The Marketplace

• Kai Bartlett, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2022

I was standing in the subway waiting for my train until I searched my bag with hope but the ticket couldn’t be found. The train would arrive in 5 minutes and my house was a fifteen minute walk away so there wasn’t nearly enough time. If I failed to get there the whole market would be ruined and since I run the gift shop it would be a huge letdown for the kids and I would 100 percent lose my job. I thought if I blend in with the crowd I could just slip in without any ticket but if I get caught there is no chance I'll be getting my weekly weight but what other alternative do I have?

So I stayed down low in the crowd and managed to slip in the train carriage but there were so many people trotting on my face. I had shoe marks all over my puny face. We would be arriving at the carnival in an hour so I pretty much did nothing for the whole train trip other than looking at the five chewing gum stuck just under the seat just in front of me.

When we arrived at the carnival I set up the stand, got all the stuffed animals ready and prepared for the crowd bolting toward me begging their mums to get them a stuffed animal. The clock hit, it was time I got my cash register setup but then I could hear nobody. I thought by now I’d be hearing kids laughing but I heard nothing. Not even one little kid but I could see a different stand in the distance, a new stand with a massive inflatable hotdog and slushies just above the stand.

Then I had hoped for a little boy holding a raspberry slushie heading towards the stand with a whole crowd behind him, some running, some crying and just the ones that drag their mum across the rocky dirt path. Next thing I hear are gasps and sighs with the crowd slowly fading like ice melting. In seconds the crowd was once again a ghost town but I turned my head as if there was something wrong and there was something wrong! Someone had sabotaged the prices on the stuffed animals, for example 100 dollars for a dog plush! I quickly changed the prices on all the plushies but that obviously didn’t work. I had to find a way to catch their attention but right now all their attention is on only the Hot dog, slushie, clothes stand.

Then I remembered that the megaphone in the second drawer was full of junk so I turned the thing on and said what needed to be said so I screamed in it and said “every plushie is no %90 percent off!” They all ran as fast as a cheetah and before you know it all the plushes were gone and I made a good profit today.