Deal!

He stood there, looking curiously at me. “I thought you said you knew more languages than me?”

“Yeah? Well then you must’ve made that one up.”

“I did? Oh, that must be it! I’ll teach it to you, then.” He couldn’t be serious. This is ridiculous. Is he trying to kill me or something?

“No,” I said calmly, “I don’t want to learn. I want to get out of here.” I figured that maybe if I simply asked him to let me leave, he would. I had no idea what I was getting myself in store for.

“Leave? You…want to leave?” He looked as if I had broken his heart. “But…I don’t want…I want…” His head suddenly switched directions six times, then he fell to the floor. When he got up, he acted inhuman. “HE WANTS TO LEAVE?! We’ll make him leave, permanently!” His posture changed yet again. “But he didn’t eat any goldfish! He has to…” “NO, he DOESN’T! If he wants to leave, we’ll help him leave, ALRIGHT!” “No, he doesn’t want to leave! You don’t want to leave, do you?” His huge eyes looked at me. As I looked, something strange seemed to be in his eye, but he snapped back before I could figure out what it was. “You want to leave? Well, let’s make a little deal.”

“A deal? What kind of deal?”

“Let’s play…a game. Winner gets to leave.”

Winner gets to leave? What? “So you’re going to leave me here if I lose?”

“No, only if I win.”

“Doesn’t that sort of come with me losing?”

“Unless I do worse than you.”

“Which would imply that I would win.”

“Yes.”

“So that means that if I win I leave?”

“I think.”

“What do you mean ‘I think’?! You’re making up the rules here!”

“Well, you could win, but I could win too, making it a tie.”

“What?!”

“Yup.”

“What happens if it’s a tie?”

“Well, I was thinking I could use your help.”

“For WHAT?!”

“Why, creating a Rube Goldberg machine that sounds the alarm in the morning, of course!”

“You’re going to make me make a ridiculously complex machine instead of just getting a simple alarm clock?”

“Well, do you know how to make an alarm clock?”

An eerie pause settled down on the room.

“Whatever. But you’re going to let me leave if I win?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“Okay, then tell me the game.”

“Fine. I’ll tell you. The name of the game.” He seemed to be coping with some emotional stress while trying to say this. “The name…of the game…that is, the game’s name…the one…that we’ll be playing…”

“Get ON with it!”

“The name…of the game…”

“Is…?”

“Hopscotch.”