They slipped around the side of the house, to the dining room window. From here the table the Roebuck family gathered around at night could be seen, the living room, the wide open front door and a good part of Mary Roebuck's kitchen. The table stood empty, no plates on the table and no one around it. The television was on and Mary Roebuck was watching an old Andy Griffith Show rerun Justin had seen way more times than he could remember. The back of Mary's head was visible above the couch she sat on. Her hand rested on its plush fabric arm. They could see Mary Roebuck, but not her son, who may or may not have been slumped next to her on the couch. As far as Justin could tell, Danny Roebuck wasn't around, nor was his father, and he saw no reason to risk further exposure by adhering to Reardon's c.o.c.kamamie scheme of dragging someone along to deflect the slings and barbs that would be tossed his way once they found themselves amongst half the school's population, which would surely be in attendance tonight. He held out his palm, made legs out of the index and middle finger of his other hand, and then walked them straight down his palm and off the end of his fingers as he nodded toward the rear of the house.

Once they were back to the fence, over it and back on their bikes, Reardon said, "So much for that." And then he and Justin took off in the direction from which they had come, back up the alley and back to the street Danny Roebuck lived on, where they turned north toward town. Enough of their time had been wasted on frivolous pursuits.

Something was waiting for them at the edge of town.

And Justin could hardly wait to see it.

Chapter Nineteen.

It didn't take long to get to town, ten minutes to reach the city limits, another five and they were in the middle of Pottsboro. They pa.s.sed the schoolyard, the town hall and Jim Kreigle's general store. They thought about stopping there, but Rusty Piersol's patrol car parked in front of the place quickly changed their minds. Across the street was the Wagon Wheel Bar and Grill, and Justin (Mickey, too, Justin was pretty sure) wondered if Tricia Reardon was in the place, bellied up to the bar with old man Everett, throwing down her umpteenth shot of liquor. It was the first thing Justin thought of when he glanced over at the place, and he knew it had to be weighing heavily on his friend's mind, so he said, "Man, this is gonna be great."

"d.a.m.n straight it is."

"A magician's carnival, with all kinds of neat stuff."

They were past the Wagon Wheel, heading down a dark street that would lead them closer to the highway, closer to the edge of town, to the old dirt road that would take them straight to G.o.dby's field. The full moon lit the way as their legs churned, their wheels turned, and their destination grew closer.

"It really is gonna be great," Reardon said. "Isn't it?"

"With all that stuff this afternoon? It's gotta be!"

"I knew you'd come around."

"Heck, I knew when we were leaving there this afternoon, we'd be coming back, weird black cloud or no weird black cloud."

"Just a magician's trick," Reardon said. "That's all it was, and like I said, he was probably just getting started. Just think of what we'll see, now that he's had all day to get everything ready."

They went on like that for a while, each child commenting on what he thought they might find out at the old field. Though neither of them really knew what to expect, they were quite sure something incredible was going to happen once they reached their destination. How could it not, with what they had witnessed this afternoon?

Their legs pumped and the wheels turned round and round, and before they knew it they were on the old dirt road. Above them was that fat, full moon, and something else, Justin knew-a black cloud shaped like a top hat, a stationary object blotting out a section of a shimmering field of stars that just last night had filled the entire night sky; a dark object, a mysterious artifact that looked down upon the bright lights of a Ferris wheel. They could see it now, spinning high above the tree line, and they could hear the music, floating to them on a gentle breeze that ruffled their hair as they peddled their way up the road. The clank and clamor of the rides-that was there, too; laughter, joyful shouts and the carnival Barkers' excited cries.

It called to them, it pulled them. Just as the tide sucks water away from the sh.o.r.eline, Justin and Mickey were drawn forward, which was fine by them-wild horses couldn't have dragged them out of there tonight.

They burst through the tree line, into a clearing populated with pickup trucks, cars and old jalopies, parked in rows on either side of them. Doors were opening and slamming shut, people laughing and cussing, whooping and hollering on their way to the entrance. There was a sign hanging above the entrance, the same one Justin had seen earlier in the afternoon. Hannibal Cobb's Kansas City Carnival, it read, and it swung on the breeze, reflecting moonlight off its flat wooden surface. There was magic in that sign-Justin could feel it, just as he could feel the warm and inviting arms of the carnival opening up before him. They were here now, and the nervous apprehension they'd felt this afternoon had suddenly melted away from them, giving way to the awe and wonderment that had pa.s.sed their way this time of the year for as long as they could remember. They were here now, and they d.a.m.n well meant to enjoy themselves.

They looked for a place to park their bikes, finally selecting one of the poles that had magically appeared while they'd been watching the cloud this afternoon. They leaned the bikes against it and walked off toward the entrance. There were lights on those poles now, and they bathed the entire area with a warm phosph.o.r.escent glow. A clown stood at the entrance, an honest to goodness clown. He wore striped silk pants and bright purple suspenders. The red and white stripes, several inches wide, ran vertically up his legs. A red-checkered jacket hung loose on his lanky frame, and an orange and yellow and florescent-green wig sat atop his head. He had penciled-in eyebrows that looped high into his forehead, a thick layer of white pancake makeup and multi-colored stars covering his face, along with a wide, painted on smile that took up half of his chin. He was smiling, all right, smiling and waving everyone inside.

"Welcome!" he called out when Justin walked by him. "We've been waiting!"

Then they were through the entrance and onto the thoroughfare, and what a thoroughfare it was. Reardon had been right on target. This afternoon, there'd been a Ferris wheel and a couple of weather-beaten tents. But the tall man had just been getting warmed up. Before them on either side of the walkway were a series of high-arcing tents made of thick, clean canvas. All along the clearing, there stood booths and stalls housing a variety of games. Squirt guns that fired water into painted circles, carved into a rainbow-colored sheet of wood a few feet away. A couple of kids were letting it rip, laughing as plastic rocket ships on the sides of their holes raced steadily higher and thin streams of water jetted into those painted circles, until one of the rockets reached its zenith and a buzzer went off.

"Annnnnd we have a winner!" a guy called out. Justin recognized him from this afternoon. He was tall and thin, with curly brown hair. The white t-shirt he wore was striped with horizontal blue lines. There was a ring in his ear and one in his nose. He plucked a kewpie doll off a long shelf full of them, smiling as he handed it over to the happy winner.

Next door, a man reared back and let fly a baseball, which went wide right of a stacked-pyramid of three metal milk bottles. He grabbed another ball, tossed again and the top bottle went over. His hand went into his pocket, and out came three one-dollar bills, which were slapped down on the counter and quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed away. The guy who did the s.n.a.t.c.hing looked remarkably like the man at the squirt gun booth-Justin had to look back at the squirt gun guy to make sure it wasn't him. They both had on the same outfit, but no ring hung from this guy's nose. He handed the pitcher a couple of b.a.l.l.s, stepped back and shouted, "Come one, come all! Knock *em down and grab yer prize!"

Further down the way were the spinning teacups, Justin's favorite ride. Last year he and Mickey had stepped off them so dizzy they could barely stand up. They walked up the midway, past a hot dog stand and an Italian Ice wagon. They stood for a moment in front of a stall, which had BB guns placed a foot or two apart up and down its long counter. A line of little yellow ducks s.p.a.ced several inches apart rolled along the rear of the stall, targets for all who wished to try their luck. Not far ahead was a square wooden platform with rails running around its sides. A painted bulls-eye stood in the middle of the platform, attached to a narrow wooden channel that stood near eight feet tall. A round metal ball sat at the base of the channel, waiting for the time when someone would pound a mallet into the bulls-eye, sending the ball racing skyward. It was the old *Ring The Bell' game that had inhabited every carnival Justin had ever attended. One year, back before Justin was old enough to go off to the carnival on his own, his dad had actually rung the bell. Justin never had, but he knew his time was coming, sooner or later.

"What do you think?" Reardon said.

"What?" said Justin.

"You hungry? I am. I'm hungry as all git-out."

"Man," Justin said. "Do you realize we haven't had anything to eat since that Snickers bar this afternoon?"

"Wow," Reardon deadpanned. "Snickers really does satisfy you."

There was a booth a little further up the midway, a large rectangular sh.e.l.l inhabited by the fat woman Justin had seen filing out of one of the tents earlier today. She had on a white dress patterned with large black polka dots-the material, shiny and sheer, shimmered beneath the lights, as if it were a costume and she a circus performer. Her hair was a black bonnet of swishes and curls. A wide circle of red rouge decorated those flabby cheeks of hers. A lit cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth, a metal spatula from her hand. A sign running along the top of her stand advertised a variety of carnivalicous cuisines: hamburgers and hot dogs, corn dogs and French fries and roasted ears of corn. The grease, as magical to Justin as the carnival itself, drew him to it.

"What'll it be, sweetie?" she said, when Justin reached the booth.

"Ah, a corndog, I guess... maybe two? And a c.o.ke!"

"And you?" she said to Reardon, who shrugged and said, "The same, I reckon."

They stood for a moment looking out at the midway, while the woman scurried around her stand. People were moving about the different booths and stalls, old men and young men, and couples with children; some children all on their own, like Justin and Mickey. There was a carousel down the way, with painted horses that went up and down, while the multicolored platform they were attached to spun round and round. And there were the tents, of course, brand spanking new tents that called them forward. Banners and pennants flapped in the breeze above and alongside those tents.

Girls! Girls! Girls! said one.

Try Your Luck! said another, while flying above the largest tent of all was a long, wide banner, whose big bold letters spelled out: See The Wonders!

It was the Sideshow tent, one his mother would never have allowed him to enter, the one he snuck into every year.

The lady sat a couple of paper cups on the counter. "Here ya go," she said. "Four and a quarter a piece."

Reardon did a double-take when Justin dug into his pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. He laid it on the counter, and Reardon said, "I thought you didn't have any money."

Justin looked down at his hand, which was still flat on the bill. He started to say *I didn't', but before he could, the lady handed him his corndogs and s.n.a.t.c.hed up his money. He stood there, the corndogs in one hand, the c.o.ke before him, watching Mickey pull out a twenty of his own. Justin didn't have any money-He never had any. Yet he reached into his pocket as if he'd known all along it would be there. And there it was, and there was his change on the counter-he hadn't even seen her place it there, but there it was, all right. He scooped it up and pocketed it, grabbed the plastic bottle of mustard and ran a thin line down the side of one of his corndogs, exchanged it for the ketchup and ran a line of it down the other side. He took a bite of his corndog, which, to his great satisfaction, was the best one he'd ever sunk his teeth into. He chewed and swallowed, picked up his c.o.ke and took a nice long drink. Soon they were side by side, wolfing down their food.

The wind swept past them, the moon shone bright in the sky, and those great smells floated on the breeze: pink cotton candy, corndogs and fresh hot fries, funnel cakes and grilled meat, the sizzle of grease pop-pop-popping off the griddle. It was a great place to be, a wonderful time to be young. They ate their food and drank their drinks, and when it was gone they were happy.

They had stepped away from the food cart and started up the midway, when somebody called out, "Mickey Mozzarella!"

They turned to see Cindi Stewart leading a pack of girls down the thoroughfare, Cindi (with an I), the prettiest girl in their eighth grade cla.s.s. She was smirking; her friends were laughing.

"Screw you," Reardon said.

"Not in this century, pizza-face!" Cindi called out, and her friends laughed even harder.

"Like I would anyway," Reardon said, as Cindi and her friends moved a little further down the line.

"What," Justin said. "You wouldn't?"

"Only if she let me," Reardon said, drawing a snort of laughter from Justin, who said, "I heard that!"

They crossed the wide stretch of midway, not stopping until they stood in front of a mirrored Funhouse. It was new this year, a wrinkle that had been absent from the previous carnival. But this wasn't the old carnival, was it? This was a new and improved version, the best version Justin had ever laid eyes on. They ran up the Funhouse steps. No one was there to take their money and hand them tickets, so they scurried through the entranceway, down a long mirror-filled corridor of curves and sharp angles, a maze each boy knew they would have a blast finding their way out of. They stopped for a moment, each watching with glee as their thin frames stretched impossibly wide, filling the narrow pane of gla.s.s with comical-looking versions of themselves. They laughed, pointed their fingers and laughed some more, and then moved on down the line, around a corner, watching their shapes swirl and dramatically change as they went.

They were squeezed, flattened into two-foot high and four-foot wide caricatures of themselves, only to watch their bodies grow impossibly long at the next stop. One minute they were short and squat, the next they were round as overblown beach b.a.l.l.s. Their faces would stretch and bow outward, and then go suddenly gaunt. Their feet became clown-feet, their arms thin as strands of spaghetti. Laughter echoed behind them as they navigated the maze they found themselves in. A left-hand turn led them to a dead end pane of gla.s.s where their reflections suddenly disappeared.

"Look at that!" Justin said. "We're vampires!"

They laughed as they started back, and kept laughing as they crisscrossed their way toward the end of the line, which came upon them in a most abrupt manner. One minute they were surrounded by mirrors. The next thing they knew, light was streaking through an opening that suddenly appeared before them. Justin took a step forward, and Reardon said, "Wow!"

Justin turned to see Mickey staring into yet another mirror. One by one his pimples seemed to vanish from his face, replaced by fresh, supple skin, the kind one might find on somebody in a J C Penneys catalogue. Before he knew it, Mickey Reardon stood before the mirror completely unblemished. His arms began to grow, to thicken, as did his legs. Muscles suddenly sprouted, as did his hair. His jaw grew lean and firm, as his body began to morph like something out one of those computer games he was so fond of lingering in front of. His shoulders grew wide, his legs long. His face began to mature, until suddenly, standing before the mirror was the spitting image of Rick Reardon, the man his mother had fallen in love with all those years ago. The same, but not the same, different enough for Justin to know who he was looking at, what it was that appeared before him.

"Justin," Reardon said. "Look!"

And Justin did. He stepped up behind his friend and saw the lantern jaw, the narrow eyes and the long muscular frame-his own long muscular frame, standing next to Mickey Reardon, who was no longer a thirteen-year-old kid, but a grown man. Their hair was longer, their bodies thicker, their arms the well-muscled arms of athletes. They could have been college men on the way to meet their dates, a couple of foundry workers, out for a night on the town. This was what they would grow into; this was what they would become when their young bodies had matured. It was a welcome look into the future, especially for Mickey Reardon, whose eyes were beginning to fill with tears.

"This is too much," Justin said. "Way too much."

He grabbed his friend and began tugging him toward the exit.

"C'mon, man," he said, and Reardon followed him out into the night.

They stood in front of the Funhouse, looking out at the carnival. They had seen into the future-Justin was sure they had, as was Mickey Reardon, who said, "Can you believe it? I'm not going to be a pizza-faced geek for the rest of my life. I'm gonna be a cool dude, just like my dad."

Justin put a hand on Reardon's shoulder, looked him dead in the eye, and said, "Mickey, you're a cool dude now. You've always been a cool dude."

Mickey stood for a moment, looking at his friend. He seemed to be at a loss for words, as if struggling to find the right ones. Finally, he said, "You too, man. Both of us."

"Yep," Justin said. "That's us, all right-a couple of cool dudes, out on the town."

Reardon chuckled, and Justin said, "C'mon, man. Let's. .h.i.t the cups."

They hurried up the midway, past the Duck Shooting Gallery, past a stall where a couple of kids were tossing darts at a wall of multicolored balloons. Past the Sideshow tent they went, where a couple of teenagers were about to enter. Calliope music floated in the air around them, chuckled laughter and shouts of joy. Above them spun the Ferris wheel, while all around the midway people stalked Hannibal Cobb's Kansas City Carnival with happy smiles on their faces.

"Annnnnd we have another winnnnnner!" somebody called out, the p.r.o.nouncement so exciting, it made Justin want to turn celebratory cartwheels all the way up the midway.

There was one empty unit when they arrived at their destination, which, of course, was The Spinning Tea Cup ride, a ride Justin knew quite well, one he always looked forward to boarding. Justin's favorite ride consisted of four cup-shaped enclosures, which sat on a round wooden platform. Like everything else at the carnival, the platform was decorated in multicolored swishes and swirls. The teacups themselves, all colors of the rainbow, could have come straight from the legendary party of Alice herself. Justin knew how the ride worked-he'd Googled it: four colored cups sit on a circular floor, like four little teacups on the flat surface of an old turntable painted up to look like a plate. When the ride takes off, the spinning cups spin and the floor turns round and round. But that wasn't the good part, as far as Justin (and anyone else who considered themselves to be carnival ride connesuirs) was concerned. The good part-the great part-was the centrally located wheel in the middle of the cup that spun each one individually, ratcheting the ride up to G-force intensity, if you had the b.a.l.l.s to take it there, which was just what Justin and Mickey loved about the ride. One year, having been the first in line, they'd spun the wheel while waiting for the ride to fill, spun it and kept it spinning *til Justin thought they might pa.s.s out. When they slowed to a stop, they spilled out onto the gra.s.s to find the actual ride hadn't even started yet, too dizzy to even think about trying to stand up.

Tonight there was one empty cup, and Justin and Reardon stepped right into it. They were sitting opposite each other, hands already on the wheel, when somebody sang out, "Mickey Mickey Mozarrella has a dirty stinky belly! Mickey Mickey Mozzarrella's face is made of runny jelly!"

Justin turned to see Cindi (with an I) Stewart in the cup behind them. Surrounded by three of her friends, they kept up their incessant chanting while Mickey's face turned several different shades of red.

"Don't listen to *em," Justin said.

"How the f.u.c.k can I not listen to *em?" Reardon said, the anger in voice rising like snapping snakes.

"Ignore them," Justin said. "Let *em sound like the stuck-up jerks they are."

"Yeah, that'll work," Reardon said, rolling his eyes as if it were the dumbest thing to ever pa.s.s by his ears.

"Turn it!" Justin called out, and he and Reardon began turning the wheel, harder, turning it faster, until the world outside was nothing but a blur of lights and sounds and rushing wind. They were laughing and smiling, turning the wheel and holding on for dear life while the centrifugal force a.s.saulted them. Lightheaded would have been a good word to describe them-dizzy, even better. Lightheaded and dizzy, heading for out and out unconsciousness.

And the actual ride wasn't even moving yet!

And then it did.

"Keep your seats and hold on tight!" somebody called out as the ride jerked to a start. "Stir, stir, stir with all your might!"

The platform turned and the spinning cups spun, and two thirteen year old boys howled laughter like there was no tomorrow. There were sounds Justin couldn't identify, sights he didn't even try to identify. They could have been in an airplane, lifting off the runway, in a rocket ship soaring up to the moon. They laughed and screamed and turned the wheel, the high velocity spin pushing their cheeks flat as the cups whirled faster and faster. They laughed and screamed and the ride sped up; screamed and laughed and the laws of gravity went haywire, until suddenly it was too much-they'd gone too far. Justin, who had begun to grow faint, let go of the wheel and slumped over in his seat. They'd gone too far, and that fun-filled feeling of lightheaded dizziness quickly turned into a spine tingling sensation that rushed like a river of fear over him.

His heart was in his throat, his stomach right behind it.

And now a new set of words flashed through his mind: fear... dread...

"Stop," he said. He gripped the wheel, but Mickey kept turning Panic...

"Stop," he cried out, but Reardon didn't stop.

Terror...

And now that blur of sound began to meld, to twist and turn, until that wall of noise became a deep-throated moan issued forth from a far off world Justin hoped he would never have to visit, but somehow thought he might already be there, a place of shadows and demons, and twisted creatures who whispered: We've been waiting!

The ride began to slow, the spinning platform to falter. Mickey Reardon's laughing face came into focus. Moments later, the spinning cup finally ground to a halt.

"Step right up!" came the carnival Barker, as Reardon stepped out of the cup, and Justin staggered after him.

"Keep your seats and hold on tight!" the voice cried out, as Justin stumbled sideways, and then fell to the ground and his head hit a rock, a shoe or a thick piece of wood. Whatever it was, jolted him to the bone, and he opened his eyes not to the wonderful, fun-filled carnival he and Reardon had entered earlier in the evening, but to an overgrown field populated by the same weary and weather-beaten tents they had spied from their hiding place deep within the tree line of G.o.dby's field this afternoon. Gone were the spinning cups, the mirror-filled funhouse, the painted ponies and half the stalls and booths, gone was Cindi (with an I) Stewart and her giggling friends, and all the happy-go-lucky people he'd seen wandering the midway. All of it gone, replaced by a few old tents and banged-up sheet metal booths and carts, and the tall man, who stood in the shadow of that ever-spinning Ferris wheel, beside not a grinning clown in pancake makeup and red and white striped pants, but an emaciated old Negro in blackface Al Jolson makeup and a pair of tattered bib coveralls. They stood beneath the Hannibal Cobb sign, staring out at the midway while that top hat-shaped piece of sky looked down upon Jack Everett's sleek black Caddy. Cobb was smiling, his black eyes were flashing. The wind blew and the moon smiled down, and Justin felt his world slipping away.

He started to get up, but his legs wouldn't move.

He closed his eyes and started to drift.

Reardon shook him and everything was back. There was the funhouse and there were the spinning cups, the smiling clown and a parking lot full of cars and trucks, brand spanking new tents and pretty little Cindi Stewart, who smiled and said, "What are you, some kinda wuss?"

"f.u.c.k off," Reardon growled, and Cindi said, "My, aren't we touchy?"

He offered his hand and Justin took it, pulled and Justin staggered up to his feet.

"To the Sideshow!" Reardon called out, and then took off up the midway.

Justin, still a bit woozy, stumbled sideways. He stood for a moment, taking a few deep breaths before starting after his friend.

"Better hurry!" Cindi called out. "They're waiting!"

Justin stopped dead in his tracks. He turned but Cindi Stewart was already moving off in the opposite direction with her gaggle of young friends.