"Have my father home tonight."

"Don't do it, Mickey."

"That's easy for you to say," Reardon said. "Your dad's sitting right at home."

"He doesn't know where your dad is. He can't bring him home. He's just trying to trick you."

"Oh, I know just where your dad is, and I'll bring him right home to you."

"Mick-"

"Shut up, Justin."

"Just say it."

"I wish I may oh wish I might," Reardon said. "Have my father home tonight."

"And so you shall," Cobb told him.

And then it was over, whatever it was.

Justin didn't know what he should have expected- Rick Reardon riding a lightning bolt down from the roof of the tent, landing right at his son's feet? The fabric of s.p.a.ce and time suddenly tearing like something straight out of one of his comics, so Mickey's deadbeat dad could come prancing through some wormhole with his guitar slung over his shoulder? He expected nothing and he got nothing, other than an offer of a wish of his own from Hannibal Cobb, which was summarily rejected.

Mickey, who had apparently been expecting some momentous event, himself, said, "Is that it? Is that all there is? Where is he?"

"Oh ye of little faith," said Hannibal Cobb.

He clapped his hands and the lights went out. Clapped again and they were back, as was the crowd Justin had wondered about, back in front of The Hands Of Wonder, who had so many multicolored b.a.l.l.s going now, Justin didn't think they could ever be counted.

They stood there, watching the crowd as the juggler juggled and the Alligator Man thrashed about his cage, the pickled punk floated and The Rubber Woman plied her trade. They turned to Cobb, but he was gone, no where to be seen as they looked around the tent, causing Justin to say, "Did any of this really happen?"

"Who knows?" Reardon said, and they both laughed.

"You had enough?" Justin said, then, "I know I have."

"Yeah, I reckon."

They stepped forward and walked down the line, past Sword Swallowing Sammy and The Rubber Woman, who winked when they went by her. They merged with the crowd, who stood mesmerized by the sailor-suited Hands Of Wonder, who kept those b.a.l.l.s spinning through the air with the greatest of ease.

There was one cage left, one final performer they hadn't seen. So they exited the astonished and delighted group and walked over to that final enclosure. They had seen him before, earlier today from their spot in the tree line. They had seen him before and they knew what to expect. But knowing what to expect made it no less shocking when they stepped up to that creature. He had no arms, he had no legs, just shiny stumps where his arms and legs should have been. He wore a dirty t-shirt, stained with dry brown spatters. Something that looked like a diaper had been knotted around his waist. He sat on a pile of straw, staring out through the bars. His hair was blonde, his eyes a deep shade of blue. And he was the saddest-looking thing Justin had ever seen.

"Now I know I've had enough," Justin said, and Reardon said, "Me, too."

They turned away from the sorriest spectacle Justin had ever laid eyes on and started toward the exit. Justin kept looking around for Hannibal Cobb, but he didn't see him anywhere. They left the tent, and the crowd, who had just moved on to The Fabulous Half Man-the most ineptly-named Sideshow performer in the history of the world, if you asked Justin, because he sure as heck didn't see anything fabulous about him, just a miserable piece of humanity whose story Justin did not want to know.

They were outside, standing in front of the tent in the cool October breeze, when Reardon said, "Look at that!"

It was a phrase Justin wasn't sure he ever wanted to hear again, and when he looked up at the tent, that p.r.i.c.kly sensation scurrying up his spine came rushing back. Reardon wasn't pointing up at the tent, nor was he nodding his head, but Justin saw it- "That looks like Ears!" Reardon said.

-those ears as wide as the open doors of a Volkswagen Beetle hanging off the head of the Pickled Punk, who floated face-down in his dark, murky, fluid-filled bottle.

"We'll have to bring him back tomorrow and show him," Reardon said. "He'll get a kick outa that!"

"No kidding," Justin said, wondering what they would find floating in that bottle if they ventured back inside the tent tonight.

Reardon turned away from the tent and so did Justin. They stood for a moment, looking up the midway, which was filled with the same people Justin had seen earlier in the evening: old men and young men, smiling couples with children; some children all on their own. Not just a bunch of people like the ones he had seen earlier, but the exact same people who'd been running up and down the midway when they'd first arrived at the carnival. The same two kids, he noticed, were sitting at the squirt gun booth, watching their rocket ships race each other up that rainbow-colored sheet of wood.

And there came Cindi (with an I) Stewart and her cla.s.smates, walking by them on the right. They were laughing and giggling, just like they were when Justin had first seen them tonight. She turned her head toward him and held up a hand, smiling and winking, giving her delicate fingers a wiggle as she and her friends continued up the thoroughfare.

"She must really like this place, huh?" Reardon said.

"I reckon," said Justin.

"Wonder what time it is."

Justin, who like his friend, wore no watch, said, "I don't know... eight, eight-thirty, maybe?"

"Time to go," Reardon said, Justin nodding as they turned up the midway, crossing the field on their way to the exit, where Jo-Jo or Bozo or whatever that clown called himself, was still standing beneath the Hannibal Cobb sign, smiling and waving the carnival-goers inside.

They found their bikes where they'd left them, leaning against a pole at the edge of the clearing. They turned and mounted them, and then took one last look at Hannibal Cobb's Kansas City Carnival and all of its surroundings, at the Ferris wheel that spun high above the tree tops.

Justin didn't remember a single instance since they had been there that it hadn't been spinning.

Chapter Twenty-One.

They pushed off their bikes and started the long journey home, past the carnival's entrance and up through the clearing, pa.s.sing the same cars and trucks and old beat-up jalopies they'd seen on their way into the place.

Down the old dirt road they went, the wind in their hair, the cool flow of it across their bare arms as they peddled their way back toward town. The moon, still high and full in its patchwork field of shimmering stars, shone down upon them.

It had been a long day of odd occurrences, a strange day and an even stranger night.

Capped off by what? Justin wondered, because he had a feeling this night was far from over. Something was coming, he just didn't know what or when. Or maybe nothing was coming at all. Maybe, just like his mother seemed to enjoy telling him, he was getting all worked up over nothing, a goofy byproduct of all the comics and DVDs he and Mickey spent most of their free time with.

They were on the asphalt road heading into Pottsboro, when Reardon said, "You think I'll get my wish?"

"h.e.l.l no," Justin said.

"Me neither," Reardon said, then, "What'd you mean, back in the Sideshow tent?"

"What?"

"You know, when you said he was tricking me."

"Oh," Justin said. "That."

"Yeah, that."

"I don't know. I just... It just... felt strange, wrong... When I came off the cups and hit my head... I don't know... everything went all weird. I opened my eyes and everything was different. All the people were gone and the tents were all changed, old and beat-up. The clown was a skinny old black guy. The rides, they were gone, too."

"That's weird, all right."

"Yeah, but when you shook me everything came back. So, I guess I just got knocked silly for a minute."

"Yeah, I guess so," Reardon said. "*Cause I didn't see nothing like that... thank G.o.d."

"I don't know what got into me."

"It was fun, though, wasn't it? The funhouse, all the different mirrors, the spinning cups?"

"I'll say."

"The sword swallower and The Rubber Woman?"

"That was awesome!"

"All those b.a.l.l.s The Hands Of Wonder was tossing around?"

"Sure had the crowd going," Justin said. "Didn't he?"

Reardon nodded his head. They were further up the trail. Soon they would be leaving the dirt road behind them.

Justin turned to take one last look at the Ferris wheel, and there it was, of course, spinning high above the tree tops.

"You think we'll really look like that, you know, back at the funhouse?"

"I don't know," Justin said. "Maybe."

"Too bad Cindi Stewart and her pack didn't happen by right about then, huh?"

"Yeah, I wonder what she'd look like in it."

"Probably big and fat with curlers in her hair."

Justin laughed. "Cindi with an I," he said, scoffing.

"Seriously," Reardon said. "You ever seen her mother, with her fat a.s.s and flabby arms, those k.n.o.bby knees she limps around on? I bet she'll end up looking just like her."

"Think so?"

"Probably."

"Wouldn't that be funny?"

"How could... I mean, I know a funhouse mirror can make you look all fat and everything, change your shape, make you round one minute and skinny as a rail the next. But how can it age you like that?"

"I don't know," Justin said. "Magic?"

"That's what the proprietor of the fine establishment we found ourselves in tonight said, huh, Justin?"

Justin chuckled. "That's what he said, all right."

"Hannibal Cobb and his Kansas City Carnival... How'd he do all that stuff? Did you see that smoke ring, how it turned into a couple of horses and galloped off to the ceiling?"

"And that picture, that video inside the thing-of us. How'd he do that?"

"Some kinda trick," Reardon said. "Gotta be. Hypnotism or something. That's how he made the lights go out and the crowd disappear, and then come back when he clapped his hands. That's how he did it. He hypnotized us. Clapping his hands triggered it."

"You reckon?"

"Sure. Clapped his hands and the lights went out, the people disappeared and all the noise they were making went with them. Clapped *em again and everything came back."

"Yeah," Justin said. "You're probably right."

"d.a.m.n right I am," Reardon told him. "How else could you explain all that stuff? We were hypnotized, all right. Probably wake up tomorrow and won't remember half this stuff."

They rounded a corner and headed up Main Street, past the Wagon Wheel Bar and Grill. Lights were on inside the place and country music floated out into the street. Justin wondered where Tricia Reardon was, and if she would be home when they got to Mickey's house. Somehow he hoped she would be.

Across the street, Rusty Piersol's patrol car still sat in front of Jim Kreigle's general store. The lights were on in there, too, which struck Justin as a little odd, because by now the store should have been closed up for the night.

"Wonder what they're doing in there," he said.

"Probably playing poker in Mister Kreigle's office," Reardon said. "They do that sometimes. My dad used to sit in with them." Reardon smiled, his face beaming with pride as he added, "Used to clean their a.s.ses out, too."

They were past the school now, past the courthouse with the town clock everyone was so proud of. They headed up Elm Street, the moon at their backs, the wind sweeping over them.

Justin wondered if they really could have been hypnotized, and thought they probably had been. How else could all that stuff be explained? The Alligator Man changing into an actual living, breathing, flesh and blood alligator, The Rubber Woman and all her antics, the way the crowd winked out with the lights, and then instantly came back when Hannibal Cobb willed them to. How else could it be explained? It couldn't, because to deny they had been hypnotized would have been to defy the laws of physics, the very construct of reality itself. Maybe things such as what they had witnessed turned out to be real in a Marvel comic book, but nothing like that could ever happen in real life.

And what about those people? What about them? The same people they saw running around the place when they pa.s.sed under that sign, the exact same people were prancing about the midway when they were getting ready to leave. From the first couple they had seen leading their kids down the midway, to Cindi (with an I) Stewart down to the same two kids firing off their squirt guns, n.o.body had left-nothing had changed. Was all of that a fabrication, all brought about by a hypnotic suggestion from the grand proprietor of Hannibal Cobb's Kansas City Carnival?

They hung a left by old man Terwillegher's house. The place was lit up. The screen door was closed but the wooden front door stood wide open. Justin wondered if he had gone out to the carnival, or if he was about to go. A thought that took him straight back to this afternoon, when he and Mickey had spied the grouchy old coot staring up at the cloud, the look in his eyes when he snapped out of whatever funk he'd been in and went ranting and raving all the way back to his house. The cloud, the top hat-shaped cloud that hung over Pottsboro, South Carolina-the dark ent.i.ty, that strange-looking artifact that still looked down upon them. Was that part of Hannibal Cobb's hypnotic suggestion too? Or was it a magical element brought forth by something that could make anyone see anything it wanted them to.

Was Hannibal Cobb even real?

"We should Google him."

"Huh?" Reardon said.

"Hannibal Cobb. We should Google him."

"h.e.l.l," Reardon said. "We should take Ears with us tomorrow night, get the two of them together and put their a.s.ses on YouTube."

Justin laughed, and so did Reardon.