It was marked down to ten dollars. She fished in her pocket for the bills and extracted the right one, approaching the man behind one of the tables. She showed him the item and its price and he let her walk off the lot with her purchase.
Twenty minutes later she rang her friend's doorbell, and a beautiful teenager answered. "Hey, Robin, what's up?"
"I thought you'd want to see this." Robin handed the copy of the film to her.
Turning it over, Bonnie looked at the copy of Woody's Roundup. "Wait, what's this?"
"Seems your cowboy and cowgirl are rare collectibles. You might want to have them appraised." Robin tapped the film. "This dates back to 1926. Yours are in like-new condition and you've had them for seventeen years. And how old was their previous owner?"
"Seventeen."
Robin nodded. "They might be extremely valuable."
Bonnie smiled, looking up at her friend. "Thank you. I'll check into it right now. Want to see?"
"Absolutely."
Robin walked in after her and closed the door, and the pair traipsed upstairs to Bonnie's computer. After doing some quick research, their jaws dropped.
"Oh, wow." Robin turned and made her way to Bonnie's bed, where she sat, attempting to collect her thoughts. Finally she asked, "What're you gonna do?"
"Well...I have been ignoring them lately. If I can find a buyer willing to spend that much...my family could get out of debt and we could keep our house." Resolutely she turned back to the computer, opened the Internet and began to type.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to post an ad." Bonnie signed into a website and began setting it up, and feeling a little envious, Robin picked up Bonnie's basketball and started playing with it.
"Do you still go to practice?" Robin asked.
Bonnie looked quickly over at her. "Yeah."
"Maybe tomorrow I'll come by and watch the game."
"There is no game tomorrow."
Robin raised a brow. "So you're free tomorrow."
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, I think I may have found your ideal match..."
"Robin, no," Bonnie groaned. "I don't do blind dates."
"Please? He really wants to meet you."
Bonnie's hands lifted from the keyboard like it had started moving, and she turned slowly to face her friend. "What did you tell him?"
"Everything."
Bonnie's eyebrows came low. "Explain," she said succinctly.
"I said that you are pretty, and nice, and on the basketball team, and that you don't celebrate the holidays; and I told him you cook, and take a lot of pictures."
Bonnie waited for more, but Robin was silent. "And?" she prompted.
"And, nothing."
"That's all I do, huh? Play basketball, take pictures...feed myself?"
"He was interested! I didn't want him to know everything; what would you guys talk about?"
Bonnie turned back to the computer. "I don't do blind dates," she repeated doggedly. She continued to create the ad.
Robin sighed and began to dribble the basketball. The second time she caught it, she looked back at the back of her friend's head and sighed. "His name is Garrett," she said. "He's got blue eyes, a nice smile...He doesn't celebrate the holidays either, he loves photography, and he loves brown eyes." She fished out a slip of paper. "Look, here's his picture."
Bonnie looked down at the photo.
"And Travis and I would be there, too; it'd be a double date."
Bonnie sighed. "Fine."
Robin clapped cutely. "Yay. I'll call him." She stood and left the room.
Bonnie grabbed her camera and set up the toys, taking pictures of them to include in her post. After transferring the photos to her computer and inserting them into her ad, she clicked Publish Post.