The Legend of Ohn

Carnival Rides

Fresh air, morning birds, and a slight drizzle? Nothing satisfies me more than the quietness of my house with the smell of lemon cleaner and the coffee maker made by my Mom's work automatically turning on. I got up and stretched out the knots in my back, groaning when they popped. The red bird's nest on my head was tangled to perfection as a sign of a good night's rest. I walked over to the bathroom and got a good look at my eyes, no change, still no point in checking.

The doctors told me if there was any change in look or feel or in my sight to call right away, still nothing. To me it wasn't a big deal but my Mother was worried and I'd do anything to ease her stress, she had enough on her hands.

When I arrived at work, the prizes were hung on the wall behind me, the ring tossing sets were ready, and the smell of fried foods drifted through the air lightly, Tammy and Sam were setting up the different sized hammers for the two different booths. Sam, the shorter of the two with her white spiral hair down her thin body was in charge of the child's hammer booth, Tammy was taller with thick straight brown hair and a more athletic build was in the adult hammer booth. She was the only one of them who could actually win it. I hardly could win the child one. They said it was cute, I prefer to call it on terms of pathetic.

"Cherry!" I looked up, "Come help me with this!" I walked over to Sam. "I need help with the screw in the back." I looked over and grabbed the red screwdriver from the toolbox behind their sets.

"It's easy, just put the screw through the bottom and the top holes and tighten them together." I smiled up at her, she scoffed.

"If it was easy I'd do it myself."

"I bet you wouldn't even then." Tammy stepped in and leaned against the top of the bell on the child hammer scale. "You just love to give Cherry some work so you don't have to." She applied cooly looking around the fence line of the booth, her cold light brown eyes careful and measuring.

"Do not! I just don't like to do unnecessary work." She crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out. I swear the two were polar opposites, one short, bone thin, and loud, with white-blondish hair and the other tall, muscular, and quiet with milk chocolate wavy hair. It was pretty funny to watch Sam get heated and Tammy just stand there mocking her.

I stood dusting off my knees and tightening the ponytail on my head.

"Look lively girls." A man I recognized as the son of the fairground owner, Ted, walked by with his clipboard. "We open in ten." His well-groomed dark brown hair combed to the side and extra thick square rimmed glasses giving him a look of professionalism.

"Alright, thanks for the heads up." Tammy turned her attention to the scowling Sam, then me, "We should get to work, I don't want to be put on puke duty." She turned to work on her booth.

"Agreed." I walked to my own only a few yards away. The fair was always large in the first and last month, but lately it has been flat out crowded, people coming in crowds and even more in the late hours. I worked a full shift of over twelve hours a day, from nine-thirty to ten, it was great pay if you worked enough hours and at this rate I was going to pay off my car with money to spare for gas for a few weeks when school started.

For the first couple of hours I had just over sixty players at my booth before I took a break. I decided to take my lunch at the farthest to the back table. Bringing your own lunch was always a better idea than eating the food here, an inside tip; never eat one of Big Joe's hot dog-elephant-ears. I shuddered at the thought. A girl who works at the Tilt-A-Whirl ride sat across from me. "Anna."

"Cherry, how're things at the booth?" She was about in her early twenties and had a large tattoo on her neck disappearing into her shirt of a type of snake.