“But first,” Houston rolled his eyes, “You two, go see Lucy about those cuts and scrapes we can see now in the light of day. Did you fall through a thistle patch or something?” I shook my head. I hadn't seen any thistles on the island. Just the usual of running into trees, branches, bushes, and falling onto roots and rocks. And since, in the moment, Laura and I had been fleeing hand-in-hand, I dragged her into, through, and onto most of the same stuff.

​

The stinging of the cuts hadn't bothered me, seeing as I usually had a plethora of small injuries just like them from day to day movements that don't go quite right. Besides the daily bruises and scrapes from walking around, I've sprained my wrist, twisted both ankles and burned my fingers seven times. All in two months working here. Since these new scrapes hadn't been bleeding a lot, I had ignored them. I guess Houston didn't want to send injured kids out to face giant machines bent on destroying us.

 

Laura sat with me, humming and rubbing her arms with her closed fists. She didn't have nearly as many scrapes as I did, though I had a feeling she wouldn't have any if I wasn't as unsteady as a toddler trying to learn how to walk with skates on. Lucy did as I asked, though she sent up an eyebrow at the small cuts. I didn't know what to say about that, clearly she thought it a waste of the first aid kits we were able to scrounge up from the boats, some of the only things not blue on this entire island, but one of the first things we learned here was Houston's word was final.

 

With that done, Laura and I trudged back up to Houston waiting at the edge of the forest now, near a bit of a dirt trail that I was familiar with. It was part of the web that connected the entire island. I used the dirt trails to avoid the heavily trafficked paved walkways when riding the bike with a cooler in the wagon around to drop off water for employees at the strategic locations, also known as the other scattered break rooms.

 

Mack came down the path, pushing the bike I used, wagon and cooler still attached. “Excellent,” Houston grinned. “Are there still waters in there?” Mack was broad, had a square jaw, skin the color of wet sand, not quite seven feet tall, and a very quiet guy. The strong and silent type. A nod was all he gave, and honestly had he said anything I would have been more terrified. Now why couldn't he have fallen into the ooze? Maybe he would have gotten super strength.

 

“We'll be taking the cooler, Laura, you can ride in the cart. Calvin, you ride better than you run, so...”

 

“I get it.” I sighed. “We don't get a cool superhero car, plane, boat, or submarine,” I gestured to the bike as peanut butter dripped from my fingers. “We get a bike with a wagon.”

 

“Cart.” Houston corrected.

 

“Whatever.” I tilted my neck from side to side, until I heard a nice pop. Some of the tension gone, I was as ready as I could ever be. “Come on Laura.” I looked over at her, and her eyes were already filled with tears. “I promise I won't crash the bike.” It didn't seem to calm her as much as I hoped, but she climbed into the wagon, wrapping her arms around her knees.

 

“You know,” Houston put a hand on my shoulder, “I wouldn't ask you to do this if-”

 

“If it wasn't our only hope.” I sighed. For a moment the only sounds were the mechanical whirrings of the rides slowly making their way towards us. Maybe they knew we had nowhere left to run.

 

“Good luck kids.” The gruff, no nonsense man squeezed my shoulder before stepping back and saluting us. My stomach twisted into a billion knots knowing we might not come back, nor be able to stop the machines. Bad odds never stopped me before, at least in every video game I ever played and impromptu off road bike races with people more experienced than me. These odds weren't going to be enough to stop me this time either.

 

Sitting and pedaling was natural, and Laura weighed about as much as an empty cooler at the end of my shift, so everything was going smoothly. No matter how many bumps the bike took, or how tight or odd the turns were, I always had complete control of the bike in a way I didn't have over my own body.

 

“You know,” I said loudly, maybe too loud considering we were heading towards a dangerous enemy and likely demise, but I needed to make sure Laura could hear me over the wind as I picked up speed. “When my parents insisted I get a summer job this year, I tried to convince them to let me see if I had a chance in a career in BMX racing.”

 

“I wanted to teach a children's art class,” Laura responded, “but at the park districts and libraries I applied, no one looked past my stutter.” If she was stuttering now, the wind was whipping it away, or maybe there was something about going to face the seemingly impossible that made speaking not so scary anymore.

 

I left a trail of peanut butter along the edges of the dirt path. It was still just constantly dripping from my hands, but at this point there was no reason to try to stop it.

 

Even though I had a few chances to turn onto pavement, I stuck to the dirt, winding my way far around where the roller coaster was whirring in circles, and circling back to approach the swing ride from behind. Not that it had a clear front or behind. The top dome part was just sections of light and dark blue, striped like a circus tent. The same colors alternated were the swings, or legs now.

 

“How are we supposed to stop that?” She grumbled. “Most of the actual mechanics are in the post it left behind.” I slowed by moving the handlebars back and forth in tight zig zags as we approached the walking mushroom top.

 

“We stop the legs I guess. If I get enough peanut butter on the hinges for the chains at the top, maybe it won't be able to move.”

 

“You try to climb it and it won't even have to shake you off before you fall to your death.” She hissed.

 

“What if...” I glanced back at her, nodding towards her white knuckle fists, “you make it slip first?” She looked at me, looked at my hands, and looked at me again.

 

“Think you c-can weave between the legs without getting stepped on?”

 

“If you think you can leave enough jam behind to make it lose its footing.”

 

“Only one way to find out.” She pushed herself to her knees, holding one fist over either side of the wagon. I gripped the handlebars, leaned forward, lifted my butt off the seat, and cranked the bike into high gear. It wasn't just the ride's swing legs I had to maneuver around, this area was also littered with smashed food stalls and strewn about food, broken benches, railings, and fissures where the ooze probably had seeped up. And there were bodies, the people not so lucky. It would have been too much to think about, to truly absorb then. Instead my mind turned the dead people into mannequins for my sanity.

 

I'm not sure how many times I circled the ride, doing my best to avoid sending the bike wheels out from under me when getting back around to the blue jam trail Laura was leaving. Left and right, sometimes having to come to the inside of the ride in the open part where the legs couldn't reach, because somehow it was aware there was something it wanted to smash moving around between its legs.

 

The blue trail became thick blue lines, then rings, before the plastic started to lose its grip on the pavement. “Calvin!” Laura screamed at the same time I heard it, multiple plastic pieces scraping the pavement and multiple chains rattling as they became loose. I whipped the bike around, barely able to pull the wheels back upright from jam collecting on them and the ground. Laura grunted as she was knocked off balance in the cart, but I had to turn so we were moving away from where the giant thing was falling.

 

With a great big thud and a cracking noise it hit the ground. I braked, hard, Laura slamming into my back and nearly sending me over the handlebars. We turned and saw it had nearly broken in two from the impact, and everything about it was limp and lifeless.

 

“Guess I don't need to get the hinges sticky after all.”

 

If we were going to celebrate, we couldn't because that's when the whirring of the coaster track was getting louder and we both flung ourselves away from the bike in order not to get impaled by it. Or run over by the coaster that was riding it.

 

The bike and wagon were not as lucky as us, smashed to bits. Laura was standing, shaking, as the coaster's painted on eyes turned towards her, and the track behind it started retracting towards it. I ran forward and placed my hands on the undersides of the round beams, following it back where it extended away from the cars.

 

Somehow, despite the ground being a littered battlefield, I only tripped twice. Most of the track was coated with peanut butter. “Laura, run!” I screamed as I ran out of track to make sticky, having no idea whether or not it would work. She did, bolting straight towards me as the coaster started making the whirring sound right before it would eject the track.

 

But even as Laura reached me, knocking me to the ground as she flung her arms around me, it just kept whirring. No track, just whirring. And lots of smoke, and finally, a small burst of flames from the underside of the coaster before it all collapsed in a heap.

 

“We did it!” Laura pulled me back up, both of our clothes coated in peanut butter and jam.

 

“Huh.” I scratched my head, not caring that my blond hair was turning blue and sticky. “Guess we did.”

 

Her hand slipped into mine, peanut butter and jam mingling between our skin as we slowly headed back. Whenever I tripped over something she would steady me, and then give me a bright smile.

 

My mind was still wrapping around everything as our feet sunk into the dry sand of the beach. We didn't even have to say anything before the celebratory cheers broke out. I tugged Laura closer as the group surrounded us.

 

“Well done kids.” Houston's hand clapped my shoulder, giving me a shake and a crooked smile.

 

“Thanks.” I grinned back, before meeting Laura's slowly growing smile. The children led a cheer, even Ricky and his mother throwing their hands in the air.

 

The good mood lasted well into the night as we celebrated the best we could with what we had. Lucy and Mack got a partially clear radio signal for music.

 

Laura and I reenacted the fight (mostly) for the kids, with dramatic flare of course. We took turns narrating, while she stuttered a few times, but after those brown eyes met mine, and a deep breath, she would collect herself. Her movements were graceful and natural in the sand circle we called a stage. I was my usual klutzy self, leaving droplets of peanut butter and landing in the sand breathless at the end of the celebration.

 

Laura flopped down with me again. We continued to talk as the night wore on. We weren't sure what we were going to do about our strange new powers, but that was a problem for another day.