The Summer of Cotton Candy by Debbie Viguié

Candace unfolded it and saw that it was a note to report to the nurse’s office. She looked up questioningly at the girl who had brought it, but the new girl was already busying herself with the cart.
    Candace shrugged and headed off, grabbing her muffin which she ate on the way. Thanks to her first experience with the cart running away from her, she knew where to go. The same matronly nurse who had helped her then was there now. Candace showed her the note, and the woman handed her a cup with a label on it.
    “What’s this for?” Candace asked.
    “Random drug testing. Today we picked random last names from the last third of the alphabet.”
    “Drug testing? Seriously?” Candace asked.
    “Yes, it’s in your employment agreement, dear, if you want to read it.”
    “No, that’s okay. What do I do with the cup, though?”
    For just a moment she thought the nurse was going to start laughing. She only smirked, though, before saying, “The drug test is a urine test. I’ll need you to go fill that. The women’s room is down the hall on your right.”
    “Eew,” Candace said before she could stop herself.
    At that, the nurse did start laughing. “You’ll be fine.”
    Ten minutes later Candace was finished and had put the cup in the appropriate box in the bathroom. She approached the nurse. “Is there anything else?” she asked.
    “No, that’s it. Results will be available in a day or two and are sent to your supervisor. You can go back to work now.”
    Candace left and wondered if the whole trip to the nurse was supposed to count as her break or if she was now free to take it. After a minute’s debate she decided it would be best to return to the cart. There had been enough craziness already without her getting accused of going AWOL on a break.
    Back at the cart things were quiet. The sea of cotton candy was slowly being replaced by a sea of balloons. Candace watched them as they moved this way and that in the breeze and in response to the movements of their owners. Some drifted along slowly while others moved at a good speed. She wondered idly what it would be like to be one of those balloons, tossed by the changes in air currents.
    The girl who had relieved her must have left a pen behind. Candace spread out a couple of napkins and began to doodle on them to take her mind off everything else. Pretty soon one of the doodles started to resemble a ride. She stared at it, thinking hard, before drawing some more.
    A different girl came to relieve her for lunch, so Candace took the pen with her. She stopped by The Dug Out, and Roger gave her a couple of sheets of paper that she could draw on. She thanked him and found a quiet bench where she could continue drawing.
    Art was one of the school classes she had always liked. She didn’t consider herself an artist, but she could draw basic shapes pretty well. She continued sketching as her ride came to life. At the top she wrote the name:
The Balloon Races
.
    “What are you drawing?” Josh asked, sitting down on the bench next to her.
    “It’s nothing,” she said, suddenly embarrassed and not sure why.
    “Come on, let me see. That’s a ride, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah.”
    “The Balloon Races. Cool name.”
    “It’s an indoor ride. You get into a basket that looks like the basket of a hot-air balloon, and then you rise into the air and soar over cityscapes and parklands. There are these levers that can control just how high you go. You can even turn this knob to make yourself go faster.”
    “You’d have to space the cars out to account for people going slower or faster.”
    “Yeah, but it’s doable.”
    “This is really cool,” he said. “Are you going to enter it into the contest?”
    “What contest?” she asked.
    “The scholarship contest. It’s open to high school employees of The Zone. You enter your ride ideas, and the winning one gets built in Zone World. The winner gets a full scholarship to Florida Coast University for a degree in design or