Derek and Jayden

“Why exactly are we here?” It was the last day before summer vacation ended and Derek had to go back to school. He wanted to be home playing games right now, but his friend Jayden had dragged him across town to this thrift store for some incomprehensible reason. Derek was average height for a teenage boy, and with his pale skin and baggy anime t-shirt, it was clear that being outside was not his favorite activity.

His best friend Jayden, on the other hand, was the tallest kid in their class, and his curly red hair made his freckled face stand out, as opposed to Derek’s short brown hair. While pacing through the cramped store, his eyes searching for something, Jayden shouted back, “This is the place I got that bag of plastic baby figurines. They’ve got tons of awesome junk!”

The reply made Derek shudder: after his friend had bought said bag of creepy plastics, Derek’s parents made it clear they didn’t like finding them hidden all throughout their house. A preserved dead animal, floating in a jar of formaldehyde sitting on the shelf, caught Derek’s eye and he shuddered, suddenly wanting even more to leave the creepy store. “Dude, let’s get out of here...”

He turned around and suddenly Jayden was there, grinning from ear to ear. He held up two coins, one gold and the other silver. “I’m totally going to buy these! They’ve got some creepy inscriptions on them, they’ve got to be magic or something!” Before Derek could say anything, Jayden walked over to the man behind the cash register and pushed forward the coins. “How much for both of these?”

The owner of the thrift store gave the items a critical eye, thought for a second, then said, “I’d be willing to let you have ‘em for...five bucks each.” The two teens looked at each other: they had ten dollars between them, just enough to buy both. Was it worth all their cash?