Funfair Friendzy

Tang was building a game, and the game was nearly finished, which is the most dangerous moment in any of Tang's projects.

It was called the Super-Duper Ball-Rolling Bonanza. You put a berry at the top of a long smooth log. The berry rolled down the log, wobbled through a tangle of vines, and dropped into a bucket.

Ker-plunk.

Kiwi tried it once and nodded. "That's good," he said. "That works."

"It works," Tang agreed.

Then he tipped his head to one side. Tang's head does that about four seconds before something happens.

"But what if it also looped?"

So Tang built a loop.

The berry went down the log, round the loop, through the vines, and into the bucket. Ker-plunk.

"What if it rang?"

So Tang hung a little tin bell where the berry came out of the loop. Ding. Down the vines. Into the bucket. Ker-plunk.

"What if it splashed?"

The funfair opened at lunchtime. By lunchtime, the Bonanza had a ramp, a loop, a bell, a splash-tin of stream water, a second loop, and a piece of bark at the end that Tang described as a surprise.

Tang put a berry at the top and let go.

The berry went down the log. It went round the first loop. It rang the bell. It hit the splash-tin, came out shining wet, went round the second loop, sailed clean over the bucket, over the ferns, and vanished into a bush.

"YES," said Tang.

Nobody else said yes.

They tried again. This berry rang the bell and stopped in the vines. The next one went backwards. The one after that got as far as the surprise, which turned out to be a plank that flicked the berry straight up, and everyone stood watching the sky for a while.

Tang made the ramp steeper.

Now the berries flew further. Now they flew over the ferns and into the bush without touching the vines at all.

The berries were having a wonderful time. None of them were arriving.

And slowly, the way a queue does, the queue went somewhere else. It went to Kiwi's ring toss. Less exciting. Winnable.

Tang kept building. Faster now. Alone at the end of the clearing, with a tin bell ringing every few seconds for nobody.

Cheri came over with her tally board, because somebody had to keep score at a funfair and nobody else had offered.

"Berries launched," she read out. "Forty-one. Berries in the bucket, none." She looked at the run. Then she looked at the top of the run, standing exactly where she was, because she is Cheri. "Also, your second loop is now taller than I am. I would like that written down. It has never happened before."

"Mm," said Tang.

"And the log is a hand wider than a possum."

Tang stopped moving.

This almost never happens, and Cheri, who noticed everything, noticed it.

"How wide?"

"A hand wider than a possum," said Cheri, who measured things whether or not anybody had asked her to.

Tang looked at the log. He looked at the loop. He looked at the bucket, far away and completely empty.

Then he climbed to the top and sat down on the ramp.

"Tang," said Kiwi, from the ring toss. "Tang, wait—"

Tang had already let go.

WHOOSH down the log. WHUMP round the loop, upside down, ears flying. DING went the bell, right off its string. SPLOOSH through the splash-tin. Round the second loop. Over the ferns.

And into the bush.

There was a silence.

Then the bush said, "That's the game."

The queue came back. The queue came back so fast that Cheri had to invent a system. It was the happiest thing that had happened to her all day. She counted them off the top one at a time. Kiwi shored up the ramp. Jackfroot went nine times.

Tang stood at the top all afternoon, holding each friend by the shoulders at the edge, saying the same four words before he let them go.

"Don't think. Just lean."

At dusk the clearing emptied. The lanterns came on along the track. The Bonanza stood there dripping quietly, and Tang climbed it one more time, slowly, because he was tired now, and sat down at the top with his legs over the edge.

From up there you could see the whole run at once.

Somewhere in the vines below him, a berry that had been stuck since the morning finally came loose.

It rolled the rest of the way down, all by itself, and landed in the bucket.

Ker-plunk.

Only Tang saw it. He said "yes" very quietly, to nobody, and stayed where he was.