GROWING SLOWLY

ELBOW ROOM

 

The lines to everything that's fun are too long for me and Larry.
Daddy gave me a quarter, thought again and gave me another one for Larry. Mommy gave me a quarter too and told me not to tell Daddy. She's such a good Mommy. My Daddy's good too but Mommy's better. Daddy can't bake cookies or make very thin blueberry pancakes. He could but won't, take me to the movies on Saturdays. Going with my buddies is swell and Daddy's giving me candy money sort of makes up for his staying home with just my Mommy.

 

The amusement park is a short street car ride away. The line to get in is at least a whole block long. We uselessly  look for somebody we know who might buy our tickets. While we wait, we decide on our rides.  I want to go on the giant ferris wheel. So does Larry. Because we each bought ten tickets, the ferris wheel man gives  us an extra five. I ask him for one more so Larry and I will be able to go on rides together. The boss man in the fuzzy red hat with a yellow feather tail pats me on my head and tells me to have fun. He stops  smiling, lowers his voice,  warns us not to shake the seats or lean over. Buckle up and stay buckled!. After three times around, my stomach starts to make gurgle so we get off.

 

Larry decides we should go on the racer dip next. What a long line. We wait and wait until we don't want to wait any longer and walk over to the Fun House. We stand in front of curved mirrors and laugh at ourselves. Larry tells me I look dopey and I tell him he looks weird. We call it a tie. The giant sliding board waits for us. It is really, really slippery. Just as we are going around a bumpy curve I almost slip over the side. Larry grabs the seat of my pants and saves me from certain death.

 

I make the next choice. 'Hey, lets go in the Haunted House. The last skeleton that I know will drop down on us, still scares me.' The ride goes thru coal black tunnels. Our carriage holds six people. We were the last to get in this train so have the back seats. The bats and ghosts make noises, come off the walls right at us, but we have seen them before. The show in front of us is more interesting. When we come out of a tunnel for a split minute and are going into another, Larry asks me what the boy and girl in front of us are doing. I tell him I think they are kissing. Together we both say 'Ich.' Another tunnel and we don't see them at all. We are almost at the end of the Haunted House. Larry and I both are scared this time. Where are the boy and girl who were in our carriage? Larry tells me to tell the man outside that the other people have disappeared. 'You tell him,' I growl back.

 

As we step into broad daylight and adjust our eyes, I point out the two boys and two girls. One boy is wiping his mouth on his shirt tail. The other is buttoning his shirt. Both girls are fixing their belts and pulling up their nylon stockings.

 

'Larry, maybe their carriages were smaller than our back ones and they got squooshed.'  'Yeah, Casey, I guess they didn't have enough room and messed up their clothes. They aught to complain to the ticket taker and get their money back.'

 

'Go tell him yourself, Friend. I'm going back on the ferris wheel. Want to come with me?