shut down the carnival, wouldn’t they have tried to damage it more? Hurry, fellows, let’s go to Andy’s trailer!”
They walked quickly, but quietly, from the carousel to the shooting gallery. The crowd of customers had grown now, and the boys circled cautiously through them to the rear of the shooting gallery. The instant they rounded the back of the booth into the dark rear area, they saw dolls, toys, and other small prizes strewn over the ground.
“It’s been broken open!” Andy whispered.
“Look!” Bob pointed.
A shadow seemed to flit from behind the trailer. The shadow of a man who ran in the night — across the open ground behind the carnival booths and tents, through a narrow hole in the temporary fence, and on towards the abandoned amusement park.
“After him!” said Jupiter.
“There,” Pete said quietly, “he’s going through the fence!’
“Don’t let him see us,” Jupiter said.
They slipped through the fence one by one and stood in the dark, silent grounds of the old amusement park. The rickety roller coaster towered above them in the light of the rising moon. A strong mountain wind blowing out to sea made the old timbers creak and whine eerily.
“I don’t see him,” Bob said softly.
“Wait,” Jupiter whispered “Listen.”
Crouched in the shadow of the high fence, they all listened in the night The gay music from the repaired carousel sounded miles away outside the fence. Nothing moved in the darkness of the abandoned amusement park. To the left they heard the steady lap — lap — lap of water in the tunnel of love. There were small, scurrying sounds that could only be rats. They heard no other sounds in the ominous silence.
“He can’t have gone far,” Jupiter said in a low voice. “We’ll split up, fellows. Pete and I will go to the right round the roller coaster. Bob and Andy will go left.”
“You think it’s the robber, Jupe?” Andy asked.
“I do,” Jupiter said. “I think he did fail to find what he wanted in the cats, so he searched the trailer. If he found it in the trailer, he’s going to be really dangerous now. If you see him, just follow him. Don’t try to catch him.”
They all nodded, and Bob and Andy vanished to the left towards the tunnel of love and the ocean side of the roller coaster, Jupiter and Pete moved quietly between the sagging roller coaster and the laughing mouth of the fun house.
The night made the abandoned rides and shows look like the landscape of the moon. Pete and Jupiter had passed the fun house, and were continuing on round the ghostly roller coaster, when Pete suddenly crouched down.
“Jupe! I hear something!” Pete whispered.
In the darkness under the beams of the roller coaster, and somewhere behind them now, they heard a small sound. It came again — a soft scraping like heavy shoes on rough wood. Then, what could only be quick footsteps running back away from them. The heavy steps of a man.
“I see him!” Pete hissed to Jupiter. “He’s going towards the fun house.”
“Can you see who he is?”
“No,” Pete said. “He’s gone into the fun house!”
“Hurry, Pete. There might be another way out!” They hurried silenty across the moonlit open space to the gaping mouth of the fun house.
Inside, they listened. They were in a dark passage that faded into blackness ahead. Shafts of silver moonlight through holes in the rotted roof were the only illumination.
“He had to go straight ahead, Jupe,” Pete whispered. As if to confirm Pete’s statement, they heard a sharp, creaking noise in front of them, followed instantly by a thud and a sharp cry. Something heavy seemed to slide and bang against wood. The creaking sound came again, with another bang — and silence.
They looked at each other uneasily, and began to move cautiously forward along the dark, moonlit passage. Vaguely, they made out a closed door straight ahead. “Be careful when you open — ” Jupiter began.
The First Investigator got no farther in his warning about the door. With a sudden creaking noise the floor of the passage dropped away at a steep angle. They slipped flat on their backs, and slid wildly down the tilted floor as if on a playground slide.
There was nothing to hold on to. Flailing their arms, they slid down pell-mell until they hit with a thud against the wall ahead.
“Oooof!” The breath was knocked out of both of them.
Untangling their arms and legs, they sat up and watched in dismay as the floor that had tilted down so suddenly creaked and groaned and swung up again, becoming the ceiling of the dark, narrow hole in which they sat!
“The, whole floor tilted down!” Pete exclaimed. “It must be balanced so that when someone walks on it past the centre it drops like a see-saw.”
“It’s a fun house trick that still works,” Jupiter realized. “The robber must have fallen down it ahead of us, but where did he go?”
“There’s only one way,” Pete said.
Directly in front of them was a narrow, round opening like a pipe. There was no other way out of the hole.
“Be careful,” Jupiter whispered, “there might be a trick.”
They crawled into the narrow tunnel. It was short, and they emerged into a room. Light filtered through wide cracks in the ceiling.
Except that it wasn’t the ceiling above them — it was the floor!
“Juuuuupe!” Pete’s voice quavered.
They seemed to be upside down in the dim, silvery room. The floor with its chairs, tables, and rug was above their heads. A ceiling light fixture stood straight up in front of them, and upside-down paintings floated in front of their startled eyes.
Jupiter whispered, “Another trick, Pete. They probably used lighting effects to make it better when they were operating.”
“You’re sure we’re not upside down?” Pete said doubtfully.
“Of course I am,” Jupiter insisted. “There’s another round tunnel ahead leading out of here. Come on.”
The new tunnel was much larger. As they stepped through, it moved and rocked. They realized that it had once been a revolving barrel. Though it no longer turned, it was still unsteady, and they stumbled through holding on to the rocking sides.
“Listen,” Jupiter warned.
Somewhere ahead was a faint noise, like someone stepping very quietly.
“There,” Pete whispered, and then gasped, “Oh —!”
They were in a longer and wider room than the other. It’s ceiling was badly rotted, and bright moonlight filled it, casting deep, moving shadows. But it wasn’t the shadows that had made Pete gulp. Jupiter stared in fright.
A strange shape moved near the wall to the right. A monstrous apparition that looked straight at the boys. It was tall, horribly thin, with an enormous swollen head and arms as long and thin as tentacles. Its whole weird body seemed to flow and shift in the silver light like a giant, human snake.
“Wha… what… is it?” Pete stammered, moving close to Jupiter.
Jupiter gulped, “I don’t know… I… ” and then began to laugh nervously. “It’s mirrors, Pete! We’re in the crazy hall of mirrors! We’re seeing ourselves in twisted mirrors!”
