On a sunny Friday afternoon Maria Johnson stumbled into the band room and began to prepare for band class. She was intercepted by a fellow band member who instructed her to sit down instead of retrieving her instrument. Maria sat and chatted with her friends until the band room was finally filled with the many diverse students who make up the marching band. Eventually the band instructor came into the room and at once the whole room grew silent. Then the band instructor began to announce that we would not be having practice that day because so many band students were sick. At that moment Maria’s mood elevated. She was thrilled she wouldn’t have to go to another boring long band practice for the fourth time that week. Now that Maria didn’t have band practice she could hang out with her friends. They had invited her to go with them to this place they called the fair. They had claimed that it was a lot of fun and Maria was very excited. She had no clue how much her friends had misled her.

That night around 6 o’clock Maria carpooled with all her friends to this strange area. There were many lights and noises that bothered Maria and hurt her eyes and ears. At that moment she began to wonder how much fun she would actually have that night. They began to approach the entrance to the fair. Maria and her friends slipped mysterious looking blue tickets to a grouchy, foul looking, woman behind a wall of glass and entered the fair grounds. Within a few minutes because of the crowds of people Maria lost her friends and was carried away with a strong current of ghastly looking group of teenagers! Unable to do anything Maria soon found herself inside an oddly shaped tiny car. All of a sudden a grisly looking man with multiple piercings put long straps around Maria’s waist and confined her to the uncomfortable space within the vehicle. Maria then began to hear dreadfully loud noises and her felt herself moving! She went faster and faster until all she could see were blurs everywhere! Then the car itself began to rock! It went back and forth, back and forth until Maria was spinning and swinging at the same time! To make things even worse she began to see hideously bright flashing white lights that hurt her eyes so much she had to close them. After a few minutes for a reason unknown Maria stopped moving and found she could move the straps from around her waist. She raced out of the automobile only to find herself being dragged into an even more dangerous situation.

Maria then felt herself being pulled by an invisible force into a dark small oval room that resembled the inside of an alien spaceship that you see on those bad science fiction movies. As the room began to fill with people she felt herself being thrown up against the wall. Once the spaceship was filled the large door she had come through closed and the room was thrown into darkness. Maria could fill the spaceship start to move and decided that this was an alien spaceship and she was being taken to their planet. Apparently most of the other people on the ship hadn’t figured this out because they were screaming and yelling with delight. Suddenly bright flashing lights filled the room and Maria could feel her section of the wall start to move under her. She screamed with her until she felt the dull thud that the wall made when it hit the roof of the spaceship. As the spaceship moved faster Maria could see other parts of the wall start to move until everybody’s feet were no longer touching the ground. Finally one by one the walls starting sliding back down and the spaceship began to slow down. With a loud bang the entrance was opened and Maria was carried out with the sea of people.

Stumbling along, trying to figure out where she was Maria thought she saw a friend of hers and stumbled through a gate. Abruptly Maria was thrown into what looked like the fingertip of a large mechanical hand! The odd thing was this hand had seats on its fingers and the seats had traps attached to them that locked Maria to it. Since Maria could not move the hand began to move. It jerked and yanked and even spined trying to get Maria off but unfortunately she could not remove the uncomfortable bars that confined her. After being turned and flipped upside down for several long minutes the hand gave up and stopped moving. Maria was then freed from her trap so she jumped up and started to run for her life!

While she was running Maria suddenly tripped over a long thick cable and fell onto a small set of steps. She quickly stumbled up the steps but not knowing where she was or what to do she just stood there. Then a rotund smelly old man yelled at her and told her to get on a beautiful but wild and slightly scary looking horse. Maria did as she was told but as soon as she got on the horse took off and Maria had to grab onto it quickly before she fell off. Maria looked behind her trying to find the old man but to her horror she discovered that she was being chased by a bunch of other horses that seemed to be carrying eccentric looking dwarfs. Maria tried to get her horse to move faster so the dwarfs would not catch her but the horse did not respond at all no matter what Maria did. After a while the horse came to a stop and Maria slowly slid off of it. She walked past the old man and down the stairs she had come up where she found her friend Kari waiting for her. Kari smiled at her and said “So Maria did you have fun on the merry-go-round?”