Disclaimer: Susan, Lavinia, Karen, Patricia, and Melinda are mine.

Everything else…

Isn't.

This chapter is dedicated to my dog, because he looks really cute right now.

Chapter Five- Without Supervision

"When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends"

-Japanese proverb

As soon as they got in the gate, they had a problem.

"Come on, I see a sign for funnel cakes!" Patricia exclaimed, pointing to the left. She had gone about four feet in that direction when someone grabbed her arm, cutting off her route to the funnel cake stand. She turned around to see James, tugging her in the other direction.

"Cotton Candy!" He exclaimed, pulling her to the right. She pulled her hand away from him and turned around, going back towards the funnel cakes. Meanwhile, Melinda, Karen, and Audra were debating between the rides and the arcade. James was still tugging Patricia firmly along towards his cotton candy, Susan was hesitantly moving towards the horse show, and Sirius was eyeing the candy apples hungrily.

Lily personally agreed with James, and could have really used a decent pile of cotton candy at the moment, but she realized as she watched the emerging pandemonium that if she didn't bring about some order, no one would, and they'd be stuck here, debating, until the fair closed and they wouldn't have gotten anything done.

So, being the practical Lily that she was, she stepped in.

"Hey" She tried to get everyone's attention.

It didn't work.

"HEY!" She yelled, and everyone swiveled their heads around to look at her.

"Alright, we're all big boys and girls. We can handle ourselves. Let's just all split up, do what we want to do, and meet back here for the last hour before closing?"

Sirius looked at Patricia, who looked back at Lily, who glanced at Susan, who nodded to Remus, who shrugged at James, who grinned at Lily.

"Okay!" "Yeah" "Alright" "Sounds good" "Works for me" came the chorus of replies.

As it turned out, Patricia, Karen, and Sirius ran for the funnel cakes, Susan followed her cousin and James to the cotton candy vendor, and Melinda, Remus, Lavinia, and Audra decided to go on some rides while the lines were short. Suffice it to say that these groupings were not the best possible, and chaos ensued.

"I see it! Right there! Come ON! Do you want funnel cakes or DON'T you?" Patricia yelled to Karen and Sirius, who were still walking calmly towards the stand. "LOOK, there's no line! Let's GO! Time is of the essence, slowpokes! Vite! Vite!

Deciding that the other two were hopeless cases, she left them in the dust and ran towards the woman at the funnel cake stand full-speed ahead.

"What can I do ya for, hun?" The large woman asked, and Patricia noted, with horror, that her toady, pink-red face was decorated with a sizeable beard and moustache.

"What can I do ya for?" The woman asked loudly, now clearly annoyed. Patricia swallowed and tried to look away from the woman's face (if indeed she was a woman) but it proved near impossible.

"Um... I'd like a funnel cake, please" She said slowly, transfixed by the wobbling of the many hairy chins.

"Well, here I thought you wanted a sloppy joe" the woman said, in a voice that was a perfect mix of obnoxiousness and sarcasm.

"A sloppy who?" Patricia asked, tearing her eyes away from the landslide occurring beneath the mouth of the vendor-woman.

"A sloppy- eh, must be not from 'round these parts, is ya? That's be why you gots that ack-sant"

"I'm from Ashington, actually, on the east coast of England."

"Redcoat, huh." The woman noted, her eyes narrowing as she moved to make the funnel cake.

"Pardon?" Patricia asked, but was interrupted when Karen and Sirius came up behind her.

"Are they making it? Is it as weird as Lily told us it was?"

"I'm makin it now, yous should learn to wait awhile. Patient-ness's good for a body." The vender- well... vender-person replied, turning around.

Sirius made a noise that Patricia didn't think a human could make, a sort of cross between a gurgle and a yelp, and grabbed onto her arm in fear.

"What is that?" He asked, when she had turned around again to make the funnel cakes.

"I don't know, but I think it speaks" she whispered, as Karen placed her order and the vender-person yelled something incoherent about stress.

Meanwhile, halfway across the food area, James, Lily and her little cousin, along with Audra, were happily enjoying their cotton candy, which was served to them by a perfectly nice old vender-man who smiled and called them "good little kids"

"It's so sticky!" Audra complained, attempting to wipe her sugar-encrusted thumb on a napkin, but only succeeding in ripping said napkin in half.

"That's the point, Aud." Lily explained, "if it weren't so sticky, it wouldn't be as sugary, and the sugar's what makes it good"

James, who had long since finished all of his own, replied, "Sugar. Good." With a sort of glazed look and a large grin.

"James, snap out of it" Lily exclaimed, elbowing him. He stuck his tongue out at her in response. "Oh for goodness sake, James, you're fifteen!"

"He's just got a sugar high" Susan explained, licking her index finger happily. "It'll wear off in.. oh, say, four hours"

"That's marvelous. We're stuck with James the four-year old for four hours" Audra replied, sighing and throwing away the remainder of her cotton candy. "This stuff is just too much for me to handle. I'm going to find a bathroom in which to wash off my hands." She finished, and wandered off in the direction of the grandstands.

"That's marvelous. We're stuck with Audra the whiny brat for four hours" James mocked, stealing some of Lily's cotton candy with a flourish.

"Bad James! Sit!" Lily reprimanded jokingly, slapping his hand away from her cotton candy.

"Yes, mummy." James replied, sitting on his hands and sighing like a small child.

Susan inquired of Lily, "Is he really like that?"

"He's just joking; he likes to have fun" Lily explained, hoping sincerely that that really was the explanation for James's behavior.

Across the park, Remus was looking distinctively uncomfortable as Lavinia sat down next to him on a rather dubious looking ride called The Tilt & Hurl. She'd been clinging to him like a dog to a steak all day, and he really wasn't used to such sorts of attention. He really didn't understand why she liked him so much; she was pretty, older, and shallow, while he was completely the opposite, and shy to boot. They were like polar ends of a magnet, and no matter what she insisted, opposites did not attract.

"Isn't this exciting?" She inquired, smiling coyly.

Remus thought he was going to be sick already, and the ride hadn't even started yet.

"Yes. Very Exciting" he replied, smiling politely. Apparently she took this as an invitation, so she scooted closer.

"You know my girlfriend, Karen? She gave me this sweater for my birthday. I like my girlfriend. I like this sweater too, don't you?" He gibbered, his face turning bright red.

"I think it's old and frumpy." She replied, fingering the buttons.

HELP! He screamed in his head. Luckily, someone seemed to be listening, because as soon as he thought it, a voice came on the ride's speaker system to inform them that the ride should be evacuated due to safety concerns.

"Wow and I thought wishes never came true" thought Remus as he stepped down off of the ride.

A/N: Okay, I know what you're thinking. Holy crap that was bad. I know. I'm trying to force myself out of a writing block which NEVER ends up pretty for the poor story. Bear with me... in a few chapters I'm sure it'll be better. I DID have a reason to send them to the fair... but... 9/10 of the way through the chapter I discovered a huge plot hole so the trip to the fair is now completely frivolous. My apologies. Hope it was a fun ride.