He glanced at the bulletin board. “See anything you plan on buying?” he asked.
“Nope. Just looking. What’s the whole deal with the Scavenger Hunt thing?”
“It’s the big end-of-summer after-hours cast party. Everyone is divided up into teams of five. Team members are tied to each other with rope. You then run through the park following sets of clues and trying to beat the other teams. It’s awesome.”
It sounded kind of fun, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to be tied to four other people. Plus, since she was already giving most of her summer to The Zone, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to give up one of her last nights before school started back up. “I guess I’ll pass,” she said.
Josh laughed out loud. “Think again. It’s mandatory. You have to go.”
“If it’s mandatory, then why do we have to sign up?” Candace asked.
Josh rolled his eyes. “You sign up with the people you want to be on your team.”
“What if you don’t have a team?”
“Then you pretty much get stuck with other people who don’t have a team.”
She made a face. “So, I could get stuck with someone totally random… like that guy?” she asked, pointing to a stranger a few feet away.
Josh laughed. “Nope, he’s already got a team.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Almost everyone does. Most of us signed up with our teams weeks ago,” he said.
“So, then, I guess that means there aren’t any slots on your team?” she asked, somewhat hopefully.
“Sorry. We signed up in March.”
March. It figures. “What am I going to do?” she asked.
He shrugged. “You can try to find a couple of people who aren’t already on a team. Otherwise you’ll know in a couple of days who you’re stuck with. They’re posting teams on Tuesday.”
“And where do I sign up if I do manage to find a team?” she asked.
“The list is in the referee cantina, behind the Exploration Zone. You been there?”
“No, but I’ve walked past it,” she admitted.
“Well, I’m back on. Good luck,” he said.
Her break was nearly over, so she hurried back to her cart and took up her position once more. While she was working, she tried to think of who she could ask that might not already be on a team. From there her thoughts drifted to Kurt. Was he on a team? He had to be. He must have plenty of friends. Maybe he was on the same team as Lisa. They could have signed up together before they broke up. If they were on a team together, what better way to rekindle the spark? Moonlight, games, competition, close proximity to each other.
Stop it! she told herself. Thinking about Kurt or Lisa — or Kurt and Lisa — was getting her nowhere. She needed to find team members who were as late signing up as she was. Who might be just as clueless as her?
Suddenly she got it. She just had to wait until her dinner break to act on it.
6
Candace found Sue in the last bathroom she checked. The other girl was busily cleaning up after the throngs of women who had trashed it. Candace shuddered as she remembered that it so easily could have been her cleaning bathrooms. But since Sue was the one person in The Zone who seemed to be always just a hair later than Candace, she thought she might have a winner.
Sue turned to her and gave her a bright smile. Candace noticed that her name tag said Sue and not Mary.
“Hey, Candy. Sorry, Candace,” Sue said, grimacing at her slip-up.
“Hey, Sue. I see you got your name tag fixed.”
“And I see you haven’t.”
“How is it you got yours already?”
Sue shrugged. “Lucky, I guess.”
“Must be. Man, it was hard to find you. There must be like a gazillion restrooms in this place.”
“Twenty-seven, but at the end of the day it might as well be a gazillion.” Sue laughed. “What’s up?”
“Have you signed up for the Scavenger Hunt yet?”
Sue shook her head. “I only just heard about it.”
“Me too. You want to be teammates? At least that way we’ll know each other.”
“That would be great,” Sue said, looking as relieved as Candace felt. “I was totally afraid I was going to get stuck with that crazy guy who drives the train.”
“And tries to run people down? Me too. This is great, I’ll go put our names down,” Candace said.
“Thanks. And thanks for thinking of me.”
“No problem,” Candace said as she exited the restroom. She was just relieved that once again Sue was just as behind as she was. Maybe if they stuck together, the two of them could make it through the summer.
Candace headed off-field and found her way to the referee cantina. There she found a sign-up sheet tacked to the wall. She put down her name and then realized that she didn’t know Sue’s last name. She stood for a moment trying to decide whether to go back and ask her before finally just writing down “Sue, Janitorial” on the page. How many Sues could there be cleaning restrooms?
“Hey, are you signing up for the scavenger hunt?” a voice asked beside her.
She turned and saw a guy her age with brown hair and puppy-dog eyes.
“Yes,” she said.
“Got room for one more on your team?” he asked, giving her a sheepish look. He looked like a nice-enough guy.
“Sure, you need a team?” she asked.
He nodded. “My name’s Roger. I’m a cashier at The Dug Out.”
“The baseball card shop in the Game Zone?” she asked.
He half nodded, half shook his head. “We carry cards for several sports: football, hockey. We also have other collectables like autographed balls, jerseys, that sort of thing. We can even take your picture and put it on a souvenir card for you, just like you were some big sports star.”
“That’s cool. I’m Candace. I work one of the cotton candy machines.”
His eyes widened, and he leaned forward conspiratorially. “Then I don’t have to tell you to watch out for Becca.”
She was about to ask him why people kept saying that, but he stepped back and coughed behind his hand. “So, uh, can I be on your team?”
“Sure.” She turned and wrote down his first name. “Roger what?” she asked.
“Crane,” he answered.
She wrote down his last name. “Cool. Now we only have to find two more people.”
He shrugged. “If you don’t have a full team, they’ll combine us with another team or put people who don’t have a team in those slots. That happened to me last year.”
She felt suddenly very sorry for him. How had he managed to be working here that long and still need to team up with a stranger? “Well, I’ll catch you later, Candace,” he said.
“Yeah, Roger,” she answered.
He turned around, took two steps, and promptly tripped over a chair and did a swan dive onto the floor. Instantly, the room broke out in applause, and several people hastily stood up with signs on which they had scribbled scores: 8.5, 9, 7, 9.5, and one particularly loud guy held up a perfect 10.
Roger stood up slowly, blushing fiercely before heading out the door. Candace turned to a girl sitting nearby, a terrible suspicion occurring to her. “Does this happen often?” she asked.
The girl smiled. “Roger falls down or trips over something at least twice a day. I think eleven times is his personal best.”
“Great,” Candace said. Now she knew why Roger didn’t already have a team. And come Scavenger Hunt, she was going to find herself tied to him, literally. She made a note to go home and ask her mom just how good her medical insurance was.
“It could be worse,” the girl said.
“How?”
“Pete could be on your team.”
“Who’s Pete?”
“The guy who tries to run everyone down with the train.”
“He has a name?” Candace asked, amazed.
“Other than Crazy Train Guy? Yeah, go figure. Good luck to y
ou.”
“Thanks. I think we’re going to need it.”
The rest of that evening her cart was parked in the Splash Zone next to the entrance to Kowabunga. It was great because she was close enough to Josh that they found time to talk when things would slack a little. The more she got to know him, the more she found she liked him. He was friendly and easy to talk to.
“Okay, so who are you crushing on?” he asked after she had sent a little girl on her way with a fistful of cotton candy.
“Excuse me? Why on earth would I tell you something like that?” she asked.
“Because I can tell you whether or not he has a girlfriend already,” he said. “And because if we share and bond, it will make us like totally close.”
She couldn’t help it; she started laughing so hard she snorted. That got him laughing at her, and she couldn’t help but laugh at that. Pretty soon her stomach ached, and she thought she was going to burst. She held up a hand.
“Stop, please, it hurts to laugh.”
“Give me a name or I’ll totally tickle you,” he threatened.
She started laughing even harder — a shrill nervous laugh that was making people stop and stare. “Okay, I’ll tell,” she said, gasping. “Just don’t make me laugh anymore.”
“Okay, this better be good.”
“You probably don’t even know him,” she said.
“I know everyone who works here,” he assured her.
“It’s Kurt, over in the History Zone.”
“The mascot? Dresses up like Robin Hood and others?”
“The same,” she admitted, blushing furiously.
“Well, then, it’s your lucky day. I happen to know that he’s available, and that he’s got his eye on a certain cotton candy vendor.”
She felt her heart sink. “Lisa,” she said.
“No, dorko, you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, don’t act all surprised. You’re one of the new kids, so to speak, and you’re pretty easy on the eyes.”
She started blushing even harder. “You’re just saying that,” she accused.
“Why would I?” he asked. “I have nothing to gain. Seriously, I think he’s into you. He’s a nice guy too.”
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t steer you wrong. Only…”
“What?”
“Well, he doesn’t have a lot of ambition.”
She shrugged. “Hey, I don’t know what I want to do with my life yet, either.”
“Yeah, but you will,” he said with an easy smile. “Seriously, if you like him, you should go for it. Ask him out.”
“I couldn’t do that!”
“Well then, at least put yourself in the path of him asking you out.”
She got butterflies in her stomach just thinking about that. He laughed at her, but it was a good-natured laugh. “That should give you something to think about, Cotton Candy.”
She shook herself mentally. “So, fair’s fair. Who are you crushing on?” she asked.
“No one.”
“Liar.”
“Nope, Scout’s honor. If that changes, I’ll tell you.”
“Seriously, no girls you have your eye on?”
“Nope.”
“You’re not… I mean, any guys you have your eye on?”
“No. If you must know, I broke up with my girlfriend a couple of months ago, and I’m just not interested in starting something new right now.”
“I’m sorry. What happened?”
“Her family moved, and she didn’t want to do the whole long-distance thing.”
“That sucks.”
“Tell me about it.”
“But if you’re not crushing on anyone, that’s not fair. You know one of my secrets, and I have nothing on you.”
“Ah, I see. With you, trust is built upon mutual blackmail.” “No, nothing like that,” she said, feeling suddenly foolish. He smiled. “No worries. I get it. You want to know one of my secrets?”
She found herself nodding.
He stepped up next to her, put his mouth close to her ear and whispered it. Startled, she looked at him.
“It’s true,” he said solemnly.
“Wow.”
“There has now been a mutual trade of secrets so the friendship can be formally sealed. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said. “You are a strange one, Josh.”
“Don’t I know it. And look, such timing. My shift is up. Here comes my replacement,” he said, pointing to another surfer-looking guy walking toward them. Candace was relieved to see that next to him was Martha. Just in time too. Behind them she could see a group of kids making a beeline for her cart.
“Get out of here while you can,” Martha said.
“Are you going to need help with that group?” Candace asked uncertainly.
“They don’t scare me,” Martha answered.
A minute later Candace and Josh were heading out of the Splash Zone. Candace started to turn right toward the Exploration Zone, but Josh put a hand on her arm.
“Let’s go through the Thrill Zone.”
“But it’s longer that way.”
“Yeah, but I want a closer look at the new coaster.”
They turned left, and a minute later they were standing in front of a shiny new sign that read Glider.
Glider, the newest attraction in The Zone, was set to open the July Fourth weekend. The massive tracks swooped all around the Thrill Zone. Every so often, for the last couple of days, an empty car had gone swooshing by on a test run, causing everyone nearby to stop and stare. Candace could hardly wait to try it.
“It’s going to be awesome, isn’t it?” Josh asked.
“Yeah.”
“Come on, let’s take a closer look.” Together they walked up the exit ramp.
“Hey, Greg, how’s it going, Dude?” Josh asked the guy who was behind the controls of the ride.
“Josh, you’re just in time. The Game Masters just left. We could use a couple of bodies on a test run.”
“Really?” Candace asked. “Referee previews aren’t for a couple of days.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve already ridden it, and we could use a couple more guinea pigs,” Greg said.
“We’re just the guinea pigs you’re looking for,” Josh said.
“Then let’s go.”
They stepped onto the loading platform and backed into position, as though they were going on a stand-up roller coaster. Candace pulled a padded X-shaped safety bar from the left side of her body across toward her right where it locked in place. Josh did the same, and then Greg strapped two large safety belts across both of them. Now Candace was standing with her arms straight up in the air, and her heart pounding faster with each passing second.
“Who are Game Masters?” she asked Josh.
“That’s what they call the engineers and designers who come up with the rides and the attractions,” he said with a grin.
“Nice.”
Greg stepped back and shouted, “Clear.”
For a moment nothing happened. Then the platform they were standing on lifted about a foot into the air and then slowly began to tilt forward. Candace let out a little scream involuntarily. Finally, the mechanism stopped moving and she found herself parallel to the tracks, staring down at them.
“Look ahead, not down, it’s cooler that way!” Greg shouted.
And then suddenly they were moving forward. Josh gave a shout, and Candace looked up as they pulled out of the station and suddenly rocketed forward.
“We’re flying!” she yelled, the wind snatching the words from her lips. As they shot along with the track above and the ground below and empty sky in front of them she thought that this must be what it would feel like to be Superman. The ride banked sharply to the left and then dropped down. They both screamed as they swooped close to the ground and then pulled up and climbed high into the sky.
“This is awesome!” she heard Josh shout.
They continued on, making tight t
urns and dives. When they pulled back into the station and were slowly brought back to a standing position, she felt herself grinning from ear to ear. Josh was clapping and she joined him.
“That is the best ride ever,” Candace panted.
“Come back during the referee preview and I’ll let you go again,” Greg said with a wink.
“It’s good to be a ref,” Josh said as they exited.
“Yeah, I think I’m starting to get the hang of it,” Candace laughed. “That was so cool. I can’t wait to tell Tamara about it.”
As it turned out, Tamara seemed less interested in the ride than in the fact that Candace had told Josh about liking Kurt.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You talked to somebody at work about crushing on Kurt? You never tell anyone about your crushes except me.”
“Josh made me tell. He had me laughing so hard I started snorting, and then he threatened to tickle me if I didn’t spill. What’s awesome, though, is he said he knew Kurt liked me too. Isn’t that great?”
“Yeah. So, what are you going to do about it?”
“Josh suggested I ask Kurt out, but when I told him I couldn’t do that, he said I should put myself in the way of being asked out.”
“So now you’re going to do what Josh says?
“Well, he is a guy and he knows Kurt, so I guess so.”
Tamara had a weird look on her face that Candace hadn’t seen before. She debated about asking what was up, but opted to change the topic. “So, what did you do today?”
“I hung out at the mall with Amanda and Kristen. We had our nails done,” Tamara said, presenting her nails to Candace.
A pang of jealousy hit Candace. It should be her getting her nails done with Tamara. Amanda and Kristen were two of the stuck-up girls in the rich clique at school. Tamara never hung out with them.
“I thought you didn’t like them,” she said.
Tamara tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Well, they’re not that bad once you get to know them.”
Candace wouldn’t know. Her family wasn’t a member of the country club set, and so there was no way Amanda and Kristen would ever give her even the time of day.
“We’re going to see the new Ben Stiller flick. Wanna come?”
The Summer of Cotton Candy Page 5