Buster by Caleb Huett (ebook reader library txt) 📕

Most of those thoughts were nonsense. They were wrong. It was anxiety; that’s what it does! You accept one thing that’s not exactly true, and then that convinces you to believe something that’s mostly not true, and before you know it, you believe something completely false. But once you let yourself believe the first one, it’s frozen. It’s a rule—a law—in your brain. And unless you ask questions of those thoughts, search through the mystery for the lies, you keep moving forward believing things—often horrible things—that all try to convince you the only right move is not to play.

Phil spoke up. “Official Beamblade tournament rules say a player cannot go more than two minutes without making a move. He’s definitely already past half that.”

“Are you serious, Phil?” Skyler asked.

“I’m just trying to play by the rules, unlike some people here.”

Tonio’s breath was staggering, and his eyes were welling up with tears. He stared straight at the table and tried to make his panic attack as small as he could, tried not to make a scene, but the adults were starting to get nervous that he wasn’t moving at all.

“Could you just chill out, for one second, Phil?” Skyler said.

“Sure, I can chill out for exactly thirty more seconds.”

Tonio needed a break. He needed time to do the work, solve the mystery, and investigate his thoughts.

“Come on, buddy,” Skyler said. “You can do it.”

I realized, suddenly, what I could do.

We were a team, after all.

“Ten seconds,” Phil grunted.

“ARF!” I barked, to grab everyone’s attention. I threw my paw up on top of Tonio’s deck and pulled a card off it.

“What’s that dog doing?” someone called out.

“Buster?” Mia said.

I wedged the card between my nose and paw and flipped it over my paw so Phil couldn’t see it. Tonio’s eyes moved, finally, to me, with a stressed and confused expression. Bad brain, I posed. Play along. I licked his forehead quickly and sloppily to add something like Don’t worry onto that, and grabbed a card from the hand he was holding up. I tossed the card—a Suspended Manabyte—onto the table, and used all his Manabytes to summon the hero I just drew:

Principia, the Galaxy’s Reflection, landed on the battlefield, featureless metal skin under a flowing mirror dress. She was an extremely lucky draw, especially for this moment. She copied the abilities of another hero on the field, which meant she could borrow Om’s Grav immunity. She’d be safe from those annoying black holes.

The rest of the room, and probably everyone here in court, was more concerned with the fact that I had played a card than that a good card was played. Everyone was staring at me, and I tried to ignore them and focus on what mattered: Tonio, and the game.

His breath was the loudest thing in the room—I’d bought him another two minutes, but he wasn’t calming down. His knuckles dug into his leg as he finally dragged his eyes up from the table and saw everyone staring at us. With great effort, he lifted his fist onto the table and twisted his knuckles in a paw gesture to me.

Why? he asked. Trouble, he added, using his other hand, too. I was relieved—talking was always hard for him when he was having difficulty breathing, but it seemed like he could underspeak, at least a little.

I glanced toward the window but thought better of looking for the officers. Whatever. I’d made my choice, and if I’m honest with myself, I know I made the choice back when I first played Beamblade. Tonio was worth it.

Still, I didn’t really want to be responsible for changing everyone’s view of the world forever just because of a card game. So for the sake of the room, I had to put on a little bit of a show. I pretended like Tonio’s knuckle movements were training gestures, and I pushed Principia forward, then turned the Manabytes to show they were used. I tapped the table twice with my paw and let out a little bark to try to say pass.

The first person to talk was Phil, whose interest in winning overrode his surprise at my decision. “That doesn’t count,” he protested. “Only the person who signed up can play.”

I didn’t look, but Mia sounded stunned when she said, “Buster’s a service dog. If Tonio trained him to help play, then he’s just doing his job.” She paused. “But I didn’t know he’d trained him this well.”

Devon sounded as chill as ever. “And, you know, he kind of is signed up. His name’s in there and everything.”

No one else said anything for a good ten seconds.

Until Phil said, “But—”

“No buts,” Skyler cut him off. “He’s a dog, Phil. Are you about to really argue he’s smart enough to play on his own?”

“Of course not, but—”

“Then shut up about the rules,” Keegan pleaded from the audience, “and blade!”

“Against a dog?”

“Against Tonio with a dog’s help.” Mia was sounding like herself again. “And, uh, isn’t it your turn? Beep beep beep, my watch says it’s been about two minutes.”

“…” Phil glared at me.

I wagged my tail.

“Fine.”

Phil couldn’t play as quickly now—the black hole wouldn’t knock out Principia—and our two heroes had inverted strengths. She had defense where Om had power, and if they fought directly, they’d cancel out and both fall. But now Phil had something he didn’t want to lose, so he started playing more carefully.

“Tick, tock!” Mia chimed.

“Quiet!” Phil snapped. His face was flushed—we’d thrown him off balance. He couldn’t do anything except resurrect another black hole, so on the next turn, I drew another card and set it in Tonio’s hand, grateful that the plastic sleeves protected them from my slobber.

Phil’s whole deck was built around black holes, so there was nothing he could do if they were reflected back at him harmlessly. His cards were reduced to a bunch of big, scary nothings. Still, the holes could eat up weaker cards, so I had to keep passing and drawing until we had