The Miracle Clinic

“Sorry but I think we’ll have to move on to the next machine,” Parker says in delight, “Though if you wanna give up and call your mommy that’s fine with me!

Elizabeth, Sammy, and Crunch all stare at the broken whack-a-mole machine in shock. While Sammy tends to just go with the flow, Parker is much more focused on precise attacks. This whack-a-mole game was his for the taking from the start.

“Point one for Parker & Quinn,” Crunch says, “You guys ready to move onto the next game?”

“Sure,” Quinn sighs as she puts away her 3DS.

With Sammy down in the dumps, Elizabeth decides to step up for the second game.

GAME 2 - AIR HOCKEY

Elizabeth and Quinn stare at each other from opposite ends of the air hockey table.

“Kick her ass, Quincy!” Parker yells.

“You got this!” Sammy shouts.

As Crunch is ready to toss the puck into the air hockey stand, Elizabeth decides to not hold anything back.

“3-2-1 let’s play!” Crunch announces as he places the puck on the air hockey table.

Elizabeth quickly hits the puck with her paddle sending it flying towards Quinn’s side of the table.

The puck slides into Quinn’s goal, giving Elizabeth & Sammy the point.

“What the hell!” Parker shouts, “You didn’t even try to hit it!”

“My bad,” Quinn states as she takes the puck out of the goal and hits it over to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth hits it back to Quinn and… it immediately goes into the goal with zero effort.

Parker has another freakout while Sammy rejoices, and Elizabeth wonders if she has some sort of hidden talent for air hockey.

Quinn takes the puck out of her goal and once again sends it to Elizabeth’s side. Elizabeth sends it over to Quinn’s side. However, unlike before, Quinn manages to finally hit it back towards Elizabeth. Unfortunately for her, Elizabeth sends it back at her and it goes in the goal just like before.

“Guess Elizabeth & Sammy won this round,” Crunch admits.

“I demand a recount!” Parker groans.

“Don’t worry Parker, your team’s win earlier was just a fluke!” Sammy teases.

“Oh yeah? Let’s see about that,” Parker remarks.

GAME 3 - CRANE GAME

“First one to get anything out of the crane game wins the round,” Crunch explains.

First up is Parker, who manages to get a precise and perfect placement of the crane….though when he goes to get the toy, it slips and falls.

As Parker curses out the game, Sammy is next and she decides to go for the same toy Parker went for… the same results happen.

Quinn is next and she accidentally presses the button on the crane before she can move it, wasting her turn.

Elizabeth is next as she goes for the toy in the corner, however, the crane gets stuck on the wall and can’t reach the toy.

The process goes on for what seems like hours; Parker, Sammy, Quinn, Elizabeth, Repeat. Parker, Sammy, Quinn, Elizabeth, Repeat. Parker, Sammy, Quinn, Elizabeth, Repeat. Each time Parker goes, he gets worse and worse as he’s lost all steam, all the while Quinn begins to get better and better.

“HOW MUCH LONGER IS THIS GOING TO TAKE!” Parker shouts.

“I’ll flip a coin and whichever side it lands on determines who won this game,” Crunch offers.

The four agree and Crunch tosses the coin in the air. It falls through the sky before he catches the coin; heads.

“Great!” Sammy states, “Who’s heads though?”

…..

“Let’s do the coin toss one more time,” Crunch states.

GAME 4 - PUNCHING BAG ARCADE

With Sammy & Elizabeth winning that last coin toss, the group of five reach their next game; one of the punching bag arcades that you hit and it tells you your score. The two who step up to the plate are Sammy & Quinn.

“Y’know, I’ll go easy and only use my feet for this,” Sammy remarks as she places her hands behind her back.

She goes to kick the punching bag, however her kicks aren’t as good as Elizabeth’s & Blanko’s, so she ends up missing the bag and kicking the machine.

Parker laughs at Sammy’s dumb mistake while Quinn makes her way to the punching bag.

“Are you okay?” Elizabeth asks.

“My leg’s sore but it’s nothing a good day of rest won’t fix,” Sammy winces, holding back tears.

Quinn is up and to everyone’s surprise, she delivers a straight punch directly to the bag, the machine shaking as she does so.

“Atta girl,” Parker remarks, “I was wondering how long it’ll take for you to finally have warmed up.”

Elizabeth and Sammy look to see despite the stoic look she has, there’s a fire burning through Quinn’s eyes, one that grows by every second. Crunch takes a look to see the score on the machine only to see it read ‘ERROR’.

“You’re lucky I’m quitting today,” Crunch groans, “Otherwise I’d be very upset at you breaking all these games!”

GAME 5 - D.D.R.

Both Quinn and Elizabeth step onto their respective DDR pads as Crunch sets the difficulty to the max. As the song begins to play, Elizabeth is a bit hesitant. Quinn is immediately playing near perfectly, stepping on the arrow pads with a fervor and speed that begins to attract a crowd. All the while Elizabeth is barely getting any of the moves right.

She’s sloppy, rushing, not knowing what to do.

Agreeing to this bet was a mistake.

She should’ve never gone out on the ice rink

She should’ve never followed Sammy.

She should’ve never-

“Elizabeth!” Sammy shouts through the crowd.

Elizabeth looks stunned to see Sammy looking…calm.

Sammy softly says, "It doesn’t matter, just take it slow and have fun.”

Hearing those words, Elizabeth begins to feel at ease and she begins to do better in the game. Maybe she can-

The song comes to an end, and with it, the winner is decided as Quinn Overton.

GAME OVER!

“Hey,” Quinn says as she goes to shake Elizabeth’s hand, “Good game.”

“Uh yeah,” Elizabeth says, “Though I guess that means you guys won.”

“Yeah, guess it does,” Quinn begins to walk away with Parker before saying, “You weren’t half bad though, see you around Stranger.”

Parker flips Sammy & Elizabeth off as he walks away too. Before Sammy and Elizabeth can talk though, Crunch kicks them out of the mall as promised before calling up their parents.

“My parents are on a business trip,” Sammy tells Crunch, “And my half-brother’s busy.”

“Really?” Crunch says as he hangs up, “Guess I’ll just call Eli’s parents.”

As Crunch begins to call them off of Elizabeth’s phone, the two teen girls sit by the sidewalk, both are a bit of a mess due to all they got up to today.

“Hey about the whole day,” Elizabeth begins to say, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? How come?” Sammy questions.

“I just…kept on failing today, I ran away from the movies, fell when we skated, didn’t go to the clothes shop when you wanted, and now lost the whole bet with those two you hate.”

“Yeah that did happen,” Sammy states bluntly, “But, that doesn’t matter.”

“How come?” Elizabeth asks.

“Because I got to get to know you more,” Sammy remarks, “And you’re pretty cool in your own right.”

Not knowing how to take the compliment, Elizabeth shuts down for a bit before Sammy adds, “And hey at least you won a round of that. I lost both of mine because I was too arrogant.”

“Yeah that’s true,” Elizabeth sighs before asking, “Why’d you try to kick the punching bag?”

“To be honest, I don’t even know!” Sammy laughs.

Elizabeth laughs too and the two teens turned friends laugh at the whole day they got to have together.

That’s when the two hear the honking of a car, and when they look they see it’s being driven by Elizabeth’s parents, with her two younger siblings, Hai & Nhung, in the back.

“You uh, you need a ride back home?” Elizabeth asks.

“Sure!” Sammy happily accepts.

And so the two enter the red minivan.

“Elizabeth, how come we got a call saying you were kicked out of the mall, and whose she?” Misses Moore questions.

“It’s a bit of a long story on how that happened,” Elizabeth explains, “And as for Sammy she’s…”

“Her friend,” Sammy answers, “Nice to meet you all.”

“Well nice to meet you, Sammy,” Mister Moore remarks, “Sorry that the car is a mess.”

“It’s fine,” Sammy remarks.

As the car continues to drive off Elizabeth focuses on that word Sammy said… a friend.

Elizabeth looks out the window and smiles softly.

“By the way sweetie,” Mrs Moore begins to say, “Did you manage to get the stuff from the mall?”

Hearing those words; Elizabeth realizes she completely forgot and sinks into her chair. The red minivan ends up turning around and enters the parking lot of the mall. Mister & Misses Moore step out of the car and hand the keys to Elizabeth.

“Eli, you keep the car locked until we come back, okay?” Misses Moore asks.

“Okay,” Elizabeth sighs.

The door closes and as it does, Elizabeth takes a look over to where Sammy is seated. Currently she’s busy staring at Nhung’s tablet and giving her advice on how to beat the game she’s playing on it while also doing a thumb war against Hai.

She goes to say something, but spots that the rubix cube that Sammy bought is laying on the ground. So she decides to pick it up.

As she examines it, Elizabeth realizes Sammy didn’t notice that a row didn’t fully click into place on the cube. So with one hand holding the base, she takes her other and wraps it around the row. Then…

Click!

See You Next Chapter!~