Ruth and Billie Feldman sat across from the Mapleses. They had twelve cards neatly lined up in rows. Billie Feldman presided over a colorful village of rubber troll dolls. She had an array of fat plastic felt-tip bingo markers and was glaring at Merwin, whose plastic cup of Hawaiian punch was bumped up against the troll village.

“N-43,” Joe called.

“Got two, Billie,” Ruth said, pointing to the card with those numbers.

“What’s up, Merwin?”

He gestured at the dolls. “Can you tell her to move those creepy damn dolls? She’s taking up the whole tabletop. I can’t even concentrate on my cards with all those things.”

Billie Feldman didn’t look up. She was using a marker to slash N-43 on her cards. “Shove it, Merwin,” she said. “You don’t like it, move to another table.”

“G-54,” Joe intoned.

“Bahahahaha,” Ruth chuckled, pointing at the corresponding number on one of the cards Billie had just colored.

“There are no other tables,” Merwin complained. He gestured around the room. “It’s a full house.”

“O-63,” Joe called.

Trudi stabbed at one of their cards with her forefinger. “We got one, Merwin. Pay attention.”

Billie colored numbers on her cards. “Yeah, Merwin. Quit yer bitching and pay attention. Not that it’ll do you any good.” She pointed at her cards. “I got the winning combination right here.”

Letty peered over her shoulder. She saw three cards that only lacked one more winning number.

“Come on B-7. Or G-48,” Ruth chanted, rubbing her hands together. She held out one of the troll dolls to Billie, who kissed the top of its head for luck.

“I-29,” Joe called.

Oscar Jensen erupted from his chair the next table over. “Bingo!” he yelled, waving his hands in the air. “Bingo, bingo, bingo!”

With one hand, Billie swept her losing cards off the table, knocking over Merwin’s half-full cup of punch in the process. The sticky red liquid dripped off the table and onto his lap.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, dabbing ineffectively at the mess with a paper napkin.

Letty hurried away from the simmering feud to check Oscar’s card, matching the numbers on the screen against the numbers on his card. “We’ve got a winner!” she called to Ava.

“Oscar, you get a six-pack of Sprite and a free round of putt-putt at Island Golf,” Ava said.

“What? I don’t want no stinkin’ Sprite,” Oscar griped. “What about the cash?”

“Sorry, you won the warm-up game. Next game is a cash prize,” Joe answered. “Ten dollars and a genuine Murmuring Surf souvenir tote bag. This one is a postage-stamp game. Cover any four numbers in a contiguous block on your card. Okay, let’s roll. O-75.”