Danger at the Fair (4 page)

“I left it in the stroller while I put Jennie on the little car ride,” the woman said, “and when I came back, it was gone. All my money! All my credit cards!” She started to cry. “Even my driver’s license!” Seeing her mother in tears, the toddler began to cry, too.

“Are you a princess or a movie star?” Corey asked. “Did you have millions of dollars in your purse?”

“Are you kidding?” sniffed the woman.

“Run along, son,” said the guard.

“I saw the man who took the purse,” Corey said. “I was on top of the Ferris wheel and I saw him do it.” Corey talked faster and faster, his eyes round with excitement. “He was carrying a big shopping bag and he put the purse in the bag and then he left. Maybe he is a dangerous criminal. Maybe
he’s wanted by the F.B.I. and we’ll be famous for catching him and we’ll get our picture in the paper.”

“Can you describe the man?” the guard asked.

Corey tried to remember. He was sure he would recognize the man if he saw him again but it was hard to describe him. “He was kind of average looking,” Corey said.

“What was he wearing?”

“Pants. And a shirt. They were both dark colored.” He knew his description was too vague but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t recall anything unusual about the man, except the shopping bag. “He carried a big white bag,” Corey said, “with red and blue lettering.” He beamed at the guard, certain that the shopping bag was the perfect clue.

“Like that one?” The security guard pointed.

Corey looked. A man walking past carried a white paper shopping bag that said
MADE IN THE U.S.A.
in red and blue letters.

“Yes!” Corey said. “Exactly like that.” He looked closely at the man. “That isn’t him, though,” he said, “but maybe it’s his partner. Sometimes criminals work in pairs. You had better talk to that man quick, before he gets away. Look in his bag and see if the purse . . .”

The guard interrupted. “One of the commercial exhibitors gives those bags away,” he said. “There are probably two hundred people walking around today carrying bags exactly like that.”

“There’s another one,” Nicholas said, pointing at a woman.

“Oh,” said Corey.

The guard took a small notebook from his shirt pocket, wrote down a phone number, and handed the paper to Corey.
“If you think of anything that would help identify the thief,” he said, “please call this number.”

Corey nodded and put the paper in his pocket. Phooey. For a moment, he had thought he would be a hero. He could almost see the newspaper headline:
LOCAL BOY FOILS THIEF
!! And, under the headline, a picture of Corey, accepting a reward from the grateful woman after she got her purse back.

“Be alert,” Corey said, as he and Nicholas walked away. “We might see him again.”

“I didn’t see him the first time,” Nicholas said.

CAITLIN
waved from a shady bench near the Tilt-a-Whirl ride. Ellen sank down on the bench beside her.

“So, how was it?” Caitlin said. “Did you find out if I made Drill Team? Do you know who you’re going to marry? Did you learn if you’ll be rich or . . .” she stopped talking and put her hand on Ellen’s arm. “Ellen?” she said. “Are you OK? You’re white as a snowman.” She looked closer. “You’ve been crying.”

“I got a warning,” Ellen said.

“She gave you bad news?”

“The Great Sybil didn’t. I got a message from the spirits.”

“What kind of a message?”

“It’s a warning that something bad is going to happen, probably to Corey. I think the message is from—from Grandpa.”

“But your Grandpa . . .” Caitlin clamped her lips together. “We ought to complain to the Fair Board,” she said. “That fortune-teller has no right to upset you this way, pretending she can talk to the dead.”

“She wasn’t pretending. Oh, Caitlin, it was so strange.”

“I’m sure it was. Strange and well-rehearsed. Those people are all phonies; you know that, as well as I do.”

Ellen shook her head. “It wasn’t fake,” she said. “The Great Sybil was just as shocked as I was.”

“Oh, sure.” Caitlin patted Ellen’s arm. “I know you miss your grandpa,” she said. “It’s been real hard for you since his accident, but you have to be realistic, Ellen. If that woman really could communicate with people who have died, she wouldn’t be traveling around in a tacky painted trailer, charging two bucks to read fortunes. You notice there’s no long line of people waiting for her to enlighten them.”

Ellen looked down at her hands. She knew Caitlin made sense, yet she couldn’t shake a sense of misgiving.

“If your grandpa’s spirit could send a message,” Caitlin said gently, “why wouldn’t he have sent it to your grandma, or to your mom?”

“Maybe I’m the only one who can communicate. Remember when I worked in the Historical Society’s haunted house and the ghost of Lydia Clayton spoke to me and nobody else could hear or see her?”

“That was different. You were in Lydia’s former home and she had a problem that she needed your help with.”

“This time, Corey has the problem and Grandpa—or some other spirit—is trying to help.”

“If it’s true that you are the one who can communicate, you would not need The Great Sybil as an intermediary. The spirits could talk directly to you.” Caitlin lowered her voice. “If your grandpa’s spirit wanted to tell you something, I don’t think he would whisper in your ear when you’re at the fair. He would do it when you were home alone and could pay close attention.”

Caitlin stood up. “Forget about The Great Sybil. She’s nothing but a phony and your so-called message is only a trick. Let’s go pig out on cotton candy.”

Ellen stood, too. How could she explain what had happened in that plant-filled room? Caitlin had not been there. She didn’t witness Ellen’s pencil darting across the paper as if it were alive. She didn’t see the look of excitement on The Great Sybil’s face or hear the awe in her voice.

As Ellen followed Caitlin toward the cotton-candy stand, she put her hand in the pocket of her jeans and touched the piece of paper. She wished she could believe that Caitlin was right and the warning was merely a trick. It would be much easier to laugh it off, as if it were a silly message in a fortune cookie.

But what if it was real?

What if Corey was destined for some terrible danger?

And what if Grandpa was trying to warn her?

CHAPTER
4

“
WHAT HAPPENED
? That girl was crying.” The bored man came out of the ticket booth and approached The Great Sybil, who stood in the trailer’s open doorway.

“She had a message from the spirits.”

“Oh, sure. What did you tell her, Sybil? You have to be careful with kids that age. Get them all upset and they run to their parents and you’ll end up with the State Attorney General’s office closing us down.”

“I didn’t tell her anything. It was a real message.”

“Are you serious?” The man stepped inside the trailer and closed the door behind him. “What happened?”

“She was holding a pencil and a notebook and the spirits did automatic writing.”

“Holey-moley.” The man slumped into one of the chairs. “How long has it been, thirteen years? Fourteen?”

“Fifteen. When I started charging for my services, the spirits quit coming. Fifteen long years ago.”

“Fifteen years since you actually had any communication, and then it happens with some hysterical kid who can’t handle it.”

“She wasn’t hysterical. She got a warning and then, when I asked if she had recently lost a loved one, it hit a nerve. Apparently, her grandfather died not long ago.”

“Oh, great. She’s going to run home crying and tell Mama that she talked to Grandpa, who died last week. The cops should be here any minute. Geez, Sybil, you need to be more careful.”

“Careful! How was I to know this would happen? I was just as surprised as the girl was when that pencil started to move.” The Great Sybil sat opposite the man, put her elbows on the table, and leaned her chin on her hands. “It was glorious, Willie,” she said. “It was just the way it used to be, when I still had my talent.”

“Why?” he said. “Why now, after all these years, are you suddenly able to do it again?”

“I can’t. The girl can.”

“You led her into it, didn’t you? You got her relaxed and called the spirits to come?”

“Yes. But they didn’t come to me, they came to her. I was merely a spectator.”

“She paid her two dollars, just like everyone else. She bought a ticket before she went in.” Willie frowned. “You’ve always said you lost the talent after you started charging money to do readings. You said the spirits quit coming because it was a business for profit, not a true spiritual search.”

“The girl, Ellen, made no profit. Her search was genuine.”

“What do you plan to do if the girl’s parents show up, angry because you misled their daughter and upset her?”

“I didn’t mislead her! If anyone asks, I’ll tell them the truth. She got a message.”

Willie shook his head. “The truth is, you’ve hoaxed people out of their money for fifteen years. Now, I’m the first to admit I encouraged you. When you first lost your talent, I told you to fake it and who would know the difference? The way I see it, if people want to spend their money, we’d be foolish not to take it. Still, it’s hard to believe that after fifteen years of hoaxes, you are suddenly the witness to a real message from the spirits.”

“It’s been more than a hoax, all these years,” The Great Sybil said. “I’ve made a lot of people happy because of the ‘messages’ they got. They’ve come in here anxious and upset and I’ve sent them away calm and optimistic. Is that so terrible?”

“You tell them what they want to hear,” Willie said, “whether it’s true or not.”

“This time, I didn’t. I swear it, Willie. This time, the spirits spoke. If anyone asks, that’s what I plan to tell them.”

“Well, it makes me nervous,” Willie said. “If any more kids want to buy tickets, I’m going to say they have to be eighteen or older in order to get in.”

“
THE MESSAGE
wasn’t whispered in my ear,” Ellen told Caitlin. “It was written on my notebook paper, by my pencil, held in my hand.”

The two girls sat in the top row of the arena where Caitlin’s
cousin was scheduled to show his sheep. They were early, so it was a quiet place to talk.