The Carnival of Wishes & Dreams

by Jenny Lundquist

  That settled it. Yearbook or not, she was definitely not going tonight.

   4

  Audrey

  9 HOURS TO MIDNIGHT

  THE LAST FIVE MINUTES ON the bus were the hardest for Audrey. Each day her stomach twisted itself into knots as she waited for the McKinley residence to come into view. Many times she wished Mrs. Pearson, the bus driver, would pass her house altogether and keep going. She oftentimes liked to imagine herself riding off to another town. To another life.

  But then she’d think of Maddie and Mason, her two younger siblings, and wonder who would cook them dinner if she left—Ethan couldn’t be counted on, since lately he was spending his entire life in detention—and she knew she had to get off the bus.

  Next to her, Julia was tapping away on her cell, and Audrey’s own phone buzzed with a text. It was from Julia.

  To: Audrey, Erin, Lulu, Grace

  Bad news, guys! My parents said I could only invite two people to my birthday party. They are SO mean!

  Audrey’s heart sank. Julia had been talking forever about the epic birthday party her parents were letting her plan: A limo drive into the city for dinner at a fancy restaurant and then a play afterward. They had all been really looking forward to it. Now only two of them could go with Julia? How would she choose who to take?

  Audrey, Grace, and Harlow had become friends with Julia, Lulu, and Erin when the six of them all ended up in Mrs. Bronson’s class in fourth grade. Back then, their friendship was sealed by everyone’s love for lip gloss and Harry Potter. They still ate lunch together, but things were a lot more complicated now. Julia was their unofficial leader and by far the most popular girl in their group—especially since no one could stand Harlow anymore.

  Both Julia and Audrey’s phones began buzzing with texts from the other girls:

  Erin: I want to go!

  Lulu: I love going to the city!

  Audrey loved going to the city too. Should she text that to Julia and say so? They were sitting right next to each other. Maybe she should say something in person? But she had a feeling Julia wouldn’t like that. Julia was already in a bad mood since she’d gotten stuck watching Simon, her science class’s guinea pig, this weekend. His cage was wedged in the bus walkway because Julia refused to set it on her lap.

  Julia once told Audrey that if you couldn’t capture a moment on your phone, it might as well have never happened at all—wise advice that Audrey remembered now.

  “Want to take a selfie?” Audrey asked.

  Julia looked up immediately. “Sure,” she answered.

  After they were both done straightening their hair, they smiled widely as Audrey pointed her phone at them. “Say ‘Birthday girl!’ ”

  “Birthday girl!” they shouted.

  Audrey posted the photo online with the caption Hanging with my BFF.

  There. A little reminder never hurt.

  “Look,” said Julia. “There’s Harlow.”

  Audrey glanced out the window. Just before her breath fogged up the glass, she spied Mrs. Carlson’s fancy SUV charging by, kicking up a crust of dust. She could just make out Harlow’s dark hair in the passenger seat as the SUV sped up and pulled in front of the old lumbering school bus, then turned off the road in the direction of the town’s old wishing well.

  “I’ll bet Harlow’s never ridden a bus a day in her life,” Julia added, her lip curled in disgust.

  Audrey knew that, actually, Harlow had ridden on a bus exactly once, but since she never liked discussing Harlow she changed the subject. “Are you going to the carnival tonight?” she asked.

  “Duh,” Julia said as if the answer were obvious.

  But it wasn’t obvious to Audrey, not exactly. Sure, everyone was going to the carnival, but every time Audrey had tried to make plans this week, Julia avoided giving her a direct answer.

  “You could come over to my house,” Audrey said. “We could walk to the carnival together.”

  “Can’t,” Julia answered. “Our family is going to Frank’s Diner tonight for dinner.”

  “There’s still time before dinner,” Audrey said. “Want to come over for a while?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Why not?” Audrey asked, although she had a sinking feeling she already knew.

  “My parents don’t want me hanging out at your house anymore.” Julia fixed her with an imperious stare and Audrey wondered if she needed to apologize for something. Julia often had that effect on people.

  But since she wasn’t exactly sure what she should be apologizing for, she said, “Oh, sure.”

  “Look, it’s not a big deal, okay?” Julia said, sounding impatient. “Why don’t you just meet us for dinner?”

  Audrey was tempted to stall, to not let Julia see how much the invitation meant to her, but she didn’t want Julia to get any more irritated. “Okay, thanks,” she said, just as the bus lurched up to her house.

  “Great,” Julia said. “And hey—could you do me a favor? Could you watch Simon for me? I’m really busy this weekend.”

  “Sure, I’d love to!” Audrey lied in a cheerful voice. The truth was she couldn’t stand guinea pigs or their smelly cages. But she didn’t want to tell Julia no—not right after she’d invited Audrey to dinner. And, hey, maybe Julia would remember this when she decided which friends to take to her birthday party.

  Audrey picked up Simon’s cage, wrinkling her nose at the smell. She turned to wave to Julia just as the doors hissed shut behind her.

  The McKinleys lived in a rickety two-story rental where broken things didn’t get fixed. The front lawn was brown and littered with bits of trash. Audrey dragged herself up the steps of the porch, careful to skip the second one, which was wobbly. Normally in the fall the McKinleys’ porch was decorated with pimply pumpkins and multicolored squashes. But this year, with Mrs. McKinley gone, no one had remembered to buy them.

  Audrey wondered where her mother was right this very minute. Was she nearby? Did she remember that tonight was the Carnival of Wishes and Dreams?

  Audrey paused at the front door; she couldn’t stand their rental house. They’d had to leave their home on Hudson Road—the one her parents bought right after they got married—one gray morning last spring while the neighbors watched and whispered “foreclosure” behind cupped hands like it was a dirty word, the kind that tastes like soap in your mouth. Except Audrey was pretty sure no one in their family had done anything wrong. Her mother didn’t seem to share that opinion; as far as Audrey could tell, she seemed to think it was her father’s fault for not being able to find another job after the factory burned down. Audrey hadn’t thought that was fair. A lot of men hadn’t been able to find work after they lost their jobs at the factory.

  She blew out a breath, squared her shoulders, and opened the front door. Maddie and Mason were sprawled out on the couch, watching a movie. The bluish glare from the television flickered across two identical heads, four eyes, and twenty fingers. Mason and Maddie were twins. So were Audrey and Ethan. Audrey’s mom and Aunt Lisa were twins, too; it ran in their family. It was just a myth that twins skipped a generation, but everyone always stared when the McKinleys went out in town together. They all had the same curly red hair, the same clear green eyes, and skin so pale that Julia once told Audrey they all looked like a bunch of bloodsucking vampires.

  The McKinley Family Freak Show, Ethan called them. Where you can get two for the price of one.

  “No TV before homework,” Audrey said after she’d deposited Simon’s cage in the kitchen.

  “It’s Friday,” Maddie answered, stretching her feet out on the coffee table. Empty soda cans and crumpled chip bags covered the rest of the table. They’d stay there until Audrey picked them up.

  “But if you do it now,” Audrey reasoned, “then you’ll have the whole rest of the weekend free.” It sounded like something an adult would say; Audrey was proud of herself for thinking of it.

  In answer, Maddie rolled her eyes and Mason turned up the volume
on the TV.

  Audrey wanted to send them to their rooms for being rude, but she wasn’t sure she could get away with it. After all, she was their sister, not their mother.

  “Where’s Dad?” she asked.

  “He’s sleeping,” Mason answered, not taking his eyes off the TV.

  “I’m hungry,” Maddie said, also not looking away from the screen. “Are you making dinner tonight?”

  In the last two months, “dinner” at the McKinleys had consisted of scrambled eggs, quesadillas, or spaghetti—the only things Audrey knew how to cook. Last week she’d attempted roast chicken, canned green beans, and mashed potatoes from a box. It hadn’t worked out too well.

  Tonight she didn’t have to cook because Maddie and Mason were sleeping over at Aunt Lisa and Uncle Dan’s house so Audrey could have a night to herself and go to the carnival with her friends.

  After telling Maddie and Mason to pack their things because Uncle Dan would be here soon, Audrey went to her room and spent the next twenty minutes trying to decide what to wear to the carnival. There would be so many pictures posted online tonight; she needed to look her best.

  Audrey worked extremely hard at cultivating her online image. She frequently practiced her camera-ready smile. She posted selfies all the time. Every time she went somewhere with her friends, she was always looking for an opportunity to post another photo. Last night she’d posted a video of herself twirling her baton while she simultaneously ate an ice-cream cone. She’d gotten a ton of likes, but no new followers, which was disappointing.

  Audrey and Julia had been competing to see who could get to three hundred online followers first. Right now they were tied, with just two more to go. Audrey was determined to win and get those two extra followers tonight.

  Online, Audrey was just as popular as Julia—something Audrey was secretly really proud of.

  Popularity wasn’t the only reason she was working so hard to create a shiny Internet life. She had been doing everything she could possibly think of to earn extra money. Babysitting her cousins. Recycling cans. Last month, she started her own YouTube channel so she could make money from ads—it was a DIY channel where Audrey could show people how to make crafts—except it was going to take her way too long to get enough subscribers. Also, it turned out she was awful at crafts.

  But just last week she found the opportunity of a lifetime: A new web series about middle-school kids called Middle School Daze was accepting online auditions, and Audrey was determined to put together a killer submission package. She thought she had a great shot—she was the star of the school play last year and had done an amazing job. Everyone said so.

  She texted Julia: I’m thinking of wearing my turquoise sweater tonight.

  Both Audrey and Julia owned the exact same turquoise sweater. They bought them together when they went back-to-school shopping over the summer. They were supposed to text each other to make sure they didn’t wear them on the same day. Or at least Audrey was supposed to text Julia.

  Julia texted back right away: I’m wearing that tonight.

  Okay, Audrey texted. I’ll wear something else.

  Audrey smiled; she hadn’t actually been planning on wearing the turquoise sweater. But now she had a written record. When she showed up tonight in her sparkly black sweater—another item they both owned—Julia couldn’t get mad. Audrey figured sometimes friends could be a little difficult, but that was okay. You just had to learn to work with them.

  Speaking of being difficult: A lot of people would be wearing costumes to the carnival tonight, and Julia had decided they’d all wear tiaras and red feather boas as their costume, mainly because Mrs. King had a really nice crystal tiara she said Julia could wear. Audrey wasn’t so lucky, so after she finished picking out the rest of her outfit—a pair of jeans, black boots, and dangly earrings—she threw on the feather boa she’d gotten at the dollar store and the tiara she’d made out of glittery pipe cleaners. Then she set up her phone on her dresser and pushed the record button.

  “Hi!” she said to the camera. “My name is Audrey McKinley. I’m in eighth grade, and I am your next star of Middle School Daze! I live in—”

  She paused. Was she coming across as too cocky? Was it dumb to film her audition introduction while she was wearing her costume? And how did her hair look anyway?

  She checked her phone, only to discover the video had frozen even before she’d started speaking. Her phone was several years old—it was her mother’s old castoff—and didn’t work well anymore.

  “Stupid piece of junk,” she muttered. She’d have to try recording later. She shoved her phone into her pocket, then headed for her parents’ room.

  In her mind, it was still her parents’ room, not just her dad’s room, because she was positive that any day now her mother would come back. She would be able to sense how much Audrey needed her. She would feel it the way you could feel the wind ruffling the wheat fields that surrounded Clarkville.

  Mrs. McKinley had taken off two months ago on a sweltering morning in August, claiming that she just couldn’t do it anymore. Audrey didn’t blame her for leaving—she knew her mother wasn’t always herself when she stopped taking her medication—but many days she wished she could have gone with her to wherever she was now.

  Deep snores issued from behind the closed door, and for just a moment, Audrey allowed herself to imagine driving away in the old school bus to that shiny new life. A life where moms didn’t leave just because things had gotten difficult. Where dads didn’t stay out all night with their friends. A life where magical things could still happen. She pulled the unsigned pumpkin gram from her pocket and stared at the message.

  Come to the Carnival of Wishes and Dreams. Meet me at the Ferris wheel at midnight. We’ll ride it together.

  The note seemed magical, and more than a little mysterious. Who would ask her to ride the Ferris wheel when practically everyone in town knew she was afraid of heights?

  She stuffed the note back into her pocket and knocked on the door. When she opened it, her father was just emerging from under a pile of blankets, red-eyed and unshaven. The scars on his right arm seemed even redder today. Audrey averted her eyes so he wouldn’t catch her staring. He’d gotten them last year on the night of the fire, when Henry Chang pulled him out of the factory.

  “It’s nearly four,” she said. “What time do you have to be at the carnival?”

  “Food,” Mr. McKinley mumbled.

  “But—”

  “Now,” he said.

  A little while later in the kitchen, while he was forking a bite of the scrambled eggs Audrey had made him, she asked, “What ride are you operating tonight?”

  “The Ferris wheel,” he answered.

   5

  Grace

  7 HOURS TO MIDNIGHT

  GRACE HAD BEEN GROUNDED BEFORE. Plenty of times, in fact.

  Like the time she, Audrey, and Harlow had tried to run away from home. Or the time she’d sneaked Audrey into her house in the middle of the night because Audrey was sick of hearing her parents scream at each other. Audrey had run away across their neighborhood to Grace’s house, and the two of them stayed up all night listening to music and chatting online with Harlow.

  Or the time Grace had socked Ethan in the stomach and knocked the wind out of him. It was only a couple weeks after her father died and it was her first day back at school. She’d come upon Ethan in the halls, laughing with his friends. Laughing. Like everything was normal. Like the entire world hadn’t just ended. It had made Grace so mad, but like usual she couldn’t find the right words. Instead she’d found her right fist.

  But this time was totally different since tonight was Grace’s last night in Clarkville. A fact her mother seemed determined to ignore.

  “What about this one?” Mrs. Chang held up yet another dress in front of the mirror, this one a blue-and-yellow floral print. For someone moving tomorrow, her mother didn’t seem concerned that half the contents of her closet were spread out all over
her bed.

  “It clashes with your hair,” Grace said.

  Grace was helping her mother pick out an outfit to wear to her book club meeting tonight. She was also simultaneously checking her phone for new developments. Ever since Julia texted that only two people could go to her birthday party and Audrey had posted that BFF picture, Lulu had been texting Grace and Erin all afternoon trying to figure out what it all meant. Things had only gotten worse now that Audrey had started posting pictures online of her dinner with the Kings.

  Why didn’t they invite us? Another text from Lulu arrived. I love Frank’s Diner!

  I don’t know. I love Frank’s too! Erin texted.

  Grace didn’t text much, just like she didn’t talk much, so no one had directly asked her if she’d been invited to the dinner. She decided to pretend she hadn’t.

  “Grace,” Mrs. Chang said, sounding irritated. “Put your phone down and help me.” She held up a pink and gray dress. “What about this one?”

  “Getting closer,” Grace said. “I don’t know why you’re going out tonight—shouldn’t we finish packing?”

  “Everything’s nearly done.” Mrs. Chang spread her arms wide, taking in the bare room. “Besides, it’s my last night to get together with the book club,” she added, and Grace sighed.

  While her mother would be out with her friends enjoying her last night in Clarkville, Grace would be stuck at home, alone. It wasn’t fair.

  “What about this one?” Mrs. Chang plucked another dress from the pile. A long-sleeved floral one.

  “It’s ugly and it makes you look eighty years old.”

  Mrs. Chang frowned. “Can you at least try to have a good attitude? When we get to California you might actually like it. We’ll be in driving distance to both the Angels and Dodgers’ stadiums. You’ll have your pick of baseball teams.”

  As far as Grace was concerned, both the Dodgers and the Angels could kiss her big toe. She was a Cubs fan, just like her dad had been. If he were still alive he’d have been shocked at even the thought of rooting for another team. Of course, if her dad was still alive they wouldn’t have been moving in the first place.