Ataxia

Chapter 7

Des

By the time Aug and I finished our game of Shortie War, I got top bunk (apparently mind-reading doesn't help in games depended on chance), the rest of the kids sharing our dorm came back from their free time.

"Hey," a boy about two years older than me sat down in between August and I and stared at the deck of cards. "What're you guys playing?"

"War," I said. "Shortie version."

"What?" He looked at me questioningly as the other five kids sat down around us. "What is War 'shortie version'?"

"It's a pretty simple game," August said, shuffling the cards. "We'll teach you how to play. Everyone can create a circle." She said, moving back to let the other kids sit. When all eight of us were in one giant circle, Aug began teaching. It wasn't really my strong suit. But for my little sister, teaching is a breeze because she knows exactly how to teach someone just by reading their mind. I've been feeling a little jealous of her lately. What's so cool about my stupid hands that can glow? It's not very useful.

"Okay, so basic War rules are really easy," Aug started. "There can be as many players as you want as long as you have enough cards. But it is traditionally with two players. You pass out an even number of cards to everyone until all of the cards run out. No one is allowed to look at their cards until they draw them. So to the count of three, all players set down their card at the same time. You should place it down face up. The person who has the highest-ranking card wins and takes the other player's card they placed down."

"Are the rankings of the cards in the traditional way?" One little girl held up her hand.

"Getting to that. Mostly, yes. The highest to lowest is joker, ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, and two. Though sometimes the ace is lowest, it depends on how you want to play. There are instances in the games when a player might place down the same-ranking card by chance. So they call out 'war' and place down another card. Whoever has the highest-ranking card takes all of the cards. If the war happens again then the process repeats until someone wins. But about the shortie version and long game version question Orion asked to himself," she pointed to the sixteen-year-old boy sitting next to me.

"Traditionally the cards you do take from winning you put at the bottom of your drawing deck and reuse them to keep the game going. Once you run out of cards, you're out of the game, that's the long game version. The shortie version is something my older sister, Des, and I made up to speed the game up because the long-game version sometimes lasts hours. So instead of putting the cards you won at the bottom of your drawing deck, you put them in a separate pile. Since you have an even amount of cards you should finish your drawing pile off at the same time. Then you count up how many cards you won in the end and whoever has the most wins."

After the long explanation, all of us played a shortie version practice game to make sure they all got the rules. Everyone played pretty well and eventually a little boy I later found was named Benjiro (everyone calls him Ben) won the game. When most of the older kids like Orion started grabbing their backpacks and leaving, I asked them where they were going.

"Oh, well, since we have a small and limited amount of space in classrooms, different age groups have different times for school. All of the older kids are in the afternoon."

"So shouldn't we go with you?" I asked.

"No. Newbies get two days after arriving to get settled and learn the place and how everything goes. Lucky. You guys basically get free time for two whole days."

"Isn't that what the weekend's for?"

"Of course," he rolled his eyes. "But you guys came in on a Tuesday. That's during the school week. So you guys get four days off this week." And Orion left Aug and the rest of the younger children with me in our dorm.