Carter and the Curious Maze Page 7

  “I … I’m not sure,” he said. “Probably not, no, not really.” Sydney ignored him and pointed at the “Welcome to the Curious Maze” signpost.

  “I think that’s false advertising: the most interesting ride you’ll ever take? Hardly.”

  Carter didn’t know whether he should laugh or scream. Was she kidding? He looked at his sister, still feeling strange and dizzy, but she didn’t seem to be joking with him.

  “Sydney, I’ve been gone for hours in that maze. Haven’t you missed me?”

  “What do you mean? ‘Gone for hours?’ And why would I miss you? I’ve been right here, calling you. You were only gone a few minutes. What’s wrong with you? You don’t look too well.” She looked at him, a little concerned. Carter shook his head. He couldn’t quite grasp what was happening.

  “Um, did you go into the maze, too?” he asked, a little breathless.

  Sydney looked at him very closely. “I went in, walked to the exit, then came out. You took a little longer but came out a few minutes later. Are you okay, little brother? Do you have sunstroke or something?”

  Carter felt faint. What was going on?

  “Did you see Mr. Green, too?”

  “Mr. Green? Who’s that? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Carter.” She spoke very slowly and clearly like she would to a small child who didn’t quite understand what was being said. “You and I went for a walk over to the maze for a few minutes, and then I got through the maze first, and you followed a few minutes later. I called you a few times, then there you were. Why would I worry about you in a maze for ten minutes?”

  “You … you’ve been standing here the whole time? You didn’t miss me?” he asked.

  “Yes, Carter, I’ve been standing here the whole time. And no I didn’t miss you. There was no time to miss you. Geesh, now I know you have sunstroke.” Sydney had clearly had enough of the conversation and took one last look at the curious maze sign. “Hardly the most interesting ride ever,” she muttered. “It’s almost four o’clock. Let’s go find Mom. Maybe take you to the hospital and get your brain checked,” she teased. Then she walked away.

  Carter gulped. Okay. So it was all a hallucination? A bizarre, terrifying dream? A trick of the light?

  No! Arthur, Clarissa, the freak show, the grand magazine explosion, the bear, the old French fort. Mr. Green. It was REAL. He was THERE. Time passed differently in the maze. Maybe what took an afternoon for him just took a few minutes for Sydney, but it still happened.

  Carter’s head was spinning. He was glad to be back … but nothing made sense.

  He ran to catch up with his sister, and they headed toward the parking lot to find their mother.

  The late afternoon sun shone on the midway, lighting up the huge roller coasters and Ferris wheels in the distance. People sat on picnic benches eating an early dinner, or ice cream. In cones.

  Maybe it was all a dream?

  Carter took a deep breath and tried to calm down. It was okay. Whatever had happened to him that afternoon, he was back, he was safe. It had been a strange adventure, but he found his way out of the maze. It was over.

  He didn’t look back. Then he did, just once … and did a double-take.

  Carter gasped. Then he tried not to scream.

  A tiny figure in a green smock stood beside a tree and waved at him.

  The figure clutched a pair of red-handled garden shears!

  Carter didn’t want to see, didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to know. But he knew all the same. There was no denying what he just saw. Or what he knew was coming next.

  Just below the screams of the midway, there it was, the sound he’d never forget for as long as he lived …

  SNIP!

  SNIP!

  Then, as Carter watched in horror, Mr. Green and the curious maze disappeared in a whirlwind of dust, off to startle and astound children in another fairground, in some other far-away place and long-ago time.

  This Part Is (Also) Mostly True

  Welcome to the end of the story, and if you’ve made it this far, congratulations. I told you at the beginning that it was scary and more than a little strange, yet here you are. I’m sure you’ll never look at a leafy garden maze the same way ever again.

  You’ve no doubt got many questions at this point. You’re probably wondering what happened next, and you might also be thinking … is this story true?

  Well, some parts of it are absolutely true. Still, if you remember on the very first pages of this book, you read these words: Truth is an odd thing. One person’s truth can be another person’s lie. That’s the most important thing to remember about this story: sometimes things that seem like lies are actually true. And sometimes, you never can tell.

  Truth can be sneaky, although that shouldn’t stop anyone from seeking it. So without further ado, here are some definite truths …

  … freak shows were a regular feature of fairs in the past, battles from long ago did occur in many strange and unlikely places, and Native families traded with Europeans a long time before there were cities.

  But I suspect what you really want to know is far less factual, and much more strange. No doubt you want to know if there really was an Arthur, a Creepy Leaf Girl, a wounded soldier, and a young Native boy wandering around a curious, leafy maze?

  Was Carter really there in all those time periods, hearing and seeing all the things that had happened in that same spot over hundreds of years?

  Well, time travel is a tricky business. Who knows the journeys others take in their spare time on a sunny summer afternoon? I can tell you this, though: I, for one, would give a good deal to visit a fair in my city over one hundred years ago, or to spend an afternoon among the traders and Native families of a very old and little-known French trading post. The battleground I could skip, quite frankly, since I have little stomach for such things.

  You only need to read a good book on the subject at hand to decide what’s real and what’s not, or dare I say, even feel as though you’d been transported there yourself for a while.

  And finally … what about Mr. Green? Did he use the magic garden shears that Carter so kindly propped against him to turn back into himself? Let’s just say that the maze is a kind of game, after all, and a very ancient one at that. It could have magic at its roots somewhere, and someone has to trim it and care for it. If the maze-keeper chose children who were bored with the usual ideas of fun to teach them what interesting really means, that just adds to the curious nature of his story, doesn’t it?

  I CAN tell you that every once in a while, a peculiar story will pop up about a strange maze-keeper and a vanishing maze. And every once in very long while, the story may include a rattled child spouting an odd tale about time travel, a small man in a green smock and magical garden shears. As for the truth? The only way to know for sure is to look for an inviting leafy green pathway the next time you’re at the fair … and consider taking a journey of your own.

  Now you know the story of Carter and the curious maze. Despite his experience that day, Carter grew up to have a pretty normal life. He was an expert historian, by the way, and taught history classes at the local university, specializing in early European and Native trade.

  There were only two things a little strange about Carter.

  One: he never (EVER) went anywhere near a fairground or midway ever again. The sight of an old-fashioned carousel could send him into a frenzy.

  Two: Garden shears were strictly forbidden. Even large scissors would upset him. But worse than that, sometimes in the middle of the night he would sit bolt upright in bed and call out to his family: “Do you hear someone TRIMMING THE HEDGE?”

  A Historical Note From the Author

  The fairground in this book is full of mysterious secrets. In fact, all the events described in this story are based on real historical events that occurred on the fairground near the lak
e by my home, and all the time periods that Carter visits in this book have been carefully researched.

  The Grand Fair in 1903 is an accurate depiction of many North American agricultural fairs at the time. The sideshow freaks, rides, and food are all historically correct. There really was a Wild Man of Borneo, and Thumbelina really was billed as the smallest mother in the world in 1903, for example.

  The soldier’s fort is a real place, and there was a battle between American and British soldiers there on April 27, 1813. The battle ended when the British blew up the Grand Magazine, which resulted in the largest man-made explosion the world had ever experienced up until that time, and wounded or killed almost five hundred American, British, and Native soldiers in a few moments.

  Finally, a tiny trading fort stood on the same fairgrounds over two hundred and fifty years ago, where the French traded with Native hunters. A small memorial marker stands on the fairgrounds today, recognizing the existence of the Fort from 1750–59.

  With a little digging, you’ll likely discover that your local fairground is just as interesting and strange as mine. I hope you enjoy many curious and wonderful summer adventures there!

  — Philippa Dowding

  The author would like to thank the staff at Fort York and CNE Archives for their helpful insight.

  Copyright © Philippa Dowding, 2016

  Illustrations © Shawna Daigle, 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Project Editor: Carrie Gleason

  Editor: Allister Thompson

  Illustrator: Shawna Daigle

  Interior Design: Laura Boyle

  Cover Design: Courtney Horner

  Cover art by Shawna Daigle

  Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Dowding, Philippa, author

  Carter and the curious maze / Philippa Dowding.

  (Weird stories gone wrong)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4597-3249-0 (paperback).--ISBN 978-1-4597-3250-6 (pdf).--

  ISBN 978-1-4597-3251-3 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series: Dowding, Philippa, 1963- . Weird stories gone wrong.

  PS8607.O9874C37 2016 jC813'.6 C2015-906602-6

  C2015-906603-4

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

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