The Green (Touchdown Edition)

Chapter 1: Trouble on The Flight To Mars

I can't say that I was totally surprised about ending up in the Puyallup Fair security shed dressed like an alien. But I certainly didn't plan on a huge--and totally insane--security guard named Officer Armstrong screaming at me so loud that a little blue vein popped out of his neck. And I definitely didn't plan on Officer Armstrong calling my mother and having her escort me out of the fair. It just worked out that way.

My name is Jason Green, I'm thirteen years old, and I guess you could say that I'm kind of a goofball. I go to the Puyallup Fair pretty much every October. It's been going on as long as I can remember. My parents went there when they were kids, which means the fair is really old, because they haven't been kids in like thirty years.

Puyallup is a rural town about an hour outside of Seattle. I've lived here my whole life. Puyallup is pronounced "phew-al-up." If you think it's hard to say, try spelling it. I get excited about the Puyallup Fair every year because it's got all kinds of great things, like skeet ball, roller coasters, and this cow made entirely out of butter--you have to see it to understand, trust me. But my absolute favorite thing about the fair is the Flight to Mars. It's this ride that's supposed to be like taking a trip to Mars and back. You sit in an electric car that goes around on this track and you pass by all these hokey glow-in-the-dark martians and giant robot spiders. There's fake fog and flashing lights too. The car jerks you around on the track, and sometimes you're facing backward so you don't know what's going to happen next. I must have ridden the Flight to Mars at least a hundred times.

A couple of months before the fair was supposed to open, I got this great idea in my head. What if I dressed up like an alien and found my way into the workings of the Flight to Mars? What if, at the perfect moment, I jumped out and scared some unassuming passengers? Funny, right? I thought that a screaming martian would add some flavor to a rider's experience. I almost felt like I was doing a service to the fair in some way. Almost.

I told my best friend Calvin about my plan and he also thought it was an excellent idea. In fact, he liked the concept so much that he assisted me in creating the perfect costume. We searched my house until we found the right gear. I put on some old silver ski clothes and colored my face green with glow-in-the-dark paint that was leftover from last Halloween. I made antennae with one of my mom's headbands and some glow sticks. To top everything off, I put on a set of gigantic fangs I'd kept from a spider costume I wore in a school play. I don't know if aliens actually have fangs, or if I looked even remotely like an alien for that matter. Either way, Calvin and I thought the costume was pretty scary. After all, I did have a green face and fangs. If I saw something with a green face and fangs, it would scare the heck out of me.

You're probably wondering how I managed to get into the fair dressed like an alien. Well, the Puyallup Fair has a whole bunch of weird characters walking around, making it easy to blend in. The best way for me to describe the fair would be to tell you what I saw on my way in. Directly in front of the entrance, there were two men wrestling each other in full scuba gear. A woman cheering them on was wearing a gigantic block of cheese on her head. She had just purchased some popcorn from a guy in a bear suit. He was on roller skates. Another words, the fair was like a giant freak show. So it made sense that nobody said a word when Calvin entered beside a green-faced alien with fangs.

By the time we were in line for the Flight to Mars I was so excited that I could hardly stand it. I was giggling uncontrollably, anticipating the scared reaction of unsuspecting passengers. Our car came up and Calvin and I hopped in. The guy loading us looked like he was working on an assembly line or something. He didn't even glance up at us, let alone comment on the fact that I was dressed as an alien with fangs. Our car sped away unnoticed.

When the car moved us into the darkness and just past the oversized stuffed green monster, I squeezed out of my seat.

"Good luck, man," Calvin said in a serious tone, bumping knuckles with me.

"I'll see you outside."

"Thanks," I said.

I crossed the track and crouched down on the other side of the monster, out of sight from the mechanical cars slowly passing by. The first few came by, but they were filled mostly with laughing boys and kids with their parents. Then I heard them. The voices of two girls were coming my way. As they rounded the bend, I could see that they were alone and that they already looked freaked out. It was too perfect. I attacked. "Boo-ahhh-ha-ha-ha-ha!" I screamed as I jumped in front of their car.

Maybe my costume was too scary. Maybe my fangs were too realistic. Maybe my "boo-ahhh-ha-ha-ha-ha" sounded a little too convincing. Whatever the reason, the two girls absolutely freaked when they saw me. They started screaming and crying within a few seconds, so I immediately backed off and ran for cover behind the stuffed monster that I could barely find in the darkness. But even with me out of sight, they kept wailing away. They'd passed by and were far down the ride, but I could still hear them like they were right next to me. I knew this was going to mean trouble.

I figured that now was probably a good time to get out of the Flight to Mars as fast as possible. But the place was totally black, and finding the exit in the darkness was basically impossible. I started running and looking for a way out, but it seemed like with every step I took, I was bumping into something or tripping over a wire. First, I tripped on the track and fell into the giant robot spiderweb. I was caught and wrestled the web and the spider to get free. Something was blocking my arm, so I pushed forward as hard as I could until I heard a loud snap. A spider leg broke off into my hand and I was free. Unfortunately, the spider started making a hissing sound, and I began to smell smoke. Now, I really needed to get out of there.

I ran to my left but was stopped again by that stupid stuffed monster. And I mean literally stopped. I ran into the green giant at full speed and we both fell down. Frantically, I picked myself up and took off in the other direction. It was too dark to see where I was going, and my antennae kept getting into my eyes and blocking my vision. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before those girls reached the open air, and only a few more seconds until somebody came after me. My heart started to pound in my chest. I was sweating from the heat of my costume and the unnerving feeling of being trapped in the darkness. Finally, I saw the exit. But just as I bolted toward it, I tripped again and fell into a pile of fake toxic waste barrels. (At least I hoped they were fake.) I had just about freed my left leg from one of the barrels when the lights came on.

This was bad for a couple of reasons. First of all, I saw how everything in the ride worked. I saw all the wires, the fake martians, and the cheesy lights. I thought the Flight to Mars was dumb with the lights off, but it was pathetic with the lights on; it was basically a warehouse filled with bad props. The second piece of bad news was that I could now see all the damage that I'd caused, and it wasn't pretty. The bigger issue, though, was the guard who had burst into the ride and had found me right away. I didn't even have a chance to run. I was still holding a plastic spider leg under my arm when I felt his gigantic hand pick me up by the shirt. I could barely see through the thick clouds of smoke that had formed.

When I got outside, Calvin was nowhere to be seen, but the two girls I had scared were right out front. They were crying hysterically and their parents glared at me. Apparently, they didn't get my joke either.

"I guess scaring two little girls makes you feel pretty big, huh?" the father said as I passed. This was not going to end well.

The security guard, who had still forgotten to remove his hand from my neck, was a gargantuan bald guy with terrible breath. He was so big that he looked fake, like a statue or something. No one should be allowed to grow that large. His arms were the size of my legs. His legs were like tree trunks. I told him that he would be an excellent prop for the Flight to Mars, but I don't think he was amused. This was not the kind of person I wanted to make mad, but it seemed like every time I opened my mouth he became more agitated by me. He was pacing back and forth in the security shed, yelling. The small wooden structure shook with each footstep he took.

"Son," he screamed, "your entrance into this Fair is a contract between you and the community at large. When you pass through my turnstiles, you are consenting to play by my rules. This is my fair! It's been my fair for twenty years. During those years, not one person has ever left the Flight to Mars screaming their head off like that. Do you know why that is?" I shook my head and he continued, "Because no punk kid in a cheap excuse for an alien costume has ever gone berserk in my ride! What's with you? The damage you caused in there," he paused and let the veins on his neck pop out even more, "well, we're going to have to close the ride for at least a week. A week! How does that make you feel?"

I was sure that was one of those questions that you weren't really supposed to answer, so I just continued to sit silently. After what seemed like an eternity of yelling, Officer Armstrong made me give him my phone number and he called my house. When he hung up, he looked at me and said, "Your mother will be here in twenty minutes. And let me tell you, son, I would not want to be in your shoes right now." I never agreed with anyone as much as I agreed with Officer Armstrong just then.

You know how sometimes, like on the last day of the school year, you look at the clock and wish you could speed up time so that summer could start already? Well, I was sitting in Officer Armstrong's security shed trying to do the exact opposite. Among security monitors, lots of walkie-talkies, and a poster of a gigantic weight lifter that said, "I MAY NOT BE SMART, BUT I CAN LIFT HEAVY THINGS," sat a black-and-white clock. It was the old style, not quite digital, the kind where the numbers flip down like a tear-off calendar.

Anyway, I was staring at that old clock while Officer Neck Vein watched over me, shaking his head and opening his eyes as wide as he could every once in a while to freak me out. Meanwhile, I was trying to do everything in my power to slow the clock down. I concentrated as hard as I could. I concentrated so hard it hurt. I wanted the clock to move backward. I needed more time to build a defense against the impending doom of Mom's arrival.

2:19

Gobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgoback gobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgobackgoback.

..

2:20...Nuts.

It was no use. My mom was going to be here in ten minutes and there was nothing I could do about it. At least Officer Armstrong had stopped yelling at me. I think he got bored. There's only so many times in a half hour that you can tell a person that they're "never going to amount to a hill of squat."

Officer Armstrong was now staring intently at the security monitors, looking for more problems to solve. Man, did this guy take his job seriously. I imagined him sleeping in the shed so that he could be seconds away from averting any disaster that might come up at the fair. The funny thing about this was that with the exception of a really hot day that melted the butter cow two years ago, nothing bad ever happened at the fair. Today was probably the highlight of Officer Armstrong's security career.

As the clock flipped to 2:31, my mom walked into the security shed. Officer Armstrong stood up when he noticed her. "You must be Mrs. Green," he said.

"Unfortunately today, yes," Mom let out a small laugh. "I'm sorry my son was such a nuisance." She looked over at me when she spoke those words.

"I am too," said Officer Armstrong. "It has been a superlative number of weeks, and I'm sorry that your son spoiled an otherwise perfect fair. With the destruction of the Flight to Mars and those little girls that he scared to death--"

"You scared a bunch of little girls, Jason?" Mom was not happy.

"Yes he did, in addition to breaking the robotic spider, the zombie martian, toppling the toxic waste barrels, bending the track in two places, and setting off the smoke alarm." Officer Armstrong was very serious, reporting my misbehavior in the way that a TV anchorman would deliver the nightly news. I was ready for him to tell Mom that there would be "more at eleven," but instead, Officer Armstrong said, "I am sure you are probably a wonderful mother, Mrs. Green, but we really had a problem with your son today."

"I understand," Mom said. "I know you have a very hard job to do. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. Thank you, Officer Armstrong."

Officer Armstrong puffed up his chest like a dog being praised. "I'm just doing my job, Mrs. Green. I remember back in eighty-five when those boys tried to break in here after dark and shave the bearded lady." His eyes began to get watery as he finished the story. "When I walked into her tent, she was sound asleep and her face was already covered with shaving cream." He paused for emphasis, looking at Mom in the eye. "Luckily, I got there just in the nick of time."

Mom looked confused and ready to leave the shed when she said, "Well, I can assure you that Jason will be adequately punished for the trouble he caused today." My mom handed Officer Armstrong her business card. "And please, let me know how much money he owes to fix the ride."

Officer Armstrong took her card. "Thank you," he said. "I repeat, I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances."

"Me too," Mom said. "Come on, let's go, Jason." I stood up, and Mom and I walked out of the shed together.

"Oh, and kid," I turned around as Officer Armstrong spoke to me, "if I so much as even see your face within one hundred yards of my fair, we are going to have a problem. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," I answered.

As soon as we got out of earshot of Officer Armstrong, my mom let out a little laugh. "My goodness, he does take his job seriously."

"No kidding," I said. I was glad my mom was able to laugh this off. I could always count on Mom to see things in the same way I did. She knew that Officer Neck Vein blew this thing way out of proportion and that I didn't mean to cause any of the trouble that I did. She wasn't really going to punish me.

"You're grounded, Jason. Just because Officer Armstrong is a little nuts, don't think for a second that you are off the hook, young man. And you are in serious trouble this time." Well, so much for Mom seeing things the way I did.

We made our way toward Mom's car in absolute silence. As I passed the butter cow for the last time, I braced myself for what lay ahead.