Chapter 4

 

       The rest of the school year went by quickly. During that entire time, the feelings that I felt towards Jack after the time he tackled me in the snow never truly disappeared. They weren't really big enough though for me to really get too confused about them, so I just let it go and didn't bother pondering over them.

       It was now the summer and school was out for a couple months. At the beginning of the summer, Jack and I were able to spend a lot more time together. We played with each other just about everyday. That is, if we were available that day. There were times when I was forced to go do something with Mom or when Jack wasn't home. Those were the days I probably hated the most during that summer.

       It was near the end of June when Jack decided to invite me to go with him to Kings Island. According to him, the amusement park was having some special day where people who had passes were allowed to bring a friend with them for free, and Jack said that he decided to bring me along. I had always wanted to go before, and so I agreed almost immediately upon being invited.

       Later that week, it was time for us to go. I went down to Jack's house and him, his parents, his younger sister, and me got into the van about a few minutes later. It was obvious that Jack was excited about going; he kept talking about how much fun it was going to be and what rides we were going to ride as soon as we got there.

       “Both of you remember where to go if you get lost, right?” his father cut in when we were about halfway there. He had told us where to go before we got in the van.

       “Yeah, the Eiffel Tower,” Jack said. “Hey, we should go on that too!”

       “Yeah, and you sit there until we come to get you, got it?” his father reminded us, completely ignoring what Jack last said.

       We both said that we did. Jack eventually ran out of things to say about the amusement park and so the rest of the ride there became a little more quiet. When we finally got there, we waited through the somewhat long lines to get into the park. After a few minutes, it was finally our turn to enter. I looked around at the small novelty and food shops that was near the entrance, trying to figure out where the rides maybe were. The Eiffel Tower was in sight from where I stood though, but that didn't sound as fun as the other things that Jack talked about.

       When all of us had finally entered, we started to walk through the large amusement park. After a couple minutes of walking, the first ride we came to was The Viking, a ship that swung back and forth and went fairly high into the air.

       “Let's ride that one!” I said.

       “No,” Jack said, a tiny hint of fear in his voice.

       “Oh don't be a wimp,” his father told him.

       “But the ride could flip over and we could all fall out!” Jack argued.

       “Nothing's going to happen,” his father assured him. “We'll all be fine.”

       As we neared the ride, we spent a couple minutes trying to cajole Jack into getting on the ride. We eventually succeeded and we went to get in line. When we got near the front, there were separate smaller lines for where you wanted to sit on the ship. The seats in the middle went up into the air the lowest and the ones on the ends went up the highest.

       I wanted to get on somewhere in between the middle and one of the ends, but Jack didn't. Instead, he wanted to ride in the exact middle where it would be safer. I tried to get him to go in one of the other lines, but it didn't work. I wasn't going to let him ride alone though and so I gave up and joined him in the line for the middle.

       After waiting for a few minutes, it was finally out turn to ride. We got into the seat, sitting on the far end of it while three strangers filled up the rest of the seat. After pushing the bar down on our legs, we waited until the ride began. When the ship started to move, Jack gripped onto the black bar, and he gradually held on tighter as the ship started to raise higher in the air. About halfway through the ride though, Jack finally got over his fear and he started to join in on the shouting like all the other riders.

       When the ride was over, we got off and when all of us rejoined, we resumed our walk through Kings Island. It wasn't too long until we came near a queue for a rollercoaster with a sign over it that read, “Adventure Express.”

       “Let's go on that one!” Jack said as he pointed towards the queue.

       All of us agreed, though I had to admit that I was a bit nervous about riding my first rollercoaster. The line for this ride was as long as the one for The Viking if not longer and we had to wait for what was probably at least ten minutes before it was our turn to get on. Jack and I got in a car that was in the middle and I guess Jack must have noticed how nervous I was.

       “Just relax, it'll be fun,” he assured me. “If you have to, you can just hold onto my hand.”

       I nodded and gave a false smile. A few seconds later, the ride began and I held onto the bar that went over my legs. Jack apparently noticed that what he said earlier didn't exactly ease my mind because he reached over and grabbed onto my hand. I looked over at him to see him giving me an assuring smile and I gave a weak smile back. About ten or more seconds later, the coaster started to climb a hill. I gripped onto Jack's hand a little tightly as the nervousness built up in me more. When the car started its descent, I closed my eyes for a few seconds before I soon cracked a smile. My grip on Jack's hand loosened as my eyes reopened before both of us threw our hands in the air like many of the other riders.

       “See, that wasn't so bad, was it?” Jack asked me when we got off the ride.

       “No,” I said, thinking that I was foolish for even thinking it was going to be that scary.

       Jack's parents and sister didn't get on the ride the same time we did, so we had to wait for a few minutes for them to get off. When all of us were finally together again, we resumed our walk through the amusement park. We were going to ride another rollercoaster, but when we saw how long the line was, Jack decided that he didn't want to ride it anymore. His father tried to explain to him that all the lines were going to be like this because of it being Bring a Friend Free Day, but Jack said that he didn't care.

       After getting something to eat a little late in the afternoon, we went over to the kiddie section of Kings Island. We rode a few rides there such as The Beastie and Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Mansion. The lines weren't any shorter here than they were on the other side of the amusement park, but I managed to get Jack to go on them with me regardless.

       A bit later, Jack's sister wanted to go on the merry-go-round that was in this area. Jack and I didn't want to go, but Jack's mother that we should let her ride it. We waited with Jack's mother at the exit of the merry-go-round. (Jack's father was somewhere else at the time.)

       “This is boring,” Jack muttered as he started to look around. “Hey, wanna go ride Runaway Reptar?”

       I shrugged. “Sure.”

       He asked his mother to make sure it was all right. She told him that she didn't mind and that she would be waiting for us at the exit of the ride by the time we got off. We ran off to get in line, which was really long. Jack surprisingly didn't complain too much about it like I expected though.

       After about five or ten minutes of waiting, it was our turn to ride. I wasn't too nervous this time like I was when we rode the Adventure Express because of this one being a kiddie ride, so I had no worries as I sat in the car. Unfortunately though, the ride didn't last that long and it almost felt like it was over by the time it began.

       When we exited the ride though, we didn't see Jack's mother. Figuring that she was still maybe at the merry-go-round waiting for Jack's sister to get off the ride, we made our way over there. However, when we got there, she wasn't anywhere around it either. Jack and I walked back and forth between the two rides a couple times in search of his mother, but we still had no luck finding her. I was beginning to get a little worried, and I wouldn't have been surprised if Jack was too.

       “Don't worry, I know what to do,” Jack said when he tried to figure out what to do since we couldn't find the rest of his family.

       Go to the Eiffel Tower, right? Wrong. The thought of it didn't even cross my mind and I'm certain it probably never came to Jack's mind either. Instead of doing what we were told to do before we even came to Kings Island, we walked all the way to the entrance of the amusement park. There was a security guard there and both of us walked up to him.

       “We're lost,” Jack told the man.

       The man told us not to worry before he brought a walky-talky up to his mouth and started to speak into it. A little while later, someone came to get us and told us to follow them. We did as we were told until we reached a building that wasn't far from the entrance. At the top of it there was a large sign that read, “Lost Parents.”

       When we got inside, I looked around. There wasn't any parents there, but instead other kids that were around our age and younger. The person that had brought us there told us we should wait here until someone came to get us and that we were allowed to wait by the window if we wanted to. And that's exactly what we did; we peered out the window to see if we could maybe spot either of Jack's parents in the crowd outside.

       What seemed like an hour but was really only about fifteen minutes passed and we didn't see any sign of them. Both of us got a little tired of standing there and so we went over to sit down. There were a few Legos there and a couple other toys, but we weren't interested in any of that. All we really cared about was being found.

       Several minutes rolled by painfully slow and no one came to get us. As I sat there, I started to get a little worried about whether we would ever be found and it was then when my wild imagination started to get the better of me. What if we were never found? Would I ever get to see my parents again if we weren't? Would we be shipped off to an orphanage? The last thought almost terrified me and I was almost starting to see this place as more of a prison than a place that helped kids in the same predicament as us.

       About an hour soon passed and my fear of never being found had increased to a good extent. I looked over towards Jack and I could tell by the look on his face that he was probably just as worried as I was. Both of us had been glancing towards the window every so often to see if we could maybe see any of Jack's family out there, but there was still no signs of them.

       “We shouldn't worry so much,” I said. “I'm sure we'll be found soon. Let's try to just watch T.V. or something.”

       Jack looked towards me and slowly nodded. Both of us turned our attention towards the television, which was currently showing Spongebob Squarepants. Watching the show had actually helped to ease my mind quite a bit and I don't think Jack was as worried either. Fortunately, about ten minutes later, we saw Jack's father looking through the window at us from outside.

       After we left the Lost Parents, we slowly started to make our way to where Jack's mother and sister were. During that entire time, we were given a lecture about how we should've listened to what he told us earlier. I didn't care too much though. I was just happy that we were finally found.

       It wasn't long until we came back to Runaway Reptar, which Jack's mother was standing at the exit of. When she saw us walking over, a look of immense relief swept onto her face. She asked Jack's father where we had been and he told her before Jack explained that we tried to look for her earlier but we couldn't find her. She told us that she had been there the entire time. Apparently we must not have been looking hard enough because we never did see her when we got off.

       We left Kings Island after that. No one said a single word for the majority of the car ride home. When we were about three-fourths of the way back, Jack's father decided to make some weird comment about how we rode the “Lost Parents Ride,” and Jack and I couldn't help but to laugh.

       By the time we got back it was fairly late at night. Mom and Jack's mother talked about the incident that had happened at the amusement park and after Jack's family started to go down the street to head home, Mom said something to me, but I was too tired to hear what it was. I quickly went to bed afterwards and fell asleep a few seconds after I had laid down.

Reviews

[Eidolon Michael]

This sentence is a little wordy or akward-'I went down to Jack's house and him, his parents, his younger sister, and me got into the van about a few minutes later.' I think you could describe it better it if you were to say "I went down to Jack's house and a few minutes later, his parents, his younger sister and myself piled into the van. Me and Jack were seated [insert area of car here]". I know that version is longer than yours(I think) but it's not as confusing or weird to say or read. Also-'We waited with Jack's mother at the exit of the merry-go-round. (Jack's father was somewhere else at the time.)' The paranthetical part of the sentence doesn't have to be a complete other sentence. It could've just been added at the end, but still in paranthesis(wow my brain is going so slow today, did I spell that right?). Or if you wanted to you would simply say "We waited with Jack's mother at the exit of the merry-go-round, while Jack's father looked around elsewhere". Other than those small things, I really enjoyed the chapter :-)

[Amund Schofield]

Why is Jay willing to go on the viking and not the roller coaster?

Also, post the next chapter soon.