“Do we have any volunteers?”

 

She met the silence still standing straight as a board.  It parted when it reached her and swirled around before dying a painful death as she chirped,

 

“Volunteers to help Topper with his trick?” into the microphone.

 

Someone motioned to her from the sound booth.  She flipped a switch on the microphone, grinning all the while with false cheer painted into the dimples on her cheeks.

 

“That’s better!” –nasally, slurred cacophony and static echoed around the stadium.  She waved to the sound booth with her index finger, the smile still tracing lines on each side of her nose and squinting her wide eyes in the sunlight.

 

The cacophony faded to an annoying drawl.

 

“Yeah.  Any volunteers?”

 

The stadium erupted in screams.  People jumped out of their seats and stomped their feet.  The once still, jaded audience teamed with life and vivacity.

 

“Great!!  Okay, How about you?” She squeaked on the last word and pointed to a guy yelling in the front, with a red baseball cap and obviously no self-respect—he blew her a kiss as he hopped down from his seat and down to the edge of the water.

 

The sun beat down on the little boy’s face.   Bright and abrasive and burning.  Like the light bulb and the side of the car and now this.  The sun.  And he hadn’t even tried to lick it.  Bright things always burn.

 

His father shook hands with the smiling girl with the annoying voice and she said something and motioned to the red cap.  He laughed.

 

“Okay!” she said, switching the microphone back on and reestablishing her supremacy over the audience.  The boy shifted in his seat.  He didn’t like her and he didn’t like Seaworld and didn’t want to see the dolphins and wanted to go home.