After a long day of hard labour, mind twisting doings and despairing results I felt like a game of cards.

“Priya? Up for a game?” I asked, quite desperate.

The response received reminded me of a mini celebration.”Yeah!” She shouted excitedly, whilst skipping towards me. I look back on that moment now with sorrow and regret.

We decided to play Old Maid, a very good game. The first game went well, on my part. I won, Priya ending up with the old maid. She took her defeat graciously and I respected that. It also didn’t change what I did.

The second game proceeded and I was enjoying myself, as was Priya. It was only when a few cards remained that she moved slightly to the left. The sun was suddenly behind her. My eyes widened as the sun revealed Priya’s precious secret. The position of the old maid was in my very grasp of sight.

I looked at Priya’s smiling face and then back at the old Maid and the one remaining card that stood beside it. Was I really going to do this? Yep. And so I chose the glove puppet.

Priya grinned at my excellence of skill. I laughed and then told her the truth of my wrong doing, believing it to be a small joke (and a little bit funny). I was very surprised when her face turned to ash and she began breathing molten flame. Not really, but she was very disappointed in me and I felt really terrible. I didn’t realise she would take it so bad. I watched her disappointed face suddenly realise something else. She suddenly turned on a guilty Shanay.

“Shanay! Could you see through my-” Priya paused at the mischievous grin Shanay was wearing. A confirmation. Priya then went into a extremely long speech about how it wasn’t right to cheat and how she couldn’t trust us again. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop laughing at the realisation that Shanay actually cheated in a game! This was truly something that was quite amazing. I had to ask.

“What made you do it, Shanay?”

“I never win!” she exclaimed. That’s true.

Note to self: let Shanay win a few games now and then.

Happy ending- Priya’s anger lasted ten whole minutes but she later on gave me permission to write this (including the molten flame part which she thought absolutely hilarious). We’ve since made up and are now looking forward to playing another round of Old Maid.