Never Been Kissed

- EIGHT -

                                                                      -• EIGHT •-

 

 

I returned to the Basketball Toss with Opal when Beck was on his eighth turn. I’d treated my little sister to some more cotton candy before we returned to Beck, and she ate contently, sticky hands clutching her dolphin balloon.

Her tiny brow furrowed as she watched Beck fail at trying to throw the balls in the hoops. “What’s Beck doin’?” she asked, giving him a peculiar look.

I pointed to the giant panda hanging from the pole with a bunch of other toys. It’s glassy brown eyes leered down at me with an almost condescending look. You can’t get me, I’m too sexy for you, I imagined it saying with a shake to my head.

“Trying to win me that panda.” I explained.

Opal looked at the panda, then at Beck, then at me. “He’s not gonna’ win it, is he?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “No Opal, he’s not.”

“Come on!” Beck broke us from our conversation. “This game has to be rigged!”

“It’s not rigged Beck; you just really suck at basketball.” I explained with a shrug.

“Uh-huh.” Opal agreed.”

He glared at us. “I was looking for positive incentives.”

I cracked a smile.

“I’m not leaving here until I win it.” Beck said with a determined look on his face, pulling out his wallet once more.

I snatched the piece of leather up before he could take anything out of it and placed it in the back pocket of my shorts. “Ah, ah, ah, you seem to miss the whole point of the fair my friend. We’re here to have fun. Not complain about giant teddy bears we’re never going to win. And at the rate you’re going, you’ll probably be waist deep in debt by the time you even get all five balls through the hoop.”

Two pink spots dotted his cheeks. “Amber!”

“I don’t want the freaking panda Beck.” I said seriously. “It’s sort of creepy anyway. And we’re not spending all day here trying to win it.”

“And I wanna go on all the rides!” Opal pitched in.

Beck frowned, but then sighed and nodded. “Well… okay.”

“Yay!” yelled Opal.

With a smile, I collected all of Beck’s mediocre prizes and dumped them into my bag, and thankfully, we moved away from the stall, away from the sour attendant and the giant, taunting panda.

“What next?” I asked as we walked down the street passing more and more stalls.

“I wanna go to the petting zoo!” Opal squealed, pointing at a fenced in enclosure on a piece of untouched land that had sat in the neighborhood for a number of years.

There were a bunch of ponies and goats and all sorts of animals from Mr. Vasquez’s strange town-funded ‘animal farm’ down the street. While the animals might have been cute, the stench radiating off the space was so definitely not.

“…go on the teacup ride, and the lucky dip, hoopla and x and o’s,” Opal’s voice carried on, and I looked down at her just quickly enough to catch her pressing a speculative finger to her chin.