The Boy Who Wanted Everything

The rain came down in sheets that night, turning the streets of Maplewood into rivers of silver. Oliver Chen pressed his nose against the cold window of his bedroom, watching the lightning dance across the sky in great white forks that seemed to touch the rooftops of the city below. He had always loved storms—something about the wildness of them made him feel like anything might happen, like the ordinary world might crack open and reveal something magical hidden just beneath the surface.

His bedroom was small but full of the evidence of a busy ten-year-old life. Posters of space rockets covered one wall. A collection of trading cards spilled across his desk in colorful disarray. A half-finished model airplane sat on his dresser, waiting for hands that couldn't sit still long enough to complete it. And everywhere, everywhere, there were reminders of Oliver's greatest struggle—the art of getting what he wanted.

*That chocolate bar you traded for that comic book? Your sister has both now. And she didn't even want the comic book in the first place.*

Oliver shuddered at the memory. Just this morning, his older sister Lily had worked her magic on him again. He had been so proud of the rare Dragon Knight card he had traded—his third rarest card, in fact—and she had seemed so genuinely interested in seeing it. But somehow, by the time she had finished "admiring" it, it was sitting in her card collection and he was holding a dusty old sticker book she had found in the back of her closet.

"She has a superpower," Oliver muttered to himself, tracing a finger down the cold glass. "I'm sure of it. She's got some kind of mind control power and nobody believes me."

The truth was, Oliver had been losing negotiations since before he could remember. Not just with Lily—with everyone. His best friend Marcus had somehow convinced him to trade his complete set of Space Explorer cards for a broken magnifying glass that "might be worth something someday." His mother had gotten him to finish his vegetables by promising dessert, only to "forget" the dessert part when he complained. Even the class bully, Derek Simmons, had somehow managed to convince Oliver to hand over his favorite pencil—"just to borrow"—which had somehow ended up permanently residing in Derek's desk.

It wasn't that Oliver was stupid. His teachers said he was plenty smart. But there was something about negotiating, about asking for what you want and trying to get it, that made his stomach feel all twisty and his words come out all wrong. He would want one thing and end up with something else entirely, like his desires were magnets and everyone else had the stronger pull.

The storm intensified, and Oliver watched a particularly violent bolt of lightning split the darkness near the old clock tower at the end of his street. The clock tower had been broken for as long as he could remember—its hands frozen at 3:47, nobody knew why—but there was something about it that had always fascinated him. It looked like something from an old fairy tale, all stone and arches and mysterious shadows.

As if drawn by the storm itself, Oliver's gaze drifted to the buildings below. And then he saw something that made him press harder against the window until his breath fogged the glass.

There, in the gap between the old bakery and the abandoned laundromat—places he had walked past a hundred times without ever really noticing—there was a shop. It hadn't been there before. He was absolutely certain of that. It was a small shop, squeezed into a space that shouldn't have been able to hold it, with a crooked little sign above the door that read: *Professor Fairplay's Emporium of Excellent Bargains*.

"That's impossible," Oliver whispered. "There's no room for a shop there. There's never been a shop there."

But there it was, warm golden light glowing from its windows despite the storm, and as he watched, the door swung open. Not wide—just a crack—and a figure stood silhouetted in the light, beckoning.

Oliver's heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his ears. He knew he should ignore it. He knew he should stay in his room and read a book or play a video game or do anything normal. But storms make people brave, or maybe just foolish, and the figure at the door seemed to know exactly who he was.

"Oliver Chen," a voice called out, thin and reedy but somehow carrying clearly over the thunder. "I've been expecting you. We have much to discuss, young man. Much to discuss indeed."

Without quite meaning to, Oliver found himself pulling on his raincoat and boots. Without quite meaning to, he was slipping down the stairs and out the back door, the rain immediately soaking through his coat and plastering his hair to his forehead. Without quite meaning to, he was running down the street toward the impossible shop, lightning crackling all around him like the sky itself was alive and excited.

The shop grew larger as he approached, or maybe he was growing smaller—it was hard to tell. The windows were full of the most peculiar things: jars of glowing pickles, clocks that ran backward, a taxidermied owl wearing tiny reading glasses, stacks of books with titles like "The Art of the Impossible Trade" and "Win-Win: A History." The door was made of dark wood, so old it looked like it might have been part of the first house ever built, and it creaked open at Oliver's touch as if it had been waiting for him all along.

"Welcome, welcome, do come in!" the voice called from somewhere inside. "You're letting all the warmth out, you know. Storm sprites get cranky when they catch cold."

Oliver stepped inside, and the door swung shut behind him with a soft click. He found himself standing in a room that was somehow larger than the outside of the building suggested, every inch of wall covered in shelves and cabinets and strange contraptions that ticked and whirred and occasionally let out little puffs of colored smoke. There were thousands of objects scattered throughout the shop—buttons and bells and books and boxes, old keys and newer keys, keys that looked like they might open doors to places that didn't exist yet.

And in the center of it all, sitting in a enormous overstuffed armchair that seemed to be swallowing him whole, was the strangest old man Oliver had ever seen.

Professor Fairplay—if that was truly his name—was tall and bent, like a question mark that had been answered too many times. His hair was wild and white, sticking out in every direction as if it had given up on gravity long ago. He wore a velvet smoking jacket that had once been purple but was now a faded sort of plum, and his feet were bare, with toes that seemed to wiggle independently of each other. His eyes, behind enormous round spectacles, were the color of honey held up to sunlight, and they sparkled with a mischief that made Oliver think of all the trouble those eyes must have seen over what must have been a very, very long life.

"Oliver Chen," the Professor said, not as a question this time but as a statement, as if confirming something he already knew. "Son of David and Mei Chen. Younger brother to Lily Chen, who has the negotiation instincts of a shark and the persistence of a glacier. Friend to Marcus Webb, who is kind but easily distracted by sparkly things. And you, Oliver Chen, are a boy who always seems to lose."

"I don't always lose," Oliver said, but his voice came out smaller than he wanted it to. "Sometimes I win. Sometimes I definitely win."

The Professor chuckled, a sound like dry leaves rustling. "Do you? Tell me, young man—when was the last time you felt good about a trade? A real, true, 'I got exactly what I wanted and I'm happy about it' feeling?"

Oliver opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He thought about the Dragon Knight card sitting in Lily's collection. He thought about the Space Explorers scattered among his friends' collections. He thought about every pencil, every toy, every scrap of happiness he had ever traded away, a