After the Fair - Part 2

Hello FFFs,

Guess what? I've been writing this week! Yes! Every day. (Except Sunday.) And three of those 4 days I've actually written 1k words or more. It's all been on "Hymns in the Hills," and I'm eager to write again tonight because the story is moving. I'm loving this story!

Let's see, the weather. That's a good topic, right? On Sunday it snowed. And we made it to Sunday School and Church, but the evening service was cancelled because of the weather. Then the temperature dropped. Usually we'll get snow and the next day it's mostly melted. Not this time. Monday was in the 20s, and Tuesday Writing Classes were cancelled because it was supposed to be high of 9º with a windchill of -24º Yeah. Cold. At least for this area. Yesterday is the first day since it snowed that it reached above freezing. It was in the 40's. Today is supposed to get to 50º and I'm sure things will really start to melt. It's been pretty seeing everything sparkle in the sunshine, because even if it was cold, we had sunshine.

I hope you all were able to check out my January short story. But I'm going to let you get to reading this next part of the story. At least if you have time. And don't forget to click a reaction button on the bottom of the post if you don't have time to comment.

After the Fair

Part 2

    Nearly choking, the boy leaned his face close beside the bear. “Is he my long lost twin?”
    Bear wasn’t sure what that was, but he smiled his crooked smile and gazed unblinkingly into the bright, sunny world of the fairgrounds. He wasn’t very old, just old enough to have already been to several fairs, but always before he had remained on the shelf as folks came and slapped down their dimes and five cent pieces, or carefully counted out their pennies. He had watched fellow bears, some with red bows like himself, and others with different bows, go off in the arms of some person. He had seen the dolls be whisked away, sometimes by awed little girls and other times by laughing ladies. He had always wondered what happened to the bears and the dolls, and now he knew. Or at least he thought he did.

    When the food had been eaten, Bear was tucked under the girl’s arm, and he stared at the world sideways for a time, watching swinging arms and people bumping into each other. He smiled at the eager faces of young children and listened to the happy music and laughter of those passing by. It was all quite fascinating to a bear just removed from a shelf and out into the real world of fairs. After a while the girl shifted Bear into her other arm, and he took a good long look at the ground. He wasn’t quite sure what the different items were which got trampled under the feet of every person, but at the least the shoes were different.
    “Oh, Johnny, let’s get some cotton candy,” Sally suggested.
    “All right. Then we can go take a look at the animals.”
    Bear, growing a little tired of seeing nothing but the ground, was delighted when he was righted and the girl wrapped her arm around his middle. He felt very secure and comfortable, and the world looked so much more interesting. The boy, Johnny, stepped back from some booth with two piles of fluff on sticks and handed one to the girl. Bear could only stare with wide eyes. He’d never seen anything like it. After the girl took the fluff, the two young people started walking on, not realizing that Bear’s nose was sticking into the sticky, sweet fluff. It had been an accident. He hadn’t done it on purpose, but when Sally held her cotton candy in her left hand, she had forgotten about Bear.
    Bear stared at the candy until the girl noticed and laughed at him. His face was wiped off with something damp and his nose kissed. He studied the ground some more, watched people sideways, sat on another table, and had his bow untied when it became caught on something.
    All in all, it was a very exciting day for a Bear who had never known anything but the little tent with the man who shouted, and urged the people to come spend money, and grumbled and muttered when he had to pack things up again.
    At last, as dusk was settling around, Bear was settled between Johnny and Sally on a hard seat. He could see their clasped hands in front of him and thought it must be nice to hold hands with someone.
    Suddenly there was a strange rumbling from the seat, then a jerk, and Sally screamed while a wind blew Bear’s untied bow over his face so he couldn’t see. He thought he might be glad not to see, for Sally screamed again, and Bear felt himself squished between the girl and boy. All that time the seat had rumbled and shaken, making bear think of those dark days when he had been packed with all the other bears and taken from one fair to another. He had heard somewhere that they traveled on a train, but he was never quite sure what a train was.
    The shaking stopped at last, and so did the screaming. Johnny and Sally stood up, and Bear fell over on his side. At least he could see again, for the ribbon fell from his face. Neither Johnny nor Sally seemed to have remembered the bear with the red bow, for they walked away, and Bear was left on the hard seat staring before him at the back of another seat.
    It was growing darker. Bear could hear voices.
    “Just once more, please, mister,” a young voice begged.
    “Well, all right, but then I’ve got ta shut ‘er down an’ pack ‘er up. Fair’s endin’ tonight.”
    The rumbling started again, and with a sudden lurch the seat began to race forward. At first Bear remained where he was, plastered against the back of the hard bench by the force of the air, but when the seat tilted, he slid, first one direction until his feet bumped the side, and then another until his head touched the opposite side, He was shaken and jostled about, and then, as the seat made a sudden movement, he was launched out into the darkness and sailed through the evening shadows until he dropped to earth with a soft thump.

You probably didn't expect that to happen, did you?

Did you get any snow this week?

What do you think will happen to Bear?

(There is one more part to this story.)