Rekindling the Flame

Waiting for the Flame to Catch

Chapter 8 - Waiting for the Flame to Catch

It took Abby less than fifteen minutes to drive to Tim's house. Once all four of them were seated in the car, she turned to the back and said, "Sister Rosita and her friends have a church fundraiser happening today. They've set up a range of activities in and around the church. I thought it could be fun for us to go. What do you think?"

"Sounds great Abby," said Tony. "What kinds of things do they have there?"

"Well, they have craft activities, face painting, a ball pit, jumping castle, stuff like that." She smiled at Ziva and Tony. "So you wanna go?"

"Yay!" shouted Ziva.

"Yeah I guess," added Tony not completely convinced this was going to be as fun as Abby was hoping. But seeing as she had offered to take them and she did seem so excited, he didn't want to spoil her fun.

"Excellent," said Abby. "Let's go!"

As they made their way to the church, Abby struggled to find a park. She finally found one but it was three blocks away. After walking the half mile trek back to the church, they could see why parking had been such a difficulty. The entire church parking lot had been closed off in order to set up all the activities for the fund raiser. As Tony and Ziva looked around in awe, they could see all the activities Abby had mentioned plus there was a giant slide, merry-go-round, and dodgem cars.

As Tony looked at the last activity, he said very clearly, "I am not going on those!"

"No," said Tim. "I've only just had the plaster taken off my arm. I think we'll avoid those today."

"Oh wow!" exclaimed Tony. "Look over there!"

They all look in the direction Tony was pointing. Along the far side of the church, a mini 'Side-show Alley' had been set up. From where they stood they could see at least five different varieties of activities in addition to food vans advertising cotton candy, waffles, toffee apples, burgers and hot dogs.

"Abby, I'm in heaven!" announced Tony gleefully. "Where shall we start?"

"I want to get my face painted," said Ziva. "Can we go there first?"

"Well," said Abby seeing the less than impressed look on Tony's face. "How about you and I go and line up for the face painting and the boys can go and get us some food so we're fuelled up for the afternoon?"

"Great idea Abs," said Tim. "So what does everyone want to eat?"

"I don't know," said Ziva. "I haven't been to a place like this before."

She suddenly spotted a family walking passed them. The two children were holding what looked like fluffy clouds on sticks.

As Ziva watched them pass, she turned to Abby and said, "What were those two girls holding?"

"That's cotton candy," said Abby smiling. It was hard to believe that Ziva had never experienced it before. "It's the most wonderful tasting thing in the world. It's pure sugar and when you put your tongue on it, it melts in your mouth. Do you want to try some?"

"Yes please," said Ziva bouncing up and down.

"Ok, so that's a cotton candy for Ziva and a Caff Pow for me please," said Abby handing Tim some money.

"I'll get it," he said refusing to the take the money. "You can get the next round."

As Tony and Tim left for the food vans, Abby and Ziva made their way towards the face painting. There were five booths set up so they didn't have to wait long before it was their turn. Choosing the rainbow butterfly, Ziva sat still as the woman running the booth carefully drew and then coloured, a beautiful butterfly across Ziva's right cheek. She then added three small flowers to her left cheek. Ziva watched in the mirror, fascinated with the woman's technique.