It was a warm day and the two friends dressed accordingly. Despite her annoyance at the catcalls she got, Dee still dressed as she wanted. She wore a short top that showed off her midriff and shorts that made her legs look longer than they were. Her hair was pulled into pigtail braids and she carried a small backpack with her wallet and a light jacket inside.

"What do you want to do first?" Manchu asked as they weaved through the crowd on the midway.

"Eat, of course!"

The two hurried over to the closest corndog stand and ordered two each along with some fries and a soda to share. Finding a patch of grass in the shade of a tree, they sat down and watched the other carnival goers as they ate.

"No wonder the boys haven't asked you on a date. Look at you eat!" Manchu teased, swiping at a spot of ketchup on her cheek.

She just grinned. "If a man wants a girl that nibbles on a leaf of lettuce, giggles, and claims to be full, then he can have her. As for me, I'll stick with eating the foods I like and as much of them as I want!"

"Good, because those girls give me the creeps. Have you noticed some of them at the boarding house lately?" He rolled his eyes. "They might be pretty in the face, but they are so skinny their bones stick out everywhere! A man could get hurt trying to cuddle that!"

Dee laughed as she tossed the stick to her second corndog onto her tray. "No kidding. You should have heard Li Mei going off about how much food those girls are wasting. Apparently they won't eat anything that has ground meat in it anymore. They think it's just ground fat with a little bit of protein."

Gathering their trash, the two got up and headed down the midway again. They stopped and bought some cotton candy, eating that as they wandered off the main strip and into the games and rides.

"Step right up here! Beat the game and win a prize!" a barker called out.

His eyes sparkled as he saw Dee pull Manchu to a stop to watch him. He smiled at her, giving her a flirtatious wink. She blushed and clutched Manchu's arm in a nervous grip, stepping slightly behind him.

Calling out again, the barker caught the attention of a couple near his booth. "What do you say there, young man? Step up and win your lady a prize!"

"What do I gotta do?" the man asked.

"What you gotta do, my friend, is put together this simple puzzle in the allotted time!" the barker said, waving his hand over the jumble of pieces on the table.

"Yeah? That's it?"

"That's it. But if you can't put it together, you owe me two dollars. You put it together, I pay you two and give you a prize!"

With a cocky grin, the contestant agreed. Dee watched with amusement as the man tried for the next few minutes to get the puzzle started. Before the man even got two pieces together, the buzzer rang.

"I'm truly sorry, sir. But nice try." The barker leaned, looking over the top of his glasses as he pushed up the brim of his hat and gave the man a grin. "That'll be two dollars, please."

"This thing is fixed! The pieces don't go together!" the man complained even as he fished the money out of his wallet.

"Nonsense, my good man! It goes together as easy as one, two, three!" In the time it took the man to speak the sentence, the puzzle was together and held in the palm of his hand.

"C'mon, let's get outta here," the man said, roughly pulling his girlfriend away.

The barker chuckled as he dismantled the puzzle and placed it back on the table. A smirk ticked up the corner of his mouth and he pulled his glasses down at a pleasing angle. The man's green eyes glinted as he winked at Dee again, and then turned to Manchu.

"What about you, young man? Care to win your girl a fine prize?" he asked, squeaking the head of a doll on the shelf behind him.

Dee just grinned, embarrassed, and yet interested in this young man behind the table at the same time. He couldn't have been more than a few years older than her.

"I'm not good at puzzles. Those are more her department," he said, giving Dee a small push forward. Her timid behavior told him the fact that his friend found this man attractive.

"So, the little lady has an interest in puzzles, hm? Care to give it a try?" he asked.

His voice seemed to caress her senses, making her spine tingle pleasantly. She found herself acting coy and scuffing her toe behind her. "No, thanks. I'm not that good with puzzles. Besides, this one's rigged," she said, bolstering courage to look the young man in the eye.

One dark eyebrow shot up and his smile widened at her. "Now why would you say this is rigged, Kitten?"

Manchu cringed, waiting for Dee to say something about being called a pet name. Instead her blush deepened and she crossed her arms under her breasts.

"Just seems like no one could possibly win it without those glasses you've got on."

The man seemed to stop breathing for a moment as the glasses slipped off the end of his nose and onto the ground in front of Dee. Bending down, she picked the glasses up and tilted them at the puzzle. Giving a satisfied nod, she folded the stems, and placed them in the man's awaiting hand. As she placed the glasses in his hand, he curled his fingers to caress her wrist.

"You've got the pieces marked. If I could borrow your glasses, I'd gladly pay to play. But maybe another time," she said, quickly taking Manchu's hand and wheeling him away. As she walked away, she turned and looked over her shoulder at him, popping a piece of cotton candy in her mouth.

It took the barker a moment to recover from the redhead with the pigtails. He watched for a moment while the two disappeared into the crowd, letting out a low whistle. "Wow," he mumbled.

"A girl like that would never give you the time a day," chuckled the man in the next booth who had watched the entire exchange. "You can't even get a date with the girl at the ticket booth!"

The barker leveled a glare at his co-worker. Shrugging his uniform jacket off, he tossed it, along with his glasses and hat, to the back of the booth.

"I'm going on break," he grumbled, stalking off to the midway. He had a sudden craving for cotton candy.
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