Page 9 of Stops Along the Way
“Ready to play?” Declan is wide-eyed enthusiastic despite my blatant inability to hide my confusion. “Do the rules make sense?”
“Not at all,” I say matter-of-factly.
“It’s really not that hard,” he insists, scooping up the rest of the thirty-something dice and nodding for me to open my hands to take all of them in addition to the one I’m alreadyholding, which is pretty much the maximum number of dice I could possibly hold at once.
I sit, frozen, with all these dice held out in front of me. “Now what?”
He taps the table as if it’s obvious. “Roll them.”
“I assumed that much. But what’s the deal with the chart?” I see him ready to launch into that full explanation from the top again, so I shake my head and roll all the dice onto the table. “No, just walk me through it as we play.”
“Okay, so now that you’ve rolled, you pick an initial set,” he says, sliding the chart toward me.
I don’t mean to, but I laugh. “Declan, this is ridiculous.”
There’s a glint in his eyes as he smiles at me. When did Declan get taller? We used to sit eye to eye, but these days there’s an uneven feeling across the playing table, as if height gives him an advantage. “It’s really not that hard once you start to memorize the configurations,” he says.
I chuckle again. “You want me to memorize this already? You know, I’m sure this game would have a very loyal niche following, but that’s not likely to include me. The rules are a bit much, don’t you think?”
“I am trying to find a way to cut a few pages from the instructions.”
“Afewwould probably be helpful, yes. Or put a one-sheet up front that gives a general overview.”
“It would be impossible to convey all the most important steps in a single page,” he says, scratching his forehead.
I reach for the Craft a Witch box and retrieve my one-sheet instruction piece of cardstock. “It’s possible.”
“Hmm.” He reads and rereads over the eight-point instructions. “There are the community tiles. Accusation cards. And then you take turns guessing and swapping, and…then what, exactly?”
“Oh.” Even as I’m pulling the tiles out of the box to show him, I can feel the lack of tension in the player interactions within the rules for Craft a Witch. “I mean, it’s like a party game, so the excitement is more what the players bring to it when they play.” Declan nods along in uncertain agreement that makes me scrunch my brow. “But it feels too simple, doesn’t it?”
Declan tilts his head, still staring at the rules card. “I didn’t want to say it like that, but probably? There’s still time to add an element or something that could pull through some higher stakes.”
I sigh and cross my legs on the chair. “The problem is that I don’t want to change anything at this point. Like, I’m turning it in because it’s as good as it’s going to get for now and I have to fly out of town tomorrow, so yeah, I don’t know.”
“I think it’s probably good enough,” Declan tries to reassure me.
“Yeah, and I didn’t mean to be so hard on yours. You clearly put a lot of thought into developing that chart,” I say, unable to resist another giggle as I point to the paper.
Fortunately, Declan smiles. “I’m going to go ahead and turn in mine too. I think we’ve both got strong contenders here.” Hereaches a hand across the table, and I cautiously extend mine to shake his. “Good luck.”
I smile. “May the best board game win.”
Although, since we both brought up fair critiques and yet are implementing absolutelynoneof the suggestions, I’ll be very surprised if either of our games makes it onto the podium.
Chapter Four
I’m stuck in the back of the airplane, waiting to disembark. It was a bumpy flight, and my stomach is rumbling. When it’s my turn to get up, I rush down the empty aisle and turn onto the ramp, where there’s a worker waiting with a wheelchair.
I do a double take at the sign they’re holding up.
Because it has my name on it?
I’m in motion, and there’s people behind me, so I don’t want to stop or spin on my heels. I didn’t request a wheelchair, nor do I need one. I continue walking and ignore the whole situation, wondering what the worker will think when the whole plane has cleared and no one has claimed the chair.
It’s the first thing I discuss when I call my parents, their voices in my ears as I hold my phone in hand, walking away from the gate. “There was a wheelchair for me. That’s so weird.”
“There was a wheelchair?” Mom asks.
