Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse by Kaleb Nation Page A

closer, and the closer it got, the more worried Sewey looked. He punched off the radio.
    "What is this?" he murmured.
    Bran looked out his window as the park came into view, and it looked so different from their usual picnic spot that even he wondered if they had come to the right place. Brightly colored tents and banners dotted acres of the grounds, with flags waving in the wind and animal pens all around. There was a bull in one, nearly twenty pigs in another, and sheep and goats and huge display cages spread about. He couldn’t see the whole lot of them, there were so many. It looked almost like a circus, or
    the mayor’s birthday—both of which were very much the same after the kegs of Duncelander Ale had been cracked open.
    "Blabl!" Baldretta said frantically, pointing ahead at the road.
    "Sewey, a chicken!" Mabel shouted. Sewey swerved off the path to avoid the squawking hen as she crossed the gravel that led up to the park gate. There were hundreds of cars in neat patterns in the parking area, and even more people with balloons and cotton candy running all around. Balder, of course, looked delighted.
    "Look, pigs!" he squealed with delight, as if he were finally coming home. Bran sat up straighter to see out. There were lines of people to get in, and even more already inside the gates.
    "This can’t be the picnic," Bran said. "Where’s OldMrs. Rankle and her doorknob collection? And Crazy Tom with his latest invention?"
    "I haven’t the slightest idea," Sewey said, his head turning from one direction to the other. "I must have taken a wrong turn back there…maybe this fellow will give me directions." He sped up closer to a college-aged young man in a brown sweater walking in a slow, carefree stride toward the gate. Sewey caught up with him and rolled his window down. "You there! Stop! " he ordered.
    The man grinned politely as he came forward.
    "Yes, sir?" he said, looking down at Sewey through the window. He looked as polished as an antique dresser, with a plain blue shirt under his sweater and orange hair combed just right.
    "What are all these chickens and pigs and goats and cows doing at my picnic?" Sewey fumed, shaking his hand at each animal as he said their names.
    "Dontcha know? It’s the Duncelander Fair!" the man replied with glee.
    "What?" Sewey exclaimed, very much without glee.
    "The…Duncelander…Fair," the man said slowly, enunciating each word.
    "Why is it today!? " Sewey moaned. "Here! Now! Why!? "
    "Oh, sir, you see… it rained on Tuesday, which was when we were supposed to hold it. It was Twoo’s Day—has been for centuries!"
    Twoo’s Day was, in fact, nationally held every year on April tenth, which was coincidentally on a Tuesday that year. Twoo himself had been the famous Mezzleheimer Twoo, the first Prime Minister over the Senate in Hildem. He was quite a respected figure, but since it seemed that the mayor could change the date of celebrations because of the rain, it didn’t have as much meaning in Dunce and only meant yet another large party and one of the mayor’s boring speeches.
    "Thank you very much." Sewey rolled the window up. "We’re leaving!" he said firmly, shifting gears to plow through the cars behind them.
    "Oh, no! Let’s stay!" Rosie burst out, so suddenly that Sewey hit the brakes.
    "Give me one good reason to stay here, " he growled.
    Rosie looked around the car as if expecting to find an answer on the walls, then down at her feet, then up to the ceiling. "Um…we can listen to the speeches?" she squeaked.
    "Well, that’s settled," Sewey said, moving the car again. "We’re going home and…"
    Rosie must have been desperate, because suddenly she thought of the precise thing to say.
    "What would the neighbors say?" she said loudly over the engine, and again everyone was thrown in their seats.
    "What?" Sewey and Mabel both said at the same time.
    "W-what would the neighbors say?" Rosie stammered. Sewey and Mabel just stared at her, and she seemed to melt like a