Winston Porter Loses His Marbles

To his customers, Winston Porter was a kind old man who ran a toy shop in the Old Town section of Porterville. Winston was short, trim, and neatly dressed, and adults liked him even if children found him rather strange. He was descended from the founders of Porterville, but Winston wasn’t the sort to boast about such things.

Winston had far more important matters to worry about. He kept an eye on things in town, and if his help was needed to keep Porterville running smoothly, then Porterville got his help. He believed in free will, but sometimes one had to give things a little push to move them in the right direction.

On a Saturday morning two weeks before Christmas, Winston went to his private office in the back of the shop and spread a round, incense-scented black cloth on a table that had raised edges to prevent small things from rolling off. The cloth, which didn’t cover the table’s edges, had a silver circle embroidered in its center. Winston opened a blue velvet drawstring pouch and placed several marbles on the cloth.

Winston sold bags of ordinary marbles in his shop, but these were special. Even as a child, when he’d been allowed to look at them but never play with them, he thought they looked like they contained galaxies.

Now, Winston placed a blue marble that matched his eyes in the center of the circle. He arranged the others in a loose cloud around it.

The only marble Winston didn’t use was his devil’s eye, which was bright red with a vivid yellow slash that looked very much like a not-human pupil. Winston didn’t like using that one unless a situation was especially grave, and he hoped this one wasn’t.

“Rezoning to allow a Toy Planet here?” Winston asked the marbles. “I think not.”

He picked up a black agate slightly bigger than the other marbles. Bending over the table, he placed the shooter outside the circle and flicked it with his thumb.

The agate sent the marbles scattering with several clicks. A jade marble whose color reminded Winston of dollar bills rolled out of the circle and stopped at the rim of the table. The other marbles remained in the circle. Winston smiled.

At that moment, members of the Porterville city council realized that rezoning the town to allow a Toy Planet would be a terrible mistake. Who needed a big box store when you had that charming shop in Old Town? They’d be sure to vote that down at the next meeting.

Winston was so absorbed in his work that he didn’t notice it was opening time until a sharp knock on the front door interrupted his thoughts. He glanced up at his clock and let out a quiet curse.

The most important rule of the Porter marbles was that they stayed in their pouch when not in use. Winston’s grandfather had left them out on his kitchen table once, and it had taken quite a bit of work to fix the town feud that erupted when a falling chair caused the marbles to roll all over the table and the floor.

Winston put them safely away. Still clutching the pouch, he hurried to the front.

“Why, Lisa! So good to see you again,” he said as he opened the door.

Lisa Willis brushed her blonde hair out of her face and smiled. “Sorry for banging the door down. We’ve got a long day ahead of us and I wanted to get started early.”

Lisa’s parents had brought her to the shop when she was a child, and today Lisa had all three of her own children in tow. Sammi and Steven were eight-year-old twins. Little Robin peered up at Winston from a stroller so wide that he worried it wouldn’t fit through the aisles. He ducked behind the counter and turned on a satellite radio channel of Christmas music.

Porter’s Playthings carried toys that most adults believed they’d played with as children even if they hadn’t — board games, elaborate tea sets, science kits, and baby dolls that looked disturbingly real.

Lisa fussed over a row of Breyer model horses just like the ones she’d had when she was Sammi’s age. Sammi herself looked bored. She stood at the front of the store with her arms folded across her chest and her brow scrunched over her purple-rimmed glasses.

“Mom! Can I have Pop Rocks?” Steven yelled from the candy display. Robin tried to grab a Rubik’s cube that was just out of reach of her stroller. Two more families with children came inside, and soon the small store felt chaotic.

Lisa selected a baby doll, a pale-skinned girl with a lavender knit cap and gown, and carried it to the cash register.

“I don’t want a doll, Mom,” Sammi said in a surly tone.

“She’s for Julie,” Lisa said as she reached into her purse. Sammi rolled her eyes. Winston placed his pouch on the counter before wrapping the baby doll in pink tissue paper and placing her in a white paper bag. As he finished ringing Lisa up, another woman approached, asking if he had any other Breyer horses. Two more families lined up at the register, carrying board games and a microscope.

Some time after the rush at the register, Winston realized his marbles weren’t on the counter. He patted his pockets. He looked on the floor. He rushed back to his office. Nothing. He hurried back to the counter and stared at it in case he’d missed the pouch the first time. And then he held a shaky hand to his chest.

* * * * *

That afternoon, Lisa banished the kids to the playroom in the basement so she could wrap gifts in peace. Her neighbor Karen came over with several packages of her own, and they commiserated about the season as they cut paper and tied ribbons.

Downstairs, Steven put “Lego Star Wars” on TV. Robin stacked blocks and knocked them down.

Sammi reached into her pocket, pulled out the blue velvet pouch she’d swiped from the weird old toy store, and emptied it on the carpet.

“Where’d you get those?” Steven asked. “Mom didn’t buy them.”

Sammi smirked as she gathered the marbles into a circle.

Steven gasped. “You stole them!”

“So? He had lots.”

“Wow.” Steven felt nervous. Mom tended to blame both of them if one of them did something wrong, and Christmas was coming.

Sammi picked up the black agate and shot it into the circle, watching as the marbles rolled everywhere.

“This is such a boring game,” Sammi whined. “Why would anyone play it?”

* * * * *

At the Porterville Bistro, Marcie Hanlon threw down her order pad and quit. Something in her snapped that afternoon. She hadn’t been able to shake the thought that she couldn’t bear to spend another second in that damn restaurant.

Marcie walked down Church Street and glanced at a red sportscar speeding by. Henry Lewis, the driver, had abruptly decided to buy himself an early present. The beautiful red car used up his Christmas money and most of the family savings, but surely Ruth and the children would understand.

Henry passed a shoving match breaking out down the block from Porter’s Playthings. Two complete strangers decided that they couldn’t stand the sight of each other and that Porterville was only big enough for one of them.

Anyone going to Porter’s Playthings found a “CLOSED FOR EMERGENCY” sign scrawled in shaky red letters on cardboard and taped to the door.

* * * * *

Sammi stared at the TV, completely bored with the marbles. Steven examined them one by one. He held up the devil’s eye, looked at it closely, and screamed. Sammi nearly jumped through the ceiling, and Robin started crying.

“It blinked at me!” Steven shrieked, tossing it away.

“No it didn’t. It’s a marble, you idiot,” Sammi said. Robin wailed behind them.

The basement door crashed open and Lisa’s footsteps thundered down the stairs.

“What’s going on down here?” she said.

“Nothing,” Sammi and Steven said together, too smoothly.

Lisa glanced around the playroom.

“Where did those marbles come from?”

“Grandma gave them to me,” Sammi said quietly.

“No, she did not,” Lisa said, marching over. “She’d never give you those with a baby in the house.”

Sammi had no other ideas.

“She stole them from Mr. Porter’s store, Mom!” Steven’s lip trembled as he pointed to his sister.

“Oh, Sammi. You won’t tell me what you want for Christmas, and then you take things from that sweet old man?” Lisa dropped to her knees, staring at her daughter. “Robin could choke on those! Put them all back in the pouch right now. When your father gets back from his trip …”

“Is Santa still going to come, Mom?” Steven asked in a low voice.

“Santa’s not real, stupid,” Sammi snapped. And Steven burst into noisy tears.

“Sammi! You’re already in enough trouble.”

“Everything OK, Lisa?” Karen called out from upstairs.

“Hey, Karen — would you mind staying here and watching Robin for a few minutes? We have to … run a quick errand. It’ll be easier if I don’t have to haul her around too.”

“Sure!”

“You’re a lifesaver.” Lisa carried Robin upstairs and handed her to Karen.

After Lisa and the children headed out, Karen placed a still-sniffling Robin on the living room floor and turned on the TV, changing the channels until she found a cartoon.

“Let’s watch the dancing snowman, sweetie.”

* * * * *

Winston sat in his office, his head in his hands. He’d failed. The most important job in his life — in any of the lives around here — and he’d blown it.

He didn’t respond to the frantic knocking at the front door at first. Couldn’t those imbeciles read the sign?

But the knocking wouldn’t stop, and he finally stood up and walked to the front. A grim-looking Lisa Willis stood outside with the twins.

“Mr. Porter? I’m so sorry. Sammi has something to give you, and something to tell you.” She glared down at her daughter, who held out the blue velvet pouch. Winston’s heart leaped into his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Sammi muttered as she placed the pouch in Winston’s shaking hands.

Winston stared at it for a second and then looked at Lisa.

“Did anyone play with these?” he asked, sounding stern.

“They had them out on the floor. Look, I can pay for them — “

“No, no, no. These aren’t for sale!” Winston, realizing that he sounded rude, took a deep breath. “They’re very important to me, you see. I was rather upset when I couldn’t find them.”

Lisa’s face was red. “I taught them better than this, but sometimes … kids. You know.” She shook her head.

Winston said nothing as he stared down at the pouch, and a flushed and apologetic Lisa gathered the twins and excused herself.

Winston locked the door behind them and headed back to his office, where he placed his treasures on the black cloth. He wasn’t sure what kind of damage had been done today, but he’d been able to sense it when he’d opened the door. The atmosphere outside felt tense, angry, and wrong, and he’d heard police cars earlier.

He was so focused on how to fix whatever problems the Willis girl had caused that he didn’t notice at first that one of the marbles was still missing.

* * * * *

Karen’s cell phone buzzed. As she looked at the screen to see who was calling, Robin, still on the floor, opened her chubby fist. The red and yellow devil’s eye sat in her palm. As she stared at the marble, it winked at her.

A deep, raspy voice sounded in Robin’s head.

We’re going to have fun together, aren’t we, child?

Robin giggled.

(But wait — there’s more! Find out what happens next in Winston Porter Rolls the Dice, Winston Porter Kicks the Bucket, Winston Porter Gets Played for a Fool, and Winston Porter’s Heir Apparent.)