A frown crossed over her lips as the urchin considered the boy's move. For all the chinwagging over it, his shot was far truer than she'd been expecting. It put a real crimp in her plans for an easy match. Charley might have given him a shot or two first, just to lull ol' Chuckster into thinking he could humiliate her twice. Now that it seemed like he stood a real chance of it, she couldn't dither or dally with this foe.

"Well, dash my wig," she muttered after a low whistle, grasping the need to settle right down onto the offensive instead.

Hopping to another portion of the circle, the urchin crouched low. She already knew it was going to be a tricky shot, one that could have required her own dose of patience. Charley also knew better than to trust herself with patience. Pressing her wrist down against the dusty ground, thumb extended to the sky, she closed her eye with an aim to line up the right angle between the gobstones.

"See mate, in this game, it's not all about talent," Charley started, chattering as a means to fill the air between them. A nervous tick, perhaps, or that's what she wanted Charles to believe, anyway. "Though you've got that in spades."

She also wanted Charles to believe she was only working on her aim from this angle. It helped her manage the gentle press on her sleeve, not too hard, that was just enough to dislodge the gobstone held there between the buttons. She swept up the freed stone quickly with her hand, making it look only like a shift in her position. The stone wasn't as good as a real aggie, marble or not, but one she had enchanted to work just as well. Better, even, than the road-crusted stone she was meant to use instead, one she had passed deftly into the cuff of her sleeve for safekeeping.

"It's about stayin' down-to-earth, being humble-like," she carried on, as if her sleight-of-hand had been nothing more than just a fidget of the palm. With a glance at the boy to ensure he was none the wiser, Charley lined up her real shot. The one she knew would hit as true as his, truer if her spell worked properly. She meant to reserve the enchantment for snatching the prize aggie in a proper game, but the urchin could settle for shutting up the tall, gangly boy who had lost her the chance.

"It's takin' hits as much as you deal 'em out, ya get me?" Charley snapped her thumb down on the stone, watching it shoot out across the circle. It flew right where she wanted, hitting the target stone to make it ricochet deeper into the circle. Whether it would pass in front of Charles' shot or behind was the question now, one that she wasn't about to wait to find out.

"Take that!" The urchin cried, declaring victory for herself ahead of time. Whoever was about to wind up full of ink would discover the truth sooner than later.

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