Chapter Twelve. Betty, 1950
CHAPTER TWELVE
—The Washington Post
After months of anticipation, the fair had come to their town in Virginia.
Posters were taped to storekeepers’ windows and stapled onto telephone poles, and crowds gathered on Main Street to watch the caravan of tractors and trucks roll by.
County Fair Opens Today! blared the headline of the newspaper crinkling in Betty’s father’s hands at the breakfast table.
Betty skipped down the sidewalk, transfixed by the wonders that lay just ahead.
“Slow down, Peaches!” her mother called, but Betty couldn’t. Riotous music crackled through giant speakers, rides spun and bounced, and cotton candy and roasted nuts perfumed the air. She felt like a character from a storybook stepping into an enchanted land.
Betty’s father had given her six nickels to spend. She’d been entrusted to carry them wrapped in a handkerchief in her skirt pocket. With every skip, the little knot bounced lightly off her leg.
She waited impatiently until her mother caught up to her at the entrance gate. Then they stepped inside.
Her head spun as she took in a juggler entertaining onlookers, two 4-H club boys leading cows to the newly erected barn, and a row of booths selling everything from pickles to knitted socks.
“You couldn’t hit the side of a barn from two feet away, Sonny!” someone shouted so loudly that Betty flinched. She spun around and saw a man with shiny jet-black hair parted down the middle, sitting in a chair raised above a tank of water.
Betty’s eyes widened as a teenaged boy from the neighborhood named Rusty threw a baseball at a red target next to the barrel and missed.
“You throw like a girl!” the man hooted.
Rusty’s cheeks reddened. He picked up another baseball and hurled it harder. This time he hit the target. A buzzer sounded and the man splashed down into the water.
The man popped up a second later, his black-and-white-striped suit soaking wet, and shook himself like a dog. Rusty’s friends cheered and he collected his prize, a bright yellow yo-yo, as the man climbed back into the chair.
“Betcha can’t do it again!” he shouted, but Rusty was already walking away.
Betty reached for her mother’s hand and tugged it, pulling her toward the line for the merry-go-round.
When it was her turn, she handed one of her precious nickels to the man at the booth.
She picked a purple horse with a curly white mane and her mother boosted her onto its back.
Betty held on to a strap while the music played and her horse began to move up and down, making Betty’s stomach tickle.
The faces in the crowds blurred as she spun past them, laughing. All too soon it was over.
“Do you want to ride again?” Betty’s mother asked, but she shook her head. There were too many other things to do.
She bought a cotton candy, pinching off bits that melted in her mouth and turned her fingertips sticky and pink, then walked by the row of carnie booths.
You could throw a ball through a net or toss a plastic ring over the neck of a soda bottle or try to guess the number of brightly wrapped sweets in a giant glass jar.
If you were the closest, you’d win the whole jar.
It was enough candy to last a year, even if Betty shared it with her family.
“Get your guesses in! We’re picking today’s winner in an hour!” the carnie shouted.
It cost a nickel for a chance. Betty’s mother was a few feet away, examining an apron for sale at one of the booths, so Betty printed her full name on the slip of paper, as instructed, then eyed the jar before carefully selecting a number.
The carnie folded up her slip and put it into a basket filled with other guesses.
“What’s next?” her mother asked, coming up to stand beside Betty.
Next was a visit to see the baby lambs in the barn, then Betty ate a corndog and watched the apple pie judging contest. She couldn’t resist buying a colorful pinwheel and blowing on it.
Betty saved her final nickel for the grand finale: a ride on the Ferris wheel.
As they soared high above the ground, Betty stared down at the tiny people and buildings.
She didn’t have the exact word for what she felt but later, when she thought back on the day, she’d realize it was this one: alive.
Her mother was tired, though. Betty could tell because she was limping slightly, like she always did when the heavy blue veins in her legs ached.
“Ready to go?”
“But the candy contest,” Betty protested. She led her mother back to the booth.
As they reached it, she caught sight of the man behind the counter. “Is Betty Sadler here?” he was calling. “Betty Sadler?”
“That’s me!” Betty cried.
He stared at her in a way that made goosebumps rise on her arms.
“Little girl, you are very lucky!” His voice was loud and people turned to stare.
“Two thousand six hundred and forty-two candies are in this jar. Do you know how close you were?”
Betty did know—she’d written down the number, after all—but she shook her head.
“You got it exactly right! First time it’s ever happened. You’re the winner!”
The crowd applauded as the carnie reached out and shook Betty’s hand. His felt rough and dry as it swallowed up her small fingers.
Then the carnie lifted the glass jug and put it into her mother’s arms. Betty’s mother staggered under the weight.
“Could my husband pick it up when he gets off work?” she asked, sliding it back onto the counter.
“Sure thing.”
A man in a short-sleeved white shirt crowded close to Betty. “Skip Rappaport from the Daily paper. How’d you know the exact amount?”
Betty looked up at her mother, unsure of what to say. But her mother’s eyes gave no clues. Her arms were folded and her mouth was a tight line, as if she wasn’t happy at all that Betty had won.
“I guessed,” Betty finally told the reporter, who scribbled down her answer with a pencil.
“You’re the luckiest girl in town,” he said. He asked Betty to pose next to the glass jar as a camera flashed, then Betty’s mother tugged her away saying, “It’s dinnertime.”
They were almost at the gate when Betty’s mother ran into some friends from their Catholic church.
While the women chatted, Betty watched the Ferris wheel spin in slow circles.
Then she looked at the pinwheel still in her hand.
You had to blow on it to make it move—it was a windless day, so the points were still—but somehow, the pinwheel began to spin all on its own.
Betty stared at it, delighted, as the points moved faster and faster and the colors blurred.
“Look at that ankle biter!” A clown with giant shoes and a painted face was pointing at Betty. “How are you doing that?”
Betty looked up to see her mother’s mouth falling open. The two women from the church were staring at her. One began backing away, crossing herself. Others gathered, drawn by the clown’s shout.
All the noise and movement around her seemed to stop. No one was applauding or taking her picture, like they’d done when she won the candy.
She had the sinking feeling she’d done something terribly wrong.
The next thing she knew, she felt a sharp pain in her arm. Her mother was yanking her away, dragging her out the gates as her pinwheel lay on the ground, crushed.
“Don’t ever do anything like that again!”
Her mother kept repeating it, her voice trembling, as she marched Betty home.
“I won’t!” Betty promised as tears ran down her cheeks. She didn’t understand what had just happened; she hadn’t meant to do anything bad. But one thing was clear. Her mother was scared of something. Maybe even of her.