Her Royal Madness

Her Royal Madness Part 7

That night when I was in my room studying, my brother burst into my room, without knocking as usual. 

"Hey squirt, whatcha doing. I wanna show you something I been practicing." Henry pulled a pair of dice out of his pocket and dropped them into my hand. 

"Very good Henry, it's a pair of dice. Did you figure out how to count the spots all on your own?" 

"Huh? Whatever, no, no, just check them out. They're just regular dice, right?"  

I rolled them around in my hand and nodded. 

"Okay, Okay now tell me what to roll." 

"What? Henry this is stupid. I've got a lot of studying to do." 

"C'mon, just say a number." 

"Five," I said skeptically. I was a little surprised to see four and a one roll up. That didn't mean anything. It was just a lucky throw. Henry scooped up the dice and told me to try again. This time I said twelve and it was two sixes. We tried about thirty or forty more times with only two mistakes. 

Henry looked at me with a big grin on his face. "Pretty sweet, huh?" 

Two months ago I would have refused to believe what I saw. I would have been convinced it was one of Henry's scams. Now I was forced me to keep an open mind.  

"But that's imposs-how did you-you can't just-there are laws of probability and-oh let me see those dice." 

"Whoa, slow down and catch your breath. I can see you're dazzled by my brilliance. Here, you try it." 

As Henry handed me the dice, I examined them carefully, even though I didn't really know what I was looking for. They seemed normal to me. I concentrated, visualizing a four and a three. "Seven," I said as I rolled the dice. 

"A four and a four, that's eight. Not quite the same as seven but close. You're trying too hard. You just gotta let your mind go blank." 

"That's easy for you to do." 

"Watch it half pint. Show some respect. What I meant was, relax and try not to think about anything but the dice. C'mon, try it again. This time make a nine." 

Determined not to let Henry show me up, I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to relax. I cleared my head of everything but the dice. I closed my eyes and pictured them. Two white cubes. I added black dots and imagined them rolling out of my hand with the first one hitting my desktop and bouncing three times - first two, then six, then five. The second one colliding with the first one in midair and bouncing on the table from a four, to a six, to a three, to a four again. With one final deep breath, I threw the dice and opened my eyes. It was incredible. Time almost stopped. The dice slowly tumbled through the air. They knocked into each other and then the desktop. They bounced exactly as I had pictured it. The first die stopped at five. The second one rolled to a four, but didn't stop. Ever so slowly it kept going, almost rolling over to a two. I silently commanded it to stop and roll back. It obeyed me. It stopped dead, balanced on a corner for what seemed like a long time, then rolled back to the four. 

I let out my breath with a big sigh of relief as time returned to normal. Feeling a little bit proud of my self I exclaimed, "How's that? Not bad for a beginner!" 

This was one of these rare times when Henry lost his composure and didn't have a comeback. He was actually impressed. "Whoa! What happened? That's awesome! It took me the whole weekend to figure out how to control them. But you, you did it on your first try! How'd you stop it like that? I can't even do that. Show me again." 

"Oh, okay then," I said, stifling a yawn. Why was I so tired? "Hand them over." 

Henry placed the dice in my hand and I rolled them around as I blanked my mind again.  

"Wait a minute," I said as I placed the dice back on the desk. "I've got another idea, watch." 

I concentrated on the dice as once again time slowed down. Reaching out with my mind, I lifted the first die and held it floating about six inches off the desk. I lifted the second one beside the first. They bobbled a little, so I concentrated a little harder until they held steady. I rotated the first die so that six was on top and set it back down on the desk. The second one, however, didn't go as smoothly. As I was rotating it, I started to shake. I stopped and tried to hold it steady. The shaking got worse until I completely lost control. The dice fell to the desk. The room was spinning and my whole body was shaking. I heard Henry from a distance, asking what was wrong. I couldn't answer. The shaking continued for a few more seconds. Everything was fading away. My desk rose up, rushing at my face. Probably it would have really hurt if I had held on to consciousness until the desk hit me.