Justice Keepers Saga - Books 10-12

Chapter 2-1

The little blue Honda Fit settled into a parking spot that was much too big for it. The engine went quiet, and the driver"s-side door popped open.

Jack emerged from the car into a muggy evening where the sun beat down and left orange sparkles on the black lenses of his glasses. A hot wind hit him and ruffled his hair. It was going to be a warm night, he could tell.

His mother"s apartment complex was a simple tower of white bricks in the middle of downtown Winnipeg, a twelve-story building that reached for red-rimmed clouds that stretched across the blue sky. There were other skyscrapers all around him and noisy cars zipping past on the road. He had almost forgotten what that was like. Leyrian streets were deathly silent by comparison.

Giving his old car a pat on its roof – it was his mother"s now; Jack had given it to her when he moved to Leyria – he shut the door and the left parking lot. The Honda beeped as he activated the alarm.

When he went around the corner, he found Anna waiting for him on the building"s front step, and she was so damn cute in a pair of jean shorts and a blue flannel sweater. Her strawberry-blonde hair was left loose for once, and it fell just past the nape of her neck.

Jack reached up with one hand and pulled down his sunglasses so that he could peek over the rims. “Whatcha doin" out here?” he asked. “I thought we were gonna have leftover spaghetti with Mom.”

Anna stood by the door with her arms crossed, smiling sheepishly at the pavement under her shoes. “That was the plan,” she agreed. “But I wanted to surprise you; so, I did a little research…”

She looked up at him with those lovely blue eyes, and any thought of asking what she meant by research went flying out of his head. “I thought maybe we could have a date night?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Anna stood on her toes, brushing his lips with hers, and then, before he could ask for more details, her arms encircled his neck. “You"ll see,” she whispered. “Plus I think your mom might appreciate a little privacy after a week of hosting us.”

“Probably,” Jack agreed. “So…”

“Don"t worry; I know the way.”

“You"re not gonna tell me, are you?”

“Nope.”

Five minutes later, they were on the road and headed toward the outskirts of the city. Anna gave directions, but Jack had to get behind the wheel. His girlfriend had never learned to drive. Leyrians rarely used cars. Most of their cities had efficient public-transit systems that could get you anywhere you wanted to go in about fifteen minutes.

Still, he was impressed by how well Anna knew her way around his hometown. She had a great sense of direction – Jack was still amazed at how quickly she had learned the layout of Ottawa on her first visit to Earth – but even though they were staying with his mother, they had spent very little time here in Winnipeg. She must have looked up their destination on a map, which meant a fair amount of planning had gone into this date.

It wasn"t long before they were driving through a neighbourhood near the one that he had grown up in. The pieces all snapped together in Jack"s head. Suddenly, he knew exactly where they were going. “No…” he said.

“Yup.”

After parking the car, they followed a crowd of people under a massive sign that read, “Welcome to the Apple Blossom Festival!” The carnival was located in an open field near the eastern bank of the Red River.

It was basically a tiny city of colourful tents laid out in neat, square patterns to form a grid of makeshift streets in the grass. You could find pretty much anything you wanted here: apple pies, homemade jewellery, teddy bears sewn by hand by an old woman who had been bringing her stuffed critters to the festival for almost twenty years. The sounds of the midway drowned out almost everything else. In the distance, a Ferris wheel turned lazily with glowing lights on every spoke.

Grinning so hard his jaw hurt, Jack tilted his head back and took in the sight. “It"s just like I remember it,” he mumbled. “I gotta give you props for this one, An. You came up with the perfect date night.”

Anna was holding his hand as they made their way through the crowd. She glanced over her shoulder with a sly little smile of her own. “Well, I can"t take all the credit.”

all“What do you mean?”

“Your mom told me that when you were young, you always wanted to take a girl to the fair, but you never had anyone to go with.”

Closing his eyes, Jack nodded. “That"s true,” he said. “But I"m surprised Mom knew that. I don"t recall telling her.”

Anna spun around to stand in front of him, and then, before he could utter one word of protest, she was tickling him. He flinched and giggled, trying to get away, but his girlfriend was relentless. “It"s hard to keep secrets from the people who love you,” she said.

Jack was laughing so hard he had tears on his cheeks. “Okay! Okay!” He retreated, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of one hand. “Your point is taken. Henceforth, I will submit to your Orwellian invasion of privacy.”

“So…”

“So?”

Standing on her toes, Anna kissed his cheek. “Would you like to be my date to the fair?” she whispered. “We could have some apple pie, listen to the live music, maybe ride the Ferris wheel.”

“I would love to.”

Their journey took them down a wide lane between two rows of colourful tents. A blue one on his left was occupied by a woman in her fifties who still wore sunglasses even though the last traces of twilight were fading from the sky. One glance and Jack understood why. She was selling designer sunglasses.

On his right, several kids from the local high school sold corn on the cob from a bright yellow tent. Maybe half a dozen people were clustered around a table that was loaded up with t-shirts.

Anna slipped her arm around his waist and snuggled up with her head on his chest. “This place…” she murmured. “I can totally see teenage you daydreaming about bringing a girl here.”

Eventually, they found themselves in the midway, surrounded by all sorts of crazy rides. There were the giant strawberries that went round and round in a circle. There was the Scrambler; Jack thought that one was aptly named because it looked and moved like the spinning head of a blender. One was shaped like a huge octopus with cars at the end of every tentacle. Kids screamed, and the scent of popcorn filled the air.

They were fenced in on all sides by carnival games, each one sheltered from the elements under a metal roof that was decked out in blinking lights. The men and women who operated those games all cried out, beckoning people to try their luck.

A young woman with dark skin and long hair that she wore in corn-rows was running a game of Skee Ball. She caught Jack"s eye and favoured him with a salesman"s smile. “Win it for your girlfriend?” she said, pointing to the big stuffed panda that hung over her head.

Jack stepped up to her with his hands clasped behind his back, craning his neck to examine the prizes. “Tempting,” he said, eyebrows rising. “What do you say, Anna? Want me to win you a teddy bear?”

In the blink of an eye, Anna placed herself in front of him. That impish grin of hers told him that he had just made this a contest. “I don"t know,” she replied. “Do you want me to win you a teddy bear?”

you“Sure.”

The young woman looked at him with a quizzical expression.

He shrugged and lowered his eyes, a mild flush warming his cheeks. “I like teddy bears,” he explained. “So, how "bout I try to win you one, and you try to win me one?”

“Deal,” Anna agreed.

The rules were pretty simple. To win a teddy bear, you had to earn at least twelve hundred points in three throws. Which meant that you had to get the ball in one of the two rings in the upper corners – both worth five hundred points – at least twice.

Jack pressed his lips together as he studied the lane, sizing it all up with spatial awareness. He felt an eagerness from Summer. The math played out instinctively in his mind. Well…It wasn"t really math; there were no symbols or numbers. It was what math would be if it could be expressed with emotion. A certainty that he had to throw the ball exactly this hard. He had done this many times before, but usually, it involved shooting a g*n with precision.

this Lifting the ball in his hand, Jack examined it. Not just with his eyes or his fingers but with his mind. There were tiny nicks along its surface. It would roll unevenly. He had to account for that.

He tossed the ball.

It landed squarely in the lane, rolled along at dizzying speed and hopped from the end of the ramp…right into the ring in the upper-left corner. The young woman turned her head, her eyes widening in surprise.

“Beginner"s luck,” Jack assured her.

Of course, that explanation was far less convincing when he performed the exact same feat a second time. For his final throw, he chose the ring in the upper-right corner. The ball went in with a satisfying thunk.

thunk.Next to him, Anna completed her final throw and stood up straight with a grin on her face. “Well,” she said. “I guess you can choose any prize you want.”

“You both can,” the young woman muttered. She reached for the huge panda – the most expensive prize she had to offer – but Anna forestalled. “No, he"s cute, but I want something a little smaller. That one.”

She pointed to a modestly-sized, brown teddy bear with a blue bow-tie. A cutie to be sure. The instant Anna got her hands on him, she squeezed him tight as if he were a treasured childhood toy. “I love him!” she exclaimed.

Jack"s bear was black with a brown snout and a cream-coloured bow-tie. He knew right away that he would keep the little guy forever as a reminder of this night. “Come on,” Anna said, leading toward the rides.

Fifteen minutes later, they were climbing into the car of a Ferris wheel and waiting patiently as the attendant fastened the safety bar. They began to rise, the city lights coming into view bit by bit.

Anna was next to him with hands folded in her lap, smiling lovingly at him. “I"m really glad we came here tonight,” she murmured. “You"re such a romantic.”

Jack slipped his arm around her shoulders, and she cuddled up with her head on his chest. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Because I had a silly fantasy about taking a girl to the fair when I was in high school?”