A Visit to the Sharptown Carnival
by Zachary

Joey's mom and dad took him and his brother, Cody, to the Sharptown carnival. They loved to drive from their home in Pennsylvania to Sharptown every year in June to see it. It was a family trip that everyone in the family looked forward to. The boys liked the hot dogs, spicy crabcakes and the rides. They arrived at the carnival around 11 o’clock and met their whole family who lived in Sharptown. They had a family reunion at the carnival. The children liked to go off by themselves to get on the rides and visit the stands. They always met their parents back at the Ferris Wheel at lunch time.

Joey carried the red helium balloon that he won at the Penny Toss as he watched the Ferris Wheel go around and around. Thump! A man bumped into him as he waited in line for a ride. The balloon string slipped from his hand and his balloon went high into the sky. He began to chase it and followed it into the woods around the Sharptown carnival grounds.

The red balloon was twirling around in the sky and seemed happy to be free and floating in the air. It got away from him and a man getting off the ferris wheel saw him running after his balloon. Joey followed it through the woods until it got stuck in a big oak tree. As Joey climbed the tree to get his balloon he thought about his mom and dad who would be looking for him at the Ferris Wheel. They agreed to meet there at lunch time to get something to eat together.

"Joey! Joey!" Joey's parents called him but he didn't come. They were very worried about Joey because he didn't meet them on the carnival grounds at the Ferris Wheel ride at the time he was supposed to meet them.

In the meantime, Joey's mom, dad, brother and the whole family were looking everywhere for him. Cody ran toward the woods and at last saw a red balloon near the top branches of a tree. As he got closer he could hear Joey calling for help. Joey climbed as far as he could but then he got scared and called for help.

Cody went through lots of trails to find his brother but he had to climb over fallen branches before he could get to Joey. At last Cody found him upside down hanging from a branch. Cody tried to climb the tree and hold on to Joey so he could get down but Joey's fingers started to slip from the tree. Cody could tell that Joey was going to fall so he said, "Hang on, Joey! I'll go get mom and dad to call the fire department. They'll help you get down.”

Ten minutes later Cody ran back really fast with his mom and dad and two fire fighters who were carrying a ladder. The firemen were happy that they rescued a little boy. Joey's mom and dad were so happy to see him again on the ground. Joey's mom and dad took Joey back to the carnival and got him a blue balloon. The blue balloon also got away from Joey but he decided not to chase the balloon and instead he watched it fly away. Joey took a deep breath and said, “What a trip this has been.”

Patti Weeg
patti@globalclassroom.org

May 6, 2002