Chapter 10 - Part 1

Chapter 10 – Brittney

I felt my stomach growl. All this talking was making me hungry. I hoped they’d finish up soon. I really wanted that Runza that dad had promised me. I loved Runzas. They were shaped kind of like a burrito, but they weren’t wrapped in a tortilla. They were wrapped in fried dough. Inside was ground beef and cabbage. I know. It sounds gross, huh? They’re really good, though.

My dad used to help out at the state park on reclamation projects and things on Saturday mornings. Dad told me that reclamation means nature reclaims the land and it goes back to being beautiful and making you happy – like how it should be before people messed it up. I used to go with him sometimes. On the way back one day, he asked me, “Would you like to go get a Runza?”

“What’s a Runza?” I had demanded.

He laughed which made me smile. I loved it when Dad laughed. I wished that he would do it more. I heard once that children laugh an average of 400 times a day and adults only laugh an average of seven. What I want to know is, where did the other 393 times go? This fact actually made me quite worried. I know that I am growing up. I wondered if I was maybe already losing some of my laughing-ness. I tried to count one day and I only got to 59. I wondered, though, do you count each thing you laughed about only once? What if every time you remembered the face your friend made at you at school, it made you laugh? Does that all count as one time or is it eleven or however many times you laughed about it? On the other hand, what if you only laughed once about it, but you laughed about it for five minutes? Does that only count as one or is that five or since the shortest laugh you could count would probably be five seconds, is it 60? It all ended up making my head hurt so I gave up. I think I probably laughed more the next day when I wasn’t trying so hard. I hope somewhere they counted, though. I would hope that all that happiness doesn’t just get lost.

My dad’s happiness got lost quite a lot, so like I said, it was good to hear him laugh that day. He said, “Have you never had a Runza?”

“What IS IT?” I demanded again. After all, how would I know if I had ever had a Runza if I didn’t know what it was?

“I will take you and show you,” Dad said and he wouldn’t tell me anymore about it – which is really probably a good thing because if he had told me there was cabbage in it I would have made him take me to McDonald’s or anywhere else, really. Funny how we live our life with the belief that if we try something it will poison us and then we finally try it and it ends up surprising us instead.

Dad didn’t have to do much cajoling at the restaurant. Runza’s do look good (since the cabbage and everything is hidden inside) and they smell good, too – and I was hungry. I took my first big bite of that Runza and I was hooked. Dad was so pleased that he laughed some more. I think he might have beat the adult average that day – which, come on, at seven a day is really not that hard to do.

So, Runzas became something special between Dad and I. Whenever we were out, he’d take me for one. I loved Runzas because they were good, but also because there was some of Dad’s laughter in every bite.

Ken finally left or rather disappeared or whatever it was he did. He was gone anyway. Dad had gone over to mom and had his arm around her. He was talking to her softly. Rats. More delays. I didn’t want to interrupt, though. I wanted Dad to be like that with Mom.

When I was up on that roller coaster and the lap bars came off and I looked down and I suddenly knew that there was nothing between me and the ground some hundred feet away – I was scared. I don’t like feeling like it would be so easy to fall and be hurt in unimaginable ways. That’s how I feel, though, when Dad is mad at Mom. It’s the same feeling. Seeing Dad with Mom now was nice, though. The lap bars were back down. Everything was safe.

I wandered over to where Tommy was staring at Mom and Dad. “Hey,” he said when he saw me.

“Hey,” I said back to him. Tommy hadn’t talked to me voluntarily for a long time. He had changed, I could tell, and it was nice.

“Have you seen any carts selling Runzas at this carnival?” I asked him. When I am hungry, it is really hard for me to think of anything else.

Tom smiled big when I said that. It wasn’t a laugh, but I’d take it. “Runzas, huh, Squirt?” I didn’t mind when he called me squirt. That’s what he used to call me when he used to talk to me. It was good. Tom liked Runzas, too. After Dad took me to get a Runza that one time, he took our whole family sometimes, too. We all liked them.

“Hey! Did someone say Runzas?” Dad called from where he was standing with Mom and they both started walking over with their arms around each other. I felt so happy to see them that way together, I thought my heart would just burst out of my chest. I was right. Runzas were happy food.

We walked back into the thick of the carnival and almost immediately found a Runza cart. I whopped for joy!

“I don’t remember seeing this before,” I heard Tommy say to Dad.

“Me neither, Tom, but whatever we need, this carnival seems to deliver.”

We got our Runzas. Dad left money. We all sat down, but instead of just eating all quiet and in our own little worlds like the model of the solar system my teacher had hanging in our class – little balls circling around each other but never talking – Dad cleared his throat and tried to talk. He asked Tom some questions about his friends and what they’d been doing lately. He asked me how math was going. It was just what grown-ups call “small-talk”, I guess, but it was nice. It felt like we were together – which we were, of course, but it didn’t always feel like it.

When we were done, we still sat talking. Dad got up for a minute, though, to get something back at the cart. When he came back, he was carrying cotton candy – pink. “It seems I promised you this, too. Isn’t that right Brittney?”

“Yipee!” I yelled. Right then I couldn’t think why I hadn’t trusted him to get me down the roller coaster. He was the best dad in the world!

“So,” Dad said looking around at everybody, “Any ideas about what we should do now?”

“This is our second day here,” Mom said. “Don’t you think its time we headed out?”

“I thought we couldn’t get out!” I volunteered in between mouthfuls of cotton candy.

“I don’t know how it could be possible that we can’t get out,” Dad said. “I know we looked around yesterday, but we didn’t really try very hard or for very long. I also don’t think any of us were thinking as clearly as we are today.”

Tom spoke up. “I think I saw the exit yesterday.”

“You did? Where?” Dad looked excited.

Tom didn’t look so excited to tell Dad. “I think I saw it in the Tunnel of Love. I think it’s that tunnel that went the other way.”

I stopped eating. That was the tunnel where he nearly drowned. I hoped we weren’t going back in there!

Mom saw the skeptical look on Dad’s face and jumped in, “We could try it. After all, I’m sure it’s a much more pleasant attraction when you are in a boat and not in the water.”

That made me laugh.

“I don’t know, though,” said Tom. “Most of the boats did go through the main tunnel. I don’t know what was special about that one boat that made it so it went down the side tunnel.”

“Well, we’ll keep that idea in mind.” Dad paused a minute, “You do have good ideas Tom.” It was hard for him to say and it made him uncomfortable I could tell. I didn’t have to look at Tom to know that he appreciated it. I hoped Dad could manage to do it some more – all the time!

“I think we should walk to the edge of the carnival and then walk around it until we find a door,” Dad said. “Maybe we should even split up and find a place to meet.”

Mom and Tommy were nodding their agreement, but I didn’t like that idea at all. “No!” I practically shouted.

They all looked at me in surprise. “Haven’t you noticed that the things in this carnival keep changing? If we split up, we may never find each other again. Like, the place we agreed to meet at could just -- disappear! Or worse! The carnival could split in half and we’d be separated forever! We can’t split up! We can’t! We can’t!”

“Whoa! Calm down, Little Miss,” Dad said. “It’s alright. We won’t split up. We’ll stay together, but I have a hard time believing it’s as hard as all that!”