The Ocean Arrow

The Card Game

Percy

On the second day of the expo, it went pretty smoothly. My mom got there early to set up her table while Paul and I sat behind her at a table, somewhat hidden away from the crowd. Yesterday was quite chaotic. It was very loud, there was a lot of people, and we were there for so long. I don't doubt that today will be the similar to yesterday.

Paul kept asking if I was doing okay ever since this morning and I was, truly. But I was getting tired of that question. It doesn't really make sense in my point of view, like, if I hit by a car and someone asks me if I'm okay, what do you want me to say? "Oh I'm great!"

No.

If I got hit by a car. Of course I wouldn't be okay. Nobody would be okay. But sometimes, even if you're feeling down, you always gotta say you're good because if you say anything other than 'good', people will ask why, and sometimes I don't really know why. I just feel that.

Anyways, sorry for that.

Paul brought a deck of cards with him today, since I can't really go on my phone or anything. I've never really played with cards growing up, partly because I'm busy trying not to die.

"You know how to play gin rummy?" Paul asked while handing me 6 cards. I shook my head, and Paul smiled. "Great, I'm gonna teach you."

He gave himself 6 cards and put the rest of the deck in the middle of the table. He then flipped the top card up and set it next to the stack. It showed a 4 of spades.

"Okay, we each get an amount of cards,and we have to organize them by number or category or color. The first person to have no more cards in their hand wins. And how you do that is, let's say I have 3 clubs. And it's a 5, 8, and 2. If I have a matching category like that, I put it down. But it has to be 3 cards or more, or else you can't set it down. But if I have a mix of 1 hearts, 1 diamonds, 1 spade, and 1 clubs, but the numbers are 5,6,7, and 8, I can put it down because of the numbers. You can never put down a mix of categories down unless the numbers match. But if the colors match and not the numbers, then you can put that down too. And we just go on and on, trying to get a match for your cards. And if you have nothing to put down, you pull from the deck. And if the card you chose doesn't help you at all, you can put it down. And later on, if I see that I need that card, I can grab it from the pile, but I have to grab all the cards after that. If that makes sense. But, if you pick up a card from the deck, and you realize that you want it, you can keep it, but you have to exchange it with another card in your hand. So you switch cards. And any cards in the discarded pile, we can grab, as long as we keep the cards after it. And then, once one of us has all our cards matched, you win. And all those cards count for points and they can be added up in multiple games until 500, and if someone gets 500 points, they win the game. Cards 2-9 are 5 points. Cards 10-King are 10 points and Ace's are 15 points. And let's say, you win and you have 105 points, but I lost and I obviously still have cards in my hand that I wasn't able to match yet, those cards in my hand still count as points but they are taken off from my final number. For example, if I was able to match 75 points up, but my card deck points were a total of 25 points, I now have 50 points. And we just play game after game until one of us gets 500 points. Does that make sense?"

I just blinked at him. "Not at all."

"Okay, um, let's just start playing, and you'll learn from there..." Paul bit his lip. I had 2 hearts, 3 diamonds and 1 spade. None of the numbers connected, so the only match I had were the diamonds. I grabbed the three and I set it down on the table, and Paul smiled. "There you go! You already got a match."

Paul didn't seem to have any matches because he pulled a card from the deck, and he stared at it for awhile before putting it down. "Now you see, I didn't need that card, so I'm just putting it down to a pile." I nodded. And I plucked a card from the middle deck and it was a club. I set it down beside the card Paul had put away and Paul picked up his own card from the deck. He liked that card because he switched it with another card.