“Wait up Jodi,”    Grandma called. “I need to fix his shoe!” She bent to slip Jeremy’s sandal back on his tiny foot. “I don’t know why your mom didn’t buy you shoes that fit, kiddo.”

Jeremy swayed, standing on one foot while    Grandma tightened the strap. His bright blue eyes scanned the crowd, looking far away like he always seemed to.

A sound like the page turning sound in the books Miss Jackson plays for us drifts down the street. Around us, a group of guys in jackets like Dad’s talk loudly to each other. Thick foam runs down their beer mugs and drips on their black motorcycle boots. Three kids whiz by on skateboards. One wears the same X-eyed smiley face shirt that my cousin Wyatt has. I hope they won’t tease me like Wyatt and his friends do.

Grandma licks her thumb and wipes dirt from Jeremy’s face.

That sound again—a clinky sound that isn’t a bell or a guitar. “What’s that noise,    Grandma?”

“It sounds like a harp.”

“Where is it? I want to see?”

“Keep walking. I’m sure we’ll find it.”

We walk past bright tents of paintings, jewelry, stuffed animals, and pottery. Two dogs sniff each other’s butts and then bark, while their owners pull them in opposite directions.

The buttery smell of popcorn mixes with barbecue ribs and funnel cakes. I am too busy looking for the sound that I almost step on someone’s tossed cigarette butt, still lit.

Up ahead, a blonde woman in a flowing dress sits in front of a massive wooden triangle, plucking strings. That is the sound. I dash toward her and weave through the circle of people watching. Her fingers move like water over the strings, and she grins at the crowd with perfect teeth.

When her song ends, she smiles down at Jeremy and I.

“What kind of instrument is that?” I ask.

“It’s a harp. Do you want to try?”

I can’t walk fast enough. Jeremy toddles behind me. His tiny sandals almost fall off again.

She steps aside and I strum all the strings at once with both hands.

“Be careful Jodi,”    Grandma calls from nearby. “Don’t break the strings!”

I jump up and down and try to make the loudest sound I can. For a second the harp drowns out my own laughter.

“Let Jeremy have a turn,”    Grandma says through her smile. She nods at the harp’s owner, who nods back.

Jeremy steps up, one sandal hanging off his foot. He slaps the strings with sticky palms. His squeal of a laugh turns heads.

“Thanks for letting them play it,”    Grandma says to the blonde.

“You’re welcome,” she replies, shuffling sheet music.

“Come on littles,”    Grandma urges. “Let’s let her get back to playing for everyone.”

The sounds of the harp follow us into the crowd, past games. A juggler in neon pants throws bowling pins high in the air and catches them behind his back. The lady next to us frantically pulls the disposable camera off her wrist to photograph him.

Someone hits the target on the dunktank hard, and a man in a suit drops like a brown blur into the water. Everyone cheers.

A young couple ask Jeremy and I if we want to paint blocks of wood. “Can we,    Grandma?” I plead.

“Go ahead.”    Grandma smiles and waves to a lady selling fudge.

I dip a long-handled brush into thick purple paint and cover my block so none of the wood shows through. Jeremy puts his brush in three different colors and slaps a messy blob onto his. The woman bends beside him and shows him how to hold it. “Brush the paint on like this honey.” He points to a dixie cup full of sky blue, and she slides it closer. “You like blue? It’s like your eyes.”

Jeremy gives a bashful smile and looks away.

I try to make a yellow star in the middle of my block, like the patches on Wyatt’s shoes. But the paint turns muddy brown. I paint the star anyway and try to make all five points exactly the same.

Jeremy bangs his brush on his block and spatters blue paint on the woman’s apron. The couple laughs.

The band on stage starts playing the Godzilla song Dad plays in the car.

Grandma watches, feeding a small square of fudge into her mouth.

A group of little girls chase each other by, their shoelaces bright as candy.

“He’s gonna be a lady killer one day,” the woman tells    Grandma, who is fixing Jeremy’s sandal again. “Those eyes!”

“He’s got his Daddy’s eyes,”    Grandma brags.

“I have hazel eyes,” I say too loudly.

“Your eyes are pretty too.” The woman nods halfheartedly and fusses over Jeremy’s color-smeared block.

The man sets our blocks on a cloth to dry. Jeremy presses his palms onto the table near his, like he doesn’t want to leave it.

“We’ll get it later,”    Grandma promises, ruffling his messy black hair.

I look down at my sad poop colored star and shake my head.

The crowd swallows us up again. A song is playing about a place with green grass and pretty girls. All other sound melts into the same roar. My ears buzz and I want a drink of water.

Jeremy puts his small clammy hand in mine. We follow    Grandma into a small shop with a beaded curtain in the back. The air here is cooler, dimmer. It smells like dried flowers and the incense Mom and Dad burn when they shut the bedroom door.

“You two wait right here,”    Grandma says. “I need to talk to my friends for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

I take Jeremy’s hand and lead him to the corner of the shop, where a giant terrarium full of plants glistens in the window. Tiny see-through pearls of condensation cling to the glass. A betta fish glides like a red and blue myth in a bowl nearby.

“Look, but don’t touch,” I whisper to Jeremy, who is enraptured by the colorful creature.

Through the beaded curtain, I see    Grandma hug three women in long flowy dresses. One has brown designs on her hands like    Grandma’s macrame plant holders.

They form a circle around a small table. Bowls of water and salt are placed on a wooden star like the one I tried to paint on my block. The woman with painted hands takes bunches of flowers down from the ceiling and sprinkles them around the bowls.

They join hands and sing words I don’t understand.    Grandma’s lips move in unison with theirs. They’ve all done this before. Their song sounds like bees buzzing in the distance.

Jeremy squeezes my hand.

“Go look at the fishy, Jeremy.”

He turns his head toward the betta, and then looks right back at    Grandma, feet glued to the floor.

Grandma reaches in her patchwork shoulder bag, and pulls out a colorful object.

“That’s mine!” Jeremy says, pointing at his block.

Grandma lays it on the table next to my blue scrunchie that I lost months ago.

Decorated hands wave over the items, drawing symbols in the air. One woman sprinkles water and salt on them, while another waves a smoky white bundle.    Grandma drips white wax on both and ties a red string around each.

“My bwock,” Jeremy sobs next to me. Tears streak his small face and his little body shakes.

I wrap my arms around him. “It’s okay.”

He collapses to the checkered floor, a mess of tears and wails.

The women look up, and    Grandma turns around, but they don’t break the circle. I sit beside him and whisper: “Remember on The Simpsons when Homer fell down the gorge? Doh!”

He smiles through tears, and gives a small, gruff, “Doh” of his own.

“Remember when Bart called Moe’s and asked for a guy named Hugh Jass?”

He laughs as if his block of wood never existed.

Grandma said her goodbyes to the three women and pushed the beads aside. The bamboo clicked on her long nails. She pressed a cone of sugared almonds into my hand and kissed Jeremy’s hair.

The shop fades into the background when we walk back up the street. We pass the harp player again. Her beautiful blonde hair blows around her and her hands shimmer on the strings.

We never went back for my block.

Author’s Note:

Thanks for reading! Follow me on twitter at: https://x.com/Valkrane

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The image above was created with DALL-E, in the future when life slows down a bit, I plan to use my own art for these stories. But for now, this works.

Thanks for reading.

V.