The ticket booth for the carousel was painted bright red with a yellow sunburst across the front and orange lion heads in the four corners. Green starfish danced in the bursting rays of the sun. A large glass dome fit on top of the booth, and a man in a red-and-white striped shirt stood inside it selling tickets.
We started to get in line when I remembered I didn’t have any money with me. I poked Geraldine. She looked a little put out that I had interrupted whatever she was telling Reba Lu, but I got her attention when I asked, “What are we going to use for money?”
She felt around for a pocket until she remembered she wasn’t wearing anything but skin and latex.
“You got any money on you?” she asked Reba Lu, who stared at her for asking such a rude question, then shook her head. I shook mine, too. Geraldine turned to Dodie and didn’t even ask. When she looked at Charles, he held up a dime.
“Only enough for two rides,” he said. “I left the rest of my money with my dad.”
“We’ll have to go down to the sand,” Reba Lu said.
We three had been saving our allowances and had about fifty cents each. Ordinarily that would buy a hamburger, fries, and a soda and still leave enough for ice cream and five rides. But since we were eating at the picnic where the food was free, we could spend all our money on having fun.
We had put our coins in little cotton drawstring bags that Reba Lu made from material in her mother’s scrap bag. But when we arrived at the beach, we had taken them out of our pockets and tied them to our shoes.
All but Dodie. None of us had wanted to ask her if she wanted a drawstring bag for her money because we weren’t sure she had enough for a day at the beach. So we had put it to a vote and agreed to share what we had. At first it had been two to one, with Geraldine holding out, but Reba Lu told her she had a sinful attitude, and she backed down.
Now we were astonished when Dodie reached down the front of my old bathing suit that she was wearing and pulled some coins out of a tiny bag. It was pinned into the neckline and never even showed because of all the ruffles.
“Where’d you get so many nickels and dimes?” Geraldine exclaimed. “You’ve got enough there to eat hamburgers for a week!”
“Mr. Clement gave them to me for doing his shirts,” Dodie said. “My mama never liked him, so I waited until she was asleep, then hung a white handkerchief on the oleander bush by the side of the house to signal that he could come over and pay me. He was real nice to me, but then Mama went and chased him off.”
“She sure was mad,” I said.
Dodie shrugged and didn’t say anything for a minute. “She just doesn’t like him,” she finally said. “Mama has strong opinions about people.”
We were all quiet for a minute until Geraldine blurted out, “Oleander bushes are poisonous. Didn’t you know that?”
Dodie shrugged. “I wasn’t planning on eating one.” She turned and walked toward a bench. “You go on and get your money. I’ll wait for you.”
We walked back along the pier, Reba Lu and Geraldine in front and Charles and me in back. Charles took hold of my arm and stopped me. “Oleanders aren’t the only things that are poisonous. You’d best keep your distance from Mr. Clement,” he said.
“Don’t worry. I intend to,” I told him.
We hurried across the sand to get our money. When we got back to the pier, Dodie was waiting by the merry-go-round, tapping one foot to the music. I put my moonstone in the bag of coins for safekeeping and took out a nickel for a ticket. The music began to slow and the merry-go-round stopped. Before I knew it, Dodie had climbed on the platform, put one foot on the mounting piece and swung the other leg over until she was sitting in the saddle of a white stallion on the inner circle. It had a black mane studded with stars.
I climbed onto a pink horse with large green eyes next to hers, and Charles chose a black one on the outside where he could lean out and reach for a golden ring.
“You can hang on to the pole with one hand and wave to people with the other,” I told Dodie. “It’s fun, riding to the music. There’s nothing in the world like it!”
Charles asked if either of us needed help fastening our seat belts. Dodie made a kind of smirking face and said, “I can figure it out.” She gave the belt a pull, then clasped her pole with both hands and waited.
The music started, and the merry-go-round began to turn. The horses quivered, then slowly began to move. Faster and faster. Up and down. Around and around. Dodie held tight to the pole. “Whoa!” she cried. “This is just like riding a real horse!” She watched, open-mouthed, as Charles loosened his seat belt, held tight to the pole, and leaned way out, stretching his right arm toward a metal contraption attached to the wall. It stuck out like a long arm with a shiny loop about as big as a silver dollar at the end.
“He’s trying to catch the golden ring,” I said, raising my voice over the music. “It’s really brass, but it looks golden and shiny. It’s a winner. If you catch one, you get a free ride.”
“You don’t say.” Dodie loosened her belt and practiced leaning to one side. Then she wrapped both arms around the pole and watched Charles put all his weight on one of the stirrups, lean way out, and snatch at the ring holder as his horse sped by. He held up a silver ring and groaned.
“Better luck next time,” I called.
“I bet I can do better than that,” Dodie said.
The horses went around lots more times. Dodie began hanging on with one hand and waving to the people in line just like she knew them. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement. The carousel played “Oh My Darling, Clementine,” and we all began to sing along. We knew most of the words. We had learned them in school last year. Dodie sang louder than any of us.
Charles caught several more rings, but they were always silver. I noticed how closely Dodie watched him. Once, she even leaned sideways on her horse, clutching the pole tightly with one hand and stretching as far as she could with her free arm.
As the horses slowed, the attendant came around to collect the rings. “Too bad you didn’t catch a gold one,” he said to Charles. “Want to ride again?”
We each paid him a nickel, except for Dodie, who handed him a quarter. He was about to push the lever to count out change when Dodie said, “Never mind. I’m going to ride five more times.”
Geraldine grinned. “Easy come, easy go,” she said. We each handed the attendant our money. If Dodie could ride five more times, so could we.
None of us was ready for what happened next. Dodie undid her seat belt and climbed off her horse. She walked over to a purple charger in the outer circle. It had flaring nostrils and a silver mane. “Purple is my favorite color,” she said.
She put her left foot in the stirrup, swung her right leg over the charger’s back and settled herself in the saddle. “What are we waiting for?” she yelled. I turned to look at Reba Lu and Geraldine. Both of them had their mouths open. We didn’t know Dodie Crumper as well as we had thought.
I was sure of it when she tightened her seat belt as the platform began to move, and her horse started rising. “Yippee!” she shouted. If she had been wearing a cowboy hat, I think she would have waved it the way Roy Rogers did in Days of Jesse James.
The first time her horse went past the ring holder, her seat belt kept her from leaning out far enough, and she came away with a handful of air.
“Loosen your belt a little,” Charles told her. “When you’re ready, hold tight to your pole, put your weight on your right foot and lean as far out as you can. Don’t worry, you won’t fall. Watch me.”
He reached for the ring and caught it. “Silver again,” he yelled, waving his ring in the air.
When that ride was over, Reba Lu and Geraldine and I climbed down and chose outside horses, too. I could see our reflections in the long mirrors in the center of the carousel as we stretched out our arms. Reba Lu’s cheeks were flushed. My hair was flying in the breeze. Geraldine looked sweaty, but determined. Charles was laughing out loud.
Dodie didn’t look like herself. She sat up straight like somebody who knew where she was going. When we passed the post that held the rings, she leaned so far out that I held my breath. She caught a ring, but it was silver. Even so, she looked at me and grinned so hard her mouth seemed to split almost to her ears.
We were on our last ride when she screamed. Looped around one finger, held high above her head, was a gold ring. Of course, I knew it was only brass, but at that moment, it seemed like pure gold.
Dodie held onto that ring like her life depended on it. “I did it! I did it! I did it!” she yelled.
Charles clapped. “Good for you, Dodie!” he shouted. And then we were all clapping and shouting, smacking our hands together so hard it hurt.
Dodie was red in the face when we climbed down from our horses.
“Don’t you want to get your free ride?” Geraldine asked her.
Dodie shook her head. “I’m saving it.”
“What for?”
Dodie tucked the ring into her money bag. “I want something to look forward to,” she said.