Flor and Miranda Steal the Show Read online

  But if it hadn’t been for Carolina’s Cantina, we wouldn’t have been able to rescue Conejo, and no one could be angry about that, could they?

  Flor

  (5:45 P.M.)

  The wheels of Betabel’s old skateboard rolled ba-bump, ba-bump over the pebbly dirt floor of the shed. I just sat there pushing it back and forth, back and forth.

  It was a dumb idea. I saw that now. The thing of it was, I had really and truly thought it might work.

  I got up and stomped my foot when I thought about how proud I had been when I finally coaxed Betabel onto the skateboard, and about the loose change I had been saving up to buy her a new one.

  I stomped my foot because Papá knew all along the zoo was in trouble, and that meant things must have been even worse than I’d realized.

  I stomped my foot because I couldn’t make myself stop crying.

  It was not the first time I ever had to say good-bye to an animal. Animals were born and animals died. Animals came and went. Bringing them home meant letting them go someday. Always.

  But this was different. It was more than saying good-bye to Betabel. It was saying good-bye to the idea that all of this—the petting zoo and the carnival—could stay the same forever. That I would never have to leave the place where I finally had friends, knew all the rules, and wasn’t the only one who was a little bit strange.

  But Betabel was going—Betabel was probably gone—and it seemed like no matter how hard I tried, I would have to go too. I sat back down, hugged my knees, and picked at a thin spot in my blue jeans. Any day now, it would rip. The thing of it was, no one would even notice at the carnival. But they would at school. Someone always noticed your mistakes, your bad luck, the patches your mamá sewed over the holes in your jeans. It was why I didn’t want to go back.

  I blinked hard when my eyes went all blurry again. When I opened them, I noticed something up on the counter. Betabel’s kettle corn was right where I had left it earlier that afternoon. I jumped up and grabbed the bag. There was still a little left inside. Betabel would want it. Betabel would need it. There was no way that man, Mr. Forrest, would know it was her favorite. How could he?

  I had to stop him before he took her away without it.

  Racing back to the front of the zoo, I nearly tripped over the skateboard. I kicked it out of the way, and it rolled straight into the metal wall of the shed, knocking over the currycombs and nail clippers that had been resting on a shelf. They clattered to the ground. But I couldn’t stop to pick up the mess. I still had a chance to catch up and say good-bye to Betabel like the friend she was.

  Then that chance slipped away too.

  By the time I made it up front, all I saw was Papá, his hands back in his pockets, watching Betabel and Mr. Forrest get smaller and smaller as he led her by the leash toward the exit. Eventually, I lost them in the crowd. I would never find them.

  “Flor?”

  Randy was in the corner of the pen with Chivo on her lap. She set him down and stood. She was probably trying to be nice. She probably wanted to help. But she didn’t realize that the only way she could help me now was if she didn’t sing.

  Her sister and brother—the girl with the accordion, the boy with the guitar—were probably waiting for her. It must have been time to get dressed or warm up or whatever it is people do when the spotlight is about to shine on them.

  If I wanted to stop her, it had to be now. This was my last chance.

  But it was only a thread of a chance, thin and frayed and about to snap.

  Anyway, I had already tried everything. There was nothing in a carnival food stand so spicy, sweet, or sour it could unsettle her stomach. And there wasn’t any ride that spun fast enough to knock her off balance. So I decided Mr. Reyes must have been right. Miranda was main-stage material, and I couldn’t stop her.

  I would tell her good luck and to leave me alone.

  Then, like the sparkle of one more last chance, the lights of the midway rides blinked on.

  Mr. Barsetti had them on a timer. It was a waste of electricity, he said, to keep the lights on while the sun was still shining so bright. So it wasn’t until closer to sunset that the midway lit up. The Ferris wheel blinked pink and gold. Blue chevrons flashed along the sides of the Zipper as it tumbled end over end. The carousel horses pranced under a pearly glow. You could hear everyone say “Aaaah.”

  And all around the top of the Cloud Chaser, lights twinkled purple, orange, yellow, green.

  It was a high-flying swing ride and one of our oldest. It broke down more than it should have, at least once a weekend. Passengers dangled over the midway like stuffed animals over a carnival game booth until the mechanic arrived to get the ride moving again. They usually weren’t stranded for more than fifteen minutes or so. But sometimes it took longer to get everyone down. Sometimes a lot longer.

  I could ask Miranda Reyes for one ride on the Cloud Chaser, and maybe it would run perfectly smoothly. We would get on, we would get off, and I would know I had tried everything I could to save the zoo. She had a future on the main stage, and there was just no keeping her from it.

  Or we’d get stuck up there.

  “Are you all right?” Randy asked. She looked worried. She looked like she cared. I swallowed hard.

  Miranda

  (6 P.M.)

  She didn’t answer me right away, so I asked again.

  “Are you all right?”

  Flor had come running out to the front of Rancho Maldonado just as I was about to get up to go look for her.

  Her eyes were red and her cheeks were all splotchy. She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. For a second I thought she might run away again, back to the shed or after her pig. But she was still, staring at the carnival rides behind me.

  She batted her hair out of her face. “Have you ever been on the Cloud Chaser?”

  I knew I should have been rehearsing. Dad was probably pacing inside Wicked Wanda, wondering where I was. Actually, he was probably stomping back and forth in front of Wanda, gnawing on that pencil he always kept in his shirt pocket to make notes on our performances. There wasn’t enough room inside for the kind of pacing he’d be doing this close to showtime.

  At least the line wasn’t very long. If I got back by 6:15, we would still have an hour to practice and check the sound. That would leave me with only ten minutes or so for hair and makeup, but since Dad had banned makeup and I’d be wearing a hat, it probably wouldn’t take that long anyway.

  I wiped my palms on the sides of my skirt. As bad as I felt about disappointing Dad, I felt worse about letting Ronnie and Junior down. I could tell them I’d gotten lost on the fairgrounds, or that I had gotten stuck in the crowd. Or I could tell them the truth: that Flor had said a ride would help cheer her up, and I just couldn’t say no.

  I stood on tiptoe to see how many people were still ahead of us.

  “Do you have somewhere to be, or something?” Flor asked.

  Maybe she was still angry. Maybe she thought I wanted to back out.

  “Yes. But, no. I mean, I do have somewhere to be, but not right this second. I have some time. It’s just that my dad’s been expecting me. For hours. That’s all.”

  The line lurched forward.

  “If you don’t want to be here…”

  “No, I do.”

  The Cloud Chaser was round like a carousel, only instead of horses it had swings that hung from the top by metal chains. And instead of turning in slow circles to an old Wurlitzer recording, it rose above the rooftops and turned so fast the swings flew out slantways.

  Don’t scream, I reminded myself. There wouldn’t be enough lemon wedges on the whole fairgrounds to save my voice after what I’d already put it through that day.

  Another group of riders raced out to find their seats. “Fasten your seat belts,” the operator said. Everyone fastened their seat belts. Everyone followed directions. I was good at it too, following directions. I pulled down on the brim of my ball cap.
/>   Maybe the only reason I had made it this far was because I had always done whatever Dad told me to. Maybe if I stopped listening to him, I would never make it any further.

  Cold, hard fact: I might never have even found those nachos if Flor hadn’t been there to tell me where to go.

  I had thought I was taking charge when she and I went back to Carolina’s Cantina to sing for tips, but even then, I was still just following Dad’s plan. Step by step, the same routine we had followed every weekend before we joined the carnival.

  Flor hadn’t taken her eyes off the ride for more than a moment or two since we got in line. She watched it climb, turn, come down again.

  I tried to get her attention. “Hey.”

  She just kept staring.

  “Hey,” I said again, louder.

  She faced me. “We don’t have to get on if you don’t want to.”

  “What? No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just, can I ask you a question?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When we were talking about the side stage earlier? And you said you heard the band was overrated? Well, what exactly have you heard about them?”

  I held my hands behind my back to keep from biting my nails.

  Flor turned toward the Cloud Chaser again. She tucked her bangs behind her ears.

  “Oh, the side-stage band? I thought we were talking about some other band. I heard the side-stage act is pretty good, actually. Great lead singer.”

  I knew she was only saying what she’d heard, but still, I was almost as thrilled and surprised as when Dad had told us we’d be playing on the main stage. I wanted to ask more, but it was our turn to get on. The guy taking tickets held up his hand for a high five. Flor met it limply. “You’re new around here, aren’t you?” he said, waving me through. “Good thing you have Flor to show you what’s what.”

  Floor tilted her neck and looked up at the ride. “How’s she running today?”

  The guy looked up too. “So far, so good,” he said, knocking on a wooden fence post. “No problems all weekend.”

  Flor

  (6:05 P.M.)

  We buckled into two metal swings. Randy sat on the outside edge, and I chose the spot right next to her. Metal chains creaked and clanged as other passengers barreled around the ride to claim their seats. Just in front of us, a mom lifted her small daughter into a chair and tightened the safety belt before sitting down too.

  “Don’t look so nervous,” she said, reaching over and tousling the girl’s hair. “This was my favorite when I was your age. You are going to love it.”

  Our shadows stretched long onto the patchy brown grass. The heat had broken, but the fairgrounds still felt warm and sunbaked. It was the best part of the day, or would have been if that knot in my stomach hadn’t been so twisted up and tangled.

  Randy kicked her legs forward and pulled them back. Kicked forward, pulled back. Her chair swung lazily as we waited for all the seats to fill. She glanced over her shoulder as if she were looking for someone. The little girl in front of us clung tightly to the chains on either side of her swing. “Relax,” her mom said. “You’ll be fine.”

  It was the kind of thing parents said a little too easily, if you asked me. They wanted you to be fine. They thought you probably would be in the end. But all you could do was hang on tight until you knew for sure.

  “Please buckle your seat belts and remain seated until the ride has come to a full and complete stop.”

  The swings jerked upward a few inches, and the little girl yelped.

  “Whoa!” Randy said, giggling. She pulled her hat off and held it in her lap, then shook her hair out and leaned backward in the swing.

  The soles of my shoes just skimmed the ground. Then only the very tips of my toes were touching, and the space between the ground and me kept growing.

  The ride had been running well, Dave had said. No problems all weekend. Everything would probably be fine. The Cloud Chaser would rotate, just like it was supposed to. Two or three minutes later—too soon for some riders—it would slow, then stop, then bring us back down. Then, just like she was supposed to, Miranda would find her way to the main stage, look out at the audience, tip her cowboy hat, tap her boots, and sing.

  The tower at the center of the ride stretched taller, hoisted us higher, and finally began to turn, flinging our swings outward like the edges of a twirling dance skirt.

  Still leaning back in her chair, Randy closed her eyes and threw her arms out on either side of her. She looked like a kite that had escaped its string.

  I held on. The breeze whisked the hair out of my eyes. From above, the whole fair—from the golden top of the carousel to the red-striped tents of the midway games, all lined up like peppermint sticks—looked small enough to bundle up and hold in my arms. Someone near the Cantaloupe Growers Association demonstration garden let go of a pink helium balloon. I watched it float over the Log Jammer and above the telephone wires until I lost track of it in the evening sky, the same milky orange as a Creamsicle.

  The girl in front of us leaned forward and peered over the edge of her seat. She loosened her grip on the chains and uncurled her fingers one at a time until she wasn’t holding on at all anymore. She lifted her hands up over her head for one daring moment. Then she pulled them right back in again.

  I closed one eye and held out my finger to trace the map of every place I had been that long afternoon. From Rancho Maldonado—near the entrance, by the ticket booths—to the Family Side Stage right in the middle. Folding chairs under a white sailcloth tent.

  From the midway, where softballs were still knocking down milk bottles and squirt guns were still missing their targets, to the Gravitron, to the churro cart, to the livestock barns way out at the muddy edges of the fairgrounds. The auctions were over. The stalls would be empty by now. The kids would have cleaned them and gone home with their ribbons, or just their broken hearts.

  Under the lights of the Cloud Chaser, I knew exactly where I was.

  I looked farther, past the exit, past the parking lots, where people did not always look out for one another, and guardrails did not always keep you from getting hurt. I didn’t want to have to find my way through that world again. In that world, I was as lost as a stray balloon. But every turn of the Cloud Chaser brought me closer to it.

  After a few minutes, before I was ready, the ride slowed and stopped. The chains on the swings hung straight and still.

  “What’s happening?” the little girl in front of us asked her mom.

  “That’s it,” the mom said. “The ride is over, that’s all. We’ll have to get off now. Didn’t you like it, though? Didn’t we have fun?”

  The Cloud Chaser began to lower us back to the ground.

  But then something deep inside it grumbled and groaned, and the ride didn’t budge another inch.

  Miranda

  (6:15 P.M.)

  I could feel the Cloud Chaser slow down and start to drop. But I was surprised when it suddenly stopped moving altogether. I wiggled my feet and stretched my toes downward, but they still didn’t touch the ground. I opened my eyes, then sat up. We were still high in the air, just dangling.

  I turned to Flor. “What’s going on?”

  She craned her neck over the edge of her seat. “I don’t know. Something must have happened to the ride. Sometimes… it… stalls.” Her eyes darted across the ground below.

  “It stalls?”

  “Dave!” she shouted at the ground. “Dave!”

  The guy who had let us on peeked out from inside the operating booth. He held one hand up to shield his eyes and waved to Flor with the other one.

  “Everything’s okay!” he yelled. “Don’t worry! We’ll have you back down here before you know it.”

  Flor covered her face with her hands. “Nooooo,” she moaned.

  “It stalls?”

  Flor lifted her hands. “Sometimes?”

  The little girl sitting in front of us whimpered. I wanted to cry too.

 
While we were still soaring over the midway, I had closed my eyes to try to imagine that night’s performance—like I always did when I was nervous before a show. I pictured us onstage in our matching cowboy hats, the audience cheering, the silver studs on our vests glinting under the spotlight. I thought about Ronnie tapping out the beat before she and Junior started playing, how I could feel it even though I couldn’t always hear it. And I thought about the beat that fell right before it was time for me to sing, the one that felt like the last, no-turning-back breath you take before diving into a swimming pool, the one that fills your lungs with daring.

  I imagined dancing across the stage and holding my microphone out for the audience to sing along to all those old songs they knew by heart.

  I imagined Junior, head bent to his guitar strings, trying to stay on pace, but also wanting to break free and race faster and faster. I knew how that felt too, holding yourself back when you wished you could leap ahead.

  I was ready. Still, I couldn’t ignore the nagging worry that Dad’s plan was wrong this time and I needed to show the audience who I really was, and not just who he thought I should be.

  The girl in front of us was crying even harder. Her mom was saying, “Shhh, shhh, it’s all right. Shhh,” trying to calm her down.

  Flor swung herself forward and caught the back of the little girl’s seat. “Hey,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  The girl sniffled but didn’t speak. “Go ahead,” her mom said. “Tell her your name.”

  The girl shook her head furiously.

  “That’s okay,” Flor said. “I only wanted to tell you that I have been on this ride hundreds of times, and I promise, Dave will bring us right back down.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, even though I knew she wasn’t talking to me.