Chapter 1: Arrival

Mark and Roger, expert 5 year olds, sat in Mrs. Cohen's car, driving to the carnival. Roger was hyper from the chocolate he had eaten before, and never stopped asking

"ARE-WE-THERE-YET-ARE-WE-THERE-YET?!" . Mark was looking longingly out the window, wondering when his first carnival would begin. After Mrs. Cohen threatened to turn the car around if Roger didn't stop screaming, he decided to tell Mark what carnivals were like, being to three of them with big brother Mike, who was in the third grade (and very very wise).

"There's so much great stuff, Mawk!" he started, "There's giant swings that go around and around without anyone havin' to push 'em, and a bunch of horsies that go round and round, and cotton candy, apples with sticky stuff that makes it too hard to bite, and giant cups that spin around, and the best ride is the Half Moon! You go in a big pirate ship, and it swings up and down like a swing, only a gazillion times bigger!" Mark couldn't wait to get there.

Finally, the car pulled up in front of the huge cups Roger had mentioned. When they got there, they saw their friends Angel and Tom, Tom with a cone filled past the brim with big pink stuff, Angel with her pretty girl hair and a humongous chocolate bar. "Where's Mimi,Benny, and Maureen and Joanne?" Mark asked, looking for his other friends. "There's Mimi, in the cups!" Roger answered. It was true, Mimi was screaming in joy as she made her cup spin faster than everyone else. "And Maureen's on the horsies. But where are Benny and Joanne?" "Um, guys, Joanne's buying a Super Big Gulp, but there's something we have to tell you about Benny." Tom answered, not making eye contact."What happened?" Mark questioned, "Did he get sick?"

"Uh, actually no," Tom continued, "But I guess we gotta tell you sometime. Guys, Benny is..."