Danger at the Fair (8 page)

“I don’t like it,” Mitch said. “Maybe we shouldn’t even wait
to eat dinner with Tucker. All we need is some little kid going to the cops.”

“Today has been the best day of the whole summer,” Alan said. “Maybe even the best day of my whole life. We got tons of wallets and purses. We even got that video camera. Let’s keep that. Can we, Mitch?”

“Be quiet, Alan. I’m trying to think.”

“This is way more fun than delivering a dumb old car,” Alan said. “And you said we could do it all afternoon. You promised.”

“Alan!”

Alan said, “Mom! You promised, too. You said if I did my part good, I could have some of the money. You said we could do it until Uncle Tucker’s dinner break.”

“We did say that, Mitch,” Joan said. “Now that we know about the boy, we can watch for him. There can’t be more than one kid that age running around with a Batman bandage on his face and elephants on his shirt. If we spot him, we’ll back off.”

“I don’t like it,” Mitch repeated. “We’ve done well this year; we’ve made a lot of money. I don’t want to blow it over a two-bit pickpocket incident.”

“Just work until dinnertime, when we meet Tucker,” Joan said. “We promised Alan and it’s been such fun, working a crowd again. It’s like when I was first on my own and had to pick pockets in order to eat.”

“If we get caught by the cops, your meals will be provided by the state—in jail.”

“First offenders get off with a warning.”

“Not always.” Mitch knew Joan did not fully understand
what a risk she was asking him to take. How could she, when Mitch had never told her about his past? She did not realize the depth of his fear. She did not know how important it was for Mitch never to be picked up by the police.

“Let’s tell Tucker about the kid,” Joan suggested, “and Tucker can watch for him, too, just like he watches for the guards now. If the kid shows up, Tucker signals us, and we beat it out of there.”

Mitch looked dubious. “That platform of Tucker’s is a long way up and there are an awful lot of little kids at the fair.”

“Not wearing big Batman bandages on their cheeks.”

“Please, Mitch?” Alan said. “I want to do my ice-cream trick some more. This is the most fun I’ve had in my whole life. Please?”

“No,” Mitch said. “No more. We’re going to sit right here and wait for Tucker.”

“Nobody ever keeps their promises,” Alan said. He put his head down on the seat and started to cry.

“You can sit here, if you want,” Joan said. “Alan and I are going back to the fair. We’ll work alone.”

Alan’s tears instantly vanished.

Joan and Alan got out of the car.

“Don’t do this,” Mitch said.

“I worked by myself for years, before I met you.”

Mitch looked at Joan and Alan, side by side, glaring at him. It was that way too often—Joan and Alan on one side, Mitch alone on the other. He wondered if the three of them would ever seem like a real family.

“All right,” Mitch said. “We’ll tell Tucker. We can use the same signal we have for fair guards or cops.” He got slowly out of the car.

“Lock the doors,” Joan said. “You don’t know what sort of people go through this parking lot.”

Alan laughed.

The three headed back through the main entrance of the fairgrounds, showing the ink stamps on the backs of their hands that allowed them to get in without paying an entrance fee. Their first stop was the commercial exhibit building, where Mitch picked up another free shopping bag. Next they headed for The River of Fear to tell Mitch’s brother, Tucker, to watch for a boy with a Batman bandage.

“I want another chocolate marshmallow ice-cream cone,” Alan said. “I hardly got to eat any of the last one.”

AS SOON
as the teenagers let go of his arms, Corey headed for the sheep arena. There was no use trying to catch the thief when he had no voice. Corey would find Ellen and she would give him something to write on and he would write down his description of the thief and Ellen would go with him to look for the man. Ellen could be a hero, too, though Corey would still be the main hero because he was the one who saw the man stealing.

When Corey arrived at the sheep arena, three people were walking their sheep in a slow circle. One held a large purple rosette, one held a blue ribbon, and one held a red ribbon. Corey recognized Caitlin’s cousin; he was the one with the red ribbon.

Corey stood by the railing and watched the winning sheep parade around the arena for awhile before he began to climb the steps toward where Ellen and Caitlin had sat earlier. Partway up, he realized that Ellen and Caitlin were not there.

Corey looked all around the arena, thinking they had changed their seats, moved lower where they could see the sheep better.

They were gone. He must have just missed them, since he was certain they would have watched Ben show his sheep. Probably they had gone outside to get something to eat. He left the arena to look for Ellen.

Corey walked along a row of food booths, sniffing all the wonderful odors. Cotton candy. Hot dogs. Teriyaki stir-fry. Even though he was too full to eat anything more, it all smelled delicious.

He pressed his nose against the window of the funnel-cake booth. The cook squirted ribbons of batter in a circular motion into a vat of hot oil, going around and around in ever-larger circles, shaping each funnel cake like a miniature braided rug. The oil bubbled around them and the cakes quickly puffed up and turned golden brown. After each funnel cake was fried, the cook lifted it from the oil with a large slotted spoon, shaking the spoon to drain off the excess oil. He put the funnel cake on a paper plate, and sprinkled powdered sugar on it. Maybe, Corey thought, he could squeeze one funnel cake into his over-stuffed stomach.

Corey dug into his pocket and counted his money, dismayed to see how little he had left. How could it be gone so soon? He didn’t even have enough to ride on The River of Fear. However, there was exactly enough to buy a funnel cake, and Corey did so, pointing at the cakes and holding up one finger so the cook knew what he wanted.

Tonight, he would ask his parents if they had some chores he could do to earn extra money. Maybe he could wash windows or mow the grass or weed the flower beds. If he could
earn some money tonight, he and Nicholas could come back to the fair and ride The River of Fear together. Nicholas was sure to feel better by tomorrow and Corey’s voice should be back by then, too. It would be great to ride and scream together.

He took a huge bite of funnel cake, sending a shower of powdered sugar down the front of his shirt. Yum. Chewing happily and making his plans for tomorrow, Corey strolled around the fairgrounds, looking for Ellen. She and Caitlin were not in the sheep barn; they were not on the merry-go-round; they were not in the Arts and Crafts exhibit, where Ellen always liked to go because she said it inspired her to make new things.

Some lumberjacks were putting on a show; Corey applauded as two men in spiked shoes raced to the top of a pole. He watched a man carve totem poles with a chain saw. The saw buzzed and whined as the man fashioned a bear from a cedar log.

When a loudspeaker announced that it was time for the pig races, Corey hurried with the crowd to a fenced area where five piglets waited to dash toward their food.

After the pig races, Corey returned to the sheep barn, intending to ask Ben if he knew where the girls were. Ben, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Corey decided he should call his parents, tell them what had happened, and ask them to come and get him. He hoped he would be able, with his hoarse voice, to make them hear enough to know what he was saying. If he couldn’t, they might think it was a prank call and hang up.

He saw a public telephone at the front of one of the exhibit halls. He went there, picked up the receiver, and realized he needed a quarter before he could get a dial tone. He had no
quarter. He had no money at all. Phooey. He probably shouldn’t have bought that last funnel cake.

Well, he would just walk around and look for Ellen awhile longer. That would be more fun than going home, anyhow, and if he never found her, he could always go to a guard or the information booth and ask them to call his parents.

Corey wandered toward the merry-go-round. He liked the merry-go-round music and wished he had enough money to ride on one of the horses while he waited. He would choose the white horse with the blue and silver saddle.

“Win a genuine stuffed dinosaur! Only seventy-five cents!” When the merry-go-round stopped, Corey heard the man’s voice and got angry all over again. If that man wasn’t a crook, Corey would not have wasted so much of his money trying to win a dinosaur.

He decided to spy on the bottle booth. Maybe he could discover how the man cheated his customers. He would tell the police and they would come and arrest the man and the mayor would give Corey an award and all the other kids who tried to win a dinosaur and got cheated out of their money would come to the award ceremony and cheer and Corey would get his picture in the newspaper.

Corey sneaked along the narrow alleyway behind the food booths, darting quickly between buildings. When he was near the bottle booth, he crouched behind a large trash bin and peered out.

He wished he could disguise himself, so the bottle-booth man wouldn’t recognize him. All the good spies he had read about wore disguises. He looked quickly around; no one could see him behind the trash bin. It was the perfect place to put on a costume, if only he had one.

Since he didn’t, he would have to change his appearance as best he could. Corey picked at one corner of the Batman bandage, held it tightly and clenched his teeth. Taking a bandage off was worse than getting hurt in the first place. Silently he counted,
one, two, three.
On
three
, he yanked the Batman bandage from his face, wadded it up, and stuffed it in his pocket. Next he took off his T-shirt, turned it inside out so the zoo logo and the picture of the elephants didn’t show, and put it back on. Using both hands, he mussed up his hair. He couldn’t think of anything else he could do to change his appearance, so he peeked out and spied on the bottle booth.

As he watched, he heard The River of Fear spiel again. He wondered how it would feel to take the death-defying plunge down Whiplash Waterfall, to enter the Tunnel of Terror, and to meet the monsters of Mutilation Mountain. He would
have
to earn some money and return to the fair.

People kept walking between the trash bin and the bottle booth, making it difficult for Corey to see. He shifted and peeked out the other direction.

The woman and the boy who kept dropping his ice cream sauntered toward him. The child was licking another ice-cream cone.

Some people never learn, thought Corey, and just as he thought it, the boy tripped and fell, sending the ice-cream cone splattering into the dirt at the feet of a couple who were holding hands. The boy instantly began to cry. Corey watched as the couple tried to help the boy up but he only wailed louder.

Corey’s mouth fell open in surprise. There was the man with the shopping bag! The thief! Corey stared as the man lifted a wallet out of the tote bag of the woman who was trying to help the boy. The man dropped the wallet into his
MADE IN
THE U.S.A.
shopping bag, exactly as he had dropped in the other woman’s purse, earlier. The couple, their attention focused on the crying child, never noticed him. Neither did any of the people nearby. The kid was having a first-class tantrum over his ice-cream cone.

Corey leaped from behind the trash container. Waving both arms wildly and forcing unintelligible squeaks from his raw throat, he rushed toward the man with the bag.

CHAPTER
8