In which there is innocence
He was not going to cry. He was not going to cry. Big boys did not cry, and he was a big boy. That was what Casey Rhodes, age five and three-quarters kept telling himself as he wandered around the busy street fair. He had come with his two big sisters, but Amy had got distracted by some sparkly hair pins and Katie had gone all googly eyed over some boy who was working there. Teenagers were so weird. Or maybe it was just teenage girls. The cooties probably did something to their brains after so long. Casey promised himself he'd never go all googly eyed over some girl the way that boy had with Katie.
As small boys so often do Casey had a rather short attention span for things that bored him. Besides there wasn't even anything good at this stand, just some girly junk like jewelry and purses. So after the most agonizing five minutes of his young life Casey went over to his eldest sister and tugged on her skirt.
"What Casey?" the teenager asked annoyed at being interrupted from her conversation with her long time crush.
"I wanna go play games!" Casey whined.
"We'll go play games later." Katie told him, her voice exasperated in a way only long suffering teenage girls could achieve. "Why don't you look around the stand? Amy seems to be enjoying herself."
"But its all girly stuff!" he declared stamping his foot before pulling a face of disgust. "and it smells funny here!"
"Thats probably the incense." the boy cut in.
"Look Casey just relax for like ten minutes and then we can go play games okay?" Katie said trying to appease her baby brother.
"But I wanna play now!" he pouted.
"Later Casey, or not at all!" Katie was beginning to loose her temper as well. Why oh why had her mother insisted she bring the brats here again, the teenager wondered.
The little boy stomped away pouting. As Casey sulked in the corner of the booth he looked out into the crowd. He could see the game booth from here, 'maybe' Casey thought 'I could just go by myself'. His mother's words about staying with Katie came back to him though and he hesitated. Casey looked back and forth between the game booth and his sisters. He should probably stay but they had the coolest stuffed tiger there and he really, really, really wanted it. Casey could practically feel his money burning a hole in his pocket (money he'd been saving all summer, earned from lemonade stands he and Amy had held), and Katie and Amy were taking so long. What if someone else won the tiger while he sat here waiting for those two. Horrified at the mere thought his mother's words slipped from his mind and with one final glance at his distracted sisters he was off.
The stand truly wasn't that far away but Casey (for all he thought himself to be a big boy) was just a small child in a big crowd. Without his sisters anchoring presences the five (And three-quarters) year old was quickly swept away by the raging tide of the crowd. Casey tried to break free but no one noticed the small boy trapt in the current. By the time the crowd had thinned out enough for Casey to escape he could no longer see the game stand or his sisters at the funny smelling girly booth.
This thus lead our young hero to his current situation; wandering around the street fair, definitely not crying. After a few more minutes of searching Casey plopped down at the base of a tree that stood between two booths. The young boy pulled his knees to his chest and buried his head in his arms. He wasn't going to cry, he wasn't going to cry; he just had something in his eyes that was why his eyes stung. It wasn't cause he was going to cry because only babies cry and he wasn't a ba--
"Are you okay?" a voice said above him breaking Casey from his internal mantra. Casey looked up to see a boy with messy brown hair, and green eyes looking down at him in concern. In his purple shirt and tan shorts he looked about the same age as Amy. "Are you hurt?" the boy asked kneeling down in front of Casey
"I-I'm l-lost" Casey told him shakily, with a slight sniffle.
The boy frowned before declaring determinedly "Don't worry I'll help you find your family."
"You will?" Casey asked him hopefully.
"Yeah come on!" the brown haired boy gave him a grin as he helped pull Casey up. "But first I think you need some cheering up! It'll only make your mommy more worried if you're all sad when we find 'em."
"I didn't come with my mommy I came with my sisters." Casey told the boy already feeling a little better.
"Hmm well sisters worry too right? Best to be on the safe side. I know! Come on!" the strange boy said before dragging Casey off. This time with the older boy holding his hand Casey didn't get swept up by the current. When at last they stopped they stood before a game booth. "Three balls please." Casey's mysterious savior asked before laying down some money. The object of the game was to knock over a pyramid of milk bottles. Tommy Jones in his class said that these games were rigged 'cause his big brother Eric could never knock them over and Eric was the best baseball player ever. Casey thought Tommy was probably just exagerbating, exagerlating, exager—lying, cause Tommy had said one time he'd gotten abducted aliens too and why would aliens want Tommy. Casey watched as the boy bit his lip and squinted after picking up the baseball. Finally he threw it. Casey gasped when his newfound friend knocked over the whole thing. Even if he knew Tommy was exager—lying Casey still knew it wasn't easy to knock one of the bottles over and the older boy had knocked over the whole entire thing. The brown eyed boy watched in growing amazement as the brunet did the same thing two more times. Even the man running the booth seemed shocked as he gave the older boy his prize.
"That was so great!" Casey exclaimed in wide eyed wonder when his older companion turned to him. "You were amazing!"
"It's cause I study martial arts with my dad." the boy told Casey proudly. "I gotta have good concentration and hand-eye coordination."
"Wow" Casey said in awe.
"Ah here this is for you!" the boy said handing Casey the prize he'd just won.
"But you're the one who one it!"
"Yeah but I won it for you."
Casey hesitated for a moment before giving the green eyed boy a shy smile "Thank you"
"No problem" he told him with a soft smile. "Come on let's go find your sisters!"
Casey held on tight to the prize and to the other boy's hand as they searched. Finally after what felt like an eternity to Casey heard his sister calling his name. The young boy smiled as he finally saw Katie. "That's my sister!" Casey told his friend happily. "Thank you for everything."
Casey slipped his hand from the other's grip and turned to run to his sister. "Ah I almost forgot to tell you!" the boy called after Casey making the younger boy stop. "My name is RJ!"
Brown met green as Casey turned to smile at the kind boy who had helped him so much. "I'm Casey!" and with that he turned and ran to his frantic sister.
Finally back home after his big adventure Casey hugged the stuffed toy RJ had won him. It wasn't a tiger but Casey thought his new wolf was even better.