’t expecting to walk away with one of these were we,’ Amy said,
speaking my thoughts.
‘To be honest, I
wasn’t, no. I only expected to get one of the prizes from the middle shelf
only.’ Then I thought of a good idea.
‘How about,’ I
said, ‘you drop off that lion your place and then we can come back and ride as
many rides as we want. It won’t take hardly any time at all and we are allowed
to go in and out as much as we want because it’s free to get in.’
‘Spoken as if he
knows where I live,’ Amy smiled. ‘I don’t know if I should be creeped out by
that or not.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ I
said.
‘Nah, I’m only joking,’
she said. ‘Hey, isn’t your house closer?’ she asked.
‘Is it?’ I asked,
trying to sound as if I have no idea but having the complete opposite effect.
My shoulders slumped at my failed attempted, which made Amy laugh.
‘Come on, that
sounds like a plan,’ she said. ‘Lead the way.’
TO BE
CONTINUED…
Thanks for reading
Antony Hudson
(TonyHadNouns)
My book, Sector 22: Zoey, is now available on Amazon, eBay, and SkyCat Publications' website:
Amazon:
eBay:
SkyCat Publications:
Ask me anything at:
ahudsonpresents@live.co.uk
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