The all-terrain mobile-junk attack vehicle was a triumph of design on the fly, and it functioned like a champion. They were at full throttle and sail, bouncing through the overgrown grass and puddles and roots with wicked, if wobbly, ease. The spirits of the Junkyard Gang were higher than they had been in longer than even Chilly could remember.
And Ollie was the captain. Billy had always been the one who steered when he and Ollie had rolled down hills in his red wagon, and Billy was the hero when they pretended flying and crashing and outer-spacing. But this time, Ollie was the hero person, and it wasn’t pretending, it was real.
And this kind of REAL felt even stronger than pretending, and maybe even better. Which was strange. Everything in this crazy day and night had seemed bigger and outside Ollie’s toy life. This was yum and scary and awesome, all at the same time. And he felt like he would never be quite the same. He just hoped he was as brave as he felt.
Tinny began to jump up and down and twonk his pop-top tab, motioning toward overgrown clusters of vines and small trees. The Dark Carnival was just ahead.
“Everybody hold on!” Ollie commanded as he led them closer. Then he called down to Clipper Greenfellow. “Slow and quiet, if you please.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. Quiet as a green, and slow as a putt,” replied the mower.
When Ollie had escaped from Zozo’s, he’d been running so wildly that he hadn’t really seen what the carnival truly looked like. It was, in fact, grimly enchanting. What at first appeared to be a row of odd-shaped trees turned out to be vine-covered portions of an old roller coaster.
They puttered quietly past the coaster and through the fantastic, moonlit shadowland of old rides. They were just barely visible among the weeds, vines, and trees that gnarled around and within the rusting metal shapes, which seemed like giant, leaf-covered creatures from a nightmare.
A thing resembling a huge wounded spider turned out to be a Ferris wheel, half of its spokes fallen out and small trees growing up from the listing, uneven cars. The merry-go-round had a ghostly emptiness to it. Many of the horses had snapped from their poles and now lay clustered and crammed into a frozen, tormented herd that whirled no more—sad, shadow-shrouded, and rotting. Some were held together only by dying ribbons of honeysuckle vines and poison oak.
The Junkyard Gang were quiet with awe as they passed the go-round. “They rest,” Clocker said of the horses.
“Their time was grand, and they earned a better end than this,” added Clipper Greenfellow.
The sight of these ruined creatures saddened Ollie. He’d seen pictures of merry-go-rounds in books. They looked so beautiful. The painted horses were like nothing he had ever imagined. He had always hoped he and Billy would ride on one of these amazing round-and-round things.
“Ahoy there, horses!” he called as they inched past. “Is there anything we can do for you?”
The Junkyard Gang listened hard for an answer. A breeze rustled the grass and leaves, and to their great surprise, the go-round moved around just the tiniest bit. Its old metal and timbers creaked and groaned. A thin, dry whisper drifted from the wreckage, like the sound of wood flaking into dust. “A tune . . . a tune would . . . be . . . welcome . . .” Then the go-round stilled. That whisper was so delicate, like a creature’s dying breath. They had to do something.