Chapter 6 - Part 1

Chapter 6 – Brittney

I used to watch superheroes on TV. They were usually cartoons and the heroes usually had powers that the rest of us don’t have – like they could control the wind or fire. Sometimes they could even fly and wore capes. I used to think I knew exactly what a superhero looked like because I had seen so many on TV. I was wrong, though. Heroes don’t always wear capes.

When I started first grade, I used to wait in front of the school for Tommy to walk over from the Junior High and walk me home. It was just next door, so it made sense for Tommy to do it and not have mom make a special trip. It worked out fine the first couple of weeks. It was in the third week that a bigger boy started picking on me. He must have been a third grader. He would push me and steal my backpack. I’d chase him around, terrified he wouldn’t give it back, until his mom finally came and picked him up.

I can’t think of the first month of first grade without remembering how the thought of him overshadowed everything else. I dreaded hearing the final bell ring. I went to school dreading the first bell because I knew it would bring the final bell and that would bring – Billy. I hated school. I hated life! You might think I was too little to have such a big reaction. But when you are little, it only takes a little thing to knock you out. That’s what I think.

It never even occurred to me to tell my mom about it. In my first-grade mind, I couldn’t think of anything she could do about it, so I just didn’t tell her about it at all. It probably would have continued all year long, if Billy’s mom hadn’t been late one day.

Billy had already pushed me once and stolen my backpack and I was chasing after him while he laughed and held my bag high above his head. I was jumping, trying to grab the straps dangling from his hand, when he shoved me again. I fell back and started to cry. Billy loved that. “Crybaby! Crybaby!” he sang.

That was all I heard, because someone came barreling from behind me, plowing into Billy and knocking him to the ground. I hurriedly wiped my eyes so I could see. My brother, Tommy, was sitting on top of Billy and had his hands pinned behind his back.

“You think that’s funny, do ya?” Tommy was asking him.

Billy violently shook his head. I think Tommy had knocked the air clear out of him and he still couldn’t catch his breath.

“Do you know who that little girl is?”

Again Billy shook his head.

Tommy leaned down really close to Billy’s face. “That’s my little sister -- and if I ever see you push her again, if I ever see you take anything from her again,” he lowered his voice even quieter, “if I ever see you breathe on her again,” Tommy leaned all the way down next to Billy’s ear and whispered, “it will be your last breath.”

Then he jumped up and started walking toward home. “Come on, Britt!” he called. I scrambled up and ran after him.

That was when I learned that real heroes don’t wear capes. They carry schoolbooks and they might just sleep in the bedroom next to yours. Tommy became my hero that day and no matter what happened after that, nothing could or would ever change it. To me, my brother Tommy could walk on air.

**

I was still hugging Tommy when I noticed Ken was gone. The sky had gotten dark and the carnival lights twinkled on the prize booths and around the entrance to the Tunnel of Love. Mom was looking around us when she said, “Where’d he go?”

Dad had been looking at the three of us and scowling, but at Mom’s words, he turned and looked around. “He was just here --,” he said.

There was a woman sitting on a bench near the entrance to the Tunnel of Love. My dad approached her and asked, “Excuse me, but there was a grey-haired man talking to us just a moment ago. Did you see which way he went?”

The woman looked up at us blankly. “A grey-haired man? I saw you and your wife and your two kids swim out of the tunnel, but I haven’t seen any grey-haired man.”

“You must have seen him,” my dad insisited. “He was standing right here! You might even know him. He seems to own the place. His name is Ken.”

“Ken?” the woman asked. Then she looked off into the distance. “Ken. I remember a man named Ken. Yes. When we first got here. He had some good ideas.” She nodded. “I haven’t seen him for months.”

Months? I was alarmed. We couldn’t stay here for months! I sure didn’t want to anyway.

My dad was worried too, I could tell because he asked in a tiny voice, “Why are you here?’
She didn’t understand his question, though. She thought he wanted to know why she was sitting at the entrance to the Tunnel of Love.

“I’m waiting for my husband,” she sniffed. “I want to go on this ride with my husband. I know he will take me on the ride, so I am waiting right here.”

My dad’s eyes grew wide, “How long have you been waiting?”

She wouldn’t answer any more questions, though. She turned her back on Dad and pretended to study the lights around the entrance to the tunnel.

Dad slowly looked away from the woman and turned toward my mom. He looked sad, but I also thought he looked a little scared. Mom gave him a small smile.

I reached up and tugged on mom’s sleeve. “I’m hungry again, Mom!”

Dad still looked dazed. “I guess we need to plan on staying the night, at least,” he said.

He looked at my mom again for confirmation. She shrugged. “It’s better than being in the rain,” she ventured.

My dad smiled. I wondered if he wasn’t mad anymore. He was looking at my mom in a different way. “Yes, it sure is,” he agreed.

“Let’s get pizza!” I shouted. “And then can we get some cotton candy, Dad? Please? Please? Please?”

Dad did a half-smile at me. “Let’s go see what we can find!”
We found a pizza cart around the corner. The pizza was hot, but there wasn’t anyone there. Dad got us each a piece and left money on the counter again. He also left some money for cotton candy and pulled some off of the rack behind the cart. It was pink. I love cotton candy. Especially pink.