The Accidental Siren

by Jake Vander Ark

  “Woohoo!” Mara said. “Seven left!”

  I lowered my shoulders, aimed my last round, and pitched. The ball nicked the highest tier, but nothing fell.

  “Too bad, so sad!” said the boy with the red and white stripes. “But so close!”

  Mara pretended to pout. “I guess I’ll never get the duck that I always wanted!”

  “How about you, pretty girl?” said the boy with the red and white stripes. “How ‘bout showin’ these children what a woman can do?”

  She leapt from the picnic table and skipped to the booth. “I only have five dollars and I’d rather try an elephant ear.”

  “I bet one of your friends can spot you the cash!”

  Whit rolled his eyes as if he wasn’t thrilled to lend Mara cash.

  We cheered her on as she spun her arm in wild circles, then released the ball. It missed the bottles and twacked the rear wall.

  “Too bad, so sad!” said the boy in the red and white stripes. “Two shots left, pretty girl!”

  Mara rolled the second ball in her hand as she scrutinized her target. She pulled back, threw it, and thwak! Missed again.

  Whit and I booed.

  “If anybody can clear ten bottles with one ball, it’s you, pretty girl!”

  Mara gripped her final shot like a bowling ball. She blew a strand of hair from her eyes.

  “Hey there, strangers.”

  And just like that, the magic was gone.

  Mara dropped the ball on the counter.

  Whit said, “Son of a bitch,” and rolled to my side.

  We all recognized the raspy voice. It was A.J.

  “What a coincidence, runnin’ into my best friends at the carnival!” The bully was dressed in the same hunting gear as the day he watched Danny kill the cat. Camo shirt, camo pants, bright orange cap... he practically lived in that ensemble. A hole in his sleeve revealed black hair that I had never noticed until now.

  “Leave us alone,” I said. “Or we’ll call the police.”

  He ignored me and stepped once toward Mara. “Here’s the little hooch I’ve been dreamin’ about. Little-miss forgiveness.”

  Mara held her ground.

  “Sir,” said the boy in the red and white stripes, “you’ll have to wait your turn.”

  “You stupid traitor,” I said.

  Whit raised his arm. “I’ve got this, James.”

  A.J. took another step. Five feet away and I could smell the musk on his shirt.

  “Is there somethin’ yer missin’, Mara?”

  “Knock it off Age!” I said.

  “Meowww!”

  I was about to shove the traitor to the ground, but Whit snagged my shirt and jerked me back. “James! Back off!” He wheeled forward. “Age, if you need to pick on somebody, pick on me.”

  “Look at the cripply little gimp tryin’ to save the day!”

  I touched Mara’s shoulder to coax her back, but she wouldn’t budge.

  “We tried to be friends, Age,” said Whit. “But you ruined that when you killed Mara’s cat.”

  A.J. was a unstoppable force of moronic rage. “Look at the whiny little gimp!”

  “You remember the can you put on my head, Age? Do you know how many dreams I had of balancing a can on that dim-witted, white-trash, crewcut dome of yours? How many times I aimed a BB gun and missed?”

  A.J. began to pace. His eyes were fixed on Mara. “Y’all said you were my friends.”

  “We were your friends, A.J. But it turns out you were pretending to be our friends to get close to Mara. You’re not the first to use that technique.”

  “She was the one pretendin’! I’d never seen no girl look at me like that before... like she saw through my ugly shirts and hand-me-down jeans. Like she thought I was smart or somethin’.” A.J. itched his neck. His voice quivered. “When you sang fer me I felt like I was right where I belonged; like you and me were meant to be together!”

  I tried to gauge Mara’s state of mind, but she was a pillar of salt.

  A.J. jabbed his finger at Mara’s chest. “I gave yer necklace back! If I’da known you were gonna ignore me anyways, I woulda kept it fer myself!”

  “What about the pajamas you cut up?” I asked. “You never told us about those. What else did you steal, A.J.?”

  “I got the pajamas later. Stole ‘em from the blue-bandana boys. They’ve got all kinds of her stuff. They’re the crazy ones!” A.J. suddenly became aware that he was creating a scene.

  The boy in the red and white stripes returned to his microphone and began his automated chatter.

  I wondered if my Dad had found a parking spot yet. If I screamed, would he hear?

  “Enough of this crap,” Whit said. “We’re at a carnival... why don’t we settle it with a game?”

  “I ain’t got money for games.”

  “I’ll buy.” Whit pulled a ten from his pocket and slammed it on the counter.

  The boy in the stripes returned, took the money, and spared us his obnoxious routine.

  “Two games,” said Whit. “Keep the change.” Six balls were placed in front of the boys. “If I knock over the most bottles, you never look at that girl again. You never show up outside her window. We call your parents and tell them you helped kill a little girl’s cat. Understand?”

  “And what if I win?”

  “If you win, I’ll personally make Mara sing for you.”

  “Whit!” I said.

  Again, he silenced me with his hand.

  Mara didn’t move.

  “Not only will you get your song, but she’ll hate me forever. We have a deal?”

  A.J. nodded, snatched the first ball, and clocked four bottles in one clean swoop.

  He didn’t stop to brag or bitch or aim, but grabbed the second ball and toppled two more on the left side.

  I could no longer stomach Mara’s paralysis. I stood behind her and rubbed my hands along her frigid arms.

  The last ball whacked the centermost jug, bringing A.J.’s total to seven.

  Without a word, the boy in the stripes rebuilt the pyramid as Whit rolled into position. He grabbed the first ball and shook it as if testing its weight.

  “Tear ‘em down, Whit,” I said.

  And he did... nine at once with a single pitch.

  I cheered. The boy in the stripes clapped and made another obnoxious comment about how everyone was a winner. Mara’s shoulders relaxed.

  Whit waited until the bottles stopped bouncing on the ground. “It’s over Age. Go home and leave us alone.”

  The bully sneered. His upper lip thinned as he sucked a loogie from his throat and spit it on the ground by Whit’s wheel. “I’ll go home when Mara does one thing for me.”

  I watched Whit’s expression as bravado gave way to panic. Did he really think A.J. would honor their bet?

  “That wasn’t part of the deal,” he said.

  A.J. circled us. His muscles contracted beneath his shirt. “All I wanted was fer you to like me,” he told Mara. “I thought maybe you could. Then Danny comes over one day and tells me the truth, tells me how it really is. Tells me I ain’t ever gonna fit with an angel like you. That we ain’t cut from the same dirty rag. That I better get used to cats screamin’ cause that’s the only sort of singin’ I’ll ever hear.” A.J.’s voice fell to a deep growl as if–in that exact moment–his balls dropped. “I told Danny he might be right, but I ain’t ever gonna give up ‘till I hear that voice again.” He stopped in front of Mara, snapped a buck knife from his back pocket, and held it to her face. “I apologized once so I could hear you sing. I ain’t about to do it again.”

  The wheelchair crashed as Whit launched himself at A.J. His crackerjack aim threw his head into the bully’s side, knocking the knife from his hand and sending him sideways away from Mara. Whit snatched the knife from the curb and used his other hand to propel his body at Age. The bully scrambled backwards like a frightened crab and thumped his head on the booth. Whit scaled A.J.’s torso with his legs dragging behind
him, then sat on his chest and clutched the blade against his throat.

  The boy in stripes plucked a phone from behind the counter, rolled his eyes and said dryly, “I’m calling security.”

  Whit’s arm quivered as he tightened his grip on the knife.

  Tears formed in the wells of A.J.’s eyes. “This ain’t right, Whit. You–”

  “I what? I stick up for my friends when they’re in trouble? I don’t watch my buddy blow the asshole off a cat?”

  “I was forced to par-tici-pate in the killin’ of that cat.”

  “Whit,” I said as spectators began to clot around the commotion. “You’re gonna get in serious trouble.”

  “Shut it, James!” He repositioned his weight on A.J.’s chest and the bully winced.

  “You’re scaring Mara!” I said.

  Whit sucked his bottom lip... then slowly lowered the blade. A.J.’s throat was unscathed.

  The boy in the stripes rolled his eyes and holstered the phone.

  I ran to Whit’s side, flipped his chair upright, and helped him to his seat. “You okay?”

  “What the heck did we miss?” It was Kimmy. Livy and Haley were at her wings, powdered sugar smudging their fingers and cheeks.

  A.J. pulled himself together, stood, brushed bloody pebbles from his palms, and found himself cornered against the booth by a semi-circle of curious bystanders. His mouth curled down to keep from crying. “Do ya’ll know why I came here tonight?” He wiped his nose with his hairy arm. “Well? Do ya?”

  “Go home, Age,” said Whit.

  “Do ya’ll even care?”

  My heart sank. I was such a jerk. I knew exactly why A.J. was there, I just hadn’t considered it until he asked. “You came to see our movie,” I said. “You came to show your support.”

  He scoffed. His front teeth scraped his bottom lip to fully accentuate his curse, “Fuck yer movie,” he said, then again for the insult, “Fatty.”

  “Stop it!” Mara exclaimed, her first words since the bully arrived.

  A.J. obeyed; the fact that Mara was addressing him–even after his cruelty–probably thrilled him. “I know where you live,” he said. “If you think you’ve seen the last of me–”

  Mara approached him with all the tenderness and grace of a bride. She touched her fingertip to his lips. Her hand carried his cheek toward her lips, so close I thought she might kiss him. Instead, she whispered, and as she whispered, her eye searched me out. It was the damaged eye that found me, and when she finished breathing her secret in A.J’s ear, the blood flared like the burst of a striking match.

  Mara released A.J. Without another thought, the bully darted to the wall of spectators, wiggled through, and ran away.

  Livy and the girls scrambled over each other to get to Whit. They dabbled and preened his hurts, though he assured them he was fine. Another kid–early twenties–broke from his pack of friends and slapped Whit on the back. “I haven’t seen a fight like that since Hogan versus Andre. You whooped his ass!”

  Mara hugged her mighty defender. It was a stiff hug, and I wasn’t jealous.

  “What did you tell him?” Whit asked.

  Mara shrugged. “I told him to go to hell.”

  “Hey kid!” called the boy in the red and white stripes. “You’ve got two balls left!”

  Whit cruised to the booth, fired off his last two rounds, and nailed the final jug in the dead center.

  Overhead, a siren twirled and screamed and declared him the winner.

  The crowd went wild.

  * * *

  Whit and I both offered to carry the ginormous mallard, but Mara assured us she could handle it alone. The girls offered her scraps of funnel cake, but she politely turned them down.

  Livy kept pace beside her. “Was that the little twerp who killed Dorothy?”

  “One of them.”

  “They’re never gonna leave you alone... are they?”

  Mara adjusted the duck on her back.

  A visible revelation transformed Livy’s expression as her friend remained silent. “Hang in there, hon,” she said.

  For the first time in three months, my sister sounded like a human.

  * * *

  It was only after the incident with A.J. that I realized the carnival had been evolving. An hour after we first arrived, the mechanical beast had taken its first flopping step from the primordial soup, evident in the new layer of afterbirth smeared beneath the gleeful façade. I noticed flypaper–black with dead insects–lining the inside awning of every game booth. Upon closer inspection, most of the insects weren’t dead, but flapping and struggling, unsticking one leg only to discover their wings were also glued to the paper snare. I accidentally touched the bottom of a portable bench when I stopped to tie my shoe; the underbelly seethed with discarded bubble gum like rubber scales. And as we waited in line for the Tilt-a-Whirl, I spotted a loose panel at the base of the ride. Every time the carts completed a rotation, a rusty seam appeared between the red and blue panels, exposing the black innards, sputtering gears, and churning elbows that tilted and whirled the kids atop the machine.

  Worst of all, my kinship with the great beast was beginning to seem like a ruse; I had the feeling of being watched, as if the tents, rides, and kiosks had eyes.

  Again, we came across the row of goofy mirrors. The girls weren’t with us the first time around so we stopped again to play. Kimmy looked like a troll with a frizzy orange mane. Haley held up her arms and I recalled a picture from my encyclopedia of a medieval device that pulled people apart at the seams. Livy didn’t move, but scrutinized her warped reflection until Kimmy yanked her away.

  As we said goodbye to our shape-shifting alter-egos, I discovered the source of my paranoia on the top step of the Super Slide. Four boys were leaning against the rails; coke-bottle glasses and rampant acne marked them as outcasts, yet their faces seemed vaguely familiar as if they were enemies from a previous life.

  I ignored them the first time; boys oogling Mara was nothing new. But twenty minutes later I saw them again, six of them now crammed two at a time at the top of the ferris-wheel.

  Later, they appeared behind us in line for the swings. They were distracted this time, chattering amongst themselves, splitting their attention between the girl beside me and an elderly woman across the way.

  It was them. It came to me in a flash; the face in the leaves, the body that fell at the sound of my father’s gun; it was them, the ferrets, the boys on bikes and the boys in the trees; and not just the boys, but the women too! Four of them at least, perched throughout the park, inconspicuous without their purple hats, but un-missable with their beady eyes trained on Mara.

  “It’s time to go,” I said. “We need to get outta here. Now.”

  * * *

  “Hey weener-wrinkle,” said Whit. “I wanna ride the swings!”

  “Not now,” I said.

  “James?” Kimmy said. “Haley and I are gonna meet some friends–”

  “Not now,” I said again and pushed Whit faster through the crowded midway. “We need to find my parents.”

  “I swear,” Livy added, ”my brother is so flippin’ weird.”

  The giant mallard bounced on Mara’s back as she jogged to keep up. “Can’t we stay a little longer?”

  “Somethin’s not right. I’m takin’ you home.”

  “But we’re having a good time!”

  “Listen to the lady,” Whit said. “The night’s still young!”

  We emerged from the midway, passed the Gravitron and the mini roller coaster and found ourselves caught between the carousel and funhouse. “Crap!” I said.

  “Uhh,” Kimmy said, “isn’t this the end of the carnival?”

  I scanned the horizon to find my bearings. We were at the tip of the carnival’s longest arm. The Salt and Pepper Shaker was behind us and to the left. The Community Center was at the opposite end of the park.

  “I think we had to turn that way.” Whit pointed behind us.

  “I�
��m not going through the midway again,” I said, then nodded to the far sidewalk. “We’ll follow the storefronts to the Community Center. Mom and Dad’ll be looking for us there.”

  “Whatever.”

  I scoured the perimeter for hostiles, then led the group past the blazing carousel with its joyful children and angry horses. The funhouse was on our left. Cartoon animals advertised a rotating hallway, silly slide, and house of mirrors. “Looks like fun...” Haley said, making her disappointment clear.

  “Can you at least tell me the time?” Mara asked.

  I checked my watch without slowing my stride. “Eight-fifty-five,” I said.

  When I looked up, I saw the first jock. It was Jon the lock-picker–friend of Ryan Brosh–watching us from the tin roof of a cotton candy concession stand. He was wearing a basketball jersey and his hair was parted as if he was attending a cotillion instead of a night at the fair.

  Mara grabbed my shoulder.

  Kimmy and Haley locked arms to form a shield between my sister and the towering jock, then shot me a look that said, “Told you so.”

  When Jon was certain we noticed him, he raised his arms and cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced to the rollicking mass, “may I have your attention!” His words were stilted as one might expect from a basketball player.

  The crowd slowed and turned their attention to the delinquent on the roof.

  “What the heck is this...” asked Whit.

  Jon pointed right at us. “There’s a special lady in the audience tonight,” he said. “She was hurt by a good friend of mine, and there’s something he’d like to say.”

  Scattered “awws” arose from the onlookers. I felt the horde shift around me as every eye fell to Mara.

  Two more jocks materialized from the crowd. The skinny one stepped between me and Mara and knocked the duck off her shoulders. He placed a silver tiara on her head.

  The second boy skipped in, bowed over Whit’s chair, and dropped a bouquet of yellow roses in her arms, prompting another round of “awws” from the onlookers. The boys pranced away.

  In slow motion, Mara twisted and found my eyes. Her look was a grab-bag of possible emotions and I struggled to sort the real from the ruse. This is it, said her final glance. See ya later, alligator.

  Jon was pointing to the row of shops. “Please turn your attention to the third balcony and join me in welcoming a great friend, a true humanitarian, and the raddest kid in the ninth grade... Ryan Brosh!”