Page 64 of A Light in the Dark
“I can manage that much.” I handed over the pile to Madeline. “However tempting, we can’t burn the paperwork tomorrow.”
“That’s sad,” she said, creating a pile on her desk and using a new sheet to label it as a penalty box.
“Two minute, five minute minor, or are we moving straight to major?” my boss asked.
“I feel like this is a two minute for roughing and a ten minute misconduct. And I feel there are a few major fighting penalties thrown in for good measure.” Madeline added the list of penalties to her notepad and slapped it on top of the pile. “Do people play hockey here?”
Mr. Accor leaned against the edge of my desk, careful to keep from sending any of the piles tumbling to the floor. “We have a minor league and a professional league. Every city-state has a minimum of one professional league team. Our team is the Stonecreek Mudslide. We have a friendly rivalry with the Moonriver Wolf Pack. Pre-season will be starting in a few weeks; the league plans around our flooding to make sure there’s no risk to players coming into town or the tourists who want to see the games.”
“How much are tickets?”
I didn’t even need to look at the Mudslide’s website; there were a few hockey fanatics on my street, and they screamed at each other over who had gotten better season seats. The entire lot of them lived up in the nosebleeds for the games, which made the disputes entertaining. “Nosebleeds will ding you about forty a ticket, center ice is closer to five hundred a ticket. Season tickets start at six thousand a season per seatand go all the way up to a hundred thousand per seat.” I went through the next pile of papers and sighed at the invoices, most of which were for the current quarter but had stragglers from the previous quarter mixed in. I handed over the late invoices to Madeline. “Put those in the penalty box for a two minute high sticking. I feel like I just got hit in the head with their failure to promptly hand in paperwork.”
Madeline made a new penalty box on her desk, labeled it as for paperwork guilty of high sticking, and added the invoices to it. “I can seriously see a game for just forty?”
“Yep,” I confirmed. “The arena is near the menagerie. But you can buy tickets online. I think you can do it on a phone.”
“You can.” My boss pulled out his cell phone and showed it to Madeline. “Regular season tickets go on sale Wednesday.”
Oh, dear. The street fights would begin in earnest then, and I would make certain to work on my projects from the window with it cracked open so I could enjoy the show, which would inevitably take place right up the street, as the neighbors with the lift enjoyed getting involved from their doorway. “I recommend you go to the arena in person if you want season tickets. They have a special sale for those who bother to go in person. It opens a few hours before internet sales.”
Madeline, who owned a new phone similar to mine, dug hers out and began tapping at the screen. “And the cheap seats are really around six thousand each?”
“According to my neighbors, they are. There are a lot of fans on my street. I might be the only holdout.” I had no idea if Joel liked hockey, but I’d ask just to satisfy my curiosity. “Wednesday night, they’ll be out on the street arguing overwho has the best season tickets.” Considering I’d cut their stair replacement costs significantly, I expected everyone would be getting season tickets except for me. “There is a ticket office near the craft store, so we can drop by for more information if you’d like.”
“Sometimes they have presales for season tickets,” my boss muttered, and he investigated the issue closer. “Ah, yes. There are some presale season tickets left for purchase. A cheap seat will ding you just under six thousand this year. The upper seats in the lower bowl will ding you nine thousand per seat. There are a few seats at the boards, and those cost ninety thousand each, up to one twenty for the best of the lot. Everything else between the upper seats in the lower bowl vary between ten thousand up to eighty thousand.”
“Why do people spend that much on hockey tickets?” I asked, shaking my head at the insanity of it. “I don’t get it.”
“Our arena has the Mudslide, a women’s league,anda mixed league, and the season passes let you see all games from the three leagues,” my boss informed me. “That makes six grand a bargain for the seats. That’s a lot of games.”
Madeline’s eyes widened. “Wait. The season tickets have three leagues bundled in?”
“They run the leagues back to back most nights, so you can go to the arena for up to three games in one night. There is a thirty minute intermission between the games, but most ticket sales are for all three games in the night.”
“I can pay forty dollars to seethreegames?” Madeline squealed.
“That’s correct. Or you can spend six thousand to see around a hundred and twenty games.”
“What’s the cost of living? How much can I spend onhockey tickets?” With a desperate look on her face, Madeline thrust her phone at me, showing me her bank account. “Please help me.”
According to the woman’s bank account, she had a healthy forty thousand, most of which had just been deposited. I raised a brow at my boss. “I assume she’s getting paid fairly?”
“She’s getting paid a little bit more than when you got your promotion into your position,” he informed me.
Ah. With the house free and clear, she’d be living a good life with plenty of opportunities to save. I handed Madeline her phone back. “Save a thousand or two for your crafting supplies and a thousand for groceries, food, and so on until your first paycheck. I’d also save three or four thousand for your savings, and two or three thousand for basic furniture. You’ll want two thousand for a good bed.” I did the mental math. “I’d keep twelve or thirteen thousand at a minimum, but you can safely spend the rest as long as you budget.”
My boss turned his phone to show Madeline one of the lower bowl seats. “This one is fifteen thousand, available now, and has access to the lounges in the lower bowl. They have lounge only restaurants, seating, and so on, so it’s quite pleasant. You also get early access to the garage and free parking for the season if you decide to get a car. You can park your car in the work garage if you get one and don’t have parking at home. If you want the seat, we’ll go to my office and make the purchase, and we’ll transfer the money from your account to the company card. We allow employees who are making large purchases to use the company card if they’re with our bank and we can instant transfer the funds.”
I’d taken advantage of that a time or two in the past. “They do. If you want the seat, buy it. That’ll definitely keep the boredom at bay. There’s a bus that goes to the arena from where you will live.” Most places down the hill and far from the menagerie had such a bus, which would simplify her life. They ran early and often, and a monthly pass wouldn’t cost her much. “Go pick your ticket. I’ll put papers in the penalty boxes until you’re done, and then we’ll go to the craft store.”
With the energy of a child discovering Christmas for the first time, Madeline bounced off with our boss to start the next phase of her life.
NINETEEN
I will try to remind him to be sensible.
Peace camein many shapes and sizes, and Madeline found her personal heaven in hockey tickets and sewing supplies. While I did buy a new machine for myself, upgrading to a model better capable of handling silk, I spent most of the time helping Madeline. Once she finished, I snagged ten yards of black rabbit fur wool to turn into a suit for Joel, assuming I could steal his measurements.
