The Best of the Fair
Elementary: Grades 3–4
Story
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"A railway?" said Joseph. "Let's go!"
It wasn't hard to find. They just walked toward the sounds of people shrieking happily. The ice railway was a place to sled even though it was summer. Lily looked hopefully at Grandpa, and soon she had ten cents for a ride that made her laugh and scream. Joseph watched, disappointed that it wasn't a train. They asked the man running the ice railway, "Where's the best place at the fair?"
"You're here! There's nothing better than the ice railway," he said.
"Do you know Mr. Weller? He's at the best place." Lily asked.
"Try the Ferris wheel. That's the second-best," the man suggested with a shrug.
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It wasn't hard to find the Ferris wheel, one of the biggest things they'd ever seen."I can't believe it moves," Lily said.
"It is like a train in the sky," Joseph said. "Let's ride it!"
Grandpa reached into his pocket for money again. It was turning into an expensive day: the tickets cost fifty cents each, as much as admission to the fair.
In line, they watched the great wheel and its 36 cars creak around. The top was 250 feet off the ground, far higher than anything else in Chicago. "This is an amazing invention," Grandpa marveled.
Finally it was their turn. Six cars stopped at the platform, and it took a few minutes to board sixty people into each car. The cars were bigger than the fancy train cars that went back and forth to New York, and they had conductors like real trains. Lily, Joseph, and even Grandpa gasped when the car began to move. The wheel was gentle and quiet. As they rose higher and higher, Lily grabbed Grandpa's hand. Joseph shut his eyes. "Don't worry," said the conductor.
For the first ten minutes, they stopped six times so that all 36 cars could fill with passengers. Lily liked it when they just floated in the air more than when the wheel moved and gave her a funny feeling in her stomach. At the top they could see the whole city, smoke rising from buildings' chimneys, and boats bobbing on the lake.
Once the wheel was filled with more than 2,000 passengers, it went all the way around without stopping. It was the most exciting, and scariest, nine minutes of Lily's whole life. Joseph hid his head in Grandpa's lap. Grandpa didn't tell them, but he was excited and a little bit afraid, too.
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