by B. C. Tweedt
This is where new memories would be born.
“Here’s our spot,” Greyson said, taking a seat on the bushy grass next to a tall maple tree with two trunks that had grown together. The spot must have been coveted by many, for it offered not only a soft seat, but one in shade overlooking the main concourse – the wide avenue leading straight down the middle of the fair, lined with food vendors and the gigantic Grand Stands and Varied Industries Buildings to the right and left. Besides the dozens of golf carts with officials zipping around, hundreds of people flocked through the thoroughfare in a matter of seconds, making this the perfect vantage point for people-watching.
There was the constant murmur of the crowd and the putputput of tractor taxis, but the harsh revving of a chainsaw emerged above the din from behind a cluster of people down the road, gathering to watch an ice sculptor begin his work on a massive slab of ice. Later in the day there would be a lumberjack displaying his skills to the public by carving stumps of wood into fantastic animals with his chainsaw. What else could people destroy in order to make something beautiful? Greyson wondered at all the possibilities. But for now, he was content to sit with Kip without the pressure of being trained.
Next to him, Kip was already sweating a little at the temples. Greyson looked at him for a moment, trying to think of the words to say. He wanted to thank him for everything – for the seven or eight weeks he put up with him, for the way he treated his mother, for the slingshot – but somehow he felt his dad would get jealous. He wanted to ask him, too – you like my mom? But he was afraid. He was afraid it would create awkwardness. And he was afraid he’d kill whatever there was already there between them. Though he wouldn’t admit it, there was a small part of him that was rooting for Kip.
Maybe there was a way he could help the two of them get closer, but just for a while. He didn’t want them to stay together for long, only until his dad was found. But just in case he never came back, it was good for his mom to have someone like Kip to take care of her. Maybe, he thought, I can find an excuse to get them some one-on-one time.
“You said you’d leave me alone sometime.”
Geez, that came out wrong. He could see Kip’s face quiver, just for a second.
“I mean, not that you’re bugging me – it’s just…maybe my mom would like some company for lunch. She’s been hanging with a bunch of other parents she doesn’t know very well.”
Kip nodded and flashed him a knowing smile. “Trying to get rid of me, eh? I understand.”
“No!” Greyson scoffed.
“No, no. It’s okay, little buddy. I promised and I’ll make good on it. I see your friends on the way already. I’ll step on out and meet up with you in a few hours.” He stood up with cracking knees. “Got your cell phone?”
“Yup!” Greyson patted his fanny pack.
“And your secret weapon?”
He meant the GPS clicker. “Yup. And the slingshot.”
Kip faltered for a moment as if regretting his decision or losing his balance, regained his sure footing, and nodded to the boy. “Be safe.” He turned to leave.
Greyson paused and cocked his head. “Wait. Really?”
He turned back. “What?”
“That’s your parting advice? Be safe?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that, you’re usually so good with advice and all. And that – that was just – a little – lame.”
Kip grabbed his belt with both hands and gave him a look. “Alright, Mr. Cool. What should I leave a 12-year-old boy with? ‘Don’t be stupid’?”
“No,” Greyson laughed, “how about – ‘dare to do good’, or ‘do to others what you would want them to do to you’?”
Nodding, Kip shrugged and thought to himself, rubbing his chin. “Ah! How about, ‘sapere aude’?”
“Sapeeray odd day?”
Kip chuckled. “It’s Latin for ‘dare to be wise’.”
Greyson’s face lit up. It was perfect.
“And then you say, ‘audeāmus’, which means, ‘let us dare’.”
“Oddy ah moose.”
“Hey, GreatBuns!”
It was Jarryd running up the hill, a grin plastered on his face and a ribbon swinging back and forth from his shirt.
When Greyson looked back to Kip, he had already blended into the crowd, heading back to camp. He hadn’t gotten to thank him.
“GreatBuns!” He was huffing and puffing from the run up the hill. “I…I won! Look!”
Greyson grasped his blue ribbon. It read: “Mr. Legs 2013 – Junior Division.”
“Mr. Legs?”
Jarryd turned around and went on tiptoes. “Check these babies out!” He bobbed up and down, flexing his calf muscles. Surprisingly, the muscles looked hard as a rock and bulged through the perfectly smooth skin, reflecting in the sunlight.
“Dude. You’re jacked!”
“I know, right? I worked on them all summer.”
“Is there lotion on them?”
“No,” he scoffed. “Duh! It’s oil. And all weightlifters do it. It just gives them that extra sexiness, you know?”
“No.”
“Well, then. Ask Sydney; she’ll tell you. I dare you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah! Oh, here comes Sammy. We can ask him, too.”
Sammy stood at the bottom of the hill, staring at them. Or at least they thought he was. With a dangerously lazy eye, he had trouble getting it to go where he wanted it to go. Sure enough, he turned to the left and cocked his head and recognized them. He scampered up the hill and pulled a blue ribbon from his pocket.
Greyson was about to congratulate him, but the boy kept pulling at the content of his pockets, ignoring the ribbon. He kept sniffing and salivating with his head down into his chest, trying to peer into his pocket full of corndog sticks, candy wrappers, and remnants of a hard-boiled egg.
“What’s up, Sammy?”
He ignored them and checked his other pocket and then his hefty backpack bulging with peanut containers. Greyson and Jarryd shared a smile. Greyson had been glad to find out that Sammy would be joining them at the fair every now and then when his grandmother let him. He was weird, no doubt. But despite the desperately mangled smile, lazy eye, and wild hyena-hair, he had a good heart.
“I will kill every frickin’ squirrel in this fair! They jacked my ribbon!”
“No, man. It’s right there. Your ribbon.”
Sammy kept scrounging in his pockets and bag, sipping at his saliva. “No, my other one. I think it’s in their nest fortress.”
The boys exchanged another look. Greyson grabbed the ribbon they saw. “Bags Tournament Champion – Junior Singles. You won Bags?”
“Yeah. Easy. Just throw the bags in the holes. Other people suck.”
“What is your missing ribbon for?”
“Doubles.”
“You won doubles, too? You beast!” Greyson exclaimed. “Who was your teammate?”
Sammy stuffed everything back in his pockets and bag and huffed in disappointment. “Some fat, old, bald guy. Big glasses.”
Jarryd laughed. Did he offer you candy? The guy fits every other standard of a creeper.”
Sammy sneered. “No. Funnel cake!”
Greyson and Jarryd laughed so hard that heads turned. When they had caught their breath, Sydney stood over them holding a ribbon in their faces.
“I expect congratulations in the form of adoration and respect.”
Greyson jumped to his feet and looked closer at the ribbon. “This is awesome! You guys are kicking this fair’s butt!”
Jarryd leaned in at the ribbon’s text. “What’s 4H mean again? Headaches, hernias, hemorrhoids, and herpes?”
Sydney glared at him. “Yeah. You should join.”
He scoffed. “Nah. Already did. I was a wee lad of ten. I actually did a science experiment.” He bent his knees and took hold of two imaginary objects in the air. “I wanted to breed a wiener dog…and a horse.
I wanted to make…a wiener horse.”
Sydney sneered in disdain and Greyson grimaced. “Why’d you do that?”
“Well, I couldn’t call it a horse wiener. That’d be awkward.”
“Oh…my…gosh.” Sydney sat down and clasped her hands over her ears. “Boys!”
Greyson shook his head at his friend and sat down next to Sydney. “Not in front of girls, dude.”
“What?” Jarryd asked. “That’s what I didn’t call it. And it didn’t work. I couldn’t quite get them to–”
“Jarryd!”
“Oh, ooo-kay.”
The four of them sat together and were soon joined by an excited Liam and Nick who had been exploring the fairgrounds together.
“You guys see the stunt show?” Nick asked.
“Nope.”
“It was sweet. Guys doing flips with skateboards, dirt bikes, and even scooters. They are frickin’ amazing!”
“Cool.”
“You guys see the butter cow?”
“Nope.”
“Why not? It’s like the biggest attraction! Some chick sculpts a giant cow out of pure butter. Four years ago they also did a chocolate moose.”
“Cool.”
“How about the biggest boar?”
Jarryd rolled his eyes. “Your mom?”
Nick soured. “Who is also your mom? No. It’s gigantic! It’s 1335 pounds!”
“Oh, so Greyson’s mom.”
Greyson slugged him on the shoulder.
“You go through the Avenue of the Breeds? With the llamas and ostriches?”
“The l-l-little g-goats s-sucked on m-my fingers,” Liam explained with glee. “I c-could f-feel their throats.”
“That’s wonderful,” Jarryd said sarcastically. “But no.”
“Well, geez. What did you guys do?”
“We won frickin’ ribbons,” Jarryd bragged. “Blue frickin’ ribbons.”
The ribbon winners re-explained their victories, but the summer day began to take a toll on them. The heat was rising off the roadway in radiating waves and the crowd noise seemed to lull them into a relaxing trance. Sydney was the first to lie back in the grass and Greyson joined her soon after. Staring up into the shimmering leaves playing with the rays of sun was mesmerizing. The shade danced on their faces and washed over their tanned hands. Sydney’s moved through the grass a little closer to Greyson’s.
“Want to play a game?” Jarryd asked the group, always itching for something to do. “Anyone?”
“Does it involve moving?” Sydney asked.
Greyson felt Sydney’s hands brushing next to his. He suddenly felt a chill. Had the shade covered all the sun?
“The game’s called Louder. I say a word, any word, and then the next person says it louder. The next says it even louder. The first person to give up on saying it louder, loses.”
“I’m game.” Sydney sat up, sliding her hand over Greyson’s on the way up.
Was that an accident? He sat up as well, studying her face for a sign. “Me, too.”
“M-m-me, t-too!”
“Okay. We can all play. Ready?” Jarryd scanned the hundreds of people crisscrossing the streets and paths surrounding them. He licked his lips and seemed to search deep into his own eye sockets until he found it. He pumped his eyebrows at Greyson, turned to the crowd, and spoke quietly. “Sphincter.”
“What?” Greyson asked.
“It’s a muscle in your butt.”
“Oh.”
Nick shifted and spoke a little louder. “Sphincter.”
No one in the crowd turned.
“Sphincter!” Greyson shouted with a smile.
A dad holding two young girls turned and searched for the source of the word. His eyes landed on the group of kids and he frowned, carrying the girls away a little faster.
The group laughed. Sydney leaned forward. “Sphincter!” This time four couples turned and several more stopped in their tracks at the sudden outburst. Sydney laid back down, shaking in laughter and red with embarrassment. The rest looked up into the tree or averted their eyes elsewhere.
But, not to be outdone, Sammy stood up, took in a deep breath and screamed at the top of his lungs. “SPHIIIIIIIIINCTEEEEEER!”
Sydney pulled the boy down, but the damage was done. Dozens had turned to search for the rude child; others debated calling security.
And then security was there.
“Snap! Get down! Look innocent!”
The group slammed their backs into the grass and tried to calm their beating hearts and rising lungs.
“Did they see us?” Jarryd squeaked as he peeked at the two uniformed cops who had appeared to be coming for them. But they had changed course, meandering along with the crowd, their hands on their belts. They hadn’t heard them. “I don’t think they heard. Or they don’t know what it is.”
Greyson sat up and watched the two cops just as they seemed to notice something further down the main concourse. The cops stiffened up, whispered to each other, and turned back. And then, keeping an eye toward where they had first looked, they slowed to a stop and pretended to ignore whatever it was that had caught their attention.
“What are they doing?”
No one answered his question, but Greyson was determined to find out. He followed their glances to a food hut fifty feet to their left where a teenaged boy in a white shirt had his back turned, nailing a poster to the side of the hut. A small crowd had gathered around him and he seemed to be shouting. They could barely make out the words, half of which seemed like gibberish.
“Pluribus is for the people! Pluribus is the people! Tyranny is rising, but you can stop it! Take our country back! Join the fight! Join the fight! E Unum, Pluribus!”
The crowd grew restless around him and some of the men stepped into his space and violently ripped the poster from the hut. Another pushed him and shouted in his face while an older man tried to hold his grown son back. Someone already had a camera out, videoing the episode just in case it was worthy to put online. The mob grew.
“What’s that kid doing? Starting a fight?” Jarryd asked. “Oh. Now come the cops.”
The cops had finally decided to end it, pressing through the crowd and yelling warnings to the men on the verge of an all-out brawl. Slowly, the cops convinced both the crowd to disperse and the men who had confronted the vandal to carry on with whatever they were doing. Their wives and significant others were more than pleased, pulling them away while trying to soothe their anger.
Soon, it was only the cops and the boy left. They chatted for several seconds and then carried the conversation on as they walked toward the main concourse. Most had stopped watching, but Greyson followed them with his eyes, something in his gut telling him that something was not as it seemed.
As the cops were about to send the boy off they were glancing around the crowd. Little glances. Side glances. Like they were making sure they were being watched. Again, as they pushed him off – as if they were acting. Finally, everything seemed like it would get back to normal, and it did, but one small detail seemed amiss. Greyson couldn’t put his finger on it until the last moment.
They never took his posters – or his hammer.
“Cool. That Plurb just got owned!” Jarryd exclaimed, watching him trudge away with a smirk on his face.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Greyson murmured. “What’s Pluribus?”
The kids turned to him as if he had said he’d never heard of the moon. “Really?” Jarryd exclaimed. “You haven’t heard of them? Have you seen a television before? Or heard of the Internet?”
Liam scrunched his eyebrows. “M-my m-mom says they’re like p-p-patriots from the R-R-Revo-Revolutionary War.”
Sydney shook her head. “No way! They want to divide the nation – like a whole new Civil War Confederacy or whatever. How is that patriotic?”
Liam shrugged. Nick leaned in to defend him. “Well, if the government keeps taking away everyone’s freedoms, we have the right to get rid of it, don�
��t we?”
“Yeah,” Sydney retorted. “Through elections.”
“What if they’re rigged?” Nick argued, growing passionate.
“Who would do that?”
“Our government.”
“No they wouldn’t. And they couldn’t.”
“Yeah they could. If they have all the power – which they do.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Yeah. They control the Internet. Hack the vote count. It happened last year.”
“What are you talkin’ about? They can’t do that.”
“Well, my step-dad says they can. They keep trampling on the Constitution.”
“Your step-dad should read the Constitution before opening his…” Sydney suddenly stopped her arguing. “Greyson. Where are you going?”
He had stood up, his gaze still following the white-shirted boy through the crowds. His eyes flashed with intensity. His voice came out husky, but sure. “I’m going to follow him.”
Chapter 6
“If Pluribus is so anti-government, you’d think the cops would try a little harder to make him stop. They didn’t take his stuff. There’s something not right.” Greyson took a few steps away from the group. “And I want to see if he does it again.”
“Wait!”
Greyson stopped halfway into his sprint.
Sydney shook her head at him. “And what about us?”
Still in running position, he scanned the group. He had their attention. He had forgotten about how they looked to him for leadership. Even after he screwed things up last time and almost got them all killed.
“Oh, yeah. Um…Nick and Liam, get the high ground. Take the SkyRide and your cell phones, and be my eyes. Jarryd, grab that ripped poster – I want to see it. Sammy, save our spot here.” He caught Sydney’s glare. “And Sydney…go get me a tenderloin. I might be hungry when I get back.”
He winked at her.
“I will destroy your tender loin. Or I’m going with you.”
“Then you better catch up!”
He set off at a dead sprint and Sydney scrambled after him. Nick and Liam were up in a flash, running toward the entrance to the SkyRide lift-chairs.