“Nobody loves you,” called a kid a couple of switchbacks ahead of them.

  Zac waved at the kid. “Catchphrases are bad ideas,” he murmured. “Every stranger says it like they’re the first one to think of it, so you end up hearing the same comment over and over. Sometimes they even want me to say it. If it were only one person, no big deal, but it gets old, time after time, day after day.”

  “It’s why you get the big bucks,” Nate said.

  “I guess,” Zac said with a wink.

  Shutters on the second story of the castle opened, revealing a vampire. After those shutters closed, another set opened, revealing a mangy werewolf.

  “That werewolf has seen better days,” Zac said. “Chuck E. Cheese kicked him out of the band, so he turned to a life of horror.”

  “Not much is scarier than sketchy animatronics,” Nate said.

  “Like Five Nights at Freddy’s,” Summer added.

  In other windows, Frankenstein’s monster appeared, as did a mummy. The standard movie monsters were apparently haunting the stronghold.

  “This looks like a dark ride,” Pigeon said.

  “Duh,” Trevor said. “‘Terror’ is in the name.”

  “Not just dark as in spooky,” Pigeon said. “In theme park lingo, a dark ride is an attraction that takes you on a tour through an interior space. Looks like the car seats four.”

  Up ahead, just past the open front wall of the castle, Nate could see passengers embarking and disembarking from the ride. The boxy cars had two seats in the front and two behind, with lap bars to keep the riders in place. The cars came and went fairly quickly, which kept the line moving.

  Zac held up his phone and started recording selfie-style. “We are currently at the Terror Castle,” Zac announced. “Who thinks they can get through this ride without a jump scare?” His hand was already raised.

  “I’ll try,” Nate said, putting his hand up. Summer and Trevor raised their hands as well.

  Pigeon kept his hands down. “Just keeping it real. I could probably do it if we ride again.”

  “Anyone could do it on a second try,” Zac said. “All right, we’ll all be watching each other and ourselves, but if something makes you flinch or jump, you’re out. Honor system rules.”

  When they got to the front, they each handed over six tickets. Zac split off with Summer into one car. Nate and Pigeon sat in the front of the next one, with Trevor behind them. Nate scanned the vehicle for a coin slot but didn’t see one.

  The car trundled forward into the ride, picking up the pace as it swung around a corner. They moved down the dismal hall of a dungeon. The air was musty and humid, and a dripping ceiling created a surprisingly authentic atmosphere. On the left side, behind bars, three mannequins were being tortured—one stretched on a rack, another strapped to a wheel where a tormentor prodded him, and the last squirmed beneath a pendulum blade. On the opposite side, cell doors rattled and clanked as inmates screamed.

  Next, they entered a gothic laboratory where a harried animatronic scientist was trying to electrify a humanoid monster. The scientist stood at a control panel while fake lightning strobed through the windows. A blinding light flashed, accompanied by immediate thunder, and the monster sat up and growled.

  “I already jumped,” Pigeon said.

  “Not me,” Nate replied.

  The car voyaged into a cemetery, winding among gravestones and tombs. Dry-ice fog swirled over the ground. From somewhere in the distance came the faint whistling of an off-pitch tune. Suddenly an obelisk tipped and fell in their path. The car swerved, barely avoiding it. From behind them came a loud, sudden howl, and Nate had to admit that he jumped.

  As they came around a large tomb, an animatronic scene came into view—two gravediggers trying to stake a vampire. The three dimly lit figures repeated the same motions, locked in an eternal struggle.

  Up ahead, the side of a pyramid came into view, and the car passed down a hallway where skittering scarabs were projected onto the wall. They reached a burial chamber full of golden treasure and big, glassy jewels. A groaning mummy emerged from a sarcophagus and came toward their vehicle.

  Nate noticed other passages branching away from the burial chamber. He wondered how long those hallways kept up the illusion that they were inside a pyramid before they dead-ended into storage rooms full of brooms. Nate felt an urge to explore them.

  The car progressed from the pyramid into a dark hall. Moans and gibbering became the soundtrack, and an occasional ghost swished past, projected onto a filmy screen. As the moans faded, the hall became perfectly dark.

  Then a pair of headlights appeared in front of them, accompanied by a truck horn. Nate jumped, and so did Pigeon beside him. Wind blasted in their faces well beyond what their speed should have generated, and the car veered to miss the headlights.

  Then suddenly the ride was over. Summer and Zac were disembarking from their vehicle, and after a pause, the lap bars released on the car with Nate, Pigeon, and Trevor.

  “Did anybody make it without a jump scare?” Zac asked, recording.

  “Not me,” Trevor said.

  “Me neither,” Nate admitted.

  “I jumped multiple times,” Zac said. “Especially at the end. Pretty great ride. Better than I would expect at a traveling carnival.”

  Nate nodded. It might be Zac’s job to help sell people on the carnival, but he was also right. Nothing on the ride had looked totally real, but it had some good scares, and the scenery was way better than he had expected. The set up and take down of such an elaborate ride had to be a pain.

  “In conclusion,” Zac narrated to his phone, “some guys almost tortured me, a vampire tried to bite me, a werewolf wanted to devour me, and a mummy chased me down. Once again, nobody loves me.” He stopped recording.

  “I thought you were bugged by the catchphrase,” Nate said.

  “I am,” Zac said. “But it’s easier to say it in a clip than to hear it all the time. Like it or not, it’s how I’m branded. Small price to pay if it helps me make money from my videos.”

  Chapter Seven

  Fortune Wagon

  Later that evening, Nate sat at a round table under a big umbrella, picking apart half a roasted chicken with plastic utensils. Trevor and Zac had opted for the giant turkey leg, which they ate with their fingers, their lips glistening with grease. Summer and Pigeon had gone in together on a one-pound hamburger the size of a Frisbee. Nate had planned to drink the free water the eatery provided, but Zac coughed up ten tickets for a big bottle of root beer they were all sharing.

  Zac set down his half-eaten turkey leg and wiped his hands and mouth with paper napkins. “That does it for me today. I got the footage I need. I’ll bring the media releases to school on Monday, if that works.”

  “You got everything you need?” Nate asked.

  “Plenty,” Zac said. “My dad and I will cut together something tonight. Do any of you want me to get you extra tickets before I go?” He had already provided fifty extra tickets for each of them.

  “I better head home too,” Trevor said. “It’s almost eight.”

  “How late is the park open?” Nate asked.

  “Until eleven,” Zac said.

  “My parents don’t want me out too late,” Summer said.

  “I want to stay for a bit,” Nate said. “I still have a few coins.”

  “I’ll hang out with you,” Pigeon said. “Mom said I could be home late tonight.”

  “Everyone dump your extra tickets on Nate and Pidge,” Zac said. “Keep your coins though. I can always get more tickets, but they’re stingy with coins—even with me. Today was fun. I’d love to have you back with me any day I’m here making videos. Should be twice a week.”

  “That would be great,” Trevor said.

  “Benji will probably join us sometimes,” Zac said. “Too many people can get messy, but in this carnival environment, a posse works. I like the variety in this group. Nate, are you sure you don’t need more tickets?”

  Nate looked at the remnants he and Pigeon had inherited. “Looks like we have around twenty. That should work. I mainly just want to look around.”

  “You’ll be all right?” Summer asked. Her eyes locked with Nate’s. They hadn’t encountered any obvious danger yet, but that could change at any moment.

  “Pigeon and I will have a blast,” Nate said.

  Trevor, Summer, and Zac collected the trash onto trays and left Nate and Pigeon at the table. Pigeon huddled close so they could talk quietly.

  “Have you seen anything supernatural yet?” Nate asked.

  “Everything is surprisingly high-quality for a traveling carnival,” Pigeon said. “It feels more like a permanent theme park. Except for the non-PC stuff like the performing animals and ‘The Hall of Oddities.’”

  Nate nodded. They had only looked at the outside of the tent, which displayed posters of a two-headed lizard, a winged pony, an elephant the size of a dog, and a headless chicken that could apparently still walk around.

  “I assume you want to stay so we can dig deeper,” Pigeon said.

  “Yes,” Nate said. “Zac is cool, but it’s hard to do certain types of investigating with him around. He doesn’t know magic is real, and he has ties to the carnival.”

  “I tried a Moon Rock earlier, just to check,” Pigeon mentioned. “It didn’t work. Gravity stayed the same.”

  Nate nodded. “If they are cancelling our candy, we already have proof that something magical is going on.”

  “Where do you want to look?” Pigeon asked.

  Nate thought about the day. They had been on a bunch of rides. At eight tickets, the roller coaster was the most expensive. The Ferris wheel cost six tickets and had taken forever. Average rides like the Tilt-A-Whirl or the rocking ship or the suspended swings were five tickets.

  They had spent ten tickets each for an hour-long show inside the big top, complete with performing elephants, a lion tamer, clowns, acrobats, trapeze experts, high-wire walkers, and Preston as ringmaster. The Fun House cost six tickets, and they had been able to stay inside for as long as they wanted. There were rope swings, warped mirrors, potato-sack slides, wobbly bridges, climbing walls, foam pits, and a host of other obstacles to experience.

  They hadn’t noticed coin upgrades on many other rides like they had with the bumper cars. There were a couple coin slots in the Fun House—one made a circular tunnel rotate for about five minutes, while another made the labyrinth walls shift positions.

  “I want to find more places to use coins,” Nate said.

  “Me too,” Pigeon said. “It’s weird that they make such a big deal about the Carnie Coins and act miserly with them, but there aren’t many places to use them.”

  “Makes me feel like we’re missing something,” Nate said.

  “What do you think about spending some coins on the Psychic?” Pigeon asked.

  Earlier in the day, they had come across a coin-operated fortune teller in a cabinet. The figure behind the glass was an animatronic ram with bejeweled horns called Argali the Psychic. “Ask Me Anything” the front of the cabinet had prompted. Zac had put in a coin and asked if his video would be effective.

  A crystal ball in front of the ram had started to glow, and the ram had waved his front hooves over the ball. Argali’s eyes had started blinking mechanically, and his mouth began to hinge open and closed.

  “You will reach millions,” the ram had spoken. Then a little card had dropped into an opening in the cabinet beneath the coin slot.

  “You will reach millions,” the card had read.

  “I’m shocked,” Zac had said. “The answer actually fit the question.”

  Nate pointed at Pigeon. “Brilliant idea. We didn’t ask any questions about the carnival. That could be a great place to start without Zac.”

  They started walking. Pigeon’s eyes stayed focused on the ground.

  “Are you looking for rocks?” Nate asked.

  Pigeon glanced up. “You never know where you might make a find.”

  “Right now, we’re looking for magic,” Nate said.

  Long strings of lights were turning on around the carnival as the sunset began to fade. The fanciful carousel had so many bulbs it looked like a giant whirling chandelier in the waning daylight.

  In a space between Mama’s Food Barn and a spinning ride called the Cycletron stood a cabinet of glass and varnished wood, flanked by low heaps of fresh sawdust. Inside, the motionless ram waited to be animated by a coin.

  “How many coins do you have left?” Pigeon asked.

  “Six,” Nate said. “Thanks to the extra ones I got from Preston.”

  “I’ve got two,” Pigeon said.

  “I’ll use mine,” Nate said. “What do we want to know?”

  “Ask about the owner,” Pigeon said. “Preston dodged that question.”

  “What if he just gives a generic answer?” Nate asked. “Like ‘Eat soup when you get a cold’?”

  “Then we’ll know not to waste coins here,” Pigeon said. “Argali seemed to answer Zac directly, which was what made me want to ask more questions.”

  Nate put in a coin. Lights flashed inside the cabinet. The crystal ball started to glow, and the psychic began to blink and move.

  “Who owns the Dreams and Screams International Carnival?” Nate asked.

  “Camilla White owns and founded the carnival, but many and any have a stake in it,” the ram said. The lights went out, and the ram froze.

  A card ejected into the opening.

  Nate picked up the card and read the same words the ram had just articulated. “The last of the Whites,” Nate said.

  “We should have known,” Pigeon said. “That family can’t leave our town alone.”

  “Mr. Stott had good instincts not wanting Lindy to come here,” Nate said. He fed the cabinet another coin. “Where can we find Camilla? We want to meet the owner.”

  The ball glowed, and the ram’s mouth scissored open and closed. “Camilla spends most of her time in the Jubilee Wagon,” Argali said.

  Another card dropped into the opening.

  Nate pushed another Carnie Coin into the slot. “What is Camilla trying to accomplish with this carnival?”

  The ram waved his hooves, and the ball’s glow dimmed. “That’s enough questions for today.”

  A final card dropped into the opening.

  Nate picked up the card and looked at it.

  Redeem for One Carnie Coin

  Nate held the card out to Pigeon. “At least we got a refund.”

  “Do you think that is what Argali does when he can’t answer a question?” Pigeon asked.

  “Or doesn’t want to,” Nate muttered. He leaned forward and tapped the glass of the cabinet. “Can you hear me?”

  Argali looked like a toy with no batteries.

  “The ram was done talking to you,” Pigeon said, inserting a coin. “Maybe I can still ask a question.”

  Argali came back to life.

  “Is there magical candy at this carnival?” Pigeon asked.

  “Seek in the right places, and you will find much magic here,” Argali said.

  A card with the same words dropped into the opening.

  Pigeon held up a Carnie Coin. “Last one.” He pushed it into the slot. “What information will best help us solve the mysteries of this carnival?”

  The turbaned ram blinked and waved his hooves. “Hidden information is needed to unravel mysteries.”

  Pigeon checked the printed card. “Same words.” He slapped the side of the cabinet. “I wanted something specific. You took my last coin and ripped me off!”

  “Hey, kid, go easy on the equipment,” a gruff voice said behind them.

  They turned to see a tall roughneck in a flat cap, corduroy pants, and heavy boots approaching.

  “Sorry,” Pigeon said, stepping away from the cabinet. “The ram gave me a bad fortune.”

  The roughneck huffed through his nose. “Were you expecting Nostradamus? It’s a novelty. An expensive one. Scram.” He took out a rag and rubbed the spot on the cabinet Pigeon had slapped.

  “Come on, Pidge,” Nate said.

  They walked quickly away into the crowd. The sugary smell of kettle corn hung in the air. Rides rumbled. People laughed and shrieked. Hooting calliope music reached them from a distance. Many kids wore glowing bracelets and necklaces that looked increasingly bright as the twilight deepened toward night.

  “Do you think that guy didn’t like the questions we were asking?” Pigeon wondered. “I didn’t hit the box very hard.”

  “I’m not sure if he could hear us, but the timing was suspicious,” Nate said. “I want to find the Jubilee Wagon. Whatever that is.”

  “You want to meet Camilla tonight?” Pigeon asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Nate said. “But I want to know where she hangs out.”

  “Maybe it’s on the map,” Pigeon suggested.

  A prolonged perusal by both of them identified no Jubilee Wagon.

  “We’ll just have to look around,” Nate said.

  “Let’s do one full loop around the carnival,” Pigeon said. “If I’m home much later than nine, my mom will give me trouble.”

  “Sure,” Nate said, leading the way.

  He soon learned that walking around the entire carnival was easier said than done. There were many branching pathways and little alleys between attractions. Nate felt like every nook and cranny needed to be investigated since they were looking for a mystery wagon.

  Down one long side passage, the noise of the crowded carnival retreated, and the pathway became drenched in shadow.

  Pigeon tugged on Nate’s shirt. “Does this feel promising to you?”