he felt them strain
against his strong right arm, like a live thing struggling to escape a trap.
Still strong, he thought, still strong, and he released the sweep-arm to go back
to spinning sugar into floss.

A pack of boys sauntered down the midway, laughing and calling, bouncing high on
sugar and g-stresses. One of them peeled off from the group and ran to his
booth, still laughing at some cruelty. He put his palms on George's counter and
pushed against it, using them to lever his little body in a high-speed pogo.
"Hey, mister," he said, "how about some three-color swirl, with sprinkles?"

George smiled and knocked the rack of paper cones with his strong right elbow,
jostled it so one cone spun high in the air, and he caught it in his quick left
hand. "Coming _riiiiiight_ up," he sang, and flipped the cone into the
floss-machine. He spun a beehive of pink, then layered it with stripes of blue
and green. He reached for the nipple that dispensed the sprinkles, but before he
turned its spigot, he said, "Are you sure you don't want a dip, too? Fudge?
Butterscotch? Strawberry?"

The boy bounced even higher, so that he was nearly vaulting the counter. "All
three! All three!" he said.

George expertly spiraled the floss through the dips, then applied a thick crust
of sprinkles. "Open your mouth, kid!" he shouted, with realistic glee.

The boy opened his mouth wide, so that the twinkling lights of the midway
reflected off his back molars and the pool of saliva on his tongue. George's
quick, clever left hand dipped a long-handled spoon into the hot fudge, then
flipped the sticky gob on a high arc that terminated perfectly in the boy's open
mouth. The boy swallowed and laughed gooely. George handed over the dripping
confection in his strong right hand, and the boy plunged his face into it. When
he whirled and ran to rejoin his friends, George saw that his ears were already
getting longer, and his delighted laugh had sounded a little like a bray. A job
well done, he thought, and watched the rain spatter the spongy rubber cobbles of
the midway.

#

George was supposed to go off-shift at midnight. He always showed up promptly at
noon, but he rarely left as punctually. The soft one who had the midnight-to-six
shift was lazy and late, and generally staggered in at twelve thirty, grumbling
about his tiredness. George knew how to deal with the soft ones, though -- his
father had brought him up surrounded by them, so that he spoke