It wasn’t the colour he would have chosen. Mr. Reinhoudt had picked the colour, even though Dennis told him just looking at the paint samples hurt his eyes. “Is s’pposed to,” Mr. Reinhoudt said, pulling hard on his small white beard. “S’pposed to get yer attention from the highway, and getcha in the lot wit’ the kids.” He said “kids” as if it had a z in it. Reinhoudt was a small, round, compact Dutchman who’d spent twenty years building the amusement park he’d named McNally’s Fair, because, he said, McNally was a more acceptable name than his own. The Zipper first, then bumper cars; a small, brightly lit merry-go-round, and a Ferris wheel that picked awkward times to slip out of gear. Reinhoudt bought them one at a time, with careful, calculating precision. He’d bought The Zipper from a travelling fair when its semi-hauler broke down on the highway on the way to Swift Current and it looked to its old owners as if a new rig would cost more than the whole ride was worth all together.
