The Book of One Hundred Truths by Julie Schumacher Read Free Book Online Page A

bumper cars, fun houses, spin-paint booths, Skee-Ball, cotton candy, caramel corn, and a Ferris wheel with colored compartments that swayed and revolved above the ocean. “Get out and help me push,” I said.
    Jocelyn scratched her arm. “I’m not allowed to go to the boardwalk.”
    I could smell the pizza, the fudge, the cheesesteaks frying on a dozen grills. “You’re not
allowed
?” I asked. “Why not?”
    She tried to turn around in her seat, but the yellow bungee cord held her in place. “They only sell junk food up there. I don’t eat junk food. Besides, there are pickpockets. And people who try to steal your money.”
    “Pickpockets?” My legs felt like rubber. I got off the trike and moved aside for a woman with a stroller. “Do you have any diamond rings with you?”
    “No.”
    “Do you think someone is going to force you to eat a bag of candy?”
    Jocelyn shook her head, then pushed her nest of yellow hair behind her ears. “I can only come here with an
adult,
” she said. “That’s the rule.”
    “I’m twelve and a half,” I pointed out.
    Up ahead I could see a juggler on a unicycle, and a mime with a white-painted face holding an oversized bouquet of helium balloons. I loved the boardwalk, even the parts of it I was too old for. I loved the smell of salt water and frying food, the
pit-a-ping
of the pinball machines, and the hollow thump of the boards beneath my feet. I looked at my cousin. I already knew she had a price. “I’ll tell you one more thing about my notebook.”
    She licked her lips. “Two things.”
    “Don’t be greedy.” I started pushing the trike up the ramp. “Okay. I’m going to write one hundred things in it,” I said. “Exactly one hundred.”
    “Why exactly one hundred?”
    We reached the top of the ramp. “Because when I get to a hundred…” I was searching for words. “Then the book will be finished.”
    “And then what? Will you let people read it?”
    “No. But I might discover something,” I said.
    “What will you discover?”
    “I don’t know yet.” I climbed back on the trike. We rode past the haunted house, the taffy-pulling machine, the tattoo parlor, the photo booth, the house of mirrors, half a dozen small shops, and the arcades. Finally I coasted to a stop in the shade of a bandstand.
    Jocelyn struggled to turn around. “Why are we stopping?”
    “Because it’s hot up here,” I said. “And my legs are tired.”
    Just ahead of us, a boy was throwing pizza crust to a crowd of seagulls. Their squeaky cries and complaints filled the air.
    “I can’t believe I pedaled us all the way here and didn’t bring any money,” I said. “I’m going to die of thirst.”
    A man dressed as a giant hamburger waddled toward us, hand in hand with a woman dressed as a cup of french fries.
    I accepted a coupon from the human hamburger:
75 cents off any large sandwich!
    “What’s that?” Jocelyn asked. In one of the arcades across from us, two girls in shorts and bathing suit tops were dancing on a metal platform that boomed out music, a series of colored lights and arrows telling them where to move their feet.
    “It’s a kind of game,” I said. “I guess it’s supposed to teach you how to dance.”
    “Is it fun?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.”
    The dancing girls bent their knees and swayed their hips. Five feet away from them, a woman in a uniform came out of the fudge shop with a tray of free samples, little cubes of bliss.
    “Don’t your parents ever bring you here?” I asked. “You only live about an hour away.”
    “My father doesn’t like the boardwalk,” Jocelyn said. “But sometimes we come in the fall. When it isn’t crowded.”
    “Most of the boardwalk is closed in the fall,” I pointed out.
    The boy who had been feeding his pizza crust to the seagulls was staring at our trike. He threw a final piece of crust and a bird caught it neatly in midair, then sailed away over the ocean.
    “What’s that?”