T here was rice in Bradley’s pocket.
He walked down to the seafront and the pier and the arcade. He should have been able to distract his thoughts: it was a sunny day, Mediterranean hot, the holidaymakers were out and about and the air was heavy with the smell of deep-fried food and sugary snacks. It wasn’t enough to distract Bradley. He couldn’t help but think of the rice in his pocket, granule upon granule of uncountable tiny horribleness.
He had rice in his pocket and he was not happy. He’d walked home from the arcade, raided his mum’s cupboard, and now he had rice in his pocket. He’d done some internet research on fixing water damage. The advice for mobile phones was to use rice. Uncooked rice would absorb water. The claw machine was water-damaged, he had rice. He could fix this.
Back at the arcade, he approached the machine and thought carefully about where the water was, and how he might introduce the rice to it. He couldn’t think of a way to tackle it without putting rice into the money slot, and so he started to do just that. Horrid maggot-like grain after horrid maggot-like grain, he pushed it in, hoping that it would fall inside before it crumbled or swelled. Maybe if he went fast enough, he could push a load of rice in and then follow it with a fifty pence to hold it in place. As he worked through his pile, one single grain at a time, he calmed his mind with the knowledge that the rice would soon be gone from his pocket. Jodie would be impressed with his bravery when he told her what he’d done. Rice! Actual rice! She knew he couldn’t stand the stuff.
“What you doing?”
Bradley stumbled backwards in shock. Amber had appeared behind him with no warning.
“I was just, um, taking a look. I think the machine’s still dead.”
“Is that rice, Bradlop?” she asked, pointing at his hand.
It still hurt his ears, and his pride, knowing that he had given himself such a terrible alias, but he smiled through it. He opened his palm to reveal the grains, clamping his lips shut in case he made a noise as he was forced to confront them with his eyes.
“Just a snack,” he managed to croak. “I’m a vegan. Want one?”
She shook her head and leaned round him to look at the machine.
“You just going to stand and stare at it?” she said. “I’ve turned it off at the wall. It might be fine later.”
“Will it?” he said.
“Probably not. I need to call maintenance.”
“When will they come?”
“Later this afternoon. Maybe. You’ll need to play another machine for now.”
Bradley shook his head. “Here’s a fun question for you.”
“A fun question? Is the question fun or is the answer fun? And when you say ‘fun’ do you just mean ‘stupid’?”
“Look, if someone offered you a bribe to open it up and let them take a toy, what amount of money would turn your head?”
Amber laughed. “Ah, ‘stupid’. Now let me think. I’ll work backwards from a million, shall I?” She stared at the ceiling, calculating. “I reckon I could be bought for a hundred quid. I couldn’t do it for less, because this person might grab a whole load of other toys while the machine was open, mightn’t they?”
“I guess,” said Bradley, crestfallen. He had no way of getting hold of a hundred pounds.
“I think my conscience will be fine though,” said Amber. “I’m fairly sure none of these toys is worth more than twenty pounds, retail. Most them are knock-offs. That’s not going to be a real Joey Pockets, you know.”
“Of course you’re right,” said Bradley. “A person could just pay the retail price for a toy, rather than playing the game.”
“They could,” said Amber. “But that’s not the business model here, is it?”
Bradley looked at her. “What is the business model here?”
“It’s hopes and dreams,” said Amber. “Or, to be cynical, it’s a training ground for those machines you get in the betting shops. The customers always have to believe that they’re a whisker away from a big win, so that they keep putting their money in. If you could just go to the counter and buy the items, then all those hopes and dreams are reduced to a financial transaction, and nobody wants that, do they?”
Bradley almost agreed, but instead he paused.
“Here’s the thing,” he said.
“Yes?”
“The claw machine is broken.”
“It is.”
“So the business model for that claw machine is broken too.”
“Philosophical.”
“So, maybe I could buy that kangaroo that’s in the top?”
“Joey Pockets?”
“Yes.”
She drummed her fingers against the glass wall of the machine. “I’ll think about it. Let’s see whether the machine’s working later on, shall we?”
“Right. Yes.”
He retreated with a handful of horrible rice. At least she hadn’t said ‘no’.