1941 (l.h.)

chapter 2

As Catherine and I walked up the block towards the fair, we could already smell it all. The sweet smell of funnel cakes wafted up the street, mixed with the scent of horse manure from the pony rides for kids, mixed with the aroma of oil for all of the rides. Not the most pleasant mixture in the whole world, but it let you know that good times were ahead. The fair was here, and it was in your face half a block down! We walked in through the main entrance, and immediately Cal was there, lounging up again the wall with a cigarette in between his teeth.

"Hey babe," he said, reaching for Catherine's hand. "How are you, Vera? Still single?" He asked, smirking.

"I'm good, thanks! And yes, I'm still single. Not everyone can have a relationship as perfect as yours, Cal." I laughed.

"Well, good. My friends that are coming later, Ashton and Luke, are both single. Did Cat tell you? I told her to, but she's kind of absentminded sometimes; aren't you babe?"

"What?" Catherine had been busy admiring a squirrel leap from fence post to fence post, and didn't hear a thing Cal or I had said.

"My point exactly. Anyways, Ashton is 18 and Luke is 17. They're from the next town over. Ashton plays football and baseball. Luke doesn't do a whole lot outside of school. He's in Service Club, but that's it. He's kind of bland. Ashton seems much more your style!" Cal said, blowing out a long stream of nasty-smelling smoke.

"Hey, what did you say about me?" Two boys came running up. One had floppy, curly brown hair, and the other one was lanky and had blonde hair, perfectly styled. The one with the brown hair talked to Cal first, so I assumed he was Ashton.

"Ah, nothing, ya bastard. But now that you two losers finally showed up, we can figure out what we want to do. Is anybody interested in the Building of the Future? I heard they have some pretty cool stuff in there." Cal asked us, but only out of politeness. We all knew we would be getting dragged to the Building of the Future.

"Actually, I was more into going on some rides." The blonde one spoke up, Luke. He was disagreeing with Cal? What? "Is anybody interested in the Ferris Wheel?"

Catherine sent me a glare that said "You better say yes to him or so help me..."

"Uhhh, I'll go with I guess? The Building of the Future is always open, so I mean, we might as well hit the rides while they're open." I piped up, nervous to speak. Catherine may have been encouraging, but Cal didn't really enjoy splitting from the group. Surprisingly, though, he was cool with it.

"Okay, sounds good. Ash, Cat, and I will meet you two back here in a half hour?"

"Sounds perfect." Luke smiled, glancing at me. "Is that good with you?"

"Uh, yeah, um, that sounds fine!" I smiled at Catherine. I had a feeling this was going to be a great evening.

***

"So, did you know that the first Ferris Wheel was created in 1893 for the Chicago World's Fair?" Luke had been trying to entertain me with interesting facts the entire ride up to the top of the Wheel. "It was huge, and instead of these little buggies for passengers, they had traincars made by this guy named Pullman from Indiana. Pullman himself was a really interesting guy, but I won't bore you with even more facts." He was so smart; it was so attractive. I could listen to him talk for hours on end and never get bored.

"Okay, so you've told me a bunch about history in America and interesting people, but you still haven't told me about- woah!" The buggy jolted, and our cart was swinging back and forth. "What's happening?!" Luke began to lean over the edge to get a view. Dear God, don't  fall, please.