Karen's Carnival

by Ann M. Martin

  Nobody wanted their fortune read. So I looked around the carnival. Ricky was buying a lemonade. Natalie had just won at the ringtoss.

  “What prize do I get?” she asked.

  David Michael handed her a dinosaur eraser. Then he dashed to my booth. “Karen!” he exclaimed. “I’m almost out of prizes! So are Linny and everyone. You didn’t buy enough.”

  Oops. We were in trouble. But Charlie came to the rescue. I gave him some of the money we had earned. Then he roared downtown in the Junk Bucket to buy more prizes at Unicorn.

  While Charlie was gone, the Awful Thing happened. I was minding my business when a croaky voice said, “Are you Madame Karen?”

  I glanced up. In front of me stood … Morbidda Destiny. The witch next door.

  I gasped.

  Morbidda held out her hand. A quarter was in it.

  I grabbed the quarter and said very quickly, “You’ll live a long time, and, um, you’re going to get a dog. And good luck in life.”

  “Thank you,” said the witch.

  Morbidda walked to the ringtoss game. She was here to jinx our carnival. I just knew it. I watched her very carefully. But the witch did not do anything bad. She played some games. She bought a friendship bracelet from Nancy. She said hello to Daddy and Elizabeth. Then she went home.

  “The coast is clear!” I called to Hannie and Nancy.

  The witch had spent over two dollars at my carnival.

  Thirty-two Dollars and Forty Cents

  My feet ached. My back ached. The Madame Karen turban was hurting my hair. I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to four!

  The carnival was supposed to end at four o’clock. But kids were everywhere. They were playing games, eating popcorn, choosing prizes. And more kids were coming.

  I took off my turban. I ran to Hannie. “It’s almost four,” I told her. “We have to stop the carnival. I’m tired.”

  “Me, too. But how do we stop a carnival? We cannot just tell everyone to go away.”

  Nancy joined us. “I ran out of bracelets!” she exclaimed.

  “Good,” I replied. “Then you can help us.” I told Nancy that we had to close up.

  “How are we going to do that?” she asked.

  The Three Musketeers thought very hard. We each decided to do one thing.

  Nancy took the balloons off the mailbox.

  Hannie made a “closed” sign. She made it quickly. In fact, she made it so quickly that it read CARNVAL CLOZED. She carried it to the front yard. Then she pulled the KAREN’S CARNIVAL sign out of the ground. She stuck the new one in the hole.

  While Hannie was doing that, I found Charlie. He was working at the penny-pitch. “Step right up!” he was saying.

  “Charlie, stop that!” I whispered loudly. “The carnival is over. We want people to go home. Can I borrow your megaphone?”

  Charlie said I could.

  The megaphone was in the garage. A megaphone is shaped like a cone. If you hold the small end to your mouth and yell through it, your voice sounds very loud.

  I stood in the middle of the carnival with the megaphone. “Attention, everybody!” I yelled. “Karen’s Carnival is over! Please finish whatever you are doing. Thank you very much for coming. We appreciate your business. Over and out!”

  Slowly, people began to leave. My family and Linny went inside. Finally Hannie and Nancy and I were alone in the backyard.

  “What a mess,” said Hannie.

  “We better clean it up,” added Nancy.

  “But first,” I said, “we have to see how much money we made. Come on.”

  My friends and I went to each booth and table. We collected the money we had earned. Then we dumped it in a pile on the empty bracelet table.

  “Whoa,” I whispered. “Would you look at that?”

  Before us was a mountain of money — a huge pile of quarters and dimes and nickels and pennies, plus some bills.

  “I bet it’s a zillion dollars!” cried Hannie.

  We separated the money into piles that equaled a dollar: four quarters or ten dimes or twenty nickels or a hundred pennies. Then we counted our dollars.

  “Thirty-two,” I said slowly. “Thirty-two? Is that all?”

  “Here’s forty cents,” said Nancy. “We earned thirty-two dollars and forty cents.”

  “But we spent fifty-four dollars. We did not even earn that back.”

  I almost began to cry. What had happened to my wonderful carnival?

  Kristy came outside then. I told her what was wrong.

  “That’s too bad,” she said. “Maybe you didn’t charge enough money to play games. The games only cost twenty-five cents. How much did the prizes cost?”

  “Fifty cents,” I answered. “Or a dollar. And I had to ask Charlie to buy more.”

  “The prizes should not have cost so much,” said Kristy gently. “But you know what? I think everyone had fun today. And you can still give the thirty-two dollars and forty cents to the playground fund.”

  Hurray!

  “All finished,” said Nancy glumly.

  “Yeah. I guess so.” I looked around the yard. It was neat and tidy. Hannie and Nancy and I had thrown the trash away. We had taken down the booths. We had put the tables back in the house.

  “Thank you, girls!” called Elizabeth from the back door. “Why don’t you come inside now? The yard looks fine.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  Nancy and Hannie and I scuffled into the big house. We poured our mountain of money on the kitchen table.

  “You’re rich!” exclaimed Andrew. “Can I have some?”

  “We are not rich,” I replied. “Besides, the money is for the playground. So you can’t have any.”

  “But look at all that!”

  “It is only thirty-two dollars,” I said. “Now go away.”

  “Karen?” called Elizabeth. “Please tell Andrew you are sorry.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Andrew left. Elizabeth came into the kitchen. “Would you like me to take the money to the bank for you? I could write you a check. Then you could give your mom the check instead of a bag of coins.”

  “All right. Thank you, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth wrote a check. She handed it to me. Then Hannie and Nancy had to go home. The carnival was over.

  * * *

  On Sunday afternoon, Mommy drove to the big house. Andrew and I were waiting for her. Our knapsacks were packed.

  “Good-bye!” called Daddy and Elizabeth and Nannie and Kristy and Sam and Charlie and David Michael.

  “Bye-bye!” called Emily.

  Andrew hugged everybody.

  I just said, “ Bye.”

  In the car, I gave Mommy the check.

  “Thank you!” she said. “How was your carnival?”

  “Look at the check,” I replied. “I thought our carnival was going to be great. But we only earned thirty-two dollars and forty cents. And we ran out of prizes and the witch came. I’m really sorry, Mommy. I know it’s hardly any money at all. And we need lots and lots more for the playground.”

  Mommy did not say anything. She just smiled.

  “Hey, this isn’t the way to the little house!” cried Andrew a moment later.

  “I know,” Mommy answered. “I have a surprise for you.” Mommy drove us downtown. She stopped at Palmer Square.

  “Is this the surprise?” asked Andrew.

  “That is.” Mommy pointed. She pointed to the town thermometer.

  I looked at it and gasped. The red line almost reached “Hurray!”

  “We held the music festival on Friday night,” Mommy explained. “It was a big success. Lots of people came. And we have not given the potluck supper yet. With the money from the carnival and from the supper we will have more than enough for the playground. Thank you, Karen. The money you and Nancy and Hannie earned has helped to put us over the top.”

  “You mean we can build the playground?” I cried.

  “We can build the playground,” said Mommy. />
  “HURRAY!” I yelled.

  Stoneybrook Playground

  “The ants go marching one by one, hurrah! Hurrah!” I sang.

  Hannie and Nancy joined in. “The ants go marching one by one, hurrah! Hurrah! The ants go mar-arching one by one, the little one stops to suck his thumb, and they all go marching DOWN beYOND the EARTH.”

  The day was warm and sunny. My friends and I were swinging on tires. I was wearing a sparkly ring. Ricky had bought it for me at Leslie’s toy and jewelry sale.

  Hannie and Nancy and I scuffed our sneakers through the dirt. We were playing at … Stoneybrook Playground! We went to the playground every time I spent a weekend at the big house. And we were allowed to walk there by ourselves.

  Building the playground had been gigundo fun. Everybody got to help. Even kids. The grown-ups let us do things like carry supplies to the workers. The playground was pretty big. But we finished building it in just five days. That was because every day hundreds of people worked on it. This is true. And the crowds of people turned an empty lot into a place with swings, and seesaws, and tunnels to crawl through, and a fort to climb in, and a pirate ship to pretend to sail on. Almost everything was made of dark, heavy wood. Stoneybrook Playground did not look like any playground I had ever seen.

  I loved it.

  “The ants go marching two by two, hurrah! Hurrah!” The Musketeers continued the song. “The ants go marching two by two, hurrah! Hurrah! The ants go mar-arching two by two, the little one stops to tie his shoe, and they all go marching DOWN beYOND the EARTH!”

  Scuff, scuff went our feet.

  “Let’s do something different,” I said. “We have been singing and swinging for a long time. Let’s pretend we are prisoners on the pirate ship.”

  “We did that yesterday,” said Hannie. “Besides, some kids are already on the ship.”

  “Then let’s play house in the fort. I could be the mommy who goes to work — ”

  “We played house yesterday, too,” said Nancy.

  “We could slide, but I don’t want to wait in that line of kids.” I emptied a pebble out of my sneaker.

  Nancy looked at the blacktop. Kids were playing hopscotch and four-square there. “Let’s play jacks!” she said. “Did anyone bring jacks?”

  “No,” answered Hannie and I.

  “You know what would be so, so fun to do on the blacktop?” asked Hannie.

  “What?” I said.

  “Roller-skate. I sure wish I had skates that fit. I’d love to skate over there. Look at that girl. She can skate backward.”

  “Well, my skates are at the little house,” I said.

  “And I still don’t have any,” added Nancy.

  “Maybe we could raise some money to buy skates,” said Hannie.

  “We could hold another carnival,” I suggested. “Only this time, we will rent a cotton-candy machine. And hire a magician. And a clown.”

  “Oh, Karen,” groaned Hannie.

  “Oh, Karen,” groaned Nancy.

  “It was just an idea,” I said. I giggled. Then I began to sing again. “The ants go marching three by three, hurrah! Hurrah! The ants go marching three by three, hurrah! Hurrah! The ants go mar-arching three by three, the little one falls and skins his knee and they all go marching — ”

  “Down!” sang Nancy.

  “BeYOND!” sang Hannie.

  “The EARTH!” I finished. I looked up. “Hey, the slide’s free!” I cried. “Come on! I’ll race you guys to it. Last one there’s a rotten egg!”

  My friends and I leaped off the tire swings. We ran across the playground.

  The playground that we had helped to build.

  About the Author

  ANN M. MARTIN is the acclaimed and bestselling author of a number of novels and series, including Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), A Dog’s Life, Here Today, P.S. Longer Letter Later (written with Paula Danziger), the Family Tree series, the Doll People series (written with Laura Godwin), the Main Street series, and the generation-defining series The Baby-sitters Club. She lives in New York.

  Copyright © 1991 by Ann M. Martin

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition, 1991

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-05598-6