Carnival in a Fix Read online

  Not-So-Impossible Tales

  Oliver and the Sea Monkeys

  Cakes in Space

  Pugs of the Frozen North

  Carnival in a Fix

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Philip Reeve

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2016 by Sarah McIntyre

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in hardcover by Oxford University Press, Oxford, in 2016.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhousekids.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Reeve, Philip, author. | McIntyre, Sarah, illustrator.

  Title: Carnival in a fix / Philip Reeve ; illustrated by Sarah McIntyre.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Random House, [2017] | Summary: “Emily must save her outer space amusement park home from being shut down by the funfair inspector” — Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016008729| ISBN 978-0-385-38800-9 (hardback) | ISBN 978-0-385-38803-0 (hardcover library binding) | ISBN 978-0-385-38802-3 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Amusement parks—Fiction. | Outer space—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Humorous Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Animals / Marine Life.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.R25576 Car 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780385388023

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v4.1

  a

  Cover

  Other Titles

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Authors

  Emily could sleep through almost any noise, but silence always woke her. That was because she lived on Funfair Moon, and it was usually pretty noisy.

  Funfair Moon has the most dizzying Tilt-A-Whirls, the highest roller coasters, the bounciest trampolines, the scariest ghost train, and the most delicious cotton candy in the entire galaxy. Every night, as Emily drifted off to sleep in her little bedroom above the Lost Property Office, she could hear the sounds of the fair going on outside. “Wheeee!” went thousands of people spinning in the Tilt-A-Whirls. “Waaaaaargh!” went thousands more, riding the roller coasters. “WooooooOOOOooo!” went the scary music from the ghost train. Boinggggg went the trampolines. And from far and wide, the noises of the other rides came drifting—Whoosshhh, PING, ker-CHUNG-ga ker-CHUNG-ga. (The cotton candy didn’t make much noise, but Emily could smell it. The sweet burnt-sugar scent came creeping through her window and into her dreams.)

  Emily loved that carnival din. It was like a lullaby to her, soothing her softly off to sleep every night. When she woke next morning, everything would be quiet, except maybe for a litter picker whistling as he gathered up torn tickets and crumpled candy wrappers from the grassy paths between the merry-go-rounds. The rides were closed, and Funfair Moon was preparing for new visitors, and another day and night of noisy fun.

  Most of the people who made their home on Funfair Moon had little houses next to the rides they ran, but Emily had always lived above the Lost Property Office. One night, almost ten years before, some overexcited visitor had laid a large pale blue egg on the Switchback of Doom, one of Funfair Moon’s biggest roller coasters. There it had been found the next morning by the fair’s hardworking repairmen, Jinks and O’Hare. Mr. Jinks had said that it was probably scrambled after riding around on the Switchback of Doom all night, but Mr. O’Hare had made him take it to the Lost Property Office anyway. Mrs. Mimms, who was in charge of all the lost property, stuck a label on it and put it on a shelf among all the hats and umbrellas and space suits that were waiting there for their owners to come back for them.

  But nobody ever came to claim the pale blue egg. Whoever it was that left it on the Switchback of Doom must have forgotten about it. When it hatched and little Emily crawled out, Mrs. Mimms had not been quite sure what to do with her, but Jinks and O’Hare had turned the attic into a bedroom, and Emily had lived there happily ever since.

  She kept the fragments of the pale blue eggshell on her bedside shelves, among her books and toys, but she hardly ever bothered wondering if anyone would come back for it. It seemed to Emily that the sort of people who went to all the trouble of laying large pale blue eggs and then just left them lying about on roller coasters probably wouldn’t make very good parents anyway. She was pretty happy living on her own. Mrs. Mimms wasn’t exactly like a mom. In fact, she was more like a sort of giant alien octopus. But she was a very nice giant alien octopus and didn’t mind Emily living in her attic at all. And the Lost Property Office was right next door to Jinks and O’Hare’s house and workshop. Emily often peeked in to see what they were fixing, and sometimes O’Hare would let her help with small jobs such as unclogging mega-thunk pistons or replacing worn-out thunderspin sprockets.

  On the particular morning when this story begins, Emily was woken up as usual by the silence and lay in bed for a few moments trying to remember if it was a school day or not.

  School days weren’t really too bad because Emily didn’t have to go to an ordinary school. Like all the other kids who lived on Funfair Moon, she studied at the Learny-Go-Round, an educational roundabout designed by the famous scientist Floomish Spoob. Professor Spoob had discovered that people always learn more when they are on the move. (That’s why travel broadens the mind, but nobody learns much while they are asleep.) So on the Learny-Go-Round the pupils sat at desks that whirled around and around the central podium, where the teacher stood. During the more difficult lessons, they also went up and down, like the painted horses on a carousel. This meant that some people got quite travel sick during double-period math, but luckily, Floomish Spoob had also worked out that too much education in one go was bad for the brain, so the Learny-Go-Round was only open every other day. And since Emily remembered going yesterday, that meant that today was a day off, and she could do whatever she liked.

  Yay!

  She jumped out of bed, got dressed, and slid down the indoor slide that Jinks and O’Hare had installed as a way of getting downstairs quickly.

  After jumping off in the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of glowberry juice and made some toast. As soon as she had eaten the toast, drunk the juice, and taken her plate and glass to the dishwasher, she climbed out the window and scampered across the yard to Jinks and O’Hare’s house. It was a neat little house, with a workshop and tool store attached to the side, and a sign above the door that said:

  Jinks and O’Hare were outside the workshop, loading up their aircar, ready to whizz off and repair anything that needed repairing. Mr. O’Hare was as hairy as his name suggested, and completely round: a big ball of fur with long furry arms and short furry legs sticking out and a bowler hat perched on the top. Mr. Jinks wore a bowler hat, too, but he was straight and thin. When they stood side by side, they looked
a bit like the number 10.

  Jinks and O’Hare were Emily’s heroes. She loved following them around the fair, helping them while they checked the rides and made sure everything stayed safe and fun. It was her ambition to join their team and become a funfair repair person just like them. Living above the Lost Property Office wasn’t much of a claim to fame, not when all your friends’ moms and dads ran roller coasters and Tilt-A-Whirls and wall-of-death ultrascooter stunt teams. But Jinks and O’Hare had just about the most important job on the whole moon, so when people said, “What did you do after school yesterday?” it would be brilliant to be able to say, “Oh, I was working with Jinks and O’Hare. We had to do some routine maintenance….” In Emily’s dreams, that sign on the front of their house said:

  The trouble was, Jinks and O’Hare didn’t seem to understand how useful an almost-ten-year-old could be, and most of the time they wouldn’t let her help.

  Mr. O’Hare gave Emily a big, furry smile when he saw her, but Mr. Jinks just said, “Ah, Emily,” in a shouldn’t you-be-at-school-little-hatchling? sort of voice.

  “What’s on your list today?” asked Emily, trying to get a peek at Jinks’s clipboard, where he kept his list of things that needed fixing around the fair.

  Mr. Jinks held the clipboard against his chest so that she couldn’t see. “We have all sorts of things to do,” he said. “We really must be going.”

  O’Hare shrugged at him. O’Hare never said much, but he was very good at shrugging. Mrs. Mimms always said that one of O’Hare’s shrugs was worth a thousand words. This particular shrug was worth exactly five words, and they were Can’t Emily come with us?

  Jinks shook his head firmly. Children embarrassed him. He could never think of what to say to them. “Sorry,” he said, climbing into the car and starting the engine. He waved the clipboard. “We have a lot of jobs to do, and they’re all jobs for qualified repairmen, not small girls.”

  O’Hare wiggled his eyebrows at Emily. He was very good at wiggling his eyebrows, too, and she knew that this particular eyebrow-wiggle meant Sorry! Maybe another day…

  Then he climbed into the car, too. Mr. Jinks closed the domed glass lid over them both, and the aircar went puttering out of the workshop and off into the carnival.

  Emily watched the aircar fly away. Then she stuck her hands in her pockets and wandered down to the fair’s main entrance, wondering what to do with the rest of the day.

  Funfair Moon was coming back to life. Spinny rides were starting to twirl, and roller coasters were beginning to roll. Spaceships from all over the galaxy came swooping down to land in the spaceship park, while starbuses ferried in visitors who had left their own ships at the park-and-ride on a nearby asteroid. Crowds of visitors were already pouring through the turnstiles, all eager to try the rides. Emily watched them, feeling a little sorry for herself.

  Suddenly a big shadow fell over her. She looked up in surprise and jumped out of the way just as a big gray spaceship came down out of the sky. It was box-shaped, and its name seemed to be Official Spaceship RT 372/C, which Emily thought was the most boring name for a spaceship she had ever seen. It touched down awkwardly. One of its landing legs squashed an I-Speak-Your-Weight machine, which said, “You weigh seven thousand two hundred twenty-four tons, argh, zzxxzx…”

  Emily watched with interest as a dull gray hatch opened in the spaceship’s dull gray side. Out came a large hat with a small man underneath it.

  “Excuse me,” said Emily in her sternest voice. “You can’t park here!”

  “Oh, yes I can.” The small man smirked.

  Mrs. Mimms came slithering out of her Lost Property Office with a lost hatbox clutched between her tentacles. “Emily’s right,” she said. “That machine belongs in the parking lot! It is forbidden for visitors to park their spacecraft inside the funfair.”

  “Not for me, it isn’t,” said the man. He pulled out a little wallet and opened it to reveal a huge holographic badge with the words OFFICIAL FUNFAIR INSPECTOR revolving around it. “I am Jeremy Moonbottom from the Galactic Council (Leisure and Entertainment Subcommittee). This is my assistant, Miss Weebly.”

  “I’m-very-pleased-to-meet-you,” said a lady who had been hidden behind him until then. She spoke quickly and quietly, blushing deep pink.

  “But what are you here for?” asked Emily. “Funfair Moon had its official health-and-safety inspection last month. We passed with flying colors. The inspector said this was the best-run funfair she’d ever seen.”

  “If it’s so well run, you won’t mind another inspection, will you?” asked Mr. Moonbottom, looking around. “I do like to drop in unannounced so I can see what really goes on.”

  “Ooof,” groaned the I-Speak-Your-Weight machine, which was still stuck under his spaceship. “Gerrof, fatty!”

  “Aha!” said Mr. Moonbottom, whirling round to stare at it. “A defective slot machine! That’s a black mark against Funfair Moon straightaway. Make a note of that, Miss Weebly.”

  “But that’s not fair!” shouted Emily. “You squashed that machine yourself!”

  “Excuses, excuses,” said Mr. Moonbottom. “Mark it down, Miss Weebly, and then we’ll go and see how many other hazards and failures we can find.” He looked over his shoulder at Mrs. Mimms as he started stalking off. “Needless to say, if I’m not impressed, your whole fair will be closed down.”

  Miss Weebly made a note on the clipboard she carried, then smiled vaguely at Emily and hurried after Mr. Moonbottom.

  Closed down? thought Emily. Up until he said that, she had just felt angry at the funfair inspector. Now she felt frightened, too. Could he really close down Funfair Moon? And if he did, where would everyone go? What would become of Mrs. Mimms, and Jinks and O’Hare? What would become of Emily?

  “I don’t suppose it’s anything to worry about,” said Mrs. Mimms when the funfair inspector and his assistant had gone. “He seems a nasty piece of work, but Funfair Moon has never failed an inspection yet.”

  “That’s because of Jinks and O’Hare,” said Emily proudly, and she felt better already, just thinking about them. “They’re the best funfair repairers in the whole galaxy. But I’d better go and find them. We ought to let them know there’s an inspector on the way.”

  “I think Mr. Jinks said they were going to be doing some work on the Space Twizzler this morning,” said Mrs. Mimms. “Apparently it’s gone a bit wonky-woo.”

  “Great!” said Emily, and dashed off to find them.

  “Have a nice morning!” called Mrs. Mimms, waving with a couple of tentacles while she reached back into the Lost Property Office with another and carefully placed the lost hatbox on a high shelf.

  She did not notice the hatbox open. Something black and spiny came out of it, like a sooty sea urchin. There were two white eyes among the spines, which blinked down at Mrs. Mimms for a moment. Then, with a rustling noise like crumpled candy wrappers, the strange creature vanished into the shadows at the back of the shelf.

  Funfair Moon was so big that you couldn’t just walk between the different rides. There were little airtrains that wound their way between the merry-go-rounds and sideshows, stopping near all the big attractions. Emily hopped on one outside the Lost Property Office. It carried her along the fairway, the broad main street of Funfair Moon, where many of the oldest and most famous attractions stood. She passed the Mermaid Lagoon, where Ruby Flipper and her mermaids were getting ready for the first synchronized swimming show of the day, and the lawn-mower arena, where Burt Turbot and his Lawn-Mower Display Team were getting ready for the first synchronized strimming show of the day. She passed Peeploid’s Astounding Seven-Story Merry-Go-Round and Fudge Shoppe, where Amy lived. Emily wondered about hopping off there and seeing if Amy wanted to come with her, but she knew Amy would be helping her mom and dad get ready for the day ahead. At last the train stopped at the Space Twizzler.

  The Space Twizzler was a giant helter-skelter, a long slide that twisted around a tower. It was decorated with picture
s of suns and moons and planets. That morning a rope was stretched across the entrance with an

  sign dangling from it, but Emily ducked under it and ran over to her two friends, who were busy getting things out of their toolbox.

  “Jinks!” shouted Emily. “O’Hare!”

  They turned and looked at her.

  “Emily,” said Jinks in an oh-dear-what-do-you-want? sort of way.

  O’Hare just smiled another big, furry smile.

  She told them about the funfair inspector.

  “But that can’t be right!” said Jinks. “We just had an inspector around last month!”

  “Well, there’s another one now,” said Emily, “and this one’s a real meanie.” And she explained about the I-Speak-Your-Weight machine, and what Mr. Moonbottom had said about closing down the funfair.

  O’Hare looked at Jinks and gave a Meaningful Shrug.

  “You are quite right, O’Hare,” said Jinks. “We’d better get to the bottom of the trouble with the Space Twizzler before this inspector comes snooping around. It wouldn’t do for him to see it in this condition. That would not do at all.”

  “What’s gone wrong with it, then?” asked Emily, peering up at the Twizzler. It was a very tall helter-skelter—so tall that its top was hidden by low clouds. The slide went spiraling around it, up and up. It looked all right to Emily. She couldn’t really think what would go wrong with a helter-skelter. Perhaps it had lost its slidiness?