Page 96 of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“Once. It was terrifying.”

“It’s like that, butfun.”

“I’m not convinced you have any idea what that word means.”

He grinned. “Remember the flight on the tree?”

Her eyes went wide. “You have flying trees here?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “But things sort of like that. Less magical, maybe, but also safe—so you get the exciting part without the dangerous part. But you get topretendthey’re still dangerous, so you can be afraid. In a fun way!”

“Wonderful food that is also gross,” she said. “Experiences that are at once terrifying and not. Are all of your modern wonders self-contradictory?”

“Contradiction,” he said, “is thecoreof modern life.” He smiled at her. And he loved the way she smiled back.

He gestured, and led her past several of the performers—a strong man lifting impossible weights. A “living statue.” (Bad imitation in my estimation.) A fire-breather. Yumi appeared to legitimately love each of these.

“You have experts,” she whispered while watching a performer swallow a cane four feet long, “in thestrangestthings.” She tossed far too large of a tip to the man and bowed formally to him.

From there, the games. She was terrible at them. But he found it fascinating how she tried each one in the row, then settled on one—the game where you knock down the boxes—and paid the carnie fortentries.

“We’re going to run out of money quickly at this rate,” he said, leaning against the counter as she concentrated and threw the ball, missing. “You should have picked the balloon popping game.”

“That one is random,” she said. “You can’t win it except by accident.” She narrowed her eyes, throwing another ball. It bounced off the boxes.

“And that is bad?” he asked.

“I must be presented with a challenge of skill and not fortune, Painter.”

“Well then, try the coin toss,” he said, as she threw again and the ball bounced free. “This one takes strength like Tojin has to win.”

“No it doesn’t,” she said, then threw the ball and got a lucky hit, toppling all of the boxes.

“Ha!” the carnie said, leaning down. “You can take the small prize…but dothatfour more times, and you get the largest prize!”

“Yes,” Yumi said. “I read the rules.”

Then she proceeded to knock over four more stacks of boxes in a row. The carnie’s jaw dropped.

“Oh, (lowly) incredible,” Painter said, smacking his forehead. “It’s a balancing trick, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said. “One of the boxes is weighted on the bottom in such a way as to make the entire thing seem less stable than it is. Getting that one is key.” She pointed at the largest of the stuffed animals—a dragon eating a bowl of noodles. (Quite fanciful. The dragons I know prefer steak.)

“Advice,” Yumi said as the carnie handed her the dragon—which was nearly taller than she was. “Don’t put the weighted box in the same corner each time. It makes the pattern easy to exploit.”

The carnie scratched his head, then grinned at her. “You’ve still got two throws left.”

“Give them to the next child who visits,” she said, then walked off, head held high, Painter trailing. “You’re right,” she said to him. “This trophy feels…satisfying. And soft. How do they make it sosoft?”

“By tradition,” he said, leading her to a less populated section, “you now must give it a name.”

“Hm…”

“Asillyname,” he added.

“Why silly?”

He gestured at the giant pink dragon.

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