Karen's County Fair Read online

  As soon as we walked in the sheep arena, I gulped. The sheep looked big and sleek. They had all been shorn. And none of them had ribbons in their wool.

  Mrs. Stone looked at me. “Are you sure you still want to enter Ollie in the livestock contest?” she asked.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes,” I said.

  Mrs. Stone and I registered Ollie. Then we settled him in his pen. I took Ollie’s halter off and petted him. “I will see you later,” I whispered.

  “Why don’t we split into small groups? That way we can explore the fair before the contests begin,” Mrs. Stone suggested.

  “All right!” some of the kids shouted.

  Tia, Hannie, Nancy, and I were in Kristy’s group. (That was good because we like to do the same things.)

  First we decided to eat. Tia wanted a corn dog. I wanted cotton candy. Hannie wanted curly fries. Nancy wanted fry bread — a piece of fried dough with sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top.

  “This would be easier if you all wanted the same snack,” Kristy said.

  “You sound like Daddy,” I told her. She laughed.

  Luckily we found a stand that sold everything, except cotton candy. I had a corn dog instead. Like Tia.

  “Time to go on the rides,” I said when we finished eating.

  “Let’s not go on anything too wild,” Nancy said. “Not on a full stomach, anyway.”

  First we went on the merry-go-round. I sat on a pink and white horse and pretended to be a royal princess visiting her country estate. I turned my nose up in the air. I waved to the crowd without bending my wrist.

  When my friends and I went on llama rides. We pretended to be royal princesses.

  “Your Royal Highnesses,” Kristy called, “the contests are about to begin.”

  I crossed my fingers. Even royal princesses need good luck.

  Ollie in the Ring

  “Oof!” I was pulling Ollie into the ring. The livestock judging was starting. I led Ollie by his halter. Then I noticed something. None of the other sheep were wearing halters. Oops.

  I quickly took off Ollie’s halter and handed it to Tia. (She stood outside the ring.) Then I turned back to Ollie. But guess what. He had already run away.

  “Ollie! Come here!” I shouted. Ollie ran around the ring. He butted one of the other contestants, an older girl wearing jeans and cowboy boots. Finally I caught Ollie. The girl gave me a dirty look. Some of the other kids laughed. I felt my face turn bright red.

  Finally, Ollie settled down. I squatted beside him. I put one hand around his neck and the other under his chin, just like all the other kids were doing with their lambs.

  Then the judge came into the ring. He was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt.

  The judge asked us to lead our lambs in front of him. I noticed that he was staring at Ollie. (Maybe it was the bows.)

  Guess what. Ollie would not let me lead him. He sat in the middle of the ring and would not budge. Then he ran away. The judge looked at us and shook his head. (I guess we did not do too well in that part of the contest.)

  Next the judge asked us to form a line in front of him. He walked up and down each row. He checked the lambs’ hind leg muscles to see how strong they were. He checked the thickness of their lower legs. He also looked to see if they had wrinkles around their necks.

  When the judge checked Ollie, Ollie reared up on his hind legs. Then he butted me.

  I heard the audience giggling. The kids in the ring looked sorry for me. The judge looked kind of impatient.

  The judge tried once more to check Ollie. This time Ollie ran away again. He bounded around the ring. The judge gave me a Look. I knew what it meant. I caught Ollie and led him out of the ring.

  Tia helped me put Ollie in his pen. Then we sat in the bleachers with Kristy and watched the rest of the contest. Soon the judge announced the winners. I did not hear Ollie’s name.

  “I guess Ollie did not win anything,” I said.

  “No,” Tia agreed. “Are you upset?”

  “Not really,” I said. (I was a teensy bit embarrassed.) “You guys warned me. So did Mrs. Stone.”

  “Yeah,” Kristy said gently.

  “But you know what?” I said. “I still think Ollie was the prettiest lamb in the contest.”

  The Contests

  Tia, Kristy, and I rushed to the big barn. We arrived in the middle of the cooking contest.

  “Where have you guys been?” Bobby whispered loudly.

  “At the livestock contest,” I whispered back, just as loudly.

  “Sshhh!” Pamela said frowning.

  Hannie and Nancy turned around. They waved to Tia and me.

  The three judges walked up and down the aisles looking at the entries. I looked too. There were cakes in all shapes and sizes. One looked just like a cow. Another was shaped like a pig. Another looked like a big red barn. And, of course, there were the brownie hamburgers.

  “The entries are judged on taste and appearance,” Mrs. Stone told us. (I thought the cow cake looked the best.) The judges must have thought so, too. It won a blue ribbon.

  “Moo!” Bobby called out.

  I groaned. Hannie rolled her eyes.

  “He is acting like a sore loser because his hamburger brownies did not win,” I whispered. My friends agreed.

  “They are judging the produce next,” Hannie told us.

  We walked over to the giant zucchini, pumpkins, and eggplants.

  “Wow, they must have needed a crane to lift those pumpkins,” Ricky said.

  “The other zucchini look so long next to ours,” said Hannie.

  “I told you we should not have entered ours,” said Charlotte.

  Soon a judge picked up a microphone and announced the results. The giant pumpkin won first place. And Hannie’s group won third place for their tomatoes. The judge handed them a white ribbon. I was happy for them.

  Last came the sewing contest. Two judges checked the shirts, skirts, and quilts. Hannie, Nancy, Tia, and I looked at the quilts, too. We walked slowly down each aisle.

  We saw quilts with patches in the shapes of rabbits, sheep, and sailboats.

  “Look, there is one with shells and starfish,” cried Hannie.

  “I like the one with the lamb on it best,” I said. “I mean besides yours, Nancy.”

  The sewing group’s quilt did look good. I thought it deserved to win something.

  And it did. It won a red ribbon! (It came in second place.) I was proud of my friends.

  We stayed at the fair for another hour. And there was a lot to see. Hannie, Nancy, Tia, Kristy, and I went to the rabbit barn. We petted the rabbits, except the ones that looked as if they might bite. Then we sat outside and watched a dance contest. The band was great, so Tia, Hannie, Nancy, and I danced, too.

  Tia and I walked to the truck with Ollie. “You know what?” I said.

  “What?” asked Tia.

  “Ollie did not win anything. But the fair was fun, wasn’t it?”

  “Gigundoly fun,” Tia answered.

  Good-bye, Tia

  It was Tia’s last day in Stoneybrook. Daddy, Hannie, Nancy, and I were going to take her to the airport that afternoon.

  After breakfast, I left Tia alone so she could pack. Besides, I had a surprise for her. When Hannie and Nancy came over, I told them about my surprise. They said they would help me with it.

  We headed to my room. I had decided to make Tia a scrapbook of all the things she saw on her trip. I pulled out some old magazines.

  “Here,” I told my friends. “I found pictures of Central Park and the Empire State Building.”

  While Hannie and Nancy cut out the pictures, I drew a picture of Ollie at the fair. I pasted that in the scrapbook, along with a poem I had written about the mall.

  Then Nancy and Hannie wrote Tia a letter. I found a photo of Shannon and Boo-Boo. We pasted the letter and the photo in the book, too. Finally, I wrote:

  on the front cover. I tried to make the letters look extra-fancy.

&n
bsp; “Thank you,” said Tia when we gave her the present. She flipped through the book and laughed at my poem. “I had the best time visiting you.”

  “We left blank pages in the book,” I began. “So you can add more pictures and things the next time you visit.”

  Tia nodded. She was trying not to cry.

  Soon Daddy came upstairs to get Tia’s suitcase. Tia said good-bye to everyone in my big-house family, the pets, too. Shannon licked Tia’s nose.

  “Who is going to get up early to feed you now, Shannon?” Daddy teased. Shannon wagged her tail.

  A couple of hours later, Daddy’s station wagon swung into the parking lot at the airport.

  “Here we are,” Daddy said.

  “Boo,” I answered. Now we really would have to say good-bye.

  We walked Tia onto her plane. Tia had her own personal stewardess. Her name was Allison.

  “Hello, Tia,” Allison said. “Welcome aboard.”

  Tia looked at Daddy, Hannie, Nancy, and me. “Thank you for taking me to New York and Farm Camp, and for showing me all around.”

  Tia began to cry. She could not help it.

  “Saying good-bye is gigundoly hard,” I said. Then I began to cry, too.

  Each of us hugged Tia. We made her promise to visit us again, maybe next summer.

  Tia was going back to Nebraska. And Nancy, Hannie, and I were going home. We had another month of summer left.

  About the Author

  ANN M. MARTIN is the acclaimed and bestselling author of a number of novels and series, including Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), A Dog’s Life, Here Today, P.S. Longer Letter Later (written with Paula Danziger), the Family Tree series, the Doll People series (written with Laura Godwin), the Main Street series, and the generation-defining series The Baby-sitters Club. She lives in New York.

  Copyright © 1996 by Ann M. Martin

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

  First edition, 1996

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-05942-7