Carnival

Photo by Sherad Campbell

Every year, the PTA put together the Beardsley Elementary Fall Carnival. On the morning of the big day, kids gathered around the basketball courts, excited to see everything coming together. Instead of playing tetherball or hopscotch at recess, they watched as parents set up tables with bright butcher paper skirts and painted banners with tempera paint. Later, a truck arrived with a food trailer, a popcorn machine, and a dunk tank.

Mom drove us to the carnival early that evening because she had to sell carnival tickets. She gave us five dollars' worth and told us not to come back and ask for more. 

Brother ditched me to play carnival games. He liked throwing baseballs at bottles and shooting water pistols to hit targets. I preferred walking around and exploring the booths before spending a ticket. I wanted to play the ping-pong ball game to try and win a goldfish, but I knew Mom would get mad if I won. I watched a boy in my class throw a baseball so hard that Mr. Holmes tumbled off his seat and fell into the dunk tank. 

The Under the Sea Adventure booth caught my eye. Neon-colored fish frolicked in a painted blue ocean. The booth was taller than the others and had an opening in the front. I stopped to watch because there was a long line of kids waiting.

A second-grader gave a ticket to a pretty lady wearing a sailor costume, and she got a red pole. Attached to the pole was a rope with a plastic hook at the end. The sailor asked the girl to say her name loudly, then wished her luck. The girl cast her line into the hole and waited. Moments later, she pulled out a prize, a lime-green teddy bear, in a plastic bag. The game was easy, and every kid who played caught a prize. 

I told the sailor I was nine and cast my line into the hole. I waited for a tug and was surprised when I pulled out a ceramic pink poodle figurine in a plastic bag. I was thrilled with my catch, so I got back in line to try again. The next time, I pulled out a set of Christmas placemats that still had the price tag. With two more tickets, I pulled out a Baggie full of buttons and an old sequined purse with a Kleenex inside. The sailor suggested it was time to let someone else have a turn. 

As I left, I peeked around to the side of the booth and saw grown-ups digging through cardboard boxes, laughing, and putting prizes on the hooks before tugging the lines. 

Next, I tried my luck at the cakewalk. Mom had baked a simple carrot cake, which stood out among the other desserts. She insisted it was healthy, but I doubted anyone wanted to eat a cake made out of carrots. There were triple-layer chocolate cakes, lemon-iced bundt cakes, rainbow cakes, strawberry cakes, and even a store-bought cake decorated with pink roses that said "Happy Birthday" in cursive frosting. And there were bags full of sugar, peanut butter, and chocolate chip cookies tied with red ribbons. 

When the music stopped, I stood on number seven, my lucky number, but the man on six won the plate of cupcakes. I won a bundt cake with another ticket but traded it for a bag of chocolate chip cookies. It was easier to carry. Mom's carrot cake was still sitting on the table when I left.

I didn't have enough money to buy a hotdog for dinner, so I ate my dozen chocolate chip cookies instead. As I wandered from booth to booth with my arms full of prizes, I watched kids play games, each of them hoping to win cheap toys like whistles, bouncy balls, and pencil erasers. 

I saw Anita and her mother, but I didn't want to risk Mom seeing us together.

When it was time to go home, Brother and I met Mom at the ticket booth. She wanted to leave before clean-up, insisting she'd already put in enough time. I showed her my stash of prizes and grinned with pride.

"Where in the world did you get all this junk?" Mom asked, holding up the Baggie of buttons.

I told her about the wonderful Under the Sea Adventure booth and how thrilling it was to feel the tug on the line and pull out a big prize. 

Mom rolled her eyes. "I told those pretentious PTA ladies that this was a carnival to raise money for the school, not a Goodwill drop-off," she said. 

Mom let me keep the poodle and put the rest of my prizes in the Goodwill box in the Alpha Beta parking lot.