WHUMP.

The box hits the table with an alarming thud, causing a cloud of dust to rise from the rickety piece of furniture. Pedro, AKA Water boy, switches on the basement light, which hangs just above us, emitting a dim glow. I feel like I’m in an interrogation movie scene.

Karmi, AKA Toothpick, drags one of the wooden chairs from across the room and slams it down across from me. She hops onto it, the legs creaking beneath her, not because she’s heavy, quite the opposite, but because of how ancient half the stuff down here is. She flips her Dodgers baseball cap around and gives me a wicked grin.

I am so dead.

Merlin, AKA Regular Joe, stands up on the plastic picnic bench we used to use for games such as these, though it no longer feels like a game. A drop sheet cape is draped over his shoulders, and he holds a wooden spoon from the kitchen as his microphone. A paper crown stands up on his blond curls.

“Ladies and gentledudes! Come one and all to see the final showdown of the summer games!!!” He announces, and the rest of the gang, including Glue stick, Pumpkin, Bond James, and Jackhammer, all gather around me and Toothpick, eager to watch the bloodshed. Water boy opens the box and pulls out a single deck of cards and the Tupperware container of Monopoly money from Jackhammers old game (which his dog, bulldozer, destroyed) and sets them before us. Jackhammers takes the box and rips it in two. I flinch.

“The last match of the series, to settle the long lasting beef of ‘is Toothpick just a little girl and should she go home to play with dolls’, will be decided by the worlds best game, drumroll please…”

Everyone drums their legs. Jackhammer pounds his chest like an ape.

“Poker!!!”

For context, none of us know how to play poker because when we asked pumpkin’s dad to tell us, he said we were too young to be playing such games and wouldn’t let us use the computer to search it up. So they made their own rules.

Key word there is ‘they’.

I don’t know how to play Poker. Real poker or ‘The gang Poker’.

“Chosen by last round’s champion… Toothpick!!!”

And of course she chose the game I didn’t know how to win at for the tie breaker.

Her eyes narrow at me from across the table. She has been planning this revenge ever since last year at camp when I said the words that sealed my fate.

A game of tackle football ball, in which Toothpick wanted to participate.

Anyone who has ever met toothpick knows not to call her a little girl, regardless of the fact that she’s the shortest in her grade and it’s a perfect description. Little punk, yes. Feisty girl, appreciated. But those two words next to each other were simply recipe for disaster. I dug my own grave telling her to go home and play with dolls. I want to pummel younger, stupider me.

Water boy deals us each five cards. I pick up my hand, but Regular Joe swats my hand with the wooden spoon.

“No picking up your cards until I say go! Penalize him!”

Water boy takes away one of my one hundred dollar bills and gives it to Toothpick. She gives me a victorious look, as though she has already won.

“Go!” Shouts Regular Joe, and we both pick up our cards. Toothpick knocks the table three times and puts two one hundred dollar bills into the middle. Regular Joe smacks my hand with the spoon again.

“Failure to raise the bet! Penalize him!”

I throw my hands up in the air. “I don’t even know the rules! It’s not fai-“

Regular Joe cuts me off with a loud, “No talking allowed! Penalize him!”

He is having too much fun with this. Water boy takes a five hundred dollar bill and gives it to Toothpick.

She plays down a seven of hearts. I play my six of clubs. I anticipate the wooden spoon seat and dodge it.

“Penalize him!” Regular Joe shouts. Jackhammer cheers every time I do something wrong. Which is very often.

It does not take long before I am down to my last hundred. It sits on the table in front of me like a pale, dead leaf. Toothpick rests on a pile of my money, smiling ever so insincerely. I still have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I was fooling myself to think I could win. I see Regular Joe winding back on his spoon swat. Again. _This is not how I want to lose_, I think.

Before the words ‘Penalize him’ can leave his lips, I stand up and slap my hand down on the table.

“I submit!” I yell, looking directly at my not very inviting host. He stops mid swing. I look over at my opponent. No. My friend.

“Toothpick…” I start, then rethink my sentence. “Karmi, I was wrong. I’m sorry I called you a little girl. You’re a whole lot tougher than me, that’s for sure. A lot smarter, a lot better at most stuff. I… I just didn’t want to invite you to play football because I… I knew you’d show me up. Which is kind of embarrassing. So I tried to hurt your feelings instead. And that’s not what friends do. I accept that you are my superior, and ask only that you forgive me.”

I hold out my hand across the table. The whole room is silent.

“Please…?” I add, because she’s just staring at me and I’m terrified she will say no.

I stand she grans my outstretched hand and pulls me around the table into… a hug?

I stare at her, then at the rest of the gang. Water boy gives me a wide-eyed shrug. This is the weirdest hung I have ever witnessed since my birth.

Regular Joe seems speechless for someone who so often has something to say.

Finally, she steps back and looks me dead in the eyes.

“If you think this means you escape your ultimate judgment, you are so wrong,” she says, grinning at me. But it’s a nice grin. A happy grin.

Regular Joe regains his composure and shouts, “And now our grand loser shall be hosed down by Bond James’s Dad!”

Everyone shouts their excitement, and a couple are still staring at Toothpick and me. They chant ‘get the hose’ all the way up the basement steps.

Toothpick looks over at me. “Good to have you back, Mud pie,”