On my birthday, my real birthday, the day I turn twelve at 2:22 in the afternoon, Mom and Dad give me another party. It is the same one we have every year. The guests are always Mom, Dad, Nana, Papa, Cookie, and our boarders. This year Adam is a guest too.
“Do you have the box, the little wooden box, your birthday present, Hattie?” Adam is pushing through our front door ahead of Nana and Papa, who are each carrying a shopping bag full of presents. “Everyone else is giving you their presents today,” he says, “but I already gave you yours. You liked it, didn’t you, Hattie, you liked your present? Ethel didn’t like Lucy’s at all. Well Ethel I — I think they’re kinda cute what are they well they’re hostess pants you wear ’em when you give smart dinner parties oh I was wondering what to wear to all those smart dinner parties I give.”
“I love the box,” I assure Adam. “It’s right here in my pocket, see?” I pull it out and show him, shake it so he can hear that it really is full of my loose change.
Dad films the party, of course. Films me opening my presents, films everyone seated around the dining room table wearing goofy hats, films me cutting the cake, films Adam sticking his finger in the icing and swiping off the largest pink rose for himself. Luckily there is no sound to go with Dad’s movies or we would be able to hear Nana’s cry of displeasure as Adam slurps up the rose and reaches out for another one with the same sticky finger he just licked. The camera stops then, and Papa tells Adam he will have to go sit in the car.
“No, please, let him stay,” I say. “I don’t mind about the cake.”
“Well, I do,” says Nana. “Adam knows better.”
“But I want him to stay. It’s my party.”
Adam doesn’t hear this, though. He has already slammed out the front door and is stomping toward home.
Dad sets the camera down. The dining room is silent. Miss Hagerty and Mr. Penny are looking at their plates. Cookie examines a crumb on her fork. Angel Valentine jumps up and says she has an errand to run downtown. So the party ends.
Nana and Papa head for home. Most likely, they will find Adam along the way. I’m worried about his mood, but no one else mentions him. Mom says, “Hattie, it’s your birthday. No chores, no cleaning up, and you don’t need to help with dinner tonight. Go do whatever you want to do for the rest of the afternoon.”
What I want to do is read, so I take the pile of new books I have been given and sit on the front porch with them until Cookie calls me in to dinner.
The invitations to Nana and Papa’s dinner party are printed on cream-colored cards edged in gold, each protected by a small sheet of tissue paper. I have traced my finger over the raised letters many times since Mom and Dad’s invitation arrived. The party is to be held in one week, on the Saturday after my birthday. The invitation has been tacked to the bulletin board in the kitchen for days now, and I can’t help feeling that Nana probably didn’t intend for something so fancy to wind up with a hole in it, stuck next to a batch of Green Stamps and supermarket coupons.
Nana and Papa give a very fancy dinner party twice each year, once at Christmas and once during the summer. I have wondered if this summer’s might be postponed until a new school is found for Adam and he is out of the house. But I guess not. I’m pretty sure, though, that Adam will not be attending the dinner. For one thing, children are never invited to the summer party. I know Adam is not exactly a child, but he is sort of a child. And anyway, Nana likes her parties to be perfect. She will not want someone walking around sticking his fingers in the hors d’oeuvres and reciting lines from I Love Lucy.
What this means is that Adam and I will be on our own on Saturday night. Adam will probably have to spend the evening in his room. And I could spend it in mine, reading my new books. Or I could visit with Miss Hagerty, but she wants to teach me to needlepoint, and I’m not interested. I could also, I think, go to the carnival. I haven’t been to the carnival at night since I went with Mom and Dad. Leila and I could ride the lit-up rides together, and sit at a darkened picnic table eating ice cream while the moon rises.
I wonder if I would be allowed to go.
One night when we are watching the news on TV, I say, “On Saturday when you go to Nana and Papa’s party, could I go to the carnival?”
“At night without us?” says Mom. “I don’t know …”
“I would be with Leila,” I say. “I would spend the whole evening with her.”
Mom and Dad look at each other.
“Leila’s parents are always around,” I add.
“I guess it would be all right,” says Mom.
“As long as you wait for me to pick you up after the party,” says Dad. “I don’t want you walking home by yourself in the dark.”
“I’ll wait for you,” I say.
The next day I tell Leila about my plan, and she says, “What about Adam? Can he come too?”
It’s true that Adam will be stuck in his room, but I’m pretty sure he will not be allowed to go to the carnival at night without Nana and Papa.
“I don’t think so,” I tell Leila.
Later, after all that happens with Adam that night and in the days following, I am never quite sure what made me suggest to Adam that he sneak out of his house and go to the carnival with me. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Somehow the idea comes up, and Leila and I talk and talk about it, knowing it is wrong but lured by its daring.
“It doesn’t seem right that Nana and Papa should make him stay in his room during the party,” I say.
“Like they’re hiding him away,” says Leila.
“He’d have a lot more fun at the carnival,” I add. “And he’s never seen it at night.”
“Maybe you could tell him to sneak out of his house after the party starts.”
“Maybe.”
“But then what would you do with Adam when your father comes to pick you up?”
This is a good question. “I could tell him that Adam came to the carnival on his own, that we just ran into him after I got here.”
In the end, I decide that probably there is no way to do this without getting into some sort of trouble, and that is a risk I’m willing to take. I want Adam to have one wild, thrilling evening with no one around to tell him to use his party manners. One evening without Nana hovering around trying to make him perfect.
Soon enough Leila will be gone and Adam will go off to a new school, and the three of us will never have this chance again.
On Friday, the day before Nana and Papa’s party, I tell Adam about our idea.
“Oh, oh, what an adventure, Hattie Owen! An adventure indeed. Better than when Lucy goes to Hollywood. Better than when she goes to Europe or Florida. More like her Martian adventure with Ethel! Count me in, count me in, Hattie, I will be there with bells on.”
“But you have to remember not to mention this to Nana or Papa,” I say.
“They are evil, evil people,” Adam replies darkly.
“Meet me on the corner tomorrow night at seven-thirty,” I say. “And remember not to let anyone see you leave the house.”
“Righto, bingo, over and out,” replies Adam.
The next night Adam is waiting for me when I reach the corner. “Hattie! Hattie!” He is jumping up and down. “I did it, I escaped and no one saw me. I am out of the loony bin on a free pass! Let the fun begin!”
I hurry us down the street, afraid someone will see us. Adam is boinging around, jumping, humming, singing. “I love Lucy and she loves me!”
We arrive at Fred Carmel’s just as the lights are being turned on. From the parking lot we watch as darkened shapes come to life.
“Magic,” whispers Adam as the Tilt-A-Whirl suddenly appears in the distance, then the Ferris wheel.
We walk to the entrance, where Leila is waiting for us. Behind her is the merry-go-round, a golden glow that lights her hair. Adam is right. Leila looks magic, the merry-go-round looks magic, we are surrounded by magic on this forbidden adventure.
Now Adam, overwhelmed, can barely speak. He watches the merry-go-round for two complete turns, then looks to his left and watches the Ferris wheel. Around and around goes his head.
“It’s too good,” he whispers at last.
“What? The Ferris wheel?” Leila says.
“Yes.” Adam is still whispering. “Let’s ride it.”
“Really? You want to go on the Ferris wheel?” I say. “Are you sure?”
“Okay,” reply Leila and I at the same time.
Lamar is in the ticket booth, and he waves to us as we join the end of the line. Slowly we make our way forward and climb the four wooden steps up to the ride. Mr. Cahn is at the top of the steps and he helps us into one of the cars.
“I’ll sit next to Adam,” I say.
Mr. Cahn buckles us in, checks the buckles, then checks them again. “Okay,” he says, “you’re all set.”
He lowers a bar over Adam and me, lowers the other one over Leila. Adam grips our bar tightly. His knuckles turn white.
Leila looks at his hands, looks at me, looks back at Adam. “Are you sure you want to go?” she asks him. “My dad could let us out right now.”
Adam shakes his head. I’m actually not sure what that means. He doesn’t want to go? He doesn’t want to be let out? But it doesn’t matter because suddenly our car jerks forward and we are lifted up. We rise above the carnival, the lights falling away beneath us.
“Oh, ho, ho, ho!” cries Adam.
Someone from the car just below us turns around to look up at Adam, and I stick my tongue out at her.
We reach the very top of the ride, and spreading away from us wherever we look are the lights of Millerton. We are the sun and there is our universe, I am thinking, just as Adam says softly, “It’s Neverland, it’s Oz, it’s Nirvana. Oh, it’s the center of the universe.” He tips his head back to look up at the stars.
Our car glides down toward the ground, then rises, glides to the ground, rises once more. We are at the top of the Ferris wheel for the third time when I hear a great screech of metal and we grind to a halt, our seats rocking.
“What’s wrong?” I ask Leila.
“It must be stuck. That happens sometimes. My dad always fixes it.”
I glance at Adam.
“We’re lucky!” Leila goes on. “We’re stuck at the very top. It’s the best place to be stuck. You can look at the view all you want.”
“I think I see Grant Av —”
“Oh, ho, ho, ho!”
“Adam?” I say, because this is not a happy shout.
“Oh, ho, ho, ho, oh, ho, ho, ho, OH, HO, HO, HO.” His voice rises with each syllable, and when he shrieks out the last “ho” he bangs his hands on the bar.
The woman in the car below turns around to stare at Adam again, and someone from another car calls, “Shut up, jerk.”
“Adam,” says Leila, “I told you — my dad will fix this. It happens all the time.”
Adam doesn’t hear her. He shrieks and shrieks and shrieks. No words, just terrified sounds. My hands begin to shake. I remember when I comforted Adam on his front porch, but I know better than to touch him now.
I want to slide under the bar and crawl next to Leila. I am afraid of the stranger next to me.