“Why work so hard on something that’s just going to melt?” I said. “How dumb is that?”
We made our way down the long row of pens, mooing at the cows and making faces at them. The cows didn’t seem to mind. But some of their owners gave us dirty looks.
“You two are embarrassing me,” Franny said. She led the way back outside.
It was a cool, breezy evening. A bright half-moon hung low in the starry sky.
“Check out that goof over there,” Pete said. “He’s eating four corn dogs at once! Two in each hand!”
“How about that geek?” I said, pointing. “He’s wearing black socks with sandals. Nice look, dude!”
“Stop it!” Franny scolded. “You can’t judge people by their looks or how they dress.”
“Of course you can!” Pete said.
We wandered into the next building and saw rows of tables holding giant cabbages. Some of these cabbages were as big as cars!
Across from us a light flashed. A woman was snapping photo after photo of a fat green-and-yellow cabbage.
“Wish I’d brought my camera!” I exclaimed.
“The woman looks just like her cabbage,” Pete said. “All green and wrinkled!”
“Why don’t you kids move on?” a big red-faced man said. He had both hands on his cabbage, like he was petting it.
Suddenly it grew very quiet in the building. The people behind the tables stood up, as if at attention.
I turned and saw two men and a woman approaching. They wore blue blazers and had bright-red badges pinned to their fronts that read: COUNTY JUDGE.
“Cool! We’re in time for the judging,” Franny said.
“Bor-ring,” Pete groaned. “Let’s get out of here.”
“No. Wait,” I said. I bent down and picked up a fat purple worm I’d seen crawling on the dirt floor. When the farmer turned away, I slipped the worm onto a front leaf of his cabbage.
“Okay. We can go now,” I said. As soon as we were outside, I burst into a giggling fit. “I don’t think that guy is going to win any ribbons today.”
“Look! Hogs!” Pete cried, pointing to the next barn. “Hogs are great. Let’s go check ’em out.”
We pushed our way through a group of little kids with ice slurpies pressed to their faces. Then we stepped into the hog barn. What a racket. The hogs were squealing and honking.
Pete and I got down on our hands and knees and squealed and honked right back at them.
“Why don’t you guys grow up?” Franny said.
No way. It was a riot! One stupid hog tried to charge us. Grunting and squawking, he rammed his head right into the wall of his pen. That got the next hog worked up too. He came charging forward.
“Stampede!” I shouted. “Run for your lives! Hog stampede!”
We were laughing so hard, Pete and I nearly fell into the pen.
I saw some hog owners running across the barn after us. They looked pretty upset. So we took off. Outside, we tossed our heads back and roared out shrill honks and squeals.
“Not funny,” Franny moaned, rolling her eyes. “Remind me not to come with you two next year.”
“Remind yourself to get a sense of humor!” Pete told her.
She tried to slug him, but he danced away.
We made our way into a long tent at the edge of the fairgrounds and saw row after row of gigantic orange and yellow squashes.
“Man, these are ugly!” I said, walking down the long aisle. “They’re all lumpy and gross.”
I squeezed the end of a big orange-and-green-striped squash. “Yuck. This one is kind of soft.” I turned to Pete with a grin. “Do you still have that marking pen?”
He pulled the black marking pen from his jeans pocket.
I took it from him. I made sure no one was watching. Then I wrote LOSER in big black letters on the side of the squash.
“That’s awful!” Franny cried. “I can’t take this anymore. You both are horrible!” She hurried away, shaking her head angrily.
I picked up a big squash. “Hey, come back! This one looks just like you!” I called.
Pete and I had a major giggling fit. “She’ll get over it,” Pete said.
To my surprise, a chubby man in a floppy straw hat stepped in front of us. He wore an ugly red-plaid shirt that hung over baggy, wrinkled white shorts. “This way,” he said. “Hurry.”
“Huh? What do you want?” I asked.
“I’ve been watching you. Come this way,” he said.
Pete and I tried to step around him. But he blocked us with his big stomach.
He pulled off the straw hat, revealing a nest of bright-red hair. His round face was covered with freckles.
He motioned with the hat. “Hurry. Here’s the Youth Building.”
He led us to the back of a long, low white building. Then he used the hat to herd us through a narrow door.
Pete and I stepped into a small, dimly lit room. “Hey—where are we?” I cried. “What’s up with this?”
“I think you boys are winners,” the man drawled, scratching his head. A big grin crossed his pudgy face. “Yep. I got me two winners.” He pushed the straw hat back on his head and let out a whoop.
My throat suddenly felt dry. I had a bad feeling about this. “Pete and I have to go now,” I said. I started to the door.
Again the man blocked our path. “Just sit tight,” he said. “Everything will be fine. You’ll see. My name is MacColley, by the way. You can call me Mac. I’ll be right back.”
He bounced out the door and slammed it shut behind him.
I darted to the door and tried the handle. It didn’t budge. “We—we’re locked in,” I told Pete.
“This is crazy,” Pete muttered. “What does that guy want?”
I gazed around. The room was small and narrow. A bare concrete floor. No furniture at all. I saw shelves at the far end. They seemed to be filled with large glass jars.
“Hey—do you hear that?” Pete whispered.
Yes. I heard cheers and laughter. They seemed to be coming from another part of the building.
I listened hard. I heard music. Then loud applause.
“It sounds like some kind of show,” Pete said.
I shrugged and crossed the room to the shelves. “Check out these big jars,” I said. “Looks like some kind of pickled stuff.”
And then I let out a horrified gasp.
“It…it can’t be,” I said.
But yes. Floating in the jar in front of me was a hand. A smooth white hand. Pale and small.
A human hand.
“Pete—”
“I—I see it,” Pete stammered.
My eyes moved over the shelves of jars. Each one contained a human hand, floating in some kind of thick jelly.
“Oh, wow.” My legs suddenly felt weak and shaky. “Do you think they’re real?”
“They…look real,” Pete said.
Light poured into the room as the door opened. The man in the straw hat stepped in. He held two paper cones filled with blue candy in his hands. It looked like blue cotton candy.
“Brought you boys a snack.” He shoved the cones into our hands.
“Are those real?” I asked, pointing to the jars.
He shook his head. “Don’t sweat those, boys. They’re just for display.”
“We have to go,” I said. “Really. We’re late, and—”
Beneath the brim of his straw hat, MacColley narrowed his eyes at us. “Don’t be in such a hurry, boys. Have your snack first.”
I looked at the blue, sticky stuff. “If we eat the cotton candy, can we go?”
“Why, sure,” MacColley drawled. “Go ahead. Enjoy.”
I heard more laughter and applause through the wall. MacColley stared at us, his arms crossed over his big stomach, waiting for us to eat the cotton candy.
We raised the cones to our faces and bit off blue chunks.
“Sweet, huh?” the man asked.
I nodded and bit off another chunk. It was very sw
eet. Tasted great. But it wasn’t cotton candy. It didn’t melt away in your mouth the way cotton candy does. It was very chewy. And it seemed to fluff up as you chewed it.
“Eat the whole thing, boys,” MacColley urged.
The candy swelled up in my mouth until it was a huge ball. I struggled to choke it down. It was kind of like trying to eat an inflated balloon. The more I chewed, the bigger it got.
Pete gagged and tried to spit out a hunk. But it stuck to his teeth and the roof of his mouth. It was too big to spit out!
Finally I choked the last of mine down. I felt stuffed! “Can we go now?” I asked.
Grinning, MacColley nodded. “Sure thing. It’s just about time.”
“Time for what?” Pete asked.
MacColley opened a door on the far wall and motioned us through it. We walked down a long, dark tunnel. As we walked, the cheers and laughter grew louder.
Where is he taking us? I wondered. This isn’t the way outside.
I wanted to run, but suddenly my legs felt like lead weights.
At the end of the tunnel MacColley pushed open a door. We stared into bright light. “Here you go, boys,” he said. He pushed us into the light.
“Whoa!” I cried out when I saw the bleachers full of people. It was a big arena.
A loud cheer went up as MacColley pushed Pete and me to the platform. I heard laughter and some boos.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“Up you go,” MacColley ordered. “You’re just in time for the judging. Good luck. Make me proud.”
“Excuse me? Judging?” A wave of dread swept over me.
“Colin, let’s get out of here,” Pete whispered.
Too late. We were already standing on the stage next to two other kids. One was the tallest, skinniest boy I had ever seen. He looked our age, but he was at least ten feet tall.
A girl, about fifteen, stood next to the skinny guy. She wore blue jeans and a pink T-shirt and had shoulder-length brown hair—sprouting from her face! It grew out of her cheeks, her chin, her ears. It even grew out of her nostrils. Man, was she gross.
Four spotlights sent beams of blinding white light over us.
Applause and shouts roared up from the audience as the tall boy and hairy girl walked off the stage.
I shielded my eyes from the bright light and tried to see who was out there.
I saw farmers in bib overalls and bright-plaid work shirts. I recognized a couple of the hog owners who had chased us away. And the man whose cabbage I’d dropped the worm on.
Two women held prize squashes in their laps. The big men beside them had blueberry stains around their mouths and chins.
All the people Pete and I had made fun of. They all seemed to be in the audience, staring down at us, grinning and clapping.
“Pete—let’s get out of here!” I cried.
“I…I can’t move,” Pete said.
“Huh? What’s your problem?” I asked. And then I let out a cry as I saw my hands. My fingers had ballooned to the size of hot dogs! My hands were totally swollen.
I raised them close to study them—and realized that my arms were huge too. I felt my stomach swell. It bulged right out of my T-shirt and kept growing.
“Pete—” I gasped. Pete was enormous! He looked like a balloon in the Thanksgiving Day parade.
“Look at those big boys!” a man in the crowd shouted. “Those are growing boys!”
Everyone laughed.
“Help! Let us mmmmph mmmmph!” I tried to shout. But my tongue swelled up till it filled my mouth.
I raised my big hands to my head. My head was huge too. My round stomach bounced in front of me.
I look like a cabbage, I realized.
I can’t talk. I can’t move. I’m…I’m just like a cabbage!
“Ha ha! You can roll that boy home!” someone shouted. The arena exploded with laughter.
I turned my heavy blob of a head to Pete. He bounced on his feet like a huge beach ball.
Then I heard footsteps behind me. The crowd grew silent as four men in overalls climbed onto the stage.
The grim-faced judges surrounded Pete and me. One of them grabbed my hand and squeezed it. Another judge wrapped a tape measure around one of my fat legs. “Forty-two,” he called out.
I tried to step away from them, but I was too heavy to move.
A judge slipped one of those prongy metal calipers over my head and measured my head. “Eighty-four,” he shouted.
Several people in the crowd booed.
“Reject!” a woman called out.
A judge pushed back my sausagelike fingers until they cracked. Another judge tapped my flabby knees with a hammer.
“MMMMMMPH!” I wanted to cry out in pain. But my fat tongue filled my mouth. I couldn’t make a sound.
The judges jabbed my back and poked my stomach. One of them squeezed my nose until tears poured from my eyes.
“Losers!” a man shouted from high in the bleachers. “Throw out the losers!”
“Give them a chance!” I heard MacColley shout. “These are my boys! Give them a chance!”
“Hold still,” a judge ordered. “I need to take a skin sample.”
Oh no, I thought. A skin sample? What is he going to do?
I struggled to move—in any direction. To bounce away from him. But my big, heavy body wouldn’t budge.
The judge raised a metal tool that looked like a giant cheese scraper. He pressed it against my bulging chest—and pulled.
Pain shot down my chest.
The judge pulled off a long strip of my skin. He held it up to the light, and the judges all studied it.
“Too thin,” one of them said.
“Reject,” another judge muttered.
My enormous body throbbed and ached with pain. Suddenly I was being shoved across the stage and hoisted onto a wide floor scale.
My body bobbed heavily on the scale. I tried to read my weight. But I couldn’t see below my round belly.
“Two hundred pounds!” the judge called out.
“Puny!” a man in the crowd shouted.
“Too small! Throw it back!” another man cried.
The crowd began to chant, “Loser! Loser! Loser!”
“Wait! Check out his hands!” I saw MacColley run up to the front of the stage. “Maybe his hands are worth saving!” he shouted.
Oh no, I thought. I pictured the hands floating in the big jars—and my huge blob of a body started to shake.
“Loser! Loser! Loser!” The jeers and boos rang in my ears.
I saw Pete hoisted up off the stage by a chain hanging from the ceiling. And then I felt a harness slip around my own enormous, round body. I was hoisted off the floor and carried high in the air, toward a door at the side wall.
“Loser! Loser! Loser!” were the last words I heard before disappearing through another dark tunnel.
I followed Pete onto a long conveyor belt. We were flat on our backs. The belt moved quickly.
It was carrying us toward a giant stamping machine pounding down from above. Stamp. Stamp. Stamp. The letters on it were backward, but I could read them easily: LOSER.
I took a deep breath. Gathered all my strength. And tried to roll off the conveyor belt.
Grunting and groaning, I strained every muscle. But I couldn’t move. I was just too heavy.
“Yeeeooooow!” Pete let out a wail of pain as the giant metal stamp pounded down on him.
Then the big stamper lifted, ready to pound its next victim—me.
As the belt pulled me under it, I shut my eyes and held my breath.
STAMP.
Pain jolted my body. I saw bright red. And then a deep, deep endless black.
A sharp smell awoke me. A sick, putrid odor. Wet and foul. Like rotting vegetables.
I raised my head and stared up at the night sky. A pale half-moon floated behind wisps of cloud.
How long have I been knocked out? I wondered.
“Oooh, the smell,” Pete groaned, beside
me. “It stinks so bad.”
Holding my breath, I gazed around. We were sprawled in some garbage Dumpster. We were lying on top of vegetables. Rotting cabbages. Broken squashes. Decaying melons crawling with flies. Disgusting, putrid pumpkins.
The losers. The rejects.
And now Pete and I were part of the pile.
“Hey—we’re smaller,” I said. “We’re our own size.”
“Yeah. We’re not blobs anymore!” Pete cried.
My stomach itched violently. I pulled a rotting lettuce from under my shirt. Insects swarmed over it, swarmed over my stomach, my T-shirt.
Pete pulled sticky, wet pumpkin meat from his hair. “I…I’m going to be sick,” he said.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “We’ve got to tell someone what’s going on in the Youth Building. We’ve got to warn people.”
“We should tell the police,” Pete said. “They can’t do that to kids! Hurry. Let’s find a cop, Colin!”
Holding on to the Dumpster wall, we pulled ourselves to our feet. Our shoes sank in the rotting vegetables. We slid down to our waists. But we managed to grab the top of the Dumpster and hoist ourselves out.
The lights had been turned on. The Ferris wheel whirled behind us. In the outdoor theater a country-music band was tuning up.
“We can find a cop at the front gate,” Pete said. “Let’s go.”
We both took off, running. But we stopped when we heard a voice calling our names. We turned and saw Franny striding up to us, hands on her waist.
“Where did you go?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You—you won’t believe what happened to us!” I cried breathlessly. “It was horrible. We—we’ve got to find a cop. We’ve—”
“They’re doing horrible things to kids in the Youth Building,” Pete said.
“The what?” Franny asked. “What Youth Building?”
“It’s right back there,” I said. I turned and pointed. But there was nothing to point to. An empty patch of grass.
“It was right there. I know it was,” I insisted.
“I saw you two go into the Fun House,” Franny said. “But then I didn’t see you come out.”
I gaped at her. “Huh? The Fun House?”
She motioned to a brightly lighted building behind us. Giant ghosts and skeletons were painted on the walls. The blinking sign read: HOUSE OF A THOUSAND SCREAMS.