Chapter 45

While it would still be some time before we would hear back from the private eye, everything else was looking up. Tami was even coming out of her funk. Between the other girls and myself, we had convinced her to trust us to protect Judy. Thankfully, she finally accepted that. While she was still very angry at her family, she at least wasn't taking it out on the rest of the world.

There was also a lot to keep her distracted. Besides our school workload increasing as the second semester picked up steam, we were also working on Tina's birthday party. We had a spy inside Tina's life thanks to Judy, and she confirmed that Margaret was going to be working. I was already planning on throwing a party for Tina, but knowing Margaret wasn't doing anything special for Tina, I was determined to make it a blowout.

If anything, the girls were even more excited. They picked up all kinds of decorations for the inside of the house. Vicki contacted a baker that her mother really liked, and ordered a raspberry-chocolate mousse cake.

Zoe had pointed out that it was the same weekend that the traveling carnival was going to be in town. So, we arranged for all of use to go there, after cake and presents at home.

I'd only been to one of these carnivals, but I remember it being pretty exciting. It was one of those traveling groups that set up shop in an area for a few weeks, then pick up and move on to the next town. It has rides, mostly smaller rides aimed at inducing vertigo, and a midway full of games that are designed to make you spend thirty dollars to win a five dollar stuffed animal. And junk food. Mounds of junk food!

Besides me and the girls, we had asked Judy to invite a bunch of Tina's friends from school to the party. Emily and Megan both agreed to show up and I figured having a bunch of high school kids who genuinely liked Tina, would really make her look good for her junior high school friends.

Presents were another matter altogether. The girls seemed to have their act together and all focused on clothes and accessories, which was great since they knew what they were doing in that area, and Tina would be thrilled. I, however, was at a loss. Zoe had offered to go pick something out for me to give to Tina, but I didn't want to go that route. I wanted to get something that she would really appreciate.

For Christmas, I had given each of my girls a silver necklace with a different colored stone at the end, although they corrected me and told me they were actually pendants. Zoe had gotten a deep blue sapphire stone, Vicki a fiery red ruby, and Tami an emerald green ... well, emerald. I had originally decided not to get Tina the same thing, since she had made it clear she was still gunning for a different relationship than we currently had and I wasn't on board with that plan.

But, in the end, even though we didn't have the same kind of relationship I had with the rest of my girls; she still clearly fit into that group, after a fashion. While it may backfire and create more boundary issues between us, I knew she would be thrilled so I said 'what the hell'. I got her the same pendant as the other girls but with a pale yellow sapphire.

Since Zoe was busy getting the party ready, Megan took me over to the mall to pick up the present. I went and picked up the necklace and was happy when they wrapped it for me. Otherwise, she would get her nice piece of jewelry presented to her in a ball of newspaper and Scotch tape. By the time we returned to the house, we were two of the last people to arrive, aside from the birthday girl. It wasn't a surprise party, but Tina had to wait until Margaret left for work. Tina knew that if her mother found out what was happening she would hit the roof. For that same reason, we only decorated the inside of the house, on the off chance Margaret might suss out what we were doing.

While we waited, everyone stood around chatting. The girls were all nice enough to spend some time talking to Tina's friends, who were ecstatic about the attention. It wasn't every day sixth grade girls got to hang out with high school cheerleaders. Eventually the birthday girl arrived.

As soon as she came in the door we all yelled, "Happy Birthday!"

She made a beeline for me and tried to crush me in a hug.

"Thanks, Big Brother."

"No problem. We have a lot of fun stuff planned, and I think you're gonna have a great day."

"I already am," she said and tiptoed up to kiss me on the cheek.

She pushed past me and joined her friends. Thankfully, I got to sit back and watch since Zoe was taking the lead. We didn't want to miss too much of the carnival and planned on getting an early start. It wasn't even quite lunch yet but we went ahead and did the birthday cake first, with everyone getting a very small piece. We figured anyone who wanted more could have a second piece once we got back. Given that it was standard practice to stuff your face at a carnival however, I figured this wasn't likely.

Next were the presents. There was a big stack of them, and we had already made plans to sneak them into Tina's room while her mom was still at work. There were books and make up products from her friends that she really appreciated. Mom got her a gift voucher for a full hair, manicure, and pedicure treatment. She was excited about the clothes that the girls gave her. I knew they had all dipped into my now replenished bank account to buy much nicer stuff than Tina would normally see, and was a little afraid to see the receipts. Not that I couldn't afford it. It was the principle of spending a hundred and fifty dollars on a shirt that I just couldn't get around.

I knew Tina was saving my present for last. It made me cringe a little, since I was hoping to give it to her with as little fanfare as possible. She removed the wrapping and her face lit up when she saw the jewelry box. Opening it, she looked at the delicate silver pendant and then let her eyes drift over the similar accessories currently being worn by each of my girls. Her face broke into a giant grin as she carefully set it on the table, then made a running jump onto me.

I was very glad she was so happy, but felt I needed to give her a caveat.

While she applied her death grip, otherwise known as a hug, around my neck, I whispered in her ear.

"This isn't a message or a promise of anything, so please don't take this to mean more that what it is. But I do want you to know how special you are, and how much I care for you."

"I love you, too, Caspian," she whispered back.

I was certain she hadn't listened to a word I had just said, but I wasn't going to try and do any more damage control. At least not today. I didn't want to put a damper on her happy mood.

Once she let go, she retrieved the box and went to Zoe to have the older girl help her put it on. Zoe passed me a look while she did so, both saying 'good job' and 'you're in trouble now'. There were times when Zoe could say more with a look that I could with a speech.

Presents and cake out of the way, we all piled into vehicles and headed over to the carnival. Even with Megan's big suburban, we could only fit so many between her and Zoe's car. Thankfully, Mom agreed to play chauffeur, even though she wasn't staying for the carnival itself.

The Carnival was already in full swing by the time we got there. Since it was a limited engagement, people drove in from across the county to experience it. I bought tickets for the fourteen people in our group and picked up a bunch of ride tickets, which I handed out. There was no way we could make it through in such a large group, so it was decided we would split up. Tina went with all her friends while my girls, including Emily, Megan and myself headed off another direction. Before we headed out, I handed some money to Tina so they could get food or play the midway games.

Once they were gone, I turned to the group of girls around me.

"So, what do we want to do?"

"Let's head to the midway," Zoe said. "You need to win all of us some stuffed animals."

The chorus of agreement from the other girls told me I was outnumbered, so off we headed to the midway to see what kind of games they had. It was mostly the normal fare you would find at this kind of event. From stuff I had read, they were all slightly rigged. Not in an overt way, but just enough so that people lost more than they won.

There was the balloon popping, where you got three darts to throw at the balloons. How many you popped determined your prize. The trick here was that the darts were pretty dull, the balloons were under inflated, and the darts themselves were much lighter than you would find with actual darts. Because the balloons were under inflated, they were under less pressure, so it took more force for them to pop. Coupled with the lighter darts that limited the force of the throw, it wasn't uncommon to see a dart bounce off the balloon rather than pop it.

There was the ring toss, where they put up a small array of bottles and you had five rings to throw at them and try and land around the neck of the bottle. The trick here was that the rings were barely larger than the bottles themselves, and are made of a very hard plastic, making them more likely to bounce. They even had the guy running the booth showing people it could be done, but, from what I had read, the ring the worker used was slightly larger, and he was much closer allowing him to drop it down from above, which was hard at the angle the player had to use.

The two most popular games were the basketball shoot and the milk bottle toss. These were the games most kids gravitated to, mainly because while they might not have tossed a ring at a target, thrown a dart, or tried to pull ducks out of a tub; they had thrown a baseball or basketball before. This gave the players a false sense of ability that was more than counteracted by the changes made to the games by the carnival.

In the basketball shoot, they use smaller than average rims and make them oval shaped, not round. It is hard to see the shape and size difference from where the player stands, but the changes mean you have to make a perfect high-arcing swish or the ball just bounces off. It's not possible to have the ball bounce off the rim and into the net. The balls themselves are also over-inflated so they have extra bounce, increasing the likelihood that the ball will ricochet off rather than go in.

And then there was the milk bottle pyramid, where they stacked a bunch of metal or plastic milk bottles together and you had to knock them all down with a softball. I always wondered why we still called them milk bottles, since they were made of metal or hard plastic but made to resemble glass milk bottles that are no longer seen in stores. My only guess is the carnival games back in the times when milk bottles were common must have used the glass variety, although then it seems you would end up with a bunch of broken glass.

Either way, they way this game usually went was the bottom bottles were filled with sand or lead making them weigh almost 10 pounds. Unless you aimed for the bottom bottles themselves, you would just knock down the top two rows while the bottom row only wobbles. The ball is also rigged. They fill the center of the ball with cork making it much lighter than normal softballs, and keeping the thrower from getting the kind of velocity they would otherwise achieve. Lastly, they almost always stack the bottles in front of a very heavy curtain. While it doesn't touch the bottles, it does allow a bottle that's leaning to be propped back in place.