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The carnival came to town late in July and the technicolor lights of the rides lit up the summer night in a way that was just on the dreamy side of frenzied. To Peggy’s surprise, instead of making a beeline for the Ferris wheel after finishing her cotton candy, Angie tugged her by her elbow to the booths attended by overly aggressive carnies.
“Angie are you sure you’re up to this? You know that you’re at a distinct disadvantage.”
Angie scoffed at Peggy’s confidence, adding a raised eyebrow for good measure. "I’m sure your fancy secret spy training makes you all sorts of qualified at carnival games, huh Peg?“ Angie said as she dug money from her purse to pay the man running the shooting gallery.
"Well I’m not quite an expert at the art of knocking down milk jugs but I wouldn’t be much of an agent if I couldn’t perform well in a shooting match.” The carnie passed Peggy the small plastic gun and she weighed it in her hand. Really, it was barely comparable to an actual weapon but she still had her impeccable aim to her advantage.
“Then you’re fine raising the stakes a bit?” Angie glanced at Peggy out of the corner of her eye while she sighted down the barrel of the toy gun. "I’d say… the loser gives the winner foot rubs for the whole rest of the week. And lemme tell you, your foot rubs are something to look forward to. You gotta way with your hands, English"
“Okay agreed, but you can’t claim that this was my doing. A foot rub after a long day of high heels and misogyny would be a welcome change and there will be no complaining when you face the consequences of your own bet”.
Peggy lifted the toy gun up to her shoulder as the shooting gallery in front of them creaked to life. Her first shot hit its target, dinging sharply at the collision. The music coming from the shooting gallery swelled as more and more tin figurines circled around the track. Peggy picked off a fair number of targets in rapid succession, a little smug about how well she could handle a gun, even one with sites as poor as this ones. After several more shots she noticed that Angie was hitting a fair number of figurines on her own.
“ Care to share where you developed this secret prowess with a firearm, Angie, dear?” Peggy said as aimed at and hit another target.
“A girl’s gotta have some secrets Peg,” Angie said as she hit three targets in the space of Peggy’s single shot. Eventually the carousel of tin soldier targets slowed to a stop and the man behind the stand plucked the toy guns away from the pair.
"A teddy bear to the winner!“ the mustached carnie announced, tossing Angie her prize.
"Well, I did pull a couple of my shots up and to the left. I thought I’d give you a little bit of a helping hand” Peggy said, looping her arm through Angie’s and leading her off towards the House of Mirrors.
“Sure you did. And you’ll be giving me another helping hand when I come home tomorrow with very sore feet.”