Chapter 3 #5
Alex: When he’d got the casing off, he showed us two wires that had to be touching for the override to work.
He said that they’d come loose, so that they were touching most of the time but could also come apart.
He said that if those wires weren’t touching each other, the light would come on and it would be possible to send a second carriage around the track.
It seemed pretty simple. He’d put some kind of plastic tubing over them so they couldn’t come apart again.
He said he was confident it would fix it, but obviously John might want to send a few empty carriages around before opening it to the public again.
John: I was relieved it was such an easy fix, to be honest.
Sebastian: It made sense, what Nigel was saying. If anything about the park appealed to me, it was that side of things. The mechanics. It was clear that Dad was going to be tied up for a while, so I went back and told Mum he was busy.
Nigel: I’m Nigel, the engineer. I told John I’d fixed it temporarily, with that bit of plastic, but that the wires and really the whole mechanism could do with being replaced altogether in the next few months.
John: He didn’t say anything about further work, no. I remember saying that I would see him in November because that’s when he generally serviced all the rides.
Nigel: I mean, it was fixed, and I didn’t see the fix breaking down any time soon, but if it was me, I would definitely have done the replacement. I told him it might be pricey.
Pea: There was something about Nigel coming back to do something more permanent, yes. I don’t know whether that ever happened. It went straight out of my head.
John: After Nigel had left, I got the dummies we used to test rides when they were new or had been serviced, and I sent carriage after carriage around that track.
One after another for a full hour. At one point I realised that Sebastian was beside me again.
He told me to come home, that Cathy had sent him to get me, but I couldn’t.
I had to keep doing it, to prove something to myself.
Every single time I sent those carriages around the track, the light came on exactly when it was supposed to and the carriages came nowhere near each other.
So I was satisfied that it was resolved. We reopened the 360 the next day.
Cathy: John explained to me, later, about the loose connection.
I asked whether Nigel had been able to fix it then and there.
He said yes, he had. I asked whether he needed to come back for anything.
He said no, he didn’t. I left it at that.
I handled the office stuff, the paperwork, and he handled the rides.
Danny: So the ride is fixed, but possibly not properly. But at least they’ve kept the news of the accident contained, right? Right?
Cathy: By the time Maggie called, it had all died down.
The boy who’d been injured was fine, back at school.
We’d sent flowers to his family. People were using the 360 again.
It had been a slow start, with parents being overly cautious – understandably.
But after they’d seen it in operation a few times, people seemed to relax a bit.
So I was totally thrown when the phone rang and I heard Maggie’s voice.
Maggie: Some kid called Nicole Waddington had sent me a letter telling me there’d been an accident at Wildworld.
I had to admire the girl. I don’t know how she found out my name and address and I don’t know what her beef was with the Hunters.
She said that a boy had been seriously injured and insinuated that he’d almost lost his leg.
I didn’t know what to make of it. But I called Cathy to ask her whether there was any truth in it.
I half expected her to laugh it off, say she didn’t know what I was talking about.
I probably would have left it there, if she had.
I wouldn’t have gone digging for information.
But that wasn’t how Cathy reacted. She kept starting to speak and then pausing, starting from the beginning again.
In the end, I said, ‘Cathy, just level with me. Tell me what happened.’ And she did.
I was shocked. In the US, the kid’s family would have sued, but she said it was all dealt with and the park was open as usual.
‘Is that ride open?’ I asked. She said it was.
I sighed. I didn’t really know how to play this.
I couldn’t risk AJ coming to any harm, but I knew he was still set on this theme park idea and it was a bit late to start scouting other options.
I said, ‘Cathy, do you swear to me that this issue is resolved?’ She said it was.
No hesitation. So I said I would talk to AJ and the rest of the team and we’d get back to her.
Zak: The first I heard of it was when Maggie called us all together, AJ and Mum and me, plus all of his crew – bodyguard, stylist, makeup artist, personal assistant.
Everyone who’d be travelling to Europe, basically.
She said there’d been an accident at Wildworld.
I thought of Pea, imagined her hurt. I’d had a letter from her a few days ago.
But something could have happened since then, couldn’t it?
I asked Maggie if Pea was okay. Couldn’t help it.
Maggie: Zak was worried about Pea. I said she was fine.
That everyone was fine. But a boy had been hurt on a rollercoaster.
AJ looked bored. He said, ‘Are you about to say we can’t stay there?
’ I said no, I just wanted them to have all the information before we made the trip.
He said, ‘Cool, well, I don’t care.’ He was sixteen and invincible, of course.
But his mum. Well, she was a mum. She asked me for more details, and I told her everything I knew, including the fact that Cathy had assured me the ride had been fixed since the incident and was open to the public again and there had been no further issues. She said she wasn’t sure.
Grace: I didn’t like the sound of it at all.
I was ready to call the whole thing off.
Who stayed in a frickin’ theme park anyway?
I wanted to go to a hotel and spend the money on some good security.
Then we’d be able to sleep in comfort and have proper showers.
AJ didn’t care about any of that, though, and he was in charge.
I held off for a couple of days but I knew he’d get what he wanted in the end.
What I didn’t expect was for it to be Zak who talked me round.
He came to me late one night, when I was reading in bed and I thought he was playing video games, and he told me about Pea.
Now, I knew when him and Maggie came back that there’d been something with a girl over there.
Maggie had given me the lowdown. Zak had said nothing.
Typical teenage boy. But that night, he lay on the empty side of my king-size bed and didn’t look at me while he told me about this girl who he’d been exchanging letters with, and how he thought he might be in love with her.
Zak: Yeah, I begged Mom not to change the plans. I can’t remember what I said, exactly, but it worked. The next day, I wrote Pea a letter to reassure her that it was all still on.
Pea,
It’s been a weird few days. I thought the whole thing was going to be called off.
I mean, not the tour, but the visit to Wildworld.
AJ didn’t care about the accident. Neither did I as soon as I’d heard you were okay.
I mean, it’s not that I don’t care that someone was hurt, but it didn’t make me not want to come.
You know what moms can be like, though. I ended up telling her about you, about us, and how much I wanted to spend that time with you.
She’s a good listener, when she wants to be.
She didn’t say a single word. I kept looking over at her to check she hadn’t fallen asleep.
We were lying side by side on her bed. Then when I finally stopped talking, she said she appreciated me telling her all that and she would keep thinking about it.
Then this morning, she came in while me and AJ were eating breakfast and said she was happy to leave things as they were, since we were both so keen to go.
AJ high-fived me and walked off with a piece of toast in his mouth.
Mom yelled after him to use a plate, but he didn’t come back.
The US part of the tour is done now, and AJ’s in rehearsals for the Europe leg.
He can’t just stand on the stage and sing, there have to be all these costume changes and special effects and dance routines.
I go to watch him rehearse sometimes, although as soon as he notices me there he throws a towel or something at me and tells me to get out.
They work him really hard. I suppose that’s fair enough, with how much money he makes.
School is weird, too. I’ve got exams coming up and everyone’s worried and serious.
People are always asking what I’m going to do with my life, and whether I’m just going to follow my brother around like a puppy.
It makes me want to hit something. That English teacher who said she thought I could be a journalist has been sort of coaching me, talking to me about colleges.
I’m not going straight from high school to college, and I told her that.
She said that was okay, but I might want to go in a year or two, or maybe in ten years.
It made me think about what things might be like in ten years. Will AJ still be famous? Will I be a journalist? Will I still be writing to you?
Love, Zak
Zak,
I was so relieved to get your letter and hear you’re still coming.
Mum has been talking to Maggie but it’s felt like everything’s quite up in the air.
Not long to go, now. I don’t know whether it’s okay to say this, but I forget, sometimes, what your voice sounds like or what precise colour your eyes are.
I keep getting out the photos you sent. It doesn’t feel real that we only spent a couple of days together, and now all these months have passed.
It’s going to be amazing to be together for six weeks.
Exams here too. Everyone keeps going on and on about how they’re the most important thing in the world, which doesn’t help.
I’m okay at Science and Maths but English and History, or anything where I have to write essays, are my worst nightmare.
I’ll never be a writer like you. I’ve been thinking, actually, about what I might do, when I’m finished with school.
Mum wants me to go to university – no one in our family has ever gone.
Is university in England the same as college in America?
I’m not sure. Dad wants me to work at the park, but there’s no way I’m going to do that unless I can be in charge.
It’s so sexist, the fact that Dad wants to give the park to his son and not his daughter.
Anyway, all of that is way in the future and I can’t think much further ahead than your visit. Will you go to all the concerts with AJ, or will you stay behind with me when he travels?
Love, Pea
Zak: Something about writing to Pea calmed me.
It was to do with the actual physicality of it, I think.
The scratching of pen on paper. Forming those letters and words, knowing that they would travel across the world and end up in her hands, and that she would pore over them the way I did with her letters, folding and refolding.
I told her that I would probably go to some of the concerts but most of the time I would stay at the park with her.
There’s only so many times you can watch your brother dancing around a stage in front of thousands of screaming girls singing the same songs before you go insane.
Cathy: By the end of March, things were settled. The visit was going ahead. John was so relieved. I mean, we both were, but him especially. The year had started off strong but there’d been a definite tailing off following the accident.
John: I just wanted to get it started. The sooner it started, the sooner it would be over, and we’d have the cash we needed to smarten up the place and reinvest.
Cathy: At night, sometimes, I dreamed about the amount of money they’d agreed to give us. It was enough to start a new life, if we wanted to. We could leave the park behind.
Pea: I never thought about the money, no. Just about Zak.
Sebastian: I felt like if I never heard the name AJ Silver again, it would be too soon.
I’d never wanted to take over Wildworld, but I wanted it even less by then.
But it didn’t seem to matter what I said to Dad about it; it was like he couldn’t compute it.
I couldn’t wait to get out of there, honestly.
Danny: So there you have it. The AJ Silver visit is back on, or still on.
And next week we’re jumping right in with that visit, and showing you that even before AJ Silver’s death, everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Don’t forget to tell us what you’re thinking on socials at @WhatHappenedThatSummer.
And if you’re enjoying the podcast, leave us a review!
JanBee_6
I can’t believe there was no real investigation into that poor kid’s accident just because it didn’t involve someone famous! The 90s were a wild time! #WhatHappenedThatSummer
MikeyBoy
I can’t believe you can just buy a rollercoaster. Anyone else tempted to see whether they could fit one in the back garden? #WhatHappenedThatSummer
Alice_in_Wonderland
So, interesting that John, Pea, Alex and Sebastian all saw how the engineer fixed the loose connection. Do we think one of them could have sabotaged the ride when AJ died? I’m not sure why any of them would, though. What would the motive be? #WhatHappenedThatSummer
NotthatGina
I cannot wait for the next episode because I’m assuming that’s when AJ Silver appears on the scene! #WhatHappenedThatSummer
86Ella86
I’ve had AJ Silver playing on repeat since the podcast started. Kid had some good songs. I was a metalhead at the time so didn’t appreciate them. I think he would have gone on to do something great. Shame he didn’t get the chance. No one should die at 17. #WhatHappenedThatSummer