Chapter 48
"We're going to the carnival! We're going to the carnival!" Gazzy sang and danced around as I tried to help him put his jacket on.
"Come on, sit still!" I told him.
"No! I'm not cold!" he insisted.
I rolled my eyes at him. Mid-February in Colorado was still cold, and there was no way he was going out the door without a jacket. "Sure you're not."
"You'd make a great mom," Fang commented, leaning against the wall. I hadn't even realized he was there and as my cheeks heated up, I just stuck my tongue out at him.
Nudge ran into the room in her purple coat and pink hat and Hello Kitty scarf. "I'm going to eat like ten cotton candies," she announced as Angel trailed behind her, dressed in her Winnie the Pooh jacket.
"That means you're not sitting next to me on any of the rides!" Gazzy yelled at her as I finally got his jacket on him.
Nudge just rolled her eyes. "Well, I once ate nine Snickers bars without barfing."
I stood up and pulled my own jacket on, making sure that everyone was ready to go. "Jeb, we're leaving!" I called. Jeb had actually agreed to letting us fly to the carnival, as long as we promised to land far enough from the school where nobody would notice.
"Have a good time!" he called back from the kitchen. "Make sure you're back by nine 'o' clock."
"We will!" Iggy replied.
Gazzy stood next to him, hopping from foot to foot. "Now let's go, go, go!"
I laughed, picking up Angel. "Alright, alright!" I opened the front door, glancing back at my flock. "Everyone ready?"
"Yeah!" they cheered, and even Fang managed to look vaguely excited, which was probably a major accomplishment for him.
I grinned as I unfurled my wings, very glad we didn't have many neighbors around here. "Then let's fly."
Soon we were flying through the nighttime sky. The wind was bitter and my face felt like it was about to freeze off, but I figured flying was about a thousand times better than anything else we could be doing.
"It feels like we're dancing through the stars!" Nudge shouted in wonder. Her face lit up with joy.
"I'm still not cold!" Gazzy yelled, even though I could hear his teeth chattering.
I even let Angel fly on her own for a little bit. She was getting better at flying, although Fang and I hovered close to her, just to make sure she was safe.
"There's our school! And the carnival!" Nudge shouted, pointing. Sure enough, thousands of bright, twinkling lights from the rides and games lit up the area below us.
We landed in a wooded area behind our school and made our way towards the carnival. Iggy grinned as we walked, his hand on the back of my jacket. "I can't wait to try all of the food!"
"I want to go on every single ride!" Gazzy proclaimed.
"Oh! Oh! I'm going to win one of those giant teddy bears!" Nudge decided, pointing at one of the games. This one involved rolling a ball into a hole, which would then move a mechanical race horse.
"You know those games are impossible to win, right?" Fang told her.
Nudge stuck her tongue out at him. "Stop being a spoilsport! Max, didn't Jeb give us some money?"
"Yeesss," I said reluctantly, pulling out my wallet. "But only one try, alright?"
"Thanks!" Nudge yelled, grabbing my wallet and running over to the game. "Hey mister, one more player!"
"Nudge!" I yelled. "Come back here with that!"
Twenty minutes later, Nudge had emptied all the contents of my wallet in her attempt to win a giant teddy bear that probably wouldn't even fit in our front door.
"One more try!" she told the carnival guy, handing over my allowance. Not only had she used the money Jeb had given us, but now she'd used all of my money.
"Nudge, you listen here!" I yelled, grabbing her, but the bell rang, signaling the start of the game.
Nudge grabbed the ball and rolled it. It made it in the first hole, which was marked, "Slow". Nudge's mechanical horse moved about a centimeter while all the other horses advanced.
"Come on! You can do it!" I yelled. If she'd wasted all my money, she was winning that dumb bear!
Meanwhile, Gazzy was describing everything to Iggy. "She's catching up!" he shouted.
"Go Nudge! Go Nudge! Go Nudge!" Angel chanted, bouncing up and down on my shoulders.
Nudge's horse was getting closer to the others. "You're almost there!" I shouted. Now she was in second place – but the mechanical horse ahead of hers was getting close to the finish line. Nudge began to look panicked.
Then all of a sudden, Fang shot his hand out and grabbed the ball off the lane of the guy sitting next to Nudge. "Hey! Cheater!" the guy started protesting, but by then Fang had already rolled the ball into Nudge's lane. It fell into the hole marked "Fastest."
Nudge's horse crossed the finish line and a bell rang. "We have a winner!" the carnival guy proclaimed, pointing at Nudge.
"YAY!" Nudge cheered. We all pulled her in for a group hug, cheering with her.
"They cheated!" the guy next to us was still protesting, but the carnival guy was already pulling the gargantuan bear off the shelf and handing it to Nudge.
"I'm going to name it Fang 2, because Fang helped me win!" Nudge decided, holding the bear that was bigger than herself.
"Don't you dare," said Fang in a dark tone, but even he looked slightly amused.
"I didn't know you had it in you, cheater," I said, pushing him and laughing.
"Now let's go on some rides!" Gazzy decided.
"Nudge wasted all of our money," I pointed out. "We can't really buy anything else."
"I think I can help you out," Daisy's voice said from behind us.
~~::~~
"Sorry, I know we invited you to the carnival so we should be paying for you," I apologized to Daisy as we stood in line for the Ferris wheel. "But Nudge – er, I guess you know her as Tiffany-Krystal – really wanted that bear."
Daisy smiled. "That's okay. I have money to spare."
"Right," I murmured, looking away. She'd been rich because of her dad, but now that he was in jail, I wondered who Daisy was living with. Now that I thought about it, I'd never seen her mom. Was her mom still alive? I wondered if Daisy was going to inherit all of that money or something.
"Don't tell my aunt, but I actually snuck out of the house," Daisy whispered with a grin. "She doesn't like me going anywhere but school and back because she's afraid I'll get hurt."
"That's okay, your secret is safe with us," I told her.
"I just have to keep an eye out for my cousins," she said. "You met Autumn and Sarah at my birthday party, right? Some of their friends go to school here."
"Autumn and Sarah…" I thought back to Daisy's birthday party. "Right! I remember they made me play that dancing game and they said that Iggy and I looked cute together-" My face turned red. "Uh, you didn't hear that last part."
"Your secret is safe with me," Daisy echoed me and winked. I managed a smile. Maybe Daisy wasn't that bad.
"Next!" the Ferris wheel operator called.
"Ferris wheels are romantic, so you and Iggy should go together!" Nudge said, giving me a little push.
"How about you and Fang 2 go together?" I told her, pushing her towards the ride with her giant bear.
"I said not to call it that!" Fang protested, looking annoyed. I snickered at him.
Nudge actually sat down on the ride with her bear and bucked it into the seat. "Bye guys!" she yelled.
I just stared at her. "She knows I was joking, right?"
All of a sudden, someone went barreling into Fang. "Hi Fnick!" Jaz yelled, squeezing him tightly. "I didn't know you were going to come to the fair!"
"I just told you yesterday," Fang responded, sounding annoyed.
"We should go on the Ferris wheel!" Jaz babbled. "It is so romantic!"
"She sounds like Nudge," I whispered to Daisy, who giggled.
"Next!" the operator called.
"Come on, that's us!" Daisy decided, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the ride. She managed to pull Jaz off of Fang and drag her onto the ride too. Daisy handed the operator three tickets and soon, with me sandwiched between Jaz and Daisy, the Ferris wheel began to turn.
"It's going! It's going!" Jaz yelled excitedly.
The ride stopped once more so that the boys could get on, and then began to rotate again. We went around and around and around, cheering every time that we reached the top. Finally, the Ferris wheel began to slow down, stopping its ascent at the very top.
The ride creaked and our seat swung back and forth. "Wow, this is really high!" Jaz said. I smirked because I could fly higher than this anytime I wanted.
"This is kind of scary," Daisy admitted, grabbing onto my arm. "I'm not a big fan of heights."
I patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Uh, I think we'll be going again soon."
"Yeah!" Jaz grinned. "You'll be okay, because we're here with you!"
Daisy nodded, managing a small smile. "Alright."
I looked over the carnival, watching the lights twinkle, and thought back to what Nudge said earlier when we were flying. "It's like… well, just pretend you're dancing among the stars," I told Daisy.
"That was very un-Max-like," Jaz remarked.
"Whatever!" I told her as Daisy started giggling again. I just rolled my eyes at Jaz and looked straight forward, ignoring her.
"Thanks, Max," Daisy told me as the Ferris wheel started to descend again.
I smiled. It was nice to have friends.