Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Malachai smiled with satisfactory as he laid his playing cards down on the hardwood table in his cabin later that night so everyone could see his poker hand.
"Sorry guys", he said. "Two pair. Read 'em and weep." He started collecting the money and other items his friends and campmates had decided to bet, hearing groans of outrage and 'I'm out's' filling the cabin.
Still smiling, Malachai counted the dollar bills in his hand. He had played every single kid who had decided to show up in the cabin he shared with his friends and won every single game.
"So that's it?" Malachai asked, looking around the large crowd of kids in the cabin. "No more takers?" The cabin went silent except for a few whispers and Malachai was about to take this opportunity to call the night a victory when all of a sudden the screen door to the cabin opened with a loud squeak followed a familiar voice filling the crowd.
"I'll play", came a boy's voice.
Malachai snapped his head up in the voice's direction just in time to see the large crowd split in two. As if on cue, Isaac walked toward the table, gently swinging a large sockful of coins side to side which he immediately dumped in the middle of the table the second he reached it.
After shuffling the cards, Malachai looked up at the boy he had grown to despise, giving him a hard look. "Take a seat, Salapatek ", he said coldly. Isaac did so with ease, chewing the stick of gum he had in his mouth as he rested his arm on the side of the chair, letting it hang off to the side."Deal me in", he said with a confident smile.
Not daring to take his eyes off the boy in front of him, Malachai dealt Isaac his cards while Isaac, eyes half narrowed and with a confident smirk on his face, continued to chew his gum, once even blowing a bubble.
Silence fell around the cabin as the large group watching crowded around the boys, as if deciding who was going to win. After getting their cards in order, Malachai and Isaac would look over their shoulders at the other kids who had decided to support them, each with a smirk of pure sass on their faces. It was Isaac who eventually broke the silence moments later.
"Tell you what", he told Malachai, who looked Isaac in the eye as he started to speak. "Let's make this a bit more interesting." A smirk crossed over the boy's face again. "Winner takes all and the loser has to jump into the lake after the game." Malachai smirked back, narrowing his eyes. "Fantastic", he replied, obviously liking the sound of the idea.
