Joyland(67)

"You okay?" I asked her.

"Yes." She took my hand, laced her fingers through mine, and squeezed almost tight enough to hurt. "Yes. Yes. Yes."

"Controls green across the board!" Lane cried. "Check me on that, Michael!"

"Check!"

"Watch out for what on the tracks?"

"Pigs!"

"Kid, you got style that makes me smile. Give that yell-rope a yank and we're of￡1"

Mike yanked the cord. The whistle howled. Milo barked. The airbrakes chuffed, and the train began to move.

Choo-Choo Wiggle was strictly a zamp ride, okay? All the 222

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rides in the Village were zamps, meant mostly for boys and girls between the ages of three and seven. But you have to remember how seldom Mike Ross had gotten out, especially since his pneumonia the year before, and how many days he had sat with his mother at the end of that boardwalk, listening to the rumble of the rides and the happy screams coming from down the beach, knowing that stuff wasn't for him. What was for him was more gasping for air as his lungs failed, more coughing, a gradual inability to walk even with the aid of crutches and braces, and finally the bed where he would die, wearing diapers under his PJs and an oxygen mask over his face.

Wiggle-Waggle Village was sort of depopulated with no greenies to play the fairy-tale parts, but Fred and Lane had reactivated all the mechanicals: the magic beanstalk that shot out of the ground in a burst of steam; the witch cackling in front of the Candy House; the Mad Hatter's tea party; the nightcapwearing wolf who lurked beneath one of the underpasses and sprang at the train as it passed. As we rounded the final turn, we passed three houses all kids know well-one of straw, one of sticks, and one of bricks.

"Watch out for pigs!" Lane cried, and just then they came waddling onto the tracks, uttering amplified oinks. Mike shrieked with laughter and yanked the whistle. As always, the pigs escaped

. . . barely.

When we pulled back into the station, Annie let go of my hand and hurried up to the engine. "Are you okay, hon? Want your inhaler?"

"No, I'm fine." Mike turned to Lane. "Thanks, Mr. Engineer!"

"My pleasure, Mike." He held out a hand, palm up. "Slap me five if you're still alive."



Joy land





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Mike did, and with gusto. I doubt if he'd ever felt more alive.

"Now I've got to move on," Lane said. "Today I am a man of many hats." He dropped me a wink.

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Annie vetoed the Whirly Cups but allowed Mike-not without apprehension-to ride the Chair-0-Planes. She gripped my arm even harder than she had my hand when his chair rose thirty feet above the ground and began to tilt, then loosened up again when she heard him laughing.

"God," she said, "look at his hair! How it flies out behind him!"

She was smiling. She was also crying, but didn't seem aware of it. Nor of my arm, which had found its way around her waist.

Fred was running the controls, and knew enough to keep the ride at half-speed, rather than bringing it all the way up to full, which would have had Mike parallel to the ground, held in only by centrifugal force. When he finally came back to earth, the kid was too dizzy to walk. Annie and I each took an arm and guided him to the wheelchair. Fred toted Mike's crutches.

"Oh, man." It seemed to be all he could say. "Oh man, oh man."

The Dizzy Speedboats-a land ride in spite of the namewas next. Mike rode over the painted water in one with Milo, both of them clearly loving it. Annie and I took another one.

Although I had been working at Joyland for over four months by then, I'd never been on this ride, and I yelled the first time I saw us rushing prow-first at Mike and Milo's boat, only to shear off at the last second.

"Wimp!" Annie shouted in my ear.

When we got off, Mike was breathing hard but still not 224

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coughing. We rolled him up Hound Dog Way and grabbed sodas. The gazoonie refused to take the fivespot Annie held out. "Everything's on the house today, ma'am."

"Can I have a Pup, Mom? And some cotton candy?"

She frowned, then sighed and shrugged. "Okay. Just as long as you understand that stuff is still off-limits, buster. Today's an exception. And no more fast rides."

He wheeled ahead to the Pup-A-Licious shy, his own pup trotting beside him. She turned to me. "It's not about nutrition, if that's what you're thinking. If he gets sick to his stomach, he might vomit. And vomiting is dangerous for kids in Mike's condition. They-"

I kissed her, just a gentle brush of my lips across hers . It was like swallowing a tiny drop of something incredibly sweet.

"Hush," I said. "Does he look sick?"

Her eyes got very large. For a moment I felt positive that she was going to slap me and walk away. The day would be ruined and it would be my own stupid goddam fault. Then she smiled, looking at me in a speculative way that made my stomach feel light. "I bet you could do better than that, if you had half a chance."

Before I could think of a reply, she was hurrying after her son.

It really would have made no difference if she'd hung around, because I was totally flummoxed .

?

Annie, Mike, and Milo crowded into one car of the Gondola Glide, which crossed above the whole park on a diagonal. Fred Dean and I rode beneath them in one of the electric carts, with Mike's wheelchair tucked in back.