Everyday Hero Read Online Free PDF

words. Even in my mind, I couldn’t find them.
    But it didn’t matter.

Five
    “What the—? Get off! Do you know what time it is? I’ve been worried sick!”
    Dad’s voice woke me as if from a dream. I blinked and stared around me at a world
oddly changed. The ride had stopped. The music was gone. Everything was black, punctuated
only by the floodlight’s harsh glare. Noises, smells, sounds swamped me—screams,
laughter, the smell of hot dogs and popcorn…
    Above me the huge mobile arms of other rides whirled, casting weird elongated shadows.
People screamed in sync with its lifts and dives.
    Dad stood on the carousel’s metal platform, one hand on my horse’s mane. “Whose idea
was this?” he asked.
    “She—I—she wouldn’t get off,” Megan said.
    She was standing beside me, I realized.
    My dad turned to her. “Who are you?”
    “Megan.”
    “You’re Megan?” His voice went up.
    She nodded. “She was enjoying it. She loved it, but then she wouldn’t get off.”
    “Did you—? You brought her here?”
    Megan shrugged. “You could say.”
    “It’s noisy and crazy. It’s the worst place for her. That was a dumb idea.”
    “I have a lot of those.” Her voice went loud. She stepped away. She was tall, almost
as tall as my dad.
    I saw now that there was no one else on the carousel, and that the people standing
around it were silent.
    “Why didn’t you phone me?” he asked.
    “Didn’t know your number.”
    “If our neighbor hadn’t been here and phoned me, I still wouldn’t know—”
    “Yeah, well, you do now.” Megan turned to go.
    “Look—Megan—you don’t understand. You can’t just dump her at a fair. She’s—she’s
different,” he said.
    “Whatever. I’m outta here.”
    Megan tossed her hair back and stepped down from the ride. The crowd parted as she
strode through it, a tall, straight, black figure.
    Different—changed, altered .
    I started to rock.
    “Alice. Off. Now,” Dad said.
    I wasn’t a ballerina.
    I wasn’t average in type, appearance, achievement, function and development.
    I rocked more. I heard the low, moaning whine of my own voice. My father swore. Swearing
is against the rules. I plugged my ears. I squeezed my eyes as I got off the horse,
stumbling from the ride.
    I fell, curling onto the hard concrete.
    Someone screamed.
    The noise came from my own mouth.
    Dad swore again, and I stuffed my fingers deeper into my ears and curled into an
even tighter ball on the cold, rough sidewalk.
    ***
    When I opened my eyes, the crowds had moved away.
    Dad was talking to a police officer. The police officer wore a uniform. I like uniforms.
    “Are you okay?” the police officer asked when I sat up.
    I didn’t answer because I didn’t know.
    “This man’s your dad?” He raised his voice at the end, so I knew it was a question.
    I nodded.
    “She got upset. She gets stressed. Doesn’t do well with noise,” Dad explained. His
cheek twitched, a rippling movement under the grayness of stubble. “She’ll be okay
once she’s home.”
    They spoke some more. Then the police officer nodded and left.
    “Car,” my father said. “Eyes down.”
    I stood. I walked. One step…two steps. I focused on the concrete, on the white lines
of the empty parking stalls and the snaking power cords.
    When we got into the car, my father pulled out the mask from the glove box, and I
put it on. He started the engine, shifted gears and drove forward. I looked out the
car window and studied the streetlights as we drove past.
    Twenty-one lights.
    The indicator went tick-tick-tick as we turned onto Kootenay Street. Sixteen tick-tick-ticks .
We stopped at our house. Dad switched off the engine, and it shuddered into silence.
I got out, letting the mask drop from my face because the evening air was fresh.
We walked up the three wooden steps.
    “Bed,” Dad said.
    ***
    Later Dad came and sat beside me and made the springs whine. He pushed his hand through
his hair, rumpling it into gray