Chapter Nine: With a little bit of luck
"100 lottery scratch cards please" Edward said eagerly.
"Alright that will be…er what?" The man on the till looked bemused, staring at Edward. "Erm…sir you do realize they cost ten dollars each." Edward grinned.
"Yes I do, 100 please"
"Well that would mean you would want 1000 dollars worth of…of my" Edward was grinning and nodding as he slapped down 1000 dollars on the counter.
"100 please" he said again, urgently this time.
"Ok…" the man said and started ripping scratch cards from the reel on the counter.
An hour later Edward arrived back at the Cullen house. Emmett sat lazily on the sofa, his thumb and index finger pinching the bridge of his nose. He spotted Edward.
"Please make them stop, they're giving me a migraine, and that's not even possible!" Edward grinned and spotted Alice and Bella behind the sofa. They were croached over what seemed to be a target lying flat on the floor.
"Come on Edward go go go!" Bella yelled at the surface of board.
"Come on!!!!!!! Show me the money Jasper!" screamed Alice. Edward was mildly curious. As he advance towards them he notice was counters moving slowly of there own accord towards the edge of the board. One of them reached it and Bella leaped up in triumph.
"YES, YES, YOU SUCK! I WIN! YOU SUCK!" she screamed and then noticed Edward and froze, looking embarrassed. "Oh hi darling." She said calmly. Edward croached down next to the board and noticed that the things he had mistaken for counters where in fact snails.
"You're snail racing?" he said blankly and then a look of pure horror flashed across his face. "And you named your snail after me!" Bella looked down at her shoes. Alice scowled and picked up her snail.
"I am very disappointed in you Jasper." She whispered to it seriously and set it back down on the board. She produced a sheet of paper from her pocket…a new sheet of paper and added a point to Bella's side of the tally.
"I thought I took that away!" Edward muttered angrily.
"Oh you did." Alice smiled. "But we made a new one."
"What's the score?" Edward asked and her face fell. Bella grinned, grabbed the piece of paper and gave it to Edward in answer to his question.
It read:
Alice: 26
Bella: 27
Edward smiled. Alice ignored him and changed the subject.
"What's in the bag?" she asked, not seeming to care.
Edward emptied out the scratch cards onto the carpet and Bella stared at him.
"What are those for?" she asked.
"I thought I'd make a surf board out of them and sail to Australia! What do you think they're for!" he said rather irritably. Bella hung her head and there was a pang of guilt that struck Edward's heart. He reached over and sat her on his lap. "Here" he said, handing her a dime. " You can have the first scratch." Bella smiled and picked a card at random from the gigantic pile. She scratched, one pot of gold, two pots of gold. Edward's eyes widened in amazement, three pots of gold!
"I won." whispered Bella triumphantly. "I WON!" she turned to Alice. "I think that deserves a point on the tally don't you?" Alice scowled.
"Over my dead body." Bella smiled.
"Oh well, it was worth a try, Edward!" she turned to him but he was still staring at the scratch card. Then he let out a long moan. "What's the matter?"
"What are the chances of me winning now?" he moped, Bella smiled and handed him the scratch card.
"But this is your Edward." He brightened up.
"Really, you're sure."
"Sure…I mean we haven't won the big jack pot but I'm sure there's a couple of thousand dollars that you could…" but she was interrupted by Alice who had let out a whoop.
"I won!" she cried. Bella grimaced, a little disappointed that her victory had been undermined so quickly. "I won! I won ten dollars" Alice yelled, Bella grinned.
"I bet I can win more money than you!" Bella said in a low voice.
"Oh yeah…" Alice said with the same seriousness. "winner get's 2 points on the tally?"
Bella grinned and nodded. Edward grimaced and walked to the blackboard in the corner as the pair started furiously scratching. He added the money from the scratch card to the total on the board…he froze. One dollar! He needed one dollar! He dived for the pile of scratch cards, joining Alice and Bella in their frantic quest.
