by Rob Buyea
The Snow Hill Carnival was all fun and games. I had a blast walking around with my friends. There was a mixture of smells from a million different foods, lights flashed everywhere, and people were screaming all over the place. Jessica couldn’t wait to hit the rides. All she could talk about was the roller coaster. She did her best to hurry us through the game area, but we got slowed down.
“Hey, hey, step right up. You’re next. Win a prize for your girl over there.”
The guy was talking to me, and he pointed toward Anna when he said “your girl.” We were walking by the game area when he started heckling me.
“C’mon, Jeffrey. Go for it,” Peter egged me on. “Win a prize for your girl.”
I was embarrassed, but I saw Anna turning even redder. Was that because she liked me too?
“C’mon, you can do it,” the man encouraged me.
I handed him my money and took the baseball from him. It was a game where you have to knock the three bottles off the table with one throw. I wound up and fired a fastball. I figured if I was going to miss, I might as well miss throwing hard. The bottles exploded off the table. I hit them with bull’s-eye accuracy.
“We’ve got a winner!” the man shouted.
“Yeah! Woo-hoo!” Peter and Luke smacked me on the back.
“Pick any prize, young lady,” the man said to Anna. “He won it for you.”
Anna chose a stuffed black Lab. “Thanks,” she whispered to me once we started walking again. I saw Peter holding Lexie’s hand and thought about trying to hold Anna’s, but I didn’t have the nerve. How in the world did Peter manage it? Here I was wishing I could be like him, holding a girl’s hand, and he must have been wishing he was like me, winning a prize for his girl, ’cause he was the next one to try a game. But poor Peter ended up having to climb a ladder and ring the bell at the top. Jessica tried to warn him against it.
“Don’t do it, Peter. It’s impossible.”
“He’s not going to listen to you, Jessica. You’re a girl,” Danielle said.
She was right. Jessica’s warning was only more reason for Peter to try it. The ladder was made of rope and it was barely inclined, so it was more like walking a tightrope than climbing anything. As soon as you put too much weight in one spot, the ladder would flip over and you’d fall onto the mat below it.
Peter tried and tried and tried. And we laughed and laughed and laughed.
“Told you so,” Jessica said.
Peter was so mad he paid for me and Luke to give it a shot. He needed us to see how hard that thing was. We tried and we failed, but that didn’t make Peter feel better. He kept going. He would have blown all his money if Lexie hadn’t pulled him away.
“C’mon. Let’s go and do something else,” she insisted.
Luke didn’t want to be left out, so he was next to try a game, but he was smart about it—no surprise there. There weren’t any carnival games that called for a battle of wits, so he chose the ducks.
“There’s always a winner,” Luke announced, pointing to the sign. “According to statistics, this is a good one for me to play.”
He walked over and stood next to a large tub full of floating rubber duckies. There must have been fifty or sixty of them—all yellow, all small, all identical. The game was simple: Grab a duck and turn it over to see what number is on the bottom. The number tells you what prize you’ve won.
Luke reached into the tub and picked one. He flipped it over and found a star on the bottom. This was the most unlikely duck to pick. There was only one with a star and Luke found it. Lucky duck. He won the best prize, a big stuffed yellow Lab that he gave to Jessica.
“I still owe you for the Westing Game prize,” he said, handing her the Lab.
What was going on?! If Luke ended up holding Jessica’s hand then I was definitely going to grab Anna’s. There was no way that little dork was gonna pull that off before me.
“C’mon. Let’s hit some rides,” Peter said.
We all liked that idea, but Jessica needed to use a bathroom first.
“You guys have made me wait so long, I need to pee now,” she said.
She must have had to go bad, because the Porta-Potties were gross. You could smell them from the outside. They reeked! There were at least ten of the blue units lined up at one end of the carnival. Jessica pulled one of the doors open, then quickly shut it and moved on to the next. She went in. That was when Peter decided he would get her back for being right about the rope ladder.
“Miss Told-You-So,” he whispered to me. “I’ll show her.”
Peter placed his hands on the outside of Jessica’s Porta-Potty and started pushing on it. I saw what he was trying to do. The thing was too heavy for Peter to shake on his own. This was going to be funny and he needed some help, so I grabbed Luke and pulled him over. Once we started pushing on it with Peter, we got that baby rockin’.
“Hey!” Jessica yelled from inside. We started laughing but kept rockin’. “Hey!” she yelled again. “Stop!”
She started sounding upset, so we stopped. She came out a couple seconds later, and Peter was ready for her.
“We know you like the rides, so we thought we’d give you one you’ve never been on.”
“Funny,” she said.
“Oh, calm down. It’s not like you pee standing up. There’s no risk of you spraying all over yourself,” Peter said. I knew what he was talking about. He was the master of bathroom pranks.
“Eww!” Lexie said. “You’re gross.”
Peter smiled and we headed off for the rides.
“Hey, where’s the stuffed dog I won you?” Luke asked a few seconds later.
“It fell in,” Jessica said. She shrugged and gave Luke a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”
“That poor dog,” Peter said. “He’s stuck swimming in the poopy water.”
“Eww!” Lexie said again. “You’re so gross.” This time she elbowed him.
We all cracked up. That was how it went for most of the night—food, games, lots of laughs, and rides—until we had a run-in with some of Lexie’s old friends.
Mom had to work, but she was going to pick me up at the Snow Hill Carnival after she got off. In the meantime, I spent the night chillin’ with my friends—with Peter.
There’s always tons of people at the carnival, so like, you can go the whole night without running into someone you know. I wish that’s what happened with me, but it didn’t. Instead, I ran into the someones I didn’t want to see. It happened at the midway. A group of us had just gotten off the Salt and Pepper Shaker, and we were laughing when I heard, “Hey, Little Brat.”
I tried to pretend I didn’t hear her. I kept walking, a little faster.
“I said, hey, Little Brat.” Reena pushed me on the back of my shoulder. I couldn’t ignore her now. I stopped and turned around.
“Hi, Reena,” I said. “You’re looking hot.” I was going to try the being-nice approach. I looked over her shoulder and saw Brandon with his head tipped back, drinking from his water bottle. He was walking toward us with Lisa holding his other hand.
“Back to being a kindergartner, huh,” Reena said.
I felt my friends move closer around me. “Yeah,” I said.
“Look who’s here!” Brandon barked. He knocked Reena aside and left Lisa standing behind. He hadn’t seen me at first, but once he laid eyes on me he got right up close. “The cops have been nosin’ around our hangout. You know anything ’bout that?” he said, his face getting closer to mine.
“She doesn’t know anything,” Jessica said. “Please leave us alone.”
“Shut up, Miss Proper! No one asked you.”
When Brandon, Reena, and Lisa first pressured me to smoke back at their hangout, I was all alone. For the first time, I didn’t know how to be quick on my feet. So I ended up taking the cigarette and I found myself in a mess after that. Now, surrounded by my friends, I found the courage to stand up to Brandon.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, ho
lding my ground.
“Brandon, c’mon. Let’s go.” Lisa tried tugging him away. She looked at me. If eyes could say I’m sorry, hers did.
“Get off me,” Brandon said, shaking his hand free from hers.
“How’s your finger?” The voice from behind startled me, but once I realized it was Teach, I felt safe.
“Still works, Dent-Head,” Brandon said, and he stuck his middle finger in Teach’s face again. Then he spun around and disappeared into the crowd. So did Lisa and Reena.
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” a new voice said. It was Officer Stoneley and he was talking to Teach. Must be Brandon saw him coming and decided it was time to split.
Teach nodded, then squatted down to talk to us. “Nice job sticking together,” Teach said. “I’m proud of you guys.”
“Thanks, Teach,” I said. “Brandon’s just upset because he missed out on wrestling season. He got hurt in football.”
“He’s a wrestler, huh?”
I could tell Teach was busy thinking. I should have said something about Brandon’s water bottle. I knew what was in it, especially after seeing how rough and tough he was acting. His short temper told it all. But I had too many thoughts swimming around in my head after that run-in.
“Ms. Newberry, where’d you get that polar bear?” Peter asked suspiciously, nodding toward the huge white stuffed animal she had her arms wrapped around. I hadn’t even noticed it.
“I won it for her,” Teach said. “Just had to climb a ladder for it.”
The boys’ jaws almost touched the ground.
“How’d you do it?” Luke needed to know.
Teach smiled. “It’s all about physics. And now if you’ll excuse us, Ms. Newberry and I are on our way to the car to put her prize away so we don’t have to carry it around all night. Stick together,” he reminded us.
We did stick together, but the fun had been sucked out of everything. I stood below the Torpedo with my mind racing faster than the roller coaster. Luke, Jessica, and Jeffrey were on the ride again, but Peter stayed with me. I’d been having a blast, but now I kept thinking about Lisa. What was she doing with Brandon? Why didn’t she get rid of him? She reminded me of Mom, and Brandon of my dad. I knew it wasn’t easy to get out of those situations. She looked scared. She needed help. Then I thought of Brandon’s black car. He would definitely drive like a madman tonight. He needed to be stopped before someone got hurt.
Wow! What a night! Things were going great! I was hanging with all my friends and Lexie was suddenly my girl. We held hands all night long walking around the carnival. We ate pizza and french fries, which Lexie loaded up with so much salt I was sure she would die of a heart attack. She kept shaking and shaking and shaking the container over her basket, and the little white crystals kept falling and falling and falling.
“What? I like salt on my fries,” she said, after she saw my twisted face.
“I couldn’t tell,” I said.
After the fries, I bought her a snow cone—a blue one—and then we cruised around through the different games. After Jeffrey won Anna that black Lab I had to win Lexie a prize. That’s what a guy is supposed to do for his girl at a carnival.
I should have tried throwing darts or making a basket, but instead I picked the stupid rope ladder. I would have stopped after one try, but Jessica had to tell me not to do it, so then I had to do it. I blew almost all my money on that dumb thing. If you did manage to ring the bell you won the biggest stuffed animal of the whole carnival—a gigantic polar bear. I really wanted to do that for Lexie, but it wasn’t happening. And Lexie knew it. Thankfully, she yanked me away from there before I went nuts.
Before we hit the midway I gave Jessica a free Porta-Potty ride, but she wasn’t very appreciative. It was definitely one of my all-time best bathroom pranks. Jessica screamed louder from that than she did for any of the carnival rides, including the Torpedo.
Finally, we hit the real midway rides. We got off the Salt and Pepper Shaker, all of us still laughing as we walked away, and the next thing I knew we were standing face to face with some older kids.
“It’s Middle-Finger Boy,” Jeffrey whispered to me. I didn’t know what he was talking about.
Middle-Finger Boy got right up close on Lexie and I got scared that I was going to have to double-leg him, even though Mr. T had talked to us about self-control. He was messin’ with my girl. Lucky for that kid, Mr. T showed up.
“How’s your finger?” Mr. T asked. Obviously, he recognized the kid too.
“Still works, Dent-Head,” he smart-mouthed back. Then Middle-Finger Boy lived up to his name by sticking his middle finger in Mr. T’s face before disappearing into the carnival crowd, along with his girlfriends.
Mr. T bent down to tell us he was proud of the way we had stuck together, and that was when I saw Ms. Newberry holding that gigantic polar bear. Was there anything Mr. T couldn’t do?
“It’s all about physics,” he said.
Mr. T walked away holding his girl’s hand, with the massive stuffed animal in his other arm. Luke stood there shaking his head. “Physics,” he mumbled.
Danielle and Anna went for some food after that, and the rest of us headed for the Torpedo. But Lexie just wasn’t the same after seeing Middle-Finger Boy. And then all of a sudden, she yanked my hand and said, “C’mon.” I had no idea where she was taking me, but I felt her determination. I didn’t dare say no to her.
She led me past the food tents and past the Porta-Potties and out toward the parked cars before I said, “Lex, where are you taking me?” I had to hurry just to keep up with her.
“We need to stop Brandon,” she said.
“Brandon? Who’s Brandon?”
She stuck her middle finger up at me.
“Oh. Him,” I said. I jogged a few paces to catch up to her. “And how exactly are we supposed to stop Brandon?”
“We need to do something to his car. He’s gonna try driving like a macho man out of here, and he’s been drinking. Somebody could get hurt. We need to stop him.”
“He’s been drinking? How do you know that?”
Lexie stopped and turned to face me. “Look,” she said. “I just know, okay? Stop worrying about that and start thinking about what we can do to his car so it won’t run.”
“I know what to do,” I said. “C’mon.”
We knelt down behind Brandon’s car and scooped up globs of mud. It was a good thing it had been raining. The mud worked perfectly. We took the globs and stuffed them into the exhaust pipe.
“It’s just like wrestling,” I told Lexie. “If you squeeze all the air out of your opponent, then he slows down and stops moving. Mr. T taught me that. The mud’s going to choke the car so it can’t breathe, then it will stall.”
“Are you sure?” Lexie said.
“No, but it sounds good and I don’t have any other ideas.”
Suddenly Lexie leaned into my body and kissed me—out of nowhere! I think you’re supposed to close your eyes when you kiss, but mine stayed wide open. Lexie pressed her lips against mine and all I could taste was salt. Then I started to think it was better that she tasted like salt and not like her legendary fart. Just thinking of that fart made me smell it again. All this was going through my mind while we kissed! And I had no idea what was supposed to happen next. That didn’t matter, though, because as soon as Lexie opened her eyes, she spotted Brandon walking toward us from across the parking field.
“Oh no! Here he comes!” Lexie whisper-shouted. “C’mon.” We scurried out of sight behind a nearby parked car.
Mr. Macho Man and his girls climbed into the black car. Just backing out of his parking space, Brandon managed to send mud flying everywhere. Once he was in the open field, he stomped on the gas. You could hear it. The engine revved and revved and then began to choke. His precious car jerked along. Steam billowed from his exhaust and the motor made all sorts of terrifying noises as he continued to mash the accelerator. Then all of a sudden, there was a huge bang and the mud shot
out of his tailpipe. The engine got the air it needed and the car took off. Brandon wasn’t ready and he lost control. He crashed into several parked vehicles. Officer Stoneley was on the scene before they even got out of the car. No one was hurt.
Lexie and I split. The last thing we wanted was for Brandon to spot us. We hurried back to the midway, running hand in hand. But once we got past the Porta-Potties and back to the carnival, we stopped. There was a mob of people gathered around something.
I loved the stuffed dog that Jeffrey won me. I really did, but it made me nervous. I saw Lexie holding Peter’s hand and I wanted to hold Jeffrey’s—but I couldn’t. I was scared to like a boy. I didn’t want him to hurt me like my father did my mom. Mom plays it off like she handled it fine, but I know better. I don’t want to hurt like that—not ever. I don’t think Jeffrey would ever do that on purpose—his heart is too big—but you never know.
After the standoff with Lexie’s old high school girlfriends and that terrible boy, I was happy to go and get something to eat with Danielle. I was hungry, and I needed a break from all the rides. I needed a break from everything. We sat down with a couple of burgers under one of the tents.
I wasn’t sure what happened or what Danielle heard while we were eating, but she wasn’t the same after that. I mean, it was opening night of the Snow Hill Carnival, we were running out of time, and Danielle just said “I don’t care” to everything I asked her.
