Free What We Knew by Barbara Stewart Page B

least we seemed happy. I guess if I put it on a timeline, my dad was already cheating, Scott was sorting through some crazy emotions, and my mom was getting all kinds of grief over her promotion to supervisor. And I was plotting the death of my tormentor, a mean girl who nicknamed me Melon Head after a really horrible failed attempt to dye my hair.
    A lot has changed since then. The security checkpoint at the gate was new. Plus the rule about no coolers. Then there were these special bracelets they were selling that let you cut to the front of the lines. But we didn’t need them. We had my mom. It’s her job to know all about traffic and how to deal with it. She snatched a guide from a friendly dinosaur and steered us through the crush of families clogging the winding streets of Ye Olde Village. Her strategy—go directly to the farthest point on the map—worked. Ghost Town was a ghost town.
    “What’s first?” my mom asked, surveying the massive metal monsters crouched between the false front buildings and wooden sidewalks. Katie oo-ooed for the swings. Lisa, the free-fall tower. Everybody rolled their eyes at my pick: Tornado Alley, a dark ride through a wind tunnel, with flying Day-Glo cows and hypnotic spirals and air horns. My favorite ride ever, even if it was the cheesiest. My mom’s eyes drifted to the giant corkscrew rising up behind the saloon and dance hall. The Gold Rush. My mom is the Roller-Coaster Queen. She’ll ride anything: sketchy wooden deathtraps; neck-snapping figure eights—the suspended kind, where the cart dangles from a track above your head.
    My mom pulled rank. We ducked under the switchback of ropes and claimed the first two cars.
    It’s amazing what a jolt of adrenaline can do. My mom was rowdy and giddy, throwing her arms over her head while I gripped the safety bar like a chicken. Maybe this would remind her who she was before my dad left and turned her world upside down. Maybe she’d try dating again. Just because she hadn’t hit it off with Chip didn’t mean there wasn’t someone out there for her. She should add “thrill seeker” to her profile.
    “That was sick!” Lisa shouted.
    Katie and I bumped fists.
    “Who wants to go again?” my mom asked.
    After the fourth run, lines had formed behind the chains. We moved on. Log Jam. Tornado Alley. The Tumbleweed. My mom and Katie sat out the Thunderbird because Katie’s stomach felt weird. Warm and woozy, we showed our wristbands at the saloon for free soda and hiked down the hill to Jungle Land, which was a rip-off—the one big ride was closed for repairs—but Katie wanted to see the animals.
    That was always Scott’s least favorite part. Even when we were little, he hated seeing them in their sad, lonely cages. I hated the rope bridge, with its animatronic alligators lurking in the muddy waters below. Once, the bridge bounced so hard I started crying. Clinging to the net, I was sure I’d tumble over and die, impaled on those long sharp teeth. But my dad saved me. Rushing out, he snatched me up and carried me to solid ground.
    My mother asked if I remembered the time he won me an enormous pink panda. But I didn’t. “You were only two. That thing was bigger than you,” she said. “He must have spent fifty bucks trying.”
    “Hey guys, there’s no line there,” Katie said, pointing to an oblong wheel ringed with cages—a Ferris wheel on steroids. The Zipper. I’m not afraid of anything, but that ride freaks me out. It’s Scott’s fault. He used to torture me when we were kids, pointing out rust spots, making me think the bolts were bad. Since Scott wasn’t there to torture me, I tortured Katie.
    “That doesn’t sound safe,” I said, furrowing my brow at the creaking noise above our heads.
    Lisa buckled us in, and then she got the cart rocking. “You know this thing’s gonna flip, right?”
    “You guys,” Katie whined. “Why are you always mean to me?”
    “Mean to you?” I said, bumping Katie’s