Chapter 2 - Part 1

Brittney

I love carnivals. They’re so fun. We go every year to the one that comes to our town. It always comes in May right before school gets out for the summer, so the air is kind of charged with excitement, anyway. Mom and Dad used to both take us – Tommy and me – I mean. Tommy is almost six years older than me, so he would always go on the big rides and I would go on the little ones. I especially like the carousel – even now – even when I am almost ten and into double digits. Tommy always makes fun of me and calls the carousel a baby ride. I don’t care. I like what I like and why should I let him take that away from me? It used to seem like everything good and happy was being sucked out of my life, right before my eyes, but then I realized that some things were mine and always would be if I just held on to them tightly enough. Like carousel rides.

Anyway, Mom and Dad used to both take us to the carnival and we would always beg and plead that we be allowed to go on more rides. Sometimes they would let us and sometimes not, but it was always good to be at the carnival and stop worrying for a couple of hours about who was mad at who and who would be mad next. Mom says that I am very sensitive to other people’s feelings and that is a good thing. I wish I were not, though. It gives me stomachaches.

Even when we got older and Mom and Dad would just send us with some money, even then it was nice to get away and forget for a little while. Tom never stayed with me. He ran off to ride the roller coasters that shook and squealed and sounded as though they might break apart at any moment. That was okay with me. Then I was free to ride the carousel over and over. It doesn’t seem silly to me. A lot of people do things that make them miserable over and over and over. That is silly. I do something I like over and over and over. That is smart.

As we walked toward the carnival now, I could hear the music a little more clearly and start to smell the cotton candy and popcorn. We learned the word fortuitous in class last year. Running into this carnival right now was a very fortuitous event for my family. My stomachache had been very bad this time. A couple of hours in a different world could definitely help.

I closed my eyes to breathe in the smells of the carnival – only for a half a moment, I’m sure! But when I opened my eyes, we were there. Not just there as in at the outer edges, but there as in at the middle of the whole brightly lit, crowded-with-machines thing!

I stopped and looked behind me – looking for the edge of the corn field – but I couldn’t see it anywhere. All I could see was the carnival. Maybe because of the bright lights, I thought, but how did we get here so suddenly?

Then my heart stopped in my chest. There was still a ‘we’ wasn’t there? I spun around again and breathed lots more easily. There was my mother and Tommy standing not more than five feet away from me, looking around all confused-looking like me.

I ran up to mom and took her hand. Losing her once was enough for me. I wasn’t going to chance being separated from her again. I didn’t like being away from my mom.

**

Two years ago my elementary school had to meet in the old junior high for school classes while the old building I had walked to since kindergarten got torn down and rebuilt. The junior high was a little farther than my old elementary school had been, but it was still close enough that I could walk. My mom offered to drive me to and from school. I let her drive me there, but I really wanted to walk home.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I could have Tom walk by there and get you, too.”

I could imagine what Tom would say to that! I didn’t need to give Tom any more reasons to call me a baby. Besides, I had some friends who walked home and I really wanted to spend some time with them. It would be fun and it would be grown-up.

“Yes. I’m sure mom! I can handle it!” I remember feeling that it would be easy for me and mom would be so proud to know all that I could do.

It didn’t go exactly as planned, though. After school, my teacher needed to talk to me and by the time I got outside, my friends had left. I looked around. There were children heading down the street to the left and children heading down the street to the right. Which way to go? I pushed down the panic I felt rising in me and tried to think which way mom had come when she drove me there that morning. Just then this jerky boy from my class came by and said, “Wha’s the matter with Britwey? Can’t find her mommy?”

Sometimes in books, when people are mad the author says that they see red. I don’t know what color humiliation is, but at that moment the entire world got blotted out by it. I started down the street – any street – just to get away from that boy and his laughing friends. I hate it when people just say things to make their friends laugh at you, but it is especially worse when you are afraid that what they said is true and you wonder how much more they would laugh if they knew it.

By the time I looked up from my feet where I had concentrated all my thoughts on my shoes and what the sidewalk looked like moving under my feet, I looked up to find myself in a neighborhood I had never seen before. It couldn’t be that bad, I told myself, and I turned right and walked as best I could figure in the direction my house must be. When that didn’t seem to be working, I turned left and walked some more. I turned and turned and walked and walked, until I couldn’t take it anymore and I sat down on the curb, put my face in my hands and cried.

That was when the nice lady in the house I had chosen to sit down and cry in front of came out and asked me what was wrong and if she could help. Somehow she managed to understand me through all my hysterical gasping and sobs and in just a minute she had me in her car and drove me home to the address I gave her.

There was a police car in front of my house when I got there and I went inside to find my mother hysterical, too. She hugged me and hugged me until I about couldn’t breathe and we both cried together. She thanked the nice lady over and over and finally she and the police officer left and it was just me and my mother again.

“I’m sorry, Mom! I just got lost and I couldn’t find the way!” I tried to explain, “I just couldn’t do it!” I felt tears stinging my eyes again, but this time not from the fear of having lost my way, but because it feels awful to find out that you can’t do something.

“Oh Brittney,” Mom said, smoothing my hair, “It’s just too far for you. From now on, I will be there everyday and you won’t have to worry about it again.”

She sat and held me for a long time. I told myself that I felt better and that everything had turned out fine. But inside, something inside of me had died.

**

I noticed that the rain had stopped. Actually, looking at my feet, it didn’t seem to have rained here at all. I looked around. This just kept getting weirder and weirder. There seemed to be a sort of half-light coming from the sky, though there seemed to be something between us and the sky.

At home, the city pool puts a big billowy tent over the water in the winter and heats the area underneath so people can still swim. It looks like the top side of a pill bug from far away – a very big pill bug. I wondered if that was what was around us now?

But then, we would have had to come through a door . . . I looked around again, but all I could see were the flashing lights of the carnival rides and the booths with their cheap prizes and expensive balls that you could throw into the hoop or to knock down a pyramid of milk bottles.

Something else was weird about this place -- though, I couldn’t quite figure out what. That was when I saw a little girl sitting against the tent not ten feet away from us. That was it! That was what was weird! There were no people! There weren’t even people in the flashy prize booths were there was usually at least somebody telling you how easy it was to win a prize and you should spend your money here, yada, yada, yada.

I was so proud of myself for figuring out what was weird about this place that for a moment, it didn’t even creep me out. Just for a moment, though. I needed to talk to that girl. I wasn’t sure why, but it sure seemed to be the only thing to do. My heart started thumping in my chest.

I let go of Mom’s hand and started walking toward the girl. Mom noticed and after a minute, followed softly behind me.