Read Online Nothing to Lose by Alex Flinn - Free Book Online Page A

the Whack-a-Mole, a game was in progress. I watched a guy in an exterminator’s uniform win a stuffed bear for a kid. Kirstie didn’t look at me, just handed the boy the bear.
    She glanced up, smiling, like she’d known I was there all along. “Ready?” She unclipped her money belt and tossed it to an older red-haired woman who’d joined her.
    “Yeah,” I said.
    Kirstie looked at Karpe. “You coming too?”
    Karpe shook his head. “Think I’ll try and upgrade to the big prize.” He waved Clifford at her.
    Kirstie smiled. “We’ll be back in an hour.” Then she leaned over and whispered something in his ear.
    She saw me looking and said, “Excuse me.”
    “Sorry.”
    “That’s okay.” She gestured for me to follow her toward the midway.
    “Where are we going?” I said. “Eat?”
    “You hungry?”
    “No.” Remembering my suddenly empty pockets.
    “Me neither.” She was still walking fast, but she swung her hand, brushing mine. The second time she did it, I grabbed her fingers. She smiled, and I wondered why I was being so shy. We’d already kissed, for God’s sake. But I couldn’t decide whether to pull her toward me or pull back.
    I pulled back. “So, where are we going?”
    “Double Ferris wheel. I love it up there.”
    I nodded and followed her. I was hungry. But, more than that, I wanted to be with her.
    The fair has a music of its own. Not just the music on the loudspeakers, heavy metal from the Himalaya, Garth Brooks from the fried-onion booth. There was other music, the call of the carnies, the whir of the roller coaster, the cries of kids begging parents for more tickets. I heard it. I heard it and felt Kirstie’s nearness as we walked toward the ride.
    We passed a booth, one of those spinning wheels where you pay a dollar for a chance to win something. A crowd of kids stood around, and the guy was about to spin it. Kirstie stopped to watch.
    “You want to play?” I asked her.
    She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe in luck.”
    The guy spun the wheel, and it landed on Lose. Kirstie shrugged, and squeezed close to my arm. We headed across to the double Ferris wheel.
    She strode to the front of the line and nodded to the skinny blond kid operating it. He let us in with the next group, Kirstie merging in so expertly that no one noticed we’d cut. We reached our car, and she waited while I pulled the metal bar down over us.
    “That’s Cricket.” She gestured toward the blond boy.
    “How old is he?” He looked twelve.
    “That’s not something you ask around here. People’s real names, where they’re from. Stuff like that’s on a need-to-know basis. There’s a lot of secrets around here.”
    “What’s yours?”
    “Maybe I’ll tell you someday.”
    Someday. The word held a promise. And an irony, too, that she would kiss me but she wouldn’t tell me her secret. It was okay. I wouldn’t tell her mine either.
    “Tell me something else then,” I said when the ride lurched to a start.
    “What?” She leaned toward me. Could have been the momentum of the ride, but I didn’t think so. “What do you think you need to know?”
    “What did you say to Karpe … to my friend?”
    She smiled, and for a second I thought she wouldn’t answer.
    But she said, “I told him to pick the spot with the oldest-looking balloon.”
    “Why?” I remembered her putting on a new balloon for each customer, everyone but me.
    “When you first put on a balloon, a new one, it’s fresh, strong. But once it’s been played a few times, it gets stretched out. There’s only so much it can take. It’s at the breaking point.”
    The breaking point. I thought about that. Then I thought about Mom in her beautiful, spotless house.
    I said, “So you let me win.”
    “You could say that.”
    “Why?”
    I thought she’d say she was grateful to me for playing, for rescuing her from that asshole. I hoped she’d say I was too hot for her to resist.
    Instead, she moved closer. “You looked like