Mr. Terupt Falls Again (25 page)

“Ms. Newberry, where’d you get that polar bear?” Peter asked suspiciously, nodding toward the huge white stuffed animal she had her arms wrapped around. I hadn’t even noticed it.

“I won it for her,” Teach said. “Just had to climb a ladder for it.”

The boys’ jaws almost touched the ground.

“How’d you do it?” Luke needed to know.

Teach smiled. “It’s all about physics. And now if you’ll excuse us, Ms. Newberry and I are on our way to the car to put her prize away so we don’t have to carry it around all night. Stick together,” he reminded us.

We did stick together, but the fun had been sucked out
of everything. I stood below the Torpedo with my mind racing faster than the roller coaster. Luke, Jessica, and Jeffrey were on the ride again, but Peter stayed with me. I’d been having a blast, but now I kept thinking about Lisa. What was she doing with Brandon? Why didn’t she get rid of him? She reminded me of Mom, and Brandon of my dad. I knew it wasn’t easy to get out of those situations. She looked scared. She needed help. Then I thought of Brandon’s black car. He would definitely drive like a madman tonight. He needed to be stopped before someone got hurt.

W
ow! What a night! Things were going great! I was hanging with all my friends
and
Lexie was suddenly my girl. We held hands all night long walking around the carnival. We ate pizza and french fries, which Lexie loaded up with so much salt I was sure she would die of a heart attack. She kept shaking and shaking and shaking the container over her basket, and the little white crystals kept falling and falling and falling.

“What? I like salt on my fries,” she said, after she saw my twisted face.

“I couldn’t tell,” I said.

After the fries, I bought her a snow cone—a blue one—and then we cruised around through the different games. After Jeffrey won Anna that black Lab I
had
to win Lexie a prize. That’s what a guy is supposed to do for his girl at a carnival.

I should have tried throwing darts or making a basket, but instead I picked the stupid rope ladder. I would have stopped after one try, but Jessica had to tell me
not
to do it, so then I
had
to do it. I blew almost all my money on that dumb thing. If you did manage to ring the bell you won the biggest stuffed animal of the whole carnival—a gigantic polar bear. I really wanted to do that for Lexie, but it wasn’t happening. And Lexie knew it. Thankfully, she yanked me away from there before I went nuts.

Before we hit the midway I gave Jessica a free Porta-Potty ride, but she wasn’t very appreciative. It was definitely one of my all-time best bathroom pranks. Jessica screamed louder from that than she did for any of the carnival rides, including the Torpedo.

Finally, we hit the real midway rides. We got off the Salt and Pepper Shaker, all of us still laughing as we walked away, and the next thing I knew we were standing face to face with some older kids.

“It’s Middle-Finger Boy,” Jeffrey whispered to me. I didn’t know what he was talking about.

Middle-Finger Boy got right up close on Lexie and I got scared that I was going to have to double-leg him, even though Mr. T had talked to us about self-control. He was messin’ with my girl. Lucky for that kid, Mr. T showed up.

“How’s your finger?” Mr. T asked. Obviously, he recognized the kid too.

“Still works, Dent-Head,” he smart-mouthed back. Then Middle-Finger Boy lived up to his name by sticking his middle finger in Mr. T’s face before disappearing into the carnival crowd, along with his girlfriends.

Mr. T bent down to tell us he was proud of the way we had stuck together, and that was when I saw Ms. Newberry holding that gigantic polar bear. Was there anything Mr. T couldn’t do?

“It’s all about physics,” he said.

Mr. T walked away holding his girl’s hand, with the massive stuffed animal in his other arm. Luke stood there shaking his head. “Physics,” he mumbled.

Danielle and Anna went for some food after that, and the rest of us headed for the Torpedo. But Lexie just wasn’t the same after seeing Middle-Finger Boy. And then all of a sudden, she yanked my hand and said, “C’mon.” I had no idea where she was taking me, but I felt her determination. I didn’t dare say no to her.

She led me past the food tents and past the Porta-Potties and out toward the parked cars before I said, “Lex, where are you taking me?” I had to hurry just to keep up with her.

“We need to stop Brandon,” she said.

“Brandon? Who’s Brandon?”

She stuck her middle finger up at me.

“Oh. Him,” I said. I jogged a few paces to catch up to her. “And how exactly are we supposed to stop Brandon?”

“We need to do something to his car. He’s gonna try driving like a macho man out of here, and he’s been drinking. Somebody could get hurt. We need to stop him.”

“He’s been drinking? How do you know that?”

Lexie stopped and turned to face me. “Look,” she said. “I just know, okay? Stop worrying about that and start thinking about what we can do to his car so it won’t run.”

“I know what to do,” I said. “C’mon.”

We knelt down behind Brandon’s car and scooped up globs of mud. It was a good thing it had been raining. The mud worked perfectly. We took the globs and stuffed them into the exhaust pipe.

“It’s just like wrestling,” I told Lexie. “If you squeeze all the air out of your opponent, then he slows down and stops moving. Mr. T taught me that. The mud’s going to choke the car so it can’t breathe, then it will stall.”

“Are you sure?” Lexie said.

“No, but it sounds good and I don’t have any other ideas.”

Suddenly Lexie leaned into my body and kissed me—out of nowhere! I think you’re supposed to close your eyes when you kiss, but mine stayed wide open. Lexie pressed her lips against mine and all I could taste was salt. Then I started to think it was better that she tasted like salt and not like her legendary fart. Just thinking of that fart made me smell it again. All this was going through my mind while we kissed! And I had no idea what was supposed to happen next. That didn’t matter, though, because as soon as Lexie opened her eyes, she spotted Brandon walking toward us from across the parking field.

“Oh no! Here he comes!” Lexie whisper-shouted. “C’mon.” We scurried out of sight behind a nearby parked car.

Mr. Macho Man and his girls climbed into the black car. Just backing out of his parking space, Brandon managed to send mud flying everywhere. Once he was in the open field, he stomped on the gas. You could hear it. The engine revved
and revved and then began to choke. His precious car jerked along. Steam billowed from his exhaust and the motor made all sorts of terrifying noises as he continued to mash the accelerator. Then all of a sudden, there was a huge bang and the mud shot out of his tailpipe. The engine got the air it needed and the car took off. Brandon wasn’t ready and he lost control. He crashed into several parked vehicles. Officer Stoneley was on the scene before they even got out of the car. No one was hurt.

Lexie and I split. The last thing we wanted was for Brandon to spot us. We hurried back to the midway, running hand in hand. But once we got past the Porta-Potties and back to the carnival, we stopped. There was a mob of people gathered around something.

I
loved the stuffed dog that Jeffrey won me. I really did, but it made me nervous. I saw Lexie holding Peter’s hand and I wanted to hold Jeffrey’s—but I couldn’t. I was scared to like a boy. I didn’t want him to hurt me like my father did my mom. Mom plays it off like she handled it fine, but I know better. I don’t want to hurt like that—not ever. I don’t think Jeffrey would ever do that on purpose—his heart is too big—but you never know.

After the standoff with Lexie’s old high school girlfriends and that terrible boy, I was happy to go and get something to eat with Danielle. I was hungry, and I needed a break from all the rides. I needed a break from everything. We sat down with a couple of burgers under one of the tents.

I wasn’t sure what happened or what Danielle heard while we were eating, but she wasn’t the same after that. I
mean, it was opening night of the Snow Hill Carnival, we were running out of time, and Danielle just said “I don’t care” to everything I asked her.

“Do you want to go on the Salt and Pepper Shaker one last time?”

“I don’t care,” she said.

“Do you want to go on the Superslide one last time?”

“I don’t care.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Obviously something was wrong. Maybe it’s her period again, I thought. The rides were about to shut down anyway, so I told myself, There’s always tomorrow night. I finally asked Danielle if she wanted to go home. She didn’t say “I don’t care” this time. She said, “Okay.”

We started looking for Mom and Charlie and found a ring of people instead. There was something going on in the middle that I couldn’t see.

I
still hadn’t told anyone at home that I knew about the Native Americans wanting our land. I looked through the newspapers every day, and even watched the news when I could, but I hadn’t heard or seen anything more about it. I hoped the whole thing was going away, but how wrong I was. Anna and I were under one of the food tents when I heard some of the other farmers talking.

“It’s only a matter of time ’fore they’re out there walkin’ ’cross our fields,” one of the men said.

“They’ll be lucky if I don’t fire my twelve-gauge at ’em if I see ’em on my land,” said another one.

“Take it easy, Earl. We don’t need another war,” said a third man. “Let the courts handle it. It’ll work out.”

“What’s the matter, Danielle?” Anna asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “You finished? Let’s go.”

We got up and threw our plates in the trash. This land treaty thing was still a big problem, and that meant a big worry for my family. I tried to forget about it, but I couldn’t. I kept thinking about what the farmers had said. Believe it or not, I just wanted to go home, and it wasn’t because of my period. Anna knew it too.

We started looking for Charlie and Terri, but we found a commotion of people instead. I had no idea what the fuss was about.