Dorko the Magnificent by Andrea Beaty

Author:Andrea Beaty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amulet Books
Published: 2013-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT DAY OF MAGIC LESSONS WAS PRETTY MUCH THE SAME, EXCEPT THAT Grandma Melvyn sat in the recliner in the family room watching another Wheel of Fortune marathon while I worked on quarter rolling in the garage. I could hear her yelling at the TV through the door that led from the garage to the family room. All I can say is that it’s a good thing Grandma Melvyn was watching from home instead of the studio audience. Who knew game shows could be so violent?

Rolling quarters over my knuckles was not exciting, and doing it for hours made my hands sore. But it helped. The second day, I only spent one-third of my time hunting for quarters in the junk pile. The next day, only a fourth. After each day of practice, I improved. Maybe someday I could roll quarters without digging through junk at all. It seemed like I would be rolling quarters forever, but one day, when I got home from school, Grandma Melvyn was sitting at the kitchen table with a deck of cards.

“It’s time for a joker sandwich,” she said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

She answered with the Wicked Wobble Eye, which, it turns out, is her favorite answer to almost every question. I stopped talking and sat in the chair next to her. Grandma Melvyn pulled two jokers out of the deck and laid them faceup on the table. Then she shuffled the deck and held it out to me.

“Cut the deck and take the top card,” she said.

I lifted the top half of the deck and picked the seven of clubs from the bottom pile of cards. Grandma Melvyn nodded for me to stick my card back in the deck, so I did. After that, Grandma Melvyn put the jokers back in the deck and shuffled it. Then she coughed. (I’m not sure if the cough was important, but with Grandma Melvyn anything is possible. In any case, it was a big cough.)

Finally, Grandma Melvyn pulled three cards off the top of the deck and held them out to me.

“Here’s your sandwich,” she said.

I took the cards and looked at them. They were the two jokers on the outside, like slices of bread, with my seven of clubs squished in between like a slice of bologna.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

Wicked Wobble Eye. (See what I mean about that being the answer to everything?)

“That’s the joker sandwich,” she said. “Now let’s do a tomato-cheese sandwich.”

“How does it work?” I asked.

“You get up and make one,” she said.

“That’s funny,” I said.

“Why is that funny?” she asked, looking at me suspiciously. “Is the cheese moldy?”

“Wait,” I said. “You really want me to make you a sandwich?”

“They don’t make themselves,” Grandma Melvyn said.

Again … Wicked Wobble Eye.

I am not a great cook, but I got up to make Grandma Melvyn a cheese-and-tomato sandwich. While I looked for a knife, Grandma Melvyn picked up the cards and began to shuffle. Her hands were a blur as she shuffled over and over, each time moving the cards in a new shuffle.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.