Scared Stiff by Willo Davis Roberts Page B

details. “When the regular lights are on,” he said, “they have a greenish one here, so it looks more like it’s underwater.”
    â€œYou were through here when this place was operating, then?” I asked.
    â€œSure. Lots of times. We live over the cornergrocery, six blocks down, two blocks over. Our whole family came to the grand reopening, when they redecorated everything and built the new roller coaster, when I was about seven. Then the summer before it closed, my old man bought a family ticket for the season. Course he was drunk when he did it, and he didn’t remember afterwards and thought I stole the money while he was passed out. He tried to get a refund on the ticket, but they wouldn’t give his money back, and if I hadn’t run off to my grandma’s and hid out for a couple days he’d probably have beat me senseless.”
    Connie said these things offhandedly, the way I’d have talked about walking to the store for a loaf of bread, but it made me shiver. My folks had argued, but they never hit each other, or got passing-out drunk. It made me think of Ma being missing, and Pa going off without saying good-bye, and I forgot about the scene of the sunken pirate ship.
    â€œAnyway,” Connie went on, “I already had the ticket. So I came over here almost every day, the whole summer. I felt bad when they shut it down when old Mr. Mixon died. Everytime the old man gets to drinking so it’s not safe to be around him, I come over here. You want to see where I sleep sometimes?”
    â€œSure,” Kenny said immediately. Already he’d accepted Connie as a friend.
    We went on the rest of the way through the tunnel of the pirates; when we came out into the open air, right where we’d started from, it was dark enough so we couldn’t see very far, but since Connie had the flashlight, it didn’t seem to matter so much.
    â€œWhy didn’t you ever say anything, if you knew I was here, too?” Julie wanted to know as we trudged along past a huge tower that had an elevator to take you up high before you got dropped in parachutes. She sounded sort of resentful.
    â€œI didn’t want anybody to know I was coming here,” Connie said cheerfully. “And I figured you wanted privacy, too. Only tonight I couldn’t resist the chance to spook you in the pirate’s cave.”
    â€œThanks a lot,” I said, but I wasn’t really resentful. Not now, anyway. “Where do you sleep?”
    â€œGot me a good place,” Connie said with satisfaction. “Not if it’s too cold, but in the summer it’s great.”
    He swung the light up and illuminated one of those Mexican hats that stood maybe twenty feet high; it had seats around the brim and gave you a wild ride when they turned the machine on and made it tilt and dip while it was going up and down and around in circles all at the same time.
    â€œUnder the Big Sombrero,” Connie explained unnecessarily. “When it’s turned off, it’s not that high off the platform, but it’s good shelter from the rain or the sun, either one. I brought over an old sleeping bag and a pillow, and I keep a box of crackers and a bucket of peanut butter there, too. Just in case I can’t go home for a while.”
    Kenny had to climb up and look at the place close up. “I wish I could come here when everything’s running,” he said wistfully. I thought it was probably a good thing it wasn’t running. It would have made Kenny throw up.
    â€œI wish I could find the keys to the lights and the operating buttons,” Connie said whenKenny rejoined us. “The main power’s still on. The security lights come on automatically, but everything else is off. Old Wonderland is really something when the lights are blazing and the music’s playing and the rides are buzzing and whirring and whipping around.”
    I wished I could see it that way, too.