"Jason?"
"Go to sleep, Jeremy."
"How does bets work?
"What kind of a question is that? "
"We make bets with each other all the time," Josh joined the conversation.
"Not real ones."
"You think they're real enough when you win."
"Josh, enough. Jeremy, what do you mean by a real bet?"
"Like the grown-ups m-make."
"I still don't know what you're asking." Only Jeremy, Jason thought with resignation. Jeremy and his questions. "Is this about what we were talking about earlier?"
"Yeah."
"What didn't you understand?"
"Well." Jeremy sat up in his bed. "They was betting how long. One month or six months or maybe a whole year."
"ONE! MONTH!? Who – oh never mind. Better that I don't know. I could probably guess."
"Don't think so." The boy's voice was pensive and puzzled, and he didn't say anything else.
"HA!" was Josh's comment.
"What didn't you understand about their bet, Jeremy? Or should I ask what did you understand?"
"Well, when they was sayin' different times an sayin' how much money they would bet on it, the one who got the right time, they'd get all the money?"
"That's generally how it works. Are you wondering who would win if it never happens?"
"Never happens. What if – Jason, what if somebody said it would never happen?"
"Well, then, he would win. You could figure that out yourself."
"But – the one who said that, he wasn't betting. He was jus' listening."
"LIke you?" Josh interrupted.
"I guess."
"If he wasn't betting –?"
"That's what I don' know ab-bout."
"What happened?" They were going to be up all night at this rate. Drat the boy.
"Th-they was t-talkin' and they got ev'thin' settled, you know, by themselves, and – and then – " he stopped.
His brothers waited.
"And then," Jason prompted.
"An' then He, the o-other one, stood up f-from His t-table and s-said, He would take all their bets, b-because that was never going to happen."
"Sounds like a bet to me."
"To me, too, Josh. What's the problem, Jeremy?"
"But He din't say any money. Or pay any."
"I see."
"And how – how, w-when, I m-mean – how c-can you , anybody, b-bet on n-never? An' – an' if you do, h-how, wh-when d-do you w-win, if it's a n-never?"
"The bet will have been lost when all the times bet on have lapsed."
"B-but –"
"He's got a point, Jason. If the last bet was for a one year, and the man collects after the years passes, but then the thing happens – not that it's going to, considering – after two years, or five, then did he really win?"
"I suppose the - the loser would have to take that up with the – the winner-not-winner" lord, he was sounding as young as Jeremy "and they would have to negotiate their own settlement, outside the terms of the bet." That mouthful of verbiage made him feel older and wiser again.
"Then the w-winner could win, even if He's really a l-loser, too?"
"That's one way to look at it."
"Oh." Jeremy flattened himself and pulled the cover over his head. "Don' sound Right."
"That's how it is – or would be. May we go to sleep now?"
"If ya can."
He couldn't.