Chapter 25

The two of us plummeted from the upside-down roller coaster, flapping our arms like useless wings. Then, umph! We landed in a soft pile of stuffed bears, instantly smothered by cuteness.

“Muumuu!” I tried to shout, but a flannel bear managed to slide its paw under the visor of my helmet and right into my mouth. I twisted and thrashed, spitting out the fuzzy hand and screaming again. “MUUMUU!”

This time, I felt the consequence pull me to the ground before I saw Ridge turn into a shark. My stomach hit the pavement, and I was now the very bottom of the Super-Fun-Happy-Bear doggy pile.

Then the stuffing started flying.

Shark Ridge erupted from the pile, his rows of razor teeth shredding through the stuffed bears. Darting through the air as though it were water, he batted the bears away with his powerful tail.

In a moment, the way was clear, but I couldn’t stand up to make my getaway while Ridge was still a shark. “Muumuu!” I called, and he was a boy again. His mouth was full of polyester fluff.

We staggered to our feet, the bears chasing us again. There were angry looks on their cute furry faces.

Ridge kept spitting out stuffing as we ran. “We have to get out of here!” he said, as if I didn’t agree. “This is unbearable!”

Really? That was the word he wanted to use?

With a wake of plush animals, we arrived at the bumper cars ride where I had seen the cotton candy man disappear.

Standing guard at the gate to the arena was a tie-dyed bear, about waist high. It put up its paws in a boxing stance and I kicked it as hard as I could.

Apparently, “as hard as I could” wasn’t hard enough. The tie-dyed bear wrapped around my leg and held fast. I stepped back, but couldn’t shake it. At least it was out of the way.

Ridge and I ducked inside. Running with a stuffed bear clinging to your leg was harder than I’d have imagined. We spotted the pin-striped suit and flat-top hat seated in one of the tiny vehicles, racing around in a tight circle.

The moment he saw us, he turned his car around and sped toward us on a collision course. I tried to back up, but stumbled into an empty car. Then, before I could step out of the way, the crazy cotton candy vendor struck.

My leg was pinned between the two cars. I expected to hear the sound of my shin snapping, accompanied by a crushing pain. But fortunately, I had a giant stuffed bear still wrapped around my leg.

My shin was saved, but the Super-Fun-Happy Bear wasn’t so lucky. The stitching between its ears split and its head exploded in a puff of synthetic stuffing.

The cotton candy man reversed, his pink mustache twitching in a menacing way. Ridge and I had only one choice. Get into the empty car.

It was barely big enough for two boys our size. I shook off the remains of the tie-dyed bear and we managed to slip into the padded seats before the man rammed us again. We bounced backward, spiraling across the arena and colliding with another empty car.

The Super-Fun-Happy Bears must have been doing a decent job of holding back the tourists, because we had the arena to ourselves. A few of the stuffed animals had decided to join us. They raced forward, laden with tools and scraps that they must have pilfered from other places in the park.

I stepped on the pedal, spinning the wheel and reversing around the approaching pests. But they didn’t seem interested in us this time. They surrounded the cotton candy man’s car like a multicolored pit crew. I craned my head to see what they were doing, hoping the little creatures had turned against him.

In a moment they were done. The Super-Fun-Happy Bears backed away from the car in an almost ceremonial fashion, allowing me and Ridge to see their handiwork.

The man’s bumper car was now a shredding machine! The stupid bears had installed blades and spikes of scrap metal all around the small vehicle.

“We can’t let that thing hit us!” Ridge said. “We’ll get ripped to bits.”

The vendor came racing toward us. I swerved at the last second and his armored bumper car tore into an empty vehicle behind us. I spun us around, but he reversed with intense speed, swinging sideways and slamming into our car.

The jagged metal that the teddy bears had installed sunk into our side bumper. One sharp blade pierced through the thin wall of our car, stopping just inches away from my hip.

Ridge screamed and I jerked the wheel, trying to spin away from the man. But in the collision, his deadly spikes had locked our cars side by side. We were stuck to him, getting dragged across the arena as he zoomed in a wide victory lap.

To make things worse, the Super-Fun-Happy Bears were climbing into the other empty cars, strapping on seat belts, and closing in on us, their adorable little faces twisted with road rage.

“We’re doomed!” cried Ridge, throwing his hands up in the air.

I glanced over at the vendor. He grinned at me in a way that made me feel like it was a challenge. Beside him, lying on the seat, were the three paper cones, each wrapped with the green cotton candy.

“Take the wheel!” I shouted to Ridge. Our wheel was pretty much useless because we were anchored to the enemy car. But it seemed like the right thing to say. I reached out, my hand groping for one of the cotton candy cones in the next car.

“It’s too far!” I said. “I can’t reach it.” My fingers stretched, but the man with the pink mustache swatted my hand away as he drove. I leaned farther, but the teddy bears started slamming into us, and I was afraid that a well-timed bump would throw me out of the car, only to be driven over by one of them.

“I need to get closer,” I said to Ridge.

“You want to get closer?” he answered. “I want to get farther away!”

I gritted my teeth and reached out as far as I could, but the cotton candy was still five inches away. “I wish I could reach that cotton candy!” I shouted.

“Here’s the deal,” said Ridge, uselessly wiggling the steering wheel of our bumper car. “If you want to reach that cotton candy, then your tongue will turn green.”

“How green?” I asked. There were at least a dozen shades of green. It might not be so bad if my tongue were just tinted a light lime.

“Really green,” he said. “Like the color of grass at the park.”

“How long will I stay that way?” I was still reaching for the cotton candy, hoping that I would be able to grab one naturally and not end up needing the wish.

“Umm . . . forever,” said Ridge. “Sorry.”

Green tongue forever? I glanced down at the hourglass on my outstretched arm. The white sands were nearly spent. “I . . . Bazang!”

I don’t know exactly how it happened. Maybe my arm got longer. Maybe the cars got closer together. Whatever happened, the Universe fulfilled my wish and my fingers instantly closed around the nearest cone of cotton candy.

I gave a shout of success and flopped back into the seat beside Ridge, holding the airy treat aloft. Really, by this time, the cotton candy looked pretty nasty, all matted and barely holding on to the cone. But it was what we had come for, so in my mind it looked like victory.

I ripped off a bit and pushed it under the helmet to my lips, inhaling a bit of the sugary fluff. It melted instantly in my mouth. Eating candy like this would turn anyone’s tongue green. But now mine had the unique privilege of staying that way.

The vendor slammed on the brakes and both our cars came grinding to a halt. The arena was quiet now. All the Super-Fun-Happy Bears that had been trying to ram us were unbuckling their seat belts and stepping out of their bumper cars. Something outside the arena seemed to be drawing their attention. They scampered off, uninterested in me and Ridge.

The man in the pin-striped suit looked over at me. “You walk a dangerous road, youngster.” He picked up the two remaining cones of cotton candy and stepped out of his souped-up bumper car.

“Aren’t you going to try to stop me?” I taunted, pushing another bite of cotton candy up to my mouth, the green sugar melting on my tongue.

“I already tried,” he said. “But you have completed the second task. There is nothing more I can do to stop you. But you must be warned. The Undiscovered Genie has a taste for chaos. He was locked away for a reason.” He tipped his hat and raced off in the same direction that the Super-Fun-Happy Bears had gone.

“That guy was crazy,” Ridge said, carefully climbing out of our damaged car.

“I don’t think he was quite . . .” I didn’t know how to say it. “Human.” I still didn’t know what the Ancient Consequence was, but it seemed the cotton candy vendor and Roosevelt’s big head had both been charged with stopping people from completing the tasks.

Ridge nodded in agreement. Reaching over, he plucked a tuft of cotton candy off the back of the cone and folded it into his mouth. I wasn’t too excited to share my treat when I was the one who had to bear all the consequences to get it.

At least the cotton candy was tasty.