“I want a refund for this spell.”
“Which spell?”
“This one.”
“Hmm … ‘A Spell to Make You Win the Lottery.’ I’m going to go out on a limb and say it didn’t work.”
“I want my money back.”
“Your money, right. How much did you pay?”
“Fourteen ninety-nine.”
“Uh-huh. How much would you expect to get from a lottery win?”
“At least a million.”
“…”
“…”
“And you don’t see a problem with this.”
“What?”
“Okay. The first problem is that you’ve got a product here with a sale value of fifteen pounds—”
“Fourteen ninety-nine.”
“Fourteen ninety-nine, sorry, which is supposed to win you over a million. Now, stop and think how that would work.”
“I don’t care. I want a refund.”
“Right. The second problem would be I never sold you this spell.”
“I bought it from this shop.”
“That would be quite impressive, given that I don’t sell spells.”
“I know my rights. If you don’t give me a refund I’ll sue you.”
“If your understanding of the legal system is on par with your grasp of economics, I don’t think I’ve got much to worry about.”
“Oh, is that right? I’m going to call the police! I can get this shop closed down, I think you’ll find!”
(stomp stomp stomp SLAM)
“…”
“Um, hello? Excuse me?”
“Yes?”
“Uh, could I get one of those spells to win the lot-tery?”
“Hi!”
“You again?”
“Yeah, I decided I didn’t want to go all the way across Camden. So what tricks do you sell?”
“We don’t sell tricks.”
“Okay, okay. So what ‘magic’ do you sell?”
“Could you not make a hand gesture in the air when you do that?”
“Sure. Whatcha got?”
“Just what you see.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Um, hi.”
“Hey. What do you need?”
“I heard you can … uh … find out things?”
“Who told you that?”
“Uh … it was … can you find out something for me?”
“Not likely.”
“But I need to know! It’s really important!”
“Fine. What is it?”
“I … I need to know if my girlfriend’s cheating on me.”
