The Leaf Reader by Emily Arsenault

Author:Emily Arsenault
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Teen Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2017-04-20T00:44:32+00:00

Chapter 20

All of the Forest Wonderland parking lots were blocked off with cement barriers, but it was possible to get pretty far down the main driveway. The chain blocking the main entrance was broken. Matt parked a few yards from the front ticket kiosk and we went in together.

The first game booths and refreshment stands were boarded up. A couple of them had been spray-painted with names in multicolored letters. The graffiti was big and brash, far more ostentatious than my brother’s minimalistic efforts. By comparison, Noah’s vandalism looked desperate. Or not like vandalism at all.

“Wow.” I sighed. “Just being here kinda makes me want to eat a big piece of greasy fried dough.”

“Never had it,” Matt said, walking fast by the Mindbender.

“I pity you,” I said, genuinely meaning it.

“So you came here as a kid?” Matt asked.

“Yeah. My grandmother took us here a few times when I was little. I think I was five or six, the first time.”

“I think by then—I mean, by the time we were that age—it was already pretty sketch,” Matt pointed out.

“Sketch doesn’t bother my grandmother,” I said. “Have you seen her house?”

I stopped to stare up at the roller coaster. The wood was gray-brown. There were some loose pieces hanging down, with a jagged appearance. For a moment, those seemed closer to me than the other parts of the coaster. Broken old bones.

I shook off the thought, figuring the words had come to me because of G. Clara’s old “Spinebender” joke.

Matt turned around and waited for me to catch up, looking impatient.

“People wouldn’t notice about your house so much if you didn’t talk about it all the time,” he said.

“But you’re saying that they do notice?” I asked, with a sinking feeling. Why did I ask questions to which I didn’t really want to know the answer?

Matt sighed, walking faster. “You’re missing the point. Nobody gives a shit, really. Except you.”

“Let’s not talk about it, then,” I snapped.

We walked toward the middle of the park. I assumed Matt knew that the trolley was along the wooded part at the very back.

“Was it fun?” Matt asked.

“What?”

“Riding the trolley. When you were little.”

“Of course it was. I was five or six. At that age you don’t care if things are dirty or corny or whatever. If you’re too little to have heard of Disney World or Six Flags, a place like this is awesome.”

We were approaching a dirt circle in the pavement.

“What do you think that is?” Matt asked.

“Clearly that’s where the drug dealers worship their devil,” I said. “Don’t you see that faint pentagram inscribed there?”

Matt slowed his pace. “What?”

“Kidding,” I said. “I think it’s where the carousel used to be.”

Matt turned red.

“Sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t really. I was still a little annoyed at him for calling Carson an asshat. It was probably kind of true, but he was my asshat, so I should be the only one allowed to point it out.

After that, we didn’t speak again till we reached the trolley tracks.

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