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“Okay, so there’s eight queens asleep in the middle. We each get five cards. The rules are a little complicated,” she said, her face falling.
Eight green cards were lined up in two columns with a deck of cards in the middle.
“We’ll figure it out as we go. Are you in?” I asked Corey.
“There’s nothing else to do.” He moved to sit on the other side of the coffee table, and Hailey shuffled the cards.
Hailey dealt five cards to each of us. “You can look at them.”
I fanned the cards in my hands.
Hailey read through the instructions. “It looks like you can make one move and pull one card with each turn. I’ll go first.”
She pulled a card from the deck, examining her hand, and then set down a king. “You can use a king to wake a queen. If you get the Rose Queen, you can wake a second queen.”
“So, the Rose Queen is worth more?” I asked.
“She has that one power, but she’s only worth five points. Apparently, you win by waking five queens or once you get fifty points.”
I leaned over to read the name on the box, Sleeping Queens.
She turned over one of the green cards, and said, “It’s the Cat Queen. Apparently, one can’t own both the Dog Queen and the Cat Queen because they fight.”
“That makes sense,” I said to her.
“Is it my turn yet?” Corey asked, sounding more like a six-year-old than the twelve-year-old he was.
“Go ahead,” I said, knowing his interest would wane if he didn’t like the game.
“What do I do with this?” He waved a jester card at Hailey.
“You pull a card, and if it’s a power card, you can keep both. The power cards are anything you can make a move with: the king, jester, dragon, and potion cards. If you get a number card, then leave the jester on the discard pile.”
He pulled a numbered card. “Man, that sucks.”
“I guess it’s my turn.” I pulled a number card.
Still reviewing the directions, Hailey said, “If you can’t make a move with a power card, you can make an equation, and exchange those three cards for three new ones.”
Looking through my cards again, I said, “Oh, I can do that.”
It was a children’s game, but Corey got into attacking our queens with his knights and potions, either stealing them or putting them back to sleep.
Hailey picked up one of the cards that looked different from the others. “This is so cool. It says here a six-year-old created this game when she was having trouble sleeping. Her older sister helped her come up with the rules.”
“Six years old?” Corey asked.
Hailey nodded, a smile on her lips. “Impressive, huh?”
“It just shows you can do or create anything you want.” Corey didn’t respond to my words, but I had a visceral reaction to them. Jake and I created the garage. It was our dream. I couldn’t let go of Coreyormy dream. I had to find a way to keep both. Staying here meant keeping Hailey, too.
We played the game for an hour before Corey slapped his fifth queen on the table and held up his hands in victory. “I won.”
Hailey chuckled. “That was fun.”
I was surprised I enjoyed the kid’s game as much as I had.
“I’m going to grab a snack and head to bed,” Corey said.
