Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(89)

“I think…that might make sense,” she said, strolling alongside him, holding to the strap of his painter’s bag over her shoulder. He’d told her to bring it because sometimes if people knew you were a painter, they treated you with deference. Might convince some carnies to look elsewhere for easy prey.

“I like my clothing,” she said. “The first thing I’ve ever owned. I like having it. The dress reminds me of Akane and that day shopping.”

“See?” he said.

For some reason though, she was growing morose. Was she remembering the things Akane had said about him? With a sudden desperation, he wanted her thinking about anything else. But before he could speak up, she smiled, then spun around, arms extended.

“Your job, Nikaro,” she declared, “is to escort the yoki-hijo on her first—and likely only—trip to a carnival! You must make it an experience!”

“I thought you said,” he told her, ducking around a couple sharing fluff candy, “we weren’t painter or yoki-hijo tonight.”

“Then you escort just the yoki part! The girl at a carnival for her first time! Present it to me, man from another world. Wow my primitive mind with your advanced alien technology and lights!”

“Well, fortunately,” he said, stepping in front of her and gesturing to himself, “you’ve come to the right person. I’ve been visiting carnivals since I was a child, and I can eagerly introduce you to every unique aspect of the phenomenon.”

“Excellent,” she said, strolling forward, Painter walking backward directly in front of her—occasionally passing right through people. If they thought a lone painter talking to herself was odd…well, they thought painters were odd anyway. So who cared?

“Where do we start?” she asked.

“With the food,” he said, dancing to her right and pointing to a stall with fried pop’ems. “It is the most incredible, delectable, amazing food you will ever eat—”

“Wow!”

“—for the first bite.”

She looked at him, frowning.

“Carnival food,” he said, “has this strange property. Each bite you take tastes increasingly artificial, oily, and overly sweet. Until you get done, and (lowly) wonder why you ate all of that. It’s truly magnificent.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Am I?”

Five minutes later—her fingers sticky with the remnants of powdered sugar, an empty bag of pop’ems in her hand—she looked toward him with a nauseated expression. “That was awful,” she said.

“Isn’t it?” He grinned.

“I need another.”

He directed her to get some cheese powder rice puffs, as they tended to last a little longer before the gross part reared its head. Once she was happily chewing on them, he led her toward the center of the festivities.

“I’m modestly impressed,” she said. “But you’re going to have to do better than strange foods, Painter.”

“Well, we also have rides.”

She looked at him, then blushed. “I don’t know what those are either. I’m sorry.”

“They’re…” Huh. How to explain. “Have you ever been in a bus—or a wagon I guess—that was out of control?”

“Once. It was terrifying.”

“It’s like that, but fun.”

“I’m not convinced you have any idea what that word means.”

He grinned. “Remember the flight on the tree?”

Her eyes went wide. “You have flying trees here?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “But things sort of like that. Less magical, maybe, but also safe—so you get the exciting part without the dangerous part. But you get to pretend they’re still dangerous, so you can be afraid. In a fun way!”

“Wonderful food that is also gross,” she said. “Experiences that are at once terrifying and not. Are all of your modern wonders self-contradictory?”

“Contradiction,” he said, “is the core of modern life.” He smiled at her. And he loved the way she smiled back.

He gestured, and led her past several of the performers—a strong man lifting impossible weights. A “living statue.” (Bad imitation in my estimation.) A fire-breather. Yumi appeared to legitimately love each of these.

“You have experts,” she whispered while watching a performer swallow a cane four feet long, “in the strangest things.” She tossed far too large of a tip to the man and bowed formally to him.

From there, the games. She was terrible at them. But he found it fascinating how she tried each one in the row, then settled on one—the game where you knock down the boxes—and paid the carnie for ten tries.

“We’re going to run out of money quickly at this rate,” he said, leaning against the counter as she concentrated and threw the ball, missing. “You should have picked the balloon popping game.”

“That one is random,” she said. “You can’t win it except by accident.” She narrowed her eyes, throwing another ball. It bounced off the boxes.

“And that is bad?” he asked.

“I must be presented with a challenge of skill and not fortune, Painter.”

“Well then, try the coin toss,” he said, as she threw again and the ball bounced free. “This one takes strength like Tojin has to win.”