The Summer of Cotton Candy
Read The Summer of Cotton Candy Online
Authors: Debbie Viguie
A Sweet Seasons Novel
the summer of cotton candy
debbie viguié
ZONDERVAN
The Summer of Cotton Candy
Copyright © 2008 by Debbie Viguié
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EPub Edition © June 2009 ISBN:978-0-310-85664-1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Viguié, Debbie.
The summer of Cotton Candy : a sweet seasons novel / by Debbie Viguié.
p. cm.
Summary: Forced by her father to get a summer job, seventeen-year-old Candace makes the most of selling cotton candy in an amusement park, despite a botched nametag, vindictive co-workers, lewd patrons, and growing distant from her best friend.
[1. Summer employment — Fiction. 2. Amusement parks — Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations — Fiction. 4. California — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.V6727Sum 2008
[Fic] — dc22
2008004935
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the
Holy Bible, New International Version
®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
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09 10 11 12 13 • 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
To my husband, Scott, who loves theme parks even more than I do.
I would like to thank everyone who has helped me through the course of writing this book. Thank you to my parents and all my friends who listened as I described the theme park in detail. Thank you to my agent, Beth Jusino, for believing in me. Thank you to Barbara Scott and the group at Zonderkidz who championed the story. Thank you all.
Contents
The Fall of Candy Corn, Book 2 in Sweet Seasons.
Carter House Girls Series from Melody Carlson
A Sweet Seasons Novel from Debbie ViguiÉ!
The Shadowside Trilogy by Robert Elmer!
Candace Thompson wondered where her life had gone wrong. Maybe when she was fourteen, she should have babysat her bratty cousin when her parents asked. Maybe when she was seven, if she hadn’t locked the teacher out of the classroom, this wouldn’t be happening to her. No, maybe her life went all wrong when she was three and she knocked down the girl with the pigtails who had stolen Mr. Huggles, her stuffed bear. Yes, the more she thought about it, that must have been the moment that started her on the path that led to the special punishment she was now suffering.
It was the first day of summer vacation, but for Candace, it might as well have been the last. She sat in a dark dreary office, signing away her freedom. The decree had come down from her father: she had to get a job. No job, no cash. No cash, no movies or hanging with her friends. It didn’t matter to him that if she had a job she wouldn’t have time to do the things she would need the money for.
She took a deep breath as she finished filling out the last form and handed it across the desk to the recruiter, Lloyd Peterson, a strange-looking man in a frumpy brown suit whom she was convinced had to be a perv. Hadn’t she seen him on
America’s Most Wanted
? She slid down into her seat, willing herself to be invisible, or at least small enough to slip away unnoticed.
“Candace,” he mused, “can I call you Candy?”
“Well…” She was about to say no. She hated that name.
“Great. So, Candy, what makes you want to work for The Zone?”
She didn’t want to work for The Zone, she just wanted to enjoy her summer like everybody else. Her father had put his foot down, though. According to him it was time she learned the value of work and earning her own way. She had chosen to work for The Zone because she had absolutely no skills, and working for a theme park seemed more interesting than flipping burgers.
She sighed and squirmed, refusing to meet the recruiter’s eyes. “I’ve always dreamed of working for The Zone. I want to be part of the excitement and help people enjoy themselves more.” It was her rehearsed answer, and she held her breath, hoping he would buy it.
He stared at her for a long minute before nodding. Picking up a bright blue folder on his desk, he flipped it open and cleared his throat. “You realize, of course, that if you wanted a summer job, you should have started applying months ago, right?” he asked, staring at her over the tops of his glasses.
She slunk farther down into her chair. She licked her lips when she realized he expected an answer. “No,” she said.
“No? No? Well, you are wrong. In order to get a good summer job, you should start applying at least in March.”
March! All I could think of in March was holding out until spring break without going postal.
Her eyes were now nearly level with the edge of his desk. “I just thought, you know, The Zone needs a lot of employees.”
“You are correct, but most of our summer positions have already been filled.”
He stopped and stared at her. She wasn’t sure what he expected her to say, but she was beginning to have the sinking feeling that her summer would consist of asking people if they wanted fries with their meal.
Just as she was about to get up to leave, sure that the interview had come to an end, he spoke. “We do, however, have two openings.”
She sat up. “What are they?”
“The first is janitorial.”
“You mean those people who go around sweeping up after everyone?”
That might not be so bad. At least I could keep moving, and nobody ever pays attention to them.
He raised an eyebrow. “Some of our janitorial employees do that, but not this position. This one is cleaning up the women’s restrooms.”
Candace’s stomach turned. In her mind she pictured the high-school bathroom by fourth period, and that was only with a few hundred users, not thousands. There was no way she was going there.
“Um, and the other one is…?” she managed to ask as diplomatically as she could.
“Cotton candy operator.”
“I’ll take it!” she exclaimed, more loudly than she had meant to.
“Good!” Lloyd stood up and opened a drawer in one of his many filing cabinets. He pulled out a stack of papers two inches thick and slammed them down on his desk right in front of her. The desk continued to shake for a moment as though there had just been an earthquake. “Fill those out.”
“Now?” she asked, her mind boggling over the enormity of the task. She moved slightly so that she was eye level with the stack, and she could feel her hand begin to cramp up in premature protest.
“Yes, now. You can, however, use the table in the courtyard if you’d be more comfortable.”
The word
duh
came to mind, but she bit her tongue and kept it to herself.
“Yes, sir, thank you. I’ll do that,” she said instead, scrambling to her feet and grabbing the stack of papers. She made her way out of the room as fast as she could, taking a deep breath once in the hallway.
The hallways around this place are roomier than the offices
, she thought to herself as she immediately began to feel less claustrophobic. She turned around, not sure which way the courtyard would be. She hadn’t seen one on her way in, so it must be in the other direction.
She came to a T in the hall and craned her neck to the right. All she could see that way were more offices, so she turned to the left…
… and ran straight into a six-foot wall.
“Umph,” the wall gasped as Candace’s papers went flying in all directions.
“I am so sorry,” Candace said, realizing that the wall she had run into was actually a guy, a
big
guy, a guy with muscles she could see through his shirt. She looked up and forgot what she was going to say next. She was staring at the Lone Ranger. He stood there, larger than life in pale blue, complete with boots and gun belt. Black wavy hair shone from underneath a white hat pushed far back on his head. A black mask covered part of his face.