Tristan’s Gamble by Nathaniel Nelson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
—
The gentle rocking and swaying of the train lulled Tristan into a calm stupor. He sat in a comfortable leather-padded seat in front of a table, across which sat Harry, who sat, back straight, grimacing as his wide eyes darted over the hand of playing cards he held.
Tristan’s demeanor, on the other hand, was quite calm. He slouched in his seat as if the card game was almost boring him, which, in fact, it was. Tristan was going to win. He always did, and both him and Harry knew it. This time would be no different. He could beat Harry in Poker with his eyes closed. Harry practically gave Tristan his daily allowance every morning, on the hope that some glorious day he might at last win.
“Hey, is somebody in there?” snapped Harry, pounding on the table. “Wake up and put down your hand.”
Tristan cocked his head mockingly. “Sure you don’t want to fold?”
“Just put down your hand,” Harry growled.
Tristan made a big show of stretching out his arms with a gigantic yawn.
“Do it already!” Harry roared.
Tristan slapped his hand of five cards down on the table. The glare of the sun through the window made it hard for Harry to see what they were, so he craned his neck across the table to read them.
Ten of Diamonds.
Seven of Clubs.
Ten of Hearts.
Seven of Spades.
Harry gulped before he looked at the last card.
Ten of Clubs.
“Full house,” declared Tristan triumphantly. “And you?” He didn’t need Harry to say it; his reaction said everything. Harry was now wallowing on the floor of the train, pulling at his greasy brown hair.
“High seven,” he moaned in a muffled voice eventually, laying face-down.
Tristan proceeded to scoop the giant mass of coins and bills in the center of the table to his side, using both of his arms. “Go again?” he asked, winking at Harry.
“I’m broke,” replied the heap on the ground, looking up at Tristan with a look that could make a man drop dead.
Just as Tristan finished cramming the heap of money into his pockets, the train slowed to a gentle stop. He walked jovially to the door and hopped off, leaving behind the sobbing form of Harry.
—
Tristan sat in his desk at the back of the classroom, waiting for school to begin. He turned around to look at the clock by the door. It was 7:59. One more minute. It was strange that the teacher wasn’t here yet; she was usually at school at least half-an-hour early with her daughter Alice.
The bell rang. Tristan turned back to the front of the room, and started with a yelp. Ms. Lemming was standing at the front of the classroom, writing at the chalkboard. He looked from her to the door and back again. “There’s no way she came through the door to the front of the class without me seeing her! Somehow she must have turned invisible, or phased through a wall or something. That woman is terrifying!” he thought.
Ms. Lemming must have been wearing seven-league boots (or have teleported in using Black Magic) when she walked in, for Alice was only just entering through the door. Tristan blushed when Alice smiled at him as she walked by.
Ms. Lemming whipped around at Tristan’s yelp, faster than the human eye could see. She looked around the room with maniacal eyes, attempting to sniff out the source of the noise with her nose. “Who yelled?” she said in her sharp, icy voice. “You should all know by now that no one is allowed to speak so much as a syllable in my class unless called upon.”
Suddenly, defying all known laws, she seemed to perceive that it was Tristan who had yelled, despite his perfect Poker face he had been practicing for years. “You! Come up here immediately.”
Tristan tore his gaze off of Alice and his mouth dropped open. “What? But I didn’t do—”
“You will speak when told to,” snapped Ms. Lemming.
Tristan clammed up instantly and shuffled to the front of the room for his punishment.
In that instant, the door opened, so quietly that no one in the room but Ms. Lemming heard it. Her head shot up and she looked to the door, sniffing the air. “Bartholomew!” she shouted, before the door even opened wide enough for her to see who it was. “I have told you time and time again to arrive ON TIME.”
Ms. Lemming seemed to instantly forget Tristan and she strode over to the back door. She swooped down on Bartholomew and looked down on him, holding him a foot above the ground by the neck. “Please—ack—I can’t—urk—breathe!” he managed to choke out.
Ms. Lemming released his neck and simply spun back around and walked back to the front of the room. Bartholomew fell to the ground and walked to his desk massaging his neck.
He stopped and put a hand in his pocket. He felt around, and suddenly his face went very, very white. He frantically patted every part of his body, apparently looking for something. A single tear slid down his face and he continued to his desk.
Tristan was already sitting back in his desk, his head lowered lest Ms. Lemming remember her fury at him. Bartholomew seated himself in the desk next to Tristan, massaging his neck and shooting glares at Ms. Lemming when she was turned around. Every time he did, she turned around and sniffed wildly.
—
After seven excruciating hours, the bell finally rang. Tristan packed all of his books into his bag and slung it over his shoulder and walked towards the door. Bartholomew stopped him outside.
“You play Poker?” he asked.
Tristan cocked an eyebrow. “Yes. Why?”
“I’ll play a—a hand with you.”
“Sure,” Tristan replied.
“Just one thing—you have to teach me first.”
Tristan wanted to laugh, but contained it. He smiled at Bartholomew. “Of course.”
“Oh, and,” said Bartholomew, “I don’t have any money.”
“Well, you’d better find yourself some,” Tristan said, almost with a burst of laughter which he disguised as a cough. He sat down cross-legged on the courtyard in front of the school. He began dealing out cards as Bartholomew wandered around picking coins off of the ground.
Eventually Bartholomew had gathered a small handful of various coins, and he seated himself across from Tristan.
He picked up the hand of five cards he had been dealt, and looked at them. He furrowed his brow and showed Tristan his entire hand.
“What are these?”
—
Thirty minutes had passed. A giant pile of coins and bills and all currencies imaginable was strewn about—all of it next to Bartholomew. Against all odds, he was actually winning. Tristan was sprawled out on the concrete ground pounding his fists on the ground and belting out a constant stream of curses as Bartholomew folded up his shirt to make a pouch and packed all of his winnings into it.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ms. Lemming was towering over Bartholomew. She had not made a single noise approaching them, but had just appeared out of thin air.
“Have you two children been gambling?”
She began to breathe very heavily, and suddenly all of her fury unleashed itself as she slapped Bartholomew across the face.
“You will give me that money,” she commanded him. A man much braver than Bartholomew would have quailed under the look of utter maniacal hatred she gave Bartholomew, and instantly offered up the money, begging her to take it from them.
Bartholomew’s face was as pale as a ghost’s as he emptied all of the money onto the courtyard and gave every last piece of it to Ms. Lemming.
All the while, Alice had been standing behind her mother, and as Ms. Lemming stormed back to the school, she lingered only long enough to say to Tristan, “Poker is for losers.”