Love and Pac-Man
By Nathan Marchand
“I don’t wanna be here, Joey!” cried my blonde eight-year-old sister, Kay. “I wanna ride the Wild Mouse!”
I tightened my grip on her tiny hand as we walked to Adventureland’s arcade, Tilt. The stares we were getting from parents and their kids were palpable. I smiled awkwardly at some passersby and then turned my attention to Kay. “Don’t worry. We’ll ride it soon. I just want to play some of the games in here, okay? I promise I’ll buy you a stuffed Black Beauty with the tickets I win.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Pinky swear!” My sister held up her mouse-tail of a pinky.
I wrapped my, by comparison, python-like pinky around hers and swore my oath.
Instantly, Kay smiled, and said, “Okay!” With that, she released my hand and ran through the door into Tilt.
I shook my head and sighed. Maybe I was better off spending my Friday night working on my old laptop or reading a C.S. Lewis book. But someone has to watch her while Mom and Dad are out on their “date night.” That thought felt like a knife through the heart. I wish I had a date tonight. I harrumphed. At least in our tiny rural town we have a half-decent little theme park to go to. I can enjoy a bit of the hot weather this summer before I go back to college.
I pushed open the door and was greeted by a rainbow of flashing neon signs, the smell of pizza, the screaming laughter of children, musty air, and the cacophony of Donkey Kong, Street Fighter, and Mario Bros. Shouting over it was the song “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, which was blaring from the jukebox. It brought back happy childhood memories.
“Hi-ho, Silver, away!”
I looked to my right and saw a giggling Kay straddling a Lone Ranger-themed coin-operated horse ride sitting next to a Pac-Man machine.
“How’d you get that to work?” I asked.
“I found a quarter on the floor,” replied Kay, smiling coyly.
I rolled my eyes. A few seconds later, the horse stopped, and I lifted Kay off “Silver” and onto the floor. I crouched to make eye contact. “What poor boy did you charm into giving you his hard-earned money?”
Kay hung her head and wrung her hands, wearing her trademark “pouty face.”
“Spit it out, Sissy.”
Hesitantly, she pointed behind me and said, “That one.”
I looked over my shoulder. There, standing between an animatronic Abraham Lincoln and a Gunpowder arcade machine was a little brown-haired boy about her age wearing a Quickdraw McGraw T-shirt—and he was holding the hand of Sue Preor!
I gulped. My sister had just swindled money from my high school crush’s little brother!
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