Wound up on the power of vacation (or flight) to transcend bedtime, Veronica, a flame of hand-me-down blouse and big overalls, is ringmaster of the waiting-bench and arcade-corner circus, magnet of the iron boredom of fellow travellers under ten. For her, Carlos whips his wire body into roundoffs; the twins dance their mother's arms numb by the phone; the cellophane lights of the pinball machine thrill. Even the older kids join in the swarm, slapping and shoving a little; galloping laps of the tired benches after tangleheaded Veronica, they run around men of ragged cuffs, they run around the woman with black teeth, they run past the Amish man with the night-sky hat, past the security guard, past their mothers' warnings of spank you, around my fear of their scarred fathers, directly at me, a tsunami of giggles, and away, shearing off like a shouted melody of parrots in an aviary of brown linoleum.
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