This is the continuation of my freewritemadness/NaNoWriMo story.
Catch up with the previous chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23part1, 23Part2, 23Part3, 23Part4, 24, 25Part1, 25Part2, 26Part1
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I am using 
Today’s prompts are: carnival and a Photo by Adrien Olichon on Unsplash
As usual I started with the freewrite prompt and used themostdangerouswritingapp.com to write the first five minutes:
The many torments of Tiny Earl - Chapter 26 (Part 2)
When Eleanor was a little girl her Aunt Jackie took her to a carnival. She remembered being excited to go - she had seen the trucks arrive and the car that had been going around and around the town, a loudhailer on the top of it proclaiming that they must come and see "the greatest show in all the known universes!".
Her mother said that she didn't like carnivals, and she didn't think that Eleanor would like them either.
"They are full of the wrong sort of people," she complained. "After your money... or worse."
Eleanor had cried when her mother told her she couldn't go. After all, her school friends were all going. She would be the only one at school the next week who wouldn't have been. She was fed up of being the odd one out.
The outsider.
Aunt Jackie came to the rescue. It was before Aunt Jackie had been formally diagnosed with a mental illness, and her mother didn't really worry about leaving Eleanor in her company.
"I'll take her to the park," Aunt Jackie said, on the first morning the carnival was in town.
"Don't let her go to that carnival," Eleanor's mother said. Aunt Jackie had laughed.
"Don't worry," she said. "We'll go to the park at the other end of town."
As they stepped out of the front door, Eleanor - pouting, her bottom lip “sticking so far out you could trip right over it and fall into next week” as her mother always said - went to turn left towards the park on the other side of town.
“Where are you going?” Aunt Jackie said, her eyes twinkling with her smile.
“I thought we are going to the park,” Eleanor said.
“Well, you can go to the park if you want to,” Aunt Jackie said. “But I’m going to the carnival.”
Eleanor squealed and Aunt Jackie’s smile fell of her face and she put her fingers in her ears.
“Don’t shriek, girl,” she said. “You know I hate that sound.”
Eleanor wasn’t sure she did know her aunt hated that sound, but she shut her mouth and was content with bouncing up and down like a hyperactive rabbit.
“Besides,” her aunt said, taking hold of Eleanor’s hand and leading her down the road. “If you make too much noise you’re mother will think you’re being slaughtered like a pig for Winterfest and she’ll look out the window. And if she sees we’re off in the direction of the carnival we’ll both be in trouble.”
Eleanor stopped bouncing and looked up towards the upstairs window. There was no sign of her mother.
“I don’t think she heard,” she said.
“Good job, girl. For both of our sakes.”
The closer they got to the carnival the more excited Eleanor became. There were posters attached to lamposts pointing “This way for the time of your life!” with pictures of people in costume, and animals too.
“Will we get to see an elephant?” Eleanor said pointing at a poster that had a big beast riding what looked like a tiny bicycle. Her aunt looked at the poster and shrugged.
“Maybe, Eleanor. Maybe.”
The entrance to the fairground where the carnival was being held was packed with people.
“Five figgots,” a man wearing a large red nose said, barring their way.
“I beg your pardon?” Aunt Jackie said, as Eleanor pressed herself up close, peering at the strange looking man, from behind her coat.
“Entrance fee,” he said, smiling down at Eleanor. “Five figgots, for you. The cute kid gets in for free.”
Her aunt sighed and rummaged around in her bag, pulling out a crumpled five figgot note. The man reached for the note, but Aunt Jackie pulled it away. “It didn’t say anything about an entrance fee,” she said. “On the posters.”
“S’up to you, love,” the man shrugged. “You can pay the figgots and come in, or not and move along. Just be quick about it.”
Aunt Jackie gave the man the note and the let him stamp the back of her hand (“so’s you’s can get back in later for nuffing, if you go out or whatever”), and then holding Eleanor’s so that he could do the same.
Eleanor clenched her eyes shut, convinced it would hurt, but it didn’t. When she opened her eyes the back of her hand had a sparkling picture of a winking man.
“Wow,” she said. “Is that a magic stamp?”
The man shrugged his shoulders, sniffed a, “dunno, love, I just work ‘ere,” and then stepped aside to allow them through.
If Eleanor expected it to be less crowded once she was in the carnival, she was to be disappointed. The sound was deafening: loud music played through speakers there were people laughing, shouting and screaming. Aunt Jackie held her hand tightly and they moved slowly through the crowd. All Eleanor could see was the backsides of adults, and the heads of children, her age.
She began to panic.
At some point - she was never quite sure how it happened - her hand was separated from her aunt’s and she was swept away. She shouted, “Aunt Jackie! Aunt Jackie!” but she couldn’t see her aunt and she couldn’t even hear her own shouts, in the noise of the crowd, let alone hear her aunt calling her name.
She found herself being pulled into a tent, by a short man - no taller than her - with a beard that flowed onto the floor.
“Come in here, dear lady,” he said, his smile false and more alarming than comforting. “Come and see things you could never imagine possible: dragons eggs, and children with three heads!” Eleanor was pretty certain she did not want to see children with three heads. But she was intrigued by the mention of dragons eggs. And besides the way out of the tent was blocked by a wall of human legs as the pushed past and on their way.
“I’ve lost my aunt,” she said, her voice sounding small.
“Perhaps you will find her in here,” the man said, smiling widely, revealing yellowed pointed teeth.
Eleanor doubted that very much, but not knowing how she would force her way back out into the crowd, and not very much wanting to, she nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s have a look.”
The short man put his hand in his mouth and whistled. A woman with long white hair stepped forward. She had a nicer smile, and Eleanor felt better as soon as she saw it.
“Hello,” the woman said. “Let me take your hand and show you things you could never imagine existing! In this world or any others!”
Eleanor wasn’t sure that she could imagine what might, or might not, exist in another world, but she willingly gave her hand and the woman with the white hair led her through a curtain that sparkled purple and pink.
“Look through here,” she said, pointing at a small tube. “It will show you your future!”
Eleanor looked through the tube. At first she could see nothing, but blackness and then she saw what looked like a staircase that spiraled upwards.
On it was a man with multi-coloured eyes that met in the middle.
“Hello Eleanor,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you!”
Eleanor stepped back from the tube, stumbling and falling backwards. The white haired lady laughed.
“Didn’t you like what you saw? Look again, perhaps you’ll like it this time!”
Eleanor shook her head and pushed herself up from the floor, running out of the curtain and pushed herself past the small man and into the crowd of people.
“Come back!” she could hear the white haired woman shout, through the legs of the man she had squeezed past. She felt the woman’s hand grasp at her clothes, but she wriggled away further into the thick human river. “Come back, Eleanor! We haven’t finished with you, yet!”
Eleanor had never felt so alone, even though she was surrounded by people.
It took her aunt an hour to find her, and it took another two for Eleanor to stop crying.
Somehow, Eleanor had forgotten the trip to the carnival, suppressed the memory perhaps. But, as she jumped into the shimmering air, she was reminded of that suffocating feeling of being lost, and hunted as she was pursued by the voice of Janet.
“Come back, Eleanor! Come back! We haven’t finished with you! Not by a long way! Come back! Now!”
...
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