Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town by Elaine Orr Read Free Book Online Page A

blanket higher, so it covered each arm better.
    “I’m here, Scoobie,” I whispered.  “Nobody can hurt you here.” 
    Was that a tiny smile?  It couldn’t be!
    I studied him a couple seconds.  “Okay, maybe they’ll stick you with needles, but they won’t push you down any steps.” 
    Nothing, no tiny smile or any other sign he’d heard me.  I sat looking at him until the nurse came to the doorway.  “Probably time to give him a rest.”
     
    USUALLY RAMONA IS MORE REASONABLE.  I had tried to get her to take the camera and look for the guy at the carnival, but she wouldn’t.
    “Are you insane?”  She actually whispered in a hiss.
    I lowered my voice even more.  The parents of the kid who had been in a car accident last night were sitting on the other side of the room.  “You know Morehouse.  He may show us a picture but he won’t give us one.  I’m not going to keep the guy’s face in my mind forever.”
    “And you want to hold that thought?”
    “Well,” I needed a good reason here.  “What if he comes back?  We need to be sure what he looks like so we can call Morehouse.”
    She thought about that for a moment.  “That’s not why you really want the picture.”  She gave a half sigh.  “I don’t want to go, but you go and I’ll stay here.”
     
    THE HOSPITAL is at the far north side of Ocean Alley, less than a quarter-mile from the carnival.  I tried to hold back tears, thinking about this time yesterday.  What could we have done differently?  What if Ramona and I had looked for him as we were leaving?   These were the kinds of questions I’d been pushing to a dark corner of my mind since yesterday.  With the initial panic subsiding they were demanding to be heard.
    Logic told me that if neither of us had seen Scoobie the last hour or so of the carnival that he’d already left.  Or he was someplace where he didn’t want to be seen.  I clenched the steering wheel so hard my fingers hurt, suddenly so angry with Scoobie I wanted to scream. 
    So I did. 
    And then I cried, and kept it up until I pulled into St. Anthony’s parking lot.  “This is ridiculous.  You’re going to walk in there with a red blotchy face and stuffed nose and Lance or Reverend Jamison will think Scoobie died.”  I blew my nose hard, and forced myself to think of Aunt Madge with her green hair on St. Patrick’s Day.  It worked, a little.
    I wondered why I could park closer to the carnival entrance, then gave myself a head slap as I realized the gates wouldn’t open for another fifteen minutes.  “Oh well.”  I figured I could talk my way in by saying I was with the dunk tank.  That’s not a lie, you were in it yesterday.
    I needn’t have worried.  There were no carnival workers ready to keep people out of the way as there had been just before the opening hour yesterday, when there were dozens of people waiting to get in. 
    The only two people at the dunk tank were Megan, my favorite food pantry volunteer, and her daughter Alicia.  “Jolie!  How is he?” Megan asked .
    “They say better than he was yesterday.  I guess we’ll know more as time goes…”  I stopped as Alicia burst into tears. 
    Megan pulled her daughter in for a hug, and I fought the urge to cry again.  “She’s been so upset,” Megan said as she stroked Alicia’s hair.
    “I’m not upset!”  Alicia wailed, burying her head into her mother’s shoulder.
    Teenagers.  Megan and I half-smiled at each other.
    “I can’t stay to help, I’m sorry.  We’re taking turns being at the hospital, sitting with Scoobie.  Ramona’s there now.”
    Megan nodded.  “This morning at church Reverend Jamison told everyone to pray for Scoobie and then asked for a couple more volunteers.”  She continued patting Alicia.  “About a half-dozen people said they’d be over, and he told them to get together after church and come up with a way to stagger their schedules.”
    “Right.”  I had just realized that