Mr. Terupt Falls Again (24 page)

F
ADE IN: Aerial view of the Snow Hill Carnival. We see the vast field adjacent to the carnival where hundreds of cars are parked. Headlights are still turning into the lot and driving down muddy paths between the rows of vehicles, looking for places to park. Towering portable stadium lights have been brought in to illuminate the parking area and the pond that rests up over the hill next to the field. They shine brightly now as dusk settles in. It is Friday evening—opening night of the carnival—and virtually everyone from Snow Hill School is in attendance. The aerial view spans over the carnival and we see the bright, rainbow-colored flashing lights advertising the typical carnival attractions. There’s a plethora of food tents, everything from fried dough, cotton candy, and snow cones to pizza and burgers. There are games of every sort: water pistols, darts, ring tosses, and more. And then there’s the midway. The
aerial view zooms in on some of the main attractions. We see the Ferris wheel, the Tilt-A-Whirl, and the long line that has already formed for the roller coaster, the Torpedo
.

T
he 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.

M
om 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, holding 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.