After Jacob is down to his st 3 tokens, he hesitates and puts one more in; when it nds, it spins and tumbles, then wedges itself just right to make an avanche of tokens. “Izzy, get a cup!” he yells with childish glee. She grabs an empty cup from a nearby table and hands it to Jacob, who gleefully collects his cup full of winnings.

  They move on. Jacob is still buzzing with the rush of winning at his favorite kind of game. Izzy spots motorcycle racing simutors and is rushing towards them. “Let’s go, guys,” she says over her shoulder. She climbs onto the machine and drops in her tokens while the others saddle up.

  The first race is a simple oval track; they each do well. And pce in the top 3 with Izzy leading the race.

  “NEW CHALLENGER HAS ENTERED THE GAME,” the machine bres out. Izzy looks around and sees the chameleon-like alien sitting on the bike next to Jacob, his coloration quickly blending in with the background.

  “NEW CHALLENGER HAS ENTERED THE GAME,” the machine says again. She looks to her left and spots a teenager climbing onto the st bike.

  “Let’s do this, boys,” she says to Jacob and Cane. The p starts, and it is a street map of Monaco with lots of hairpin turns. Izzy leans hard into the turns, smming into the chameleon who was trying to overtake her on the inside corner.

  “Watch where you’re going,” she says, throwing herself to the left to slide around a corner in the other direction. Izzy watches the teenager bst past her and the chameleon. Izzy looks at the bike where she knows the chameleon is and nods at him. He momentarily stops blending in long enough to nod back, and they crank the gas as hard as they can, trying to box in the teen. The alien attempts a pit maneuver, but the motorcycle bounces off. Izzy tries to unbance the kid on the left side to no avail.

  Cane and Jacob sneak up behind the chameleon-like alien pyer. When Jacob swerves in front of Cane and causes them both to crash into a wall. Cane gres at Jacob. “What I suck at racing games.”.

  The teenager finishes first. He hops off the bike and flips the finger as he walks away. “Shit, I wish I was that cool,” Izzy says, watching the kid go; she turns to talk to the alien, but he has left, leaving no trace.

  “Hey Cane, what's the best game to get lots of tickets?” Jacob asks. His bucket of tokens is heavy; he sets them on the bike seat.

  Cane looks around and points out a machine in the corner called Coin River. He takes a handful of Jacob's tokens, drops them into the machine, and starts pying. The gamepy is dull, but the amount of tickets that are spit out is impressive; he casually pops out between 2000 and 3000 tickets.

  Jacob nudges Cane out of the way, and he puts his hands up, letting him have a turn. Jacob fumbles with it at first but is soon making pretty good tickets. Then Izzy takes a turn, and she is horrible at it.

  They are down to the bottom of the cup, but they have a stack of tickets. They wander through the arcade trying out old arcade games like Pac-Man and Metal Slug. Cane looks down at his watch. “It's starting to get dark outside. You guys want to go see a movie at the drive-in?”

  Izzy smiles. “Never been to a drive-in. Especially a drive-in when we get to hang out in a convertible.”

  “Let's head to the ticket counter,” Cane says. They spend 10 minutes feeding their tickets into a counter machine, and it prints out a receipt to take to the prize counter. “22051 tickets,” he says.

  “Nice haul; I bet we can get something cool,” Jacob says.

  They look through the selection of prizes. Shocked to see at the top of the list are things like iPads and phones. All the way down to the spider ring and the jumping frog.

  “I want the giraffe,” Izzy says.

  “We don’t have enough.” Jacob says, “We will just have to come back and earn more tickets when we py again.”

  “I guess,” Izzy sighs and slumps in frustration. Jacob opens his wallet and shows the guy 20 bucks.

  “Will this work to make up the difference?” he asks

  The teenager behind the counter points at a sign: “No points, no prize.”

  “That's ridiculous,” Jacob responds, reaching to pull out another 20.

  “I got this, Jacob.” Cane digs in his wallet and pulls out a faded receipt with more points on it. “That should cover it.”

  Cane hands Izzy the ticket receipt. The worker scans the paper, and the new paper shows 130003; they have more than enough to get the 3-foot-tall silly giraffe, and they get matching sp armbands. A handful of candy and a spider ring that Izzy puts on her finger dramatically and one funny alligator eraser that Jacob puts in his pocket.

  Cane smiles. “Also, we need 3 tickets to drive in for the double feature.” The kid rolls his eyes at Cane. But dutifully prints out the 3 tickets and a receipt for the rest of the points bance he has.

  “That's crazy, Cane. Can you use points to pay for games at the bowling alley too?” Jacob asks

  “Yes, but only in a roundabout way,” he says with a dismissive wave.

  Izzy and Jacob hold hands as they make their way back to the car. Cane slips his hand across Izzy's back again. This time, he can feel her push her butt out slightly, enjoying his touch. He grins, ‘Not rejected.’. Izzy's cheeks are red as they climb into the car.