The Carnival of Wishes & Dreams

by Jenny Lundquist

  “We’re in this together, you know,” Mrs. Chang added. “We’re a team. Team Chang, remember?”

  Grace swallowed. “I remember,” she said quietly.

  The truth was, even if she was mad, Grace would do anything for her mother. That’s why when her mother said she didn’t want them to associate with the McKinley and Carlson families anymore, Grace had stopped speaking to Harlow and Audrey—which was the hardest thing Grace ever had to do, especially since she and Audrey still sat at the same lunch table. But she’d wanted to make her mother happy, so she’d done it anyway. They were Team Chang—the only two people left on the team now, and they needed to stick together.

  But staying home, grounded, on her last night in Clarkville? Missing the Carnival of Wishes and Dreams? It was too much.

  “When are you coming home?” Grace asked.

  “Probably not until pretty late, I think.”

  “What am I supposed to eat for dinner?”

  Their refrigerator, along with the contents of their pantry, was packed up in the moving truck that was parked outside their house. Grace secretly hoped someone would steal it overnight.

  “There’s money on the kitchen counter if you want to order pizza. Or there’s a pack of microwaveable pasta—just add hot water from the sink and it should be fine.”

  In Grace’s opinion, microwaveable pasta was disgusting. So was pizza, since she always had to order it dairy free.

  “Can I go to the carnival tonight?” Grace asked. “I want to eat a funnel cake.”

  “You’re grounded, remember?” Mrs. Chang frowned and held up another dress. “What about this one?”

  “Why do you even care what you wear tonight? It’s just your stupid book club,” Grace grumbled. “Can’t you make an exception just this once? I can be grounded an extra night in California. I really want to go to the carnival—everyone in school is going. It’s not fair.”

  “Life isn’t fair,” Mrs. Chang said. “Get used to it.”

  They were both quiet then, because more than most people, Grace and her mother knew just how not fair life could be.

  Grace hadn’t wanted to do this, but she’d been left with no other choice. For multiple reasons she needed to be at the carnival tonight. She pulled her pumpkin gram from her pocket and placed it on top of the dress pile.

  “Someone sent you this?” Mrs. Chang asked after picking it up and reading it.

  “A boy dropped it on my desk this afternoon when they passed them all out,” Grace answered. She didn’t add that boy had been Diego Martinez or that she wished he had sent it. She knew he hadn’t; that would constitute a grand gesture, and she was pretty sure Diego wasn’t capable of something like that. In fact, the only gesture most of the boys in her class were capable of making was an obscene one involving their middle finger.

  Mrs. Chang frowned. “It’s unsigned—do you know who wrote it?” When Grace didn’t respond, she added, “Were any of your classmates behaving strangely around you?”

  “Not any stranger than usual,” Grace said.

  “I know you think I’m too strict, but I don’t like the idea of you going out at night to meet some mystery person. Anyone could have written this note. It could be from an ax murderer, or a kidnapper, or an escaped convict.”

  Grace was disappointed. She’d thought her mother would think the note was so exciting she’d let her have the night off from being grounded. But really, she should have known better.

  “An escaped convict didn’t write it,” Grace said. “This is a pumpkin gram. From school. The only people who were allowed to send them were students, or teachers, or maybe parents. You always—”

  “You don’t know who wrote it,” Mrs. Chang interrupted. “You don’t know why they want to meet you. Or what they plan to do when you get there.” Her mother was working herself into one of her frenzies now, and Grace knew she needed to put a stop to it; otherwise she might not get to leave the house, ever.

  “It’ll be fine, Mom. The carnival isn’t going to catch fire.” The words pelted from Grace’s mouth like poisonous arrows, and as they struck her mother, Grace wished she could pull them back, one by one.

  She remembered the haunted look in her mother’s eyes in the days immediately following the fire, and how she kept looking at the front door, expecting Grace’s dad to walk through any minute.

  Now her mother never expected the front door to open; it seemed she preferred it stayed shut, at least as far as Grace was concerned. She didn’t just worry about fires anymore; she worried about illnesses and earthquakes and robbers and thieves and now, apparently, bad people who wrote anonymous pumpkin grams and were plotting to kidnap nice kids like Grace.

  If her mother had her way, Grace would never leave the house, ever. If you stayed inside, you could never get hurt. You would be safe. Her mother, who used to be so laid back, hardly let Grace do anything anymore. In fact, Grace had a sneaking suspicion her mother was secretly glad she was grounded. It gave her an excuse to tell Grace she couldn’t go out tonight.

  But her mother wasn’t following her own rules. She was dyeing her hair like a teenager and going out with her book club.

  Grace was tired of being stuck inside the house. Stuck inside her own head. She wanted her last night in Clarkville to be unforgettable. Besides all of the other reasons she needed to be at the carnival, she wanted to eat a funnel cake and to see Diego one last time, even if she never actually spoke to him. She wanted to take a ride on the carousel—the one that some people in town swore was magic—and make some wishes.

  Tonight she was on Team Grace.

  Later, just as her mother was getting ready to leave, she turned to Grace and said, “Be good tonight.”

  Grace crossed her fingers behind her back and answered, “I will.”

  Mrs. Chang held out her arms and said goodbye, but Grace quickly sidestepped her and opened the front door. Grace hated hugs. And goodbyes.

  After her mother was gone, Grace went and took the money from the counter. She was going to use it, but not for pizza.

  Just before she opened the door and stepped outside—draped in the stupid red feather boa and plastic tiara Julia was making them all wear—she left what she thought was a fitting, non-anonymous note for her mother:

  It’s my last night in Clarkville.

  I’m going to the carnival.

  Where the lights are so bright.

  I’ll see you early tomorrow, before the sky turns light.

   6

  Harlow

  THE QUICKEST WAY TO KNOW how much fun you’re missing is to check your classmates’ social media accounts.

  Harlow spent a ton of time online looking at pictures of all the things they did without her. Tonight, for example, Julia King and Audrey McKinley were at Frank’s Diner having a pre-carnival dinner. They were both wearing tiaras and feather boas, although Julia’s getup was much nicer than Audrey’s. Harlow kept refreshing her phone screen, not wanting to miss anything. If she concentrated hard enough, she could pretend she was at Frank’s, too, instead of in her kitchen with her mother, putting together welcome packets.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the carnival?” Mrs. Carlson said as she stapled another packet.

  “I’m sure,” Harlow said, still looking at her phone. Audrey had just posted a picture of her and Julia smiling in front of the biggest banana split Harlow had ever seen with the caption Not sure we can finish this! Harlow grimaced and put her phone away. Then she picked up her own stapler and got to work. The packets had to be finished before her mother left for the carnival.

  “Why don’t you want to go?” Mrs. Carlson persisted. “You love the carnival.”

  “Well, I don’t love it anymore,” Harlow answered.

  “Why not?”

  Harlow concentrated on her stapler and didn’t answer. She couldn’t tell her mother the truth: that she had absolutely no one to go with and no friends at all.

  It hadn’t always been that way. S
he used to imagine Clarkville Middle School as her own personal kingdom. With a flick of her wrist, someone would bring her lunch or offer to carry her backpack. She felt like a queen. But she should have paid more attention in history class. If she had, she’d have known that sometimes queens are overthrown. All it takes is a spark of unrest. Or, in her case, a huge fire that changes everything.

  “I just don’t feel like it,” Harlow said. She stood up from her stool in front of the kitchen island and nearly smacked her head on a copper pan dangling from a hook overhead.

  Harlow had gone through a huge growth spurt over the summer, and as a result she was now extremely tall, like her mother. But where her mother seemed glamorous, like a model, Harlow was coltish and awkward, with knobby knees and achy legs and slow reflexes. She was struggling on the tennis team this year, something Julia never failed to point out during team practice. Harlow had told her mother maybe it was time she quit the tennis team. In response, her mother hired a private coach and doubled Harlow’s practice schedule.

  Because that’s just what you did when you were a Carlson: When things got tough, you worked harder. Things had gotten really tough for the Carlsons—for most of Clarkville, actually—since the fire, and both her parents were working like mad to make things better for everyone.

  Tonight, some potential investors from Boston were coming into town. Harlow’s dad was taking them out, first to dinner, then to the carnival. Then first thing tomorrow morning he was going to present a proposal to them, asking for funds to help him reopen the factory. Between her father’s slick spreadsheets and her mother’s easy charm, they hoped tonight was finally the night things would start to turn around.

  Harlow picked up the packets and took them over to the long back counter, where she began stuffing them into embossed blue folders that read WELCOME TO CLARKVILLE on the front.

  The Carlsons’ kitchen was nearly the size of the McKinley’s old house on Hudson Road. (Harlow knew this because she and Audrey once measured it.) It was the kind of kitchen with copper pots hanging from the ceiling that no one used except Alex, the Carlsons’ personal chef, and had strange appliances no one except Alex used lining the countertops. The only time the Carlsons used the kitchen themselves was when Harlow and her mother stuffed welcome packets for the latest round of investors Harlow’s father brought to town.

  “I still think you should go to the carnival,” Mrs. Carlson said, joining Harlow at the counter. “You never know what surprises you might find tonight.”

  Harlow stopped stuffing and turned to her mother. “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Nothing, darling. It’s just that it’s the Carnival of Wishes and Dreams. All sorts of amazing things could happen.”

  Mrs. Carlson began stuffing the packets into the folders, seemingly innocent. But a thought lodged itself in Harlow’s brain like a splinter: What if her mother had sent the unsigned pumpkin gram? How embarrassing would that be? She obviously knew Harlow had no intention of attending the carnival—Harlow had been telling her parents so all week—so maybe sending her an anonymous pumpkin gram was just her way of persuading her to go?

  An electronic ping sounded, and Mrs. Carlson checked her phone. “That was your dad,” she told Harlow. “Their flight arrived on time but there’s a ton of traffic getting out of the city. After they get to the carnival, he’ll take them to the city council tent where the council members and I will be waiting to meet them.”

  Harlow nodded as she checked her own phone. Comments were already pouring in on Audrey’s banana split picture:

  Lulu Pepperton: I can help you eat it haha!

  Erin Donoghue: You both look so pretty, can’t wait to meet up!

  Lulu Pepperton: Should I come to the diner?

  Harlow felt for Lulu; she wished she could join them at the diner too. She sighed and put her phone down. She didn’t know why she stalked her classmates’ accounts; it only made her feel worse afterward.

  She went back to helping her mother. When they were finished, Mrs. Carlson stretched and said, “All right. I think that’s it. The gift baskets are already loaded up in the car.” She rubbed her neck. “I have a really good feeling. I think tonight’s the night—I can feel it.”

  Harlow wished she could share her mother’s hopefulness. The thing was, her father was great at pitching a proposal (and a baseball, for that matter), but all the spreadsheets and welcome baskets in the world couldn’t tell a story. They couldn’t show all the tiny, beautiful moments that make up a town. They couldn’t explain that Clarkville was special. So far none of the investors her father had brought to town had been able to see that.

  Harlow and her mother loaded up the car with the welcome packets and Mrs. Carlson said, “Last chance. Are you sure you don’t want to come tonight?”

  Harlow nodded. “I’m sure.”

  After her mother drove away, Harlow checked her phone again. Audrey had just posted another photo. Now she and Julia were sipping sodas with licorice whips for straws.

  Harlow figured they must be having the best time ever.

   7

  Audrey

  AUDREY WAS HAVING THE WORST time ever.

  But you’d never know it; not from the selfies Online Audrey posted. Online Audrey smiled brightly every time the camera flashed her way. Online Audrey smiled when Julia had them pose in front of the diner’s sign. She smiled when Julia decided she wanted to eat dessert before dinner and asked Audrey to snap a selfie with the huge banana split they ordered. She smiled like she was having the time of her life.

  Real-Life Audrey wished she was having half as much fun as Online Audrey.

  In real life Julia had frowned when she’d seen Audrey in her sparkly black sweater and said, “I wish you’d told me you were wearing that.” Mrs. King had also frowned when she’d seen Audrey. Julia must have seen the look, too, because she said, “I invited Audrey earlier this afternoon. That’s okay, right, Mom?” Mrs. King, who rarely said no to Julia, had smiled and said it was totally fine—but Audrey knew it totally wasn’t.

  Then, when their hamburgers and sodas arrived, Julia decided they should use some of the licorice whips she had as straws. There must have been a hole in Audrey’s, because when she went to slurp her root beer it spurted out the side and all over her chin and neck. Of course, you couldn’t see that in the picture they posted.

  Now Audrey was wet and sticky, but Julia didn’t seem to notice; she was too busy talking about her birthday party and how much fun it would be cruising into the city in a limo. Audrey was assuming one of the two invitations belonged to her—she was Julia’s best friend, after all—but technically Julia hadn’t actually invited her yet.

  “So, Audrey,” Mr. King said, “What’s your dad been up to these days?”

  She knew he was just making polite conversation, but she didn’t know how to answer his question. The truth was she had no clue what her dad was up to. Sometimes Audrey would catch him on the phone late at night, talking softly so no one could hear. He slept all day and was out all night. When she’d asked him where he went, he’d said he was working, but when she’d asked where, he had just waved her off and told her not to worry about it.

  “He’s good,” she answered finally. “He’s working at the carnival tonight.”

  Mrs. King, who had left the diner to go purchase their tickets to the carnival, reappeared then. “Just in time,” she said, sliding back into the booth. “There’s a huge line.” She passed the tickets around the table. When she came to Audrey she said, “That’ll be ten dollars, please.”

  “What? Oh . . .” A flush spread across Audrey’s cheeks, and she didn’t know what to say. Her father had received a couple free tickets for working at the carnival, and he’d given them to Audrey and Ethan. When Mrs. King had said she was going to purchase tickets, she hadn’t mentioned she was planning to buy one for Audrey, too.

  Mr. King, seeing Audrey’s look and mistaking it for something else, said, “Don’t worry, Audrey. W
e’ll get it.”

  Mrs. King opened her mouth to say something, but upon seeing the look Mr. King shot her, closed it and focused on her milkshake.

  Audrey slipped the ticket into her pocket, right next to the other one she carried. She quietly resumed eating her hamburger. While Julia continued to talk, Audrey looked around the diner. Pictures of Clarkville High’s baseball team were tacked to the walls. Hanging over the order-up counter was a picture of the team from more than twenty years ago. Standing in the middle of everyone was their star hitter, Grace’s dad, Henry “Home Run” Chang. On either side of Mr. Chang were his two best friends: shortstop Jimmy McKinley, Audrey’s dad, and pitcher Russ Carlson, Harlow’s dad.

  Back when they were in high school, Audrey’s, Grace’s, and Harlow’s fathers had been inseparable. It didn’t matter that Mr. Chang’s parents had grown up in Taiwan, or that Mr. Carlson’s parents owned the largest house in Clarkville, or that Mr. McKinley’s parents lived in Sterling Meadows—the trailer park at the edge of town everyone pretended didn’t exist. They had loved baseball and one another. Their three families had done everything together. Up until nearly a year ago, when the fire changed everything.

  This year’s high school baseball team had a big game coming up tomorrow night against their rival, Fairvale High. This would be the first year the McKinleys, Carlsons, and Changs wouldn’t watch it together. Audrey couldn’t help but wonder if Harlow or Grace had thought about that at all.

  “Audrey—did you hear what I said?” Julia said, sounding annoyed. “Pass me the ketchup.”

  You forgot to say please, Audrey almost retorted. After the ketchup was safely in Julia’s outstretched hands, Audrey excused herself to go refill her soda.

  “Can you do me a favor and refill mine too?” Julia said, holding up her cup.