Flor

(4 P.M.)

The line was long, but it always moved fast. Randy didn’t know that, though.

“If you don’t feel like waiting, we can just find something else,” I offered.

Something slower, I thought, and not so spinny. Like the carousel or even the kiddie coaster.

Randy gazed up at the sign above the Gravitron. DEFY GRAVITY! it dared above an airbrushed painting of two spaceships locked in battle, firing lasers across a purple-black sky. EXPERIENCE THE POWER OF CENTRIFUGAL FORCE!

The Gravitron was a good ride. It was probably one of the best in the whole carnival. But just the thought of being whipped around in circles after everything we had eaten put a sour-sick taste at the back of my throat.

“You might think it’s boring.”

The milk shake, churro, and nachos combination should have been enough to make her queasy at least. But even after the deep-fried pickles, she was bouncing on the balls of her feet like she could’ve topped it all off with a bacon-wrapped Twinkie and a plate of Tater Twists.

When I had told her we would get on some rides after lunch, it seemed like a good idea, right in line with my plan. If the food didn’t make her sick, the Gravitron would. Now I wasn’t so sure my stomach could handle it. And I wasn’t sure hers couldn’t.

Randy stood on tiptoe to try to peek inside the Gravitron. It was one of the older rides. “Only one on the West Coast!” Mr. Barsetti used to brag. But he was always saying that kind of thing. “Friendliest petting zoo this side of the Rockies,” I’d heard him tell people about Rancho Maldonado. “Sweetest lemonade in the state!” It made me wonder if anyone was actually keeping track.

The Gravitron was dull silver and shaped like a flying saucer. At night, bands of red lights raced up and down its sides. Every few minutes, the doors slid open and thumping dance-party music poured out. Riders stumbled off, straightening their glasses, tucking their shirts back in, taming flyaway strands of hair. When they had all filed out, another group of riders would step aboard. The doors would clatter shut so we couldn’t hear the music anymore, just a few muffled screams that slipped through as the Gravitron began to spin.

Randy chewed on her thumbnail. She dropped her heels to the ground. “Let’s do it.”

I clutched my stomach and followed her into line behind four girls about our age. They wore matching blue jerseys like they had come to the festival straight from a game or from practice or something. One sat on top of the railing and braided another one’s ponytail. They passed around a cone of cotton candy, each one pulling off a chunk of pink floss. Being part of the carnival was the closest I had ever come to being part of a team. Otherwise, I didn’t belong to anything the way those girls belonged to one another.

“Do you ever miss it?” Randy asked, still gnawing on her fingernails.

“Miss what?”

She pulled her hand out of her mouth and held it behind her back. “Having friends. Being normal.”

I crossed my arms. “Mikey’s my friend. And Maria. Libby was too, before she left. Then there’s Johnny and Lexanne. They’re older, but they’re still friends. We’re all normal.”

“But, I mean, going to school. I miss school. I miss knowing everyone. I miss how it was when everyone wasn’t a stranger.”

Maybe we wouldn’t be strangers anymore if the Reyes family left their motor home and actually talked to us once in a while. Maybe their dad wouldn’t have been so quick to tell Mr. Barsetti to drop us from the lineup. But I didn’t say so out loud.

The Gravitron stopped. Riders stepped off, rumpled and ruffled. Riders stepped on, antsy and anxious. The line lumbered forward. Deb was at the front of it, taking tickets. She had a clear blue visor that cast a blue-tinged half-moon shadow over her freckled nose.

“Well, hello there, Ms. Flor. It’s been a while since you came around to see me. Where’ve you been?”

“Helping my papá mostly. Since Mamá started that new job.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s right. Yes, that’s right.” Deb was tall; I barely came up to her shoulder. She had been a professional volleyball player before she came to the carnival. She was always offering to keep an eye on us kids after closing time if the carnival parents wanted to have a date night. They were usually too tired, though. “And who’s this? New friend? It’s about time.”

Randy stepped out from behind me and waved.

“She’s new to the carnival,” I said. “But she hasn’t been on any of the rides yet. This will be her first.”

Deb touched the edge of her visor and bowed her head. “I’m honored.”

“We don’t have any tickets, though. Will you let us on?”

Someone behind us huffed impatiently.

Deb clicked down twice on the little counter she carried to keep track of how many spaces were left on the ride. “Get in there,” she whispered. “You two have fun, all right?”

Four metal steps led up to the Gravitron’s entrance. They rattled under our feet as we climbed aboard. Inside, red and white lights flashed in time with the thump, thump, thump that pulsed through crackly speakers.

Randy tried to tell me something, but I couldn’t hear.

“Huh?”

She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “There aren’t any seats!”

“No seats,” I agreed.

On the Gravitron, everyone stood in a circle and leaned back on black vinyl cushions. At the center of the circle was a control station where the ride operator sat. It was Marcus this time—it was almost always Marcus. He was the only one who could stand being inside the Gravitron for hours at a time. He wore headphones over his ears to muffle the music, and sunglasses to block the blue and green lights that whizzed above his head like a siren.

Sometimes, on setup nights, when the work was done and there weren’t any guests yet, Marcus would bring out his guitar and sing campfire songs for all of us. He was teaching Mikey and me to play a little, even. When he saw me, he pushed his sunglasses up over his forehead and pointed at two spots next to each other.

We hurried toward them, then leaned back and waited.

“Aren’t there any seat belts?”

“No seat belts either.”

“So we just stand here? And it spins?”

“Pretty much.”

She pressed her lips together. I couldn’t tell if she was nervous or disappointed.

I’d avoided the Gravitron for months after we first joined the carnival. All that screaming coming from inside made me wonder why anyone would get on to begin with. I made excuses whenever Mikey came around to see if I wanted to get on. I said my papá needed me to rake out the pen, or that one of the animals had gotten sick. But then, the minute she was finally tall enough, Maria tried the Gravitron and said it was the best ride at the whole carnival. Maria was three years younger. If she wasn’t afraid, I had to give it a try at least.

“Actually, I think you’ll like it,” I told Randy. Suddenly, I wanted her to like it the same way I had once wanted the kids from school to like our ranch. If they liked the ranch, then they might like me too. They might stop thinking it was weird the way I talked about animals all the time. They might want to come over even when it wasn’t for a field trip. Except they never did.

My stomach, which had been woozy after all the fair food we ate, was now bubbly with nervous excitement. That was what it must feel like to have a new friend over to your house for the first time, I thought. To throw open the door to your bedroom and show off all your best things. To hope she thought it was all exactly as great as you did.

When all the spaces on the Gravitron were filled, Marcus got out of the operator’s booth to pull the doors shut. Randy flinched when the latch clanged.

I used to hate that part too, when everything was about to begin and you couldn’t do anything but wait for it.

Back behind the control panel, Marcus read the safety instructions. No somersaults, no backflips, no headstands, no spins. He sounded bored. He probably read those instructions more than a hundred times a day, and almost no one paid attention when he did.

“Please remain standing,” he droned.

“Permanecen de pie,” Randy said in that strange way she was always repeating things in Spanish. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Remain standing.”

The lights went out. Everyone screamed.

“Enjoy your ride.” Marcus flicked his sunglasses back over his eyes and gave me a thumbs-up. Then he flicked on a black light that made the middle of my Rancho Maldonado shirt glow purplish white.

“What’s going on?” Randy’s teeth were glowing too. The music blared. Every beat shot up through my toes and straight to my temples.

It was too late for me to answer. We were already spinning. A red-and-yellow starburst flashed on the ceiling. The lights whirling around Marcus’s booth morphed into a blue-green blur.

The faster we spun, the louder we screamed. Our seat backs crept upward, but we didn’t fall, we floated. The man next to me ignored the safety instructions and balanced on his head.

Randy’s eyes were still shut, so I shook her arm. She couldn’t miss this.

“Look!”

She was suspended at least a foot off the floor. That was the way the Gravitron worked. It spun around so fast, it pinned you to the wall, and for a while at least, you really could defy gravity.

Randy started screaming too. But it wasn’t a scared scream. It was a laughing scream, a giddy scream, a Gravitron scream.

Once in a while, if we weren’t in a hurry to get back on the road, Mr. Barsetti let us keep a ride or two open after a carnival had closed. Not very often—“soaring cost of electricity, you know”—but sometimes. And on those nights, Mikey and I always used to beg for one of the rides to be the Gravitron. When it was full of guests like this, we had to obey all the rules.

When it was just us carnival kids, though, no one cared if we climbed all the way up to the ceiling or walked sideways across the walls.

Next time, we would have to bring Randy with us. Maybe after the carnival closed that night.

Then I remembered: Whatever happened that night, we probably wouldn’t come back to ride the Gravitron together. Miranda and I were not really friends. I didn’t want her around. The longer she stayed, the more I had to worry.

The Gravitron began to slow. “Please return to a standing position,” Marcus warned. “Your ride is coming to an end.”

Everyone booed. The pressure against my shoulders eased. I slid back to the ground, a little at a time. As soon as the Gravitron bumped to a stop, the regular white lights turned back on. The music was softer now, but I could still feel it pulsing in my ears. Randy took off her hat and fanned herself with it.

“That. Was. Amazing,” she said.

“I’m glad you liked it.” And even though it was hard to admit, I really was.

Marcus was at the door, taking people under the elbow and helping them down, just in case they were too dizzy to get out safely on their own.

When it was our turn to go, he winked at me. Instead of guiding us off the ride, he steered us back around the circle. “One more time?” he said as the music thumped on.

I started to shake my head. But Randy jumped up from behind me. “Yes!”