Megan was okay, to my relief. I would have felt so guilty if something bad happened to her because I surprised her with Kristin. But the paramedics told her that she had to sit with the ice on her head for 10 minutes and if she felt better she could leave again. “So tell me how you get to be here with Kristin?” Megan hadn’t taken her eyes of Kristin since she came out from the room. I imagined Kristin squirming under her gaze, but when I looked at Kristin, she sat there with a smile on her face.

“She is the special surprise that I got with me winning a four day trip to New York. She surprised me in my hotel room this morning, I was meditating and when I turned around, there she was, sitting on my bed” Megan smiled “yeah, that would make me faint probably.” We all smiled. I felt really happy being able to share some of my luck with my friends. Of course if I had my way, I would have invited a lot of people from Glitter to share my day with. But then, I liked having Kristin to myself as well. She would have all of her attention directed at me.

We talked for 10 minutes, until Megan was allowed to leave the building. She got a warning that if she felt a bit weak, she had to come back. We hugged Megan goodbye and went on our way to the pirate ship. “You sure you don’t mind hanging out with me? Me introducing you to my friends and all?” Kristin stopped me and faced me towards her. “Now listen, I agreed to do what ever you wanted to do, right? You are a very sweet girl and I like meeting my fans. I love the fact that I have touched these people’s heart with my music. Don’t apologize for it, it is okay really. Don’t be so insecure”

My eyes filled with tears. I wasn’t gonna cry, I so wasn’t gonna cry in public. Kristin looked a little worried. “I’m sorry” I mumbled. “It’s stupid I know, but I just need people to tell me things are okay and stuff. I have these voices in my head telling me otherwise, making me doubt. I’ve always been insecure about everything.” I had opened up to Kristin. It was a big step for me and somehow I felt better.

Kristin sat me down and rubbed my back gently. Slow circles that spread warmth through my body and made me relax. After we sat for a while, I took a deep breath and looked at her with a smile. “Thank you” I whispered the words with all the gratitude I could put in to them. Being with Kristin seemed to be like therapy almost. Now I really had to pay her back. I would give her some therapy of my own later on. Ideas were already forming in my head.

We passed an arcade on the way to the pirate ship. I looked at the different games and prices “See anything you like?” I asked Kristin, making a hand gesture towards the prices. “I might be able to win you something; I used to work in a place like this.” Kristin looked at all the prices. There were some really big toys there, almost as big as Kristin. “I don’t think I want anything that big! It would scare Maddie” she said as she walked over to them “Can you even carry them around?” I asked her “I mean, not that you’re not strong or anything, but I’m more worried you would trip over it, or walk in to things because you can’t see.”

We settled on a pink bear that was wearing a glitter shirt. “I have that same shirt” Kristin commented. Okay, now I really needed to get her the bear. I would cost me three thousand points. That seemed like an awful lot of tickets to get. Some of the games seemed really easy and as I am quite addicted to carnival games, I went to the once I knew could get me a lot of tickets. Kristin fallowed me around like a lost puppy. “Have you never played games like this before?” I couldn’t imagine a person never playing these games. “I used to play something like it when I was younger, but I haven’t played them in ages.” I reached in to my pocket “Okay, here’s a dollar in change. I think you will like the Whack-A-Mole game. It’s easy. Fake moles will pop up and you just hit them on the head with your hammer.”

I could leave her save behind the game, right? I was standing close by if she needed my help. “Okay, I’ll try” She grabbed the hammer and popped in the money. I walked over to the sliding games, my favourite. I was in the middle of my game when Kristin came back to me “It was a lot of fun! I got 200 tickets.” I didn’t look up but held out my hand “That’s great! I knew you would like it, it is stress relieve ha-ha. Can you hold on to these for me? They’re points I won so far” She took the coins and started counting “How long have you been playing this game for?” she sounded surprised “just this game or in total?”

I think Kristin must have thought I was nuts after I told her I have been playing these games for years now, since I was about 8 years old. I’ve just always liked them, being able to win prices was one of my favourite things to do. I had won 2000 points already and with Kristin’s 200, that made 2200 points. “We have 800 to go for the bear!” See, Kristin is smart. She can do math in her head. “Do you want to try something else? Basketball perhaps? The machines will move back and forth and all you have to do is through the balls in the hoop as quickly as possible.”

Kristin was better then I had expected with basketball. See, you didn’t have to be O’Neill to be good as basketball. When we had all the points, we went to claim our price. “Hi, can we have that pink bear over there please?” I pointed to the bear and Kristin placed the points on the glass countertop. “Sure, a cute bear for your cute younger sister. Here you go little girl” I flinched. That was a mistake. It felt like the whole arcade went dead silent. I held my arm out to Kristin, hoping to stop her if she were to lurch after the guy. But the only thing she did was give him an evil glare over her sunglasses.

I pushed Kristin out the arcade “thanks for the bear mister” I yelled over my shoulder. The guy just stood there, staring at us. Eventually, he shrugged and continued his job. “Ooh, I have a right mind to punch that guy in the face. Show me one little kid that is boobs waist like me.” I tried really hard not to burst out laughing “Forget about that guy Kristin, he’s so not worth the energy. Let’s concentrate on the pirate ship instead. I’m sure he wanted to flirt with you. See it as a compliment that he thought I was older.”

She snorted. “He was probably trying to flirt with you by being nice to your little sister.” Okay, that made me laugh. “Oh come one, Kristin! I’m ugly compared to you! You are like the goddess of beauty, I can’t compare to you!” I laughed again. “You’re not ugly! You’re pretty!” I rolled my eyes “I’m not pretty, I’m plain. I don’t attract attention with my looks, if we would show up somewhere, looking exactly the same, they would compliment you on your looks and they would say that I looked okay.” My time to snort “Perhaps they would say I was trying to look like you so I copied you in everything. Trust me if we would go to a bar right now, you would get all the guys after you. I’d probably get the ugly ones that think you wouldn’t notice them.”

Kristin just stared at me “You don’t have a really high opinion of yourself, do you?” whoops. “You have no idea how pretty you really are, do you? Why don’t you think you’re pretty at all” Hmm, perhaps being told you are ugly and fat when you’re a kid has something to do with it? Well, I didn’t say that out loud. “I just know I’m not. I don’t feel pretty. It’s just that… no, never mind. You don’t need to hear about this. It will turn in to a sob story and we are here to have fun.” She looked at me like she wanted say more “Don’t worry Kristin, I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault. I’m just unusually and extremely peculiar and all together quite impossible to describe”

The queue for the pirate ship wasn’t as long as the roller coaster, maybe more people fitted in here. We waited 10 minutes and we could go in. “where do we sit?” Kristin asked as we were zigzagging through the gates. “In the back, so we go higher!” Kristin passed a sign that said “you must be this tall to ride this attraction” I couldn’t help but take a quick glance at it. She was taller. I guess we could do anything in this park.

We got two seats at the back. We scooted all the way to the side, for the extra adrenaline rush. The safety rails came forward. The bear was in the middle of us “I’m not leaving her on the board walk. What if she gets stolen?” Aw, that was really sweet. The boat started moving slowly. We felt a rush of excitement when we noticed how high we were going. Unfortunately, the kid in front of us didn’t seem to like the ride as much. When we were at the highest point, his stomach decided that he had had enough and he cleared it was a nice audible sound. “Yuck!” Kristin responded “Gross!” was my answer to that.

I guess it was a good thing there was no picture taken in this attraction. Seeing some kid barf his lunch, isn’t something I want in a picture frame. We got out there as soon as possible and almost ran away from the ship as fast as we could. The pungent sour smell of puke wasn’t really appealing. “Well, that was a great success” I said, trying to take in as much fresh air as I could. “Smashing” Kristin replied to me, leaning her hands on her knees.

I sniffed the air like a predator. “I smell food.” My stomach rumbling in response “You’re hungry? Again?” I shook my head “Not hungry as in my stomach is empty, I got the munchies.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in through my nose “Cotton candy, buttered popcorn… Hot dogs… And something I can’t put my finger on.” Kristin looked around “You smell all of that? You have a good nose!” I shrugged “When it comes to food, I can smell a lot of things. I remember the smell of food. But I don’t know what that other part is, I don’t recognize it.” Kristin sniffed the air herself, her face clearing up. “I know that smell! That’s corndogs on a stick!” Oooh! Nice! “I’ve never eaten corndogs before, although Megan says they are excellent.”

I had bought two buckets of cotton candy and popcorn. We would eat them at home when we were watching the movies. Kristin came back with slush puppies and corndogs. Corndogs are weird. They look like a turd on a stick. “It’s okay to eat it, I swear!” Kristin said laughingly. I guess I had a look of disgust on my face or something. I took a careful bite. It wasn’t bad at all “Do you eat them with mustard?” I asked in between bites. “You can do that if you want to” Kristin replied in the same manner. Maybe we were hungrier then we had thought?

The next moment a series of coughs racked my body. A piece of corndog had gone the wrong way and I was chocking on it. Kristin patted my back “Take it easy, you still have like half a day to spend with me. I can’t have you dying on me!” I coughed and laughed at the same time “Oh, that would be so bad for publicity!” cough, laugh cough. “I can see the headlines now. Famous star kills fan with corndog.” See, even if I was half dying, I was still funny. I took a swig of my slush puppy and cleared my throat a couple of times.
I would live.

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