Yes, they are in fact really crappy science fiction, but what can one do?

There's another large pile of books over there, maybe that one has a better selection?

Well, that's what he's here for. He starts unstacking them and reading titles.

Crappy romance, crappy romance, crappy romance with a nearly naked guy on the cover, Terry Pratchett book, book on recipes, crappy sci fi, book about fundamental maths half-eaten by moths—

Ooh, this one's pretty.

Intruiging. One-word title, obviously fantasy of some kind but with any luck it'll be slightly interesting fiction instead of just rambles about tarot and star alignments. He picks it up.

As soon as he does, the little lock clicks open.

Neat, some kind of pressure trigger?

Yeah, he's definitely buying this. He grabs the other book he chose, the terrible sci-fi, and digs two quarters out of his pocket and stands up to head for the checkout.

The bored clerk barely looks at the titles when he sees where the boy got them and accepts his money without much comment.

He starts walking home. Tricky to read while walking, so he fiddles with the lock. Does it click shut again if he closes it? If he holds the book a certain way? He taps the cover, does it sound hollow at all?

As soon as he closes it again it clicks shut and he doesn't seem to be able to open it anymore.

The book sounds and feels quite solid and not hollow at all.

Huh. Whatever's inside it must be a pretty clever little mechanism.

He finishes walking home. Once inside he tries to pick it up in the exact same way he did before. Same orientation, grabbing it in the same spot.

Click!

He puts his stuff away, shouts that yes he's going to do his homework dad, opens it to the first page to start reading.

Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot to read. A rectangular hole about twelve by four inches has been cut from all the pages, and inside it there's a pile of cards.

Well. At least he only paid 25 cents for it. He glances at the sci-fi, decides against it, then picks up one of the cards.

The card seems to be made of some hard material, something between cardboard and plastic. The side facing him has a drawing of a woman with the words 'The Windy,' while the other side of the card has some sort of squashed mystic symbol. The card that was immediately under the first one has the drawing of a young lady and the words 'The Through' on it.

Is it a tarot deck or something? He starts flipping through the other cards, reading names.

There are fifty-two of them, pretty varied in names if not in art (women seem pretty prominent, followed by inanimate objects and animals, and then men).

The Glow? The Bubbles? Seriously?

Whoever made these had fun with it, with at least a few of them.

...He should probably get the stupid English homework out of the way. Cards start getting stacked neatly in the book's hollowed-out compartment.

They will submit to this treatment.

The stupid English homework is quickly vanquished. He reads nine pages of the crappy sci-fi novel before needing to throw it at the wall and mutter about how rockets don't work that way. He'd go work on something in the garage, but he's still waiting for parts to ship. Hang out with family? His mom and dad are probably busy doing something with his oh-so-precious older brother. Snack? Not hungry.

What the hell, those cards are amusing enough to burn a couple of hours. The fancy diagrams certainly imply that someone thinks they're magic. He gets them back out, lists them one every two lines on the next page in his notebook after the English thing, and writes blurbs about what they'd do if they were items in a role playing game. The Through makes portals. The Shot attacks at range. The Glow... Is a flashlight? Some of these are way more powerful than others. He starts writing numbers next to them. Spell level.

This is turning out to be a decently entertaining way to kill time. Yay. He gets through most of the cards until he sees another useless one. "The Flower? Pff, that's level zero."

As soon as he says its name, it starts glowing in his hand, and then becomes a fluid that flows into the form of the lady that had been depicted on the now vanished card.

She starts dancing.

What.

What. "Um. Flower?"

She smiles at him and reaches for his hands, wanting to pull him to dance with her.

Various cherry flowers and petals start appearing out of thin air and slowly drifting onto the floor.

There are three explanations.

1. Some lunatic laced the cards with LSD or something then put them in a bookstore's discount sludge pile. And he didn't feel it until he said 'Flower'.

2. Someone is pulling an extremely elaborate prank on a random teenager, and managed to get into his room and slight-of-hand the card away without him noticing.

3. Magic is real. He has magic cards.

He holds out a hand to... Flower... To see if she has enough presence to pull him up from a sitting position.

She totally does, and she's actually pretty strong for an illusion! About as strong as a girl her size who's very enthusiastic about dancing would be, and she twirls, turns, pushes and pulls, and flowers keep appearing.