I decided to go ask the carnival people if they'd seen Mia. They were weird and gave me the heebie-jeebies, but they were adults, right? So that meant they had to help, right?

"Excuse me, sir?" I said, approaching the booth with the red haired man.

"Well howdy," he said. "Did you need something?"

"I'm looking for my little sister. We got separated, and I can't find her."

"Okay, no problem. Let's go to my office and I can make a call over the intercom."

He opened a little half-door at the side of his booth and stepped out, and I thought that maybe this wouldn't be so bad. His ears were pointy and he had two long teeth peeking out from under his lips like fangs, but so what? I followed him down the way, telling him what Mia looked like. We'd made half a circuit of the shops-oval when he slipped between two stalls and we reached a spot on the wooden wall that had spray painted on it "Employees Only."

There was no hinges or handles to show there was any door there, but my guide placed his hands on the words, and the chunk of wall vanished into nothing. "Don't worry about it," he said.

We stepped through the gap in the wall and onto the other side-- which looked like a regular chunk of field. There were small buildings scattered around, and a few trash bins, but nothing else within the walls.

"This way," he said, taking the lead. I followed him to one of the little buildings and up the wooden steps. From his pocket he pulled out a ring of keys so full that there was no room for them to jangle. He chose one without even looking and unlocked the door.

The man's office was small and dingy and cool. There was a table and two chairs off to one side, a desk in the back piled up with papers, and a little kitchenette that was cramped full of old dishes. I stopped noticing anything else about the room, because after that first initial glance, all I could think about was cookies.

The smell of freshly baked cookies hit me like a wave as soon as I was through the threshold. My mouth began to salivate, and it was all I could do to stop myself from drooling.

"Sit on down for a moment while I make a call," the man said. "You said your sister has dark hair? About yea-high?" The man put his hand by his hip, indicating how tall he thought Mia was. I nodded, but found my eyes drawn to a plate of cookies on the table.

He saw me looking and laughed. "I'm going to the back," he said, gesturing to a door I hadn't noticed before. "I'll be right back."

Then he left.

And I really wanted a cookie.


-->[Have some?]


-->[Not now.]

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