Chapter Text
“What’s the secret?”
“There’s no secret, Poindexter, you just gotta watch where my hands are goin’!” Stanley laughs as he whirls the cards around, one over the other over the other, just like he’s been watching the three-card Monte dealer on the boardwalk do.
Stanford leans in, eyes wide.
“Follow the lady,” Stanley intones, trying to deepen his ten-year-old voice to sound more like the dealer. “Keep your eye on her, gents – uh, gent – she’s a slippery one, where could she be? Is she over here? Is she over –”
“Cut it out, I can’t concentrate when you do that?”
“That’s why I’m doin’ it!”
Stanford shoots him a Look, but returns his attention to the cards, following Stanley’s every move with such a grave, all-consuming expression that Stanley is seriously tempted to lean over and tickle him, just to break him out of it. Instead, he drops the three cards into place on the floor between them and pulls his hands back with a flourish. “Okay, smart guy! Where is she?”
Stanford purses his lips and rubs his chin, and then finally points to the card on his right. Stanley flips it over to reveal the jack of clubs.
“Oooh! Bad luck! Guess you owe me a soda!”
Stanford groans. “So which one was it?”
“Uh-uh! Not telling!” Stanley grins. “You’ll just have to keep trying ’til you get it right!”
(They return to the game again and again, Stanley’s skill and his patter getting better, Stanford griping about not being able to extrapolate from incomplete data but still watching in fascination every time. He tries to graph the probability of the queen of hearts being in each of the three positions, and keeps Stanley up some nights by muttering equations, but all to no avail. Until the day their father catches them playing in the back of the pawn shop, where they’re not supposed to be, and as Stanley springs to his feet, already working on half a dozen excuses, the way he nervously rubs his arm dislodges the queen of hearts from inside his sleeve and sends her fluttering to the floor.
“It was just a trick?” Stanford demands afterwards. “That’s – that’s cheating!”
“Of course it was a trick,” Stanley scoffs. But inside, he can’t help but shrink from the disappointment in Stanford’s eyes, like Stanford thinks his brother is just a little less magical now, and Stanley doesn’t know how to fix that.)