The girls worked that way covered in potato juice, dirt, and grease until midnight when they and the all-teenage crew cleaned-up and collected their money. The girls went back to the Horse Barn, falling asleep with the crickets ringing in their ears and greasy dollar bills burning holes in their pockets.
The girls worked that way for four long days—selling and peeling and frying white spuds grown just east of the White Earth reservation. Four days of watching day turn into night on carnival land, of watching the fireworks and the red and blue neon lights of the carnie spin off into the night sky, their lights joining the stars a billion miles away. The silhouettes of the Ferris wheel and roller coaster and the gigantic spider ride replaced Sher and Kris’s memory of a skyline with rounded
