Even when your mother tells you No a million times you just have to shut your ears and not listen to her. She will tell you that it is dangerous to go to the carousel, that you could get hurt or killed, that bad men hang out there and if you ever see a bad man you should run away as fast as you can. She thinks you are scared of bad men. She doesn't know you are more scared of your friends thinking you are a scaredy cat.
So one day when you are at your friend Marcie's house and her cousin Antoinette from Connecticut is visiting and Antoinette says Let's go to the carousel, what are you going to do? You are going to go.
It is almost dark when you get there and no one else is around, no other children and no bad men, either. Marcie climbs up onto the brown horse and says Giddy up but of course the horse can't giddy up because there is no one there to turn the carousel on.
You climb up onto the white horse and you can see the paint is chipped around its mouth, red paint like blood. This is a very sad thing so you pat the horse on top of its head and you say Good girl.
Antoinette from Connecticut gets up on the pinto pony but she doesn't sit down, she stands on its back and Marcie says Antoinette don't be a nut and Antoinette says You're not my boss, and she starts practicing her ballet. She says first position, second position, third position, fourth position, fifth position.
This is when you remember that the last time Antoinette from Connecticut visited Marcie she was mean to you and you told yourself not to play with her if she ever came again. Now you wonder why you don't listen to yourself.
You might want to close your eyes now so you don't have to watch. She says she is going up on her tippy tippy toes. Be sure to keep your eyes shut tight so you don't see her fall off the pinto pony and break her head into a million little pieces.
She doesn't fall off. She says she's bored. So you all go back to Marcie's apartment and her mother never even knows that you were gone.
Later, when you get home, your mother will ask you if you had fun. Say that you did. Then she will ask what Antoinette from Connecticut is like. Say that she is clean and polite. Your mother will ask what you did while you were with Marcie and her cousin. Say that you played Shoots and Ladders. And if your mother asks Is that all? then you should say you also played Candy Land.
These are not the worst lies you have ever told. They're not even the next-to-worst.
