The Puppet Carver by Scott Cawthon

Author:Scott Cawthon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

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Overhead, Bella the birthday girl and her six friends jumped in unison, the sound like a stampede of wild buffalo. The platform dropped, they laughed and cheered, and the tickets fell like rain.

But then something wasn’t right. Bella had jumped in the Ticket Pulverizer lots of times. This time felt different. The platform wasn’t dropping as low as usual. The flow of tickets had slowed to a trickle. “It’s slowing down!” she yelled to her friend Aidan.

“Jump harder!” Aidan yelled back.

Bella jumped higher and landed with more force. The platform dropped. Some tickets sprinkled down, but it was a light shower, not the flood of tickets Bella wanted for her birthday.

“Let’s all hold hands and jump together!” Bella yelled.

“I don’t want to hold hands!” Aidan yelled back.

“Come on, it’s my birthday!” Bella said.

Aidan shrugged and relented, and the seven kids joined in a circle.

“One … two … three … jump!” Bella yelled. The kids leaped, then landed at the same time, forcing the platform down, then up, then down farther.

Jump. The platform dropped an inch.

Jump. And another inch.

Jump. And another. Bella and her friends laughed and let go of each other so they could grab the falling tickets.

After the next jump, though, the platform didn’t go any lower. The kids jumped again, but it stayed put.

Bella looked out at her dad, who was outside the Ticket Pulverizer, cheering them on.

“It’s not working!” she yelled.

“Jump harder, sweetie!” her dad called back.

Jump.

Jump.

Jump.

The kids all jumped with as much force as they possibly could. The platform lowered a tiny bit more, less than an inch, then wobbled a little, then stopped. One lonely ticket fell from the machine’s ceiling.

Outside the Ticket Pulverizer, Bella’s dad nudged his wife. “That game’s broken,” he said. “The platform’s not dropping like it should. I think I’m going to go get a manager.” He was already looking around, trying to spot who was in charge.

“Good idea,” Bella’s mom said. Looking inside the Ticket Pulverizer, she could see that even though the children were still jumping away, they were getting increasingly frustrated. The platform was pretty much stationary.

In a few minutes, Bella’s dad returned with a heavyset Freddy’s employee whose name tag read TED. He gave the machine a once-over. “You’re right,” he said. “The thing’s busted someway.” He squatted, reached down under the machine, and switched it off.

The children looked shocked by the sudden absence of light and noise.

“I’m sorry, kids,” Ted said, yelling over the general chaos of Freddy’s. “The Ticket Pulverizer isn’t working right. I need you guys to get out of the machine, but I’ll tell you what. Since you didn’t get to win much in there, if you all go up to the front counter, the cashier will give you twenty free tickets each.”

The kids’ moods got sunnier as they exited the machine and ran in the direction of the free tickets.

The clown animatronic was acting weird, too. It was pointing at the base of the machine and grabbing at Ted’s arm as if it didn’t want him to go inside the Ticket Pulverizer.

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