The sign on the park fence read DANGER: NO TRESPASSING and below that, in smaller letters VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
Ben glanced at the sign, and his round, freckled face wrinkled as he squinted to read the fine print. He pushed his matted brown hair that clung tight to his head out of his eyes with one hand. Then, without even a moment of consideration, he began to climb the fence. His short, tree trunk limbs made the climbing difficult. 
“Hey, give me a boost!” he called.
“Alright, hang on,” John said. John was almost the exact opposite build of Ben. He was skinny with lanky arms and bright red hair that stood up in every direction. He grabbed Ben’s legs and pushed up. Ben was able to roll himself around so he sat perched on top of the fence. He grinned back at his friends then hopped down on the other side. John was already halfway up the gate when he looked down and saw Sam still standing on the ground.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Sam said.
“Come on, it’s fine. We’re starting high school next year, this isn’t the time to act like a baby,” John replied with a sigh.
Sam nervously adjusted his thick, black glasses on his face. “We could get in big trouble here. We’re trespassing. This is illegal!”
“We won’t get caught!” Ben yelled from the other side. “Are you going to be a chicken again?”
John added, “Yeah, don’t make this like the bridge incident.” Sam cringed, remembering that night from the beginning of the summer.
Sam looked down at the river beneath the bridge. It sure didn’t look very deep. He saw a shadow in the water that his mind immediately formed into a large, sharp boulder.
“Who’s first?” John asked. He seemed hesitant, but excited.
“I’ll go!” Fearlessly, Ben lept off the bridge and plummeted to the water below. He hit the surface hard.
One...Two...Thre... Sam counted in his head. Then Ben’s head emerged; there was a broad grin stretched across his freckled face and his hair was dripping.
“Come on, chickens! What are you waiting for?” he called up to them.
John paused, but only for a second, then jumped in after Ben. Sam hesitated though. He look down, way down, into the dark water.
“Guys, this doesn’t look safe!” he protested.
“Come on Sam, it’s fine!” Ben sounded exasperated.
“Don’t be such a wimp,” John whined.
Sam looked at the water again. His mom would kill him if she could see this. The water looked cold. “I’ll meet you guys down there,” Sam said. He hurried off the bridge and scrambled down to the grassy bank where his friends were playing in the water.
“You should have jumped, Sam,” said Ben.
“Why are you always like this?” John added.
Setting his jaw, Sam grabbed the fence and began to yank himself up. His sneakers hit the dusty ground hard on the other side. He looked up and couldn’t help himself as a smile formed on his face.
The amusement park looked even cooler in the middle of the night than it did in the day. The tall roller coasters stretched into the the black sky that was dotted with stars. The ferris wheel stood eerily still. Along the north wall of the fairground were the booths with all of the carnival games. The back wall of the booths were lined with tantalizing prizes.
It was creepy for them, seeing the park like this. Normally it was crowded and full of people holding cotton candy, ice cream cones, and hot dogs. Now the barren ground made the whole place look bigger, although they could only see as far at their flashlight beams extended.
“It’s kind of spooky,” John said. He made his comment sound off-hand, but Sam noticed he had pulled his jacket tightly around him.
“Maybe we should go back,” Sam offered. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“We know you wouldn’t mind, chicken-head,” Ben replied. “But let’s look around a little bit. If you get too scared and want to run off go ahead, but don’t expect us to come looking for you.”
They began to wander around the park. The south Florida weather made the night air humid and muggy and before the boys knew it their shirts were soaked with sweat. However, a cool breeze kept the hair on the back of their necks rising. 
They wandered the park for a while, jumping and climbing on the rides. The sky kept growing darker as the minutes passed. Although Sam didn’t have a watch, if he had to guess it was getting close to midnight. He would never admit this to his friends, but Sam was uneasy the entire time. He had a very bad feeling about all of this; every few minutes he would glance towards the park fence, expecting to see flashing red and blue lights.
Ben went to raid the carnival games of their prizes. He pulled on flat billed hats and NBA t-shirts. He grabbed oversized stuffed animals until his arms could hold no more. When he came out of the booths loaded down, Sam looked at him disapprovingly.
“Don’t give me that look, Sam!” Ben plucked on the front of his shirt, making it puff out. “I look cool.”
Shaking his head, Sam turned away. His mind raced, thinking about all the ways they would get in trouble; not only were they trespassing, but now they were stealing too. Then he heard a faint rustling coming from the tall grass behind the Merry-Go-Round.
“What’s that?” John asked.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Ben said.
Sam was the closest to where the noise came from. He took a step back and shined his flashlight on the weeds. With a sudden shriek he lept onto the carousel and shimmied up a horse. He clung to the post holding the horse to the ride. “Get up here! Run!”
Normally his friends would question this, but the pitch of Sam’s voice and the terror in his eyes sent them running towards the ride. They each lept onto a stationary, plastic horse.
“What? What is it!” John’s eyes were opened wide. “Sam!”
“We need to call someone! The police or something!” Sam cried.
Ben’s knuckles were white on the pole. “Sam! What is it!”
Just then, a spiny, green Alligator came waddling out from the grass. The boys stared. Its long tail dragged lazily across the ground. This wasn’t the first time any of the boys had seen a gator, it was Florida after all, but they had never seen one this huge, and never this close to them. The beast raised its head and looked at the boys standing on the toy horses.
“Don’t move,” John hissed. “It can’t see us if we don’t move.” Sam doubted this fact, but was too scared to move anyways. Still, the gator stared at them. Its beady, black eyes didn’t blink. Sam had no idea how long they stayed there, but his arms began to ache. After giving them one last stare, the beast began to circle around the ride.
After hesitating for a few moments, Ben spoke. “Do you think it saw us?”
“Yes, it saw us. It stared at us for five minutes!” John whispered. 
“We need to get out of here,” Ben said.
“Well how do you expect us to do that?” John replied.
That was when Sam, always the voice of reason, spoke up. “We can’t just leave, we need to call someone. The park opens in the morning at we can’t just leave this thing roaming around. It’ll kill someone.” Ben and John both groaned. They knew he was right, Sam was always right, but that didn’t mean they had to listen to him.
Ben looked down at all of his stolen merchandise. “We can’t call the police. We’ll get in so much trouble.”
“We have to Ben,” Sam said.
“You always have to ‘do what’s right,’” John said, putting air quotes around the last three words. “Don’t be such a know it all!”
“You already convinced me to break in here! The least we can do is call someone,” Sam pleaded with his friends. As the argument ensued, the gator finished his lap around the carousel, and came to a rest once again just ten yards in front of the boys. Ben and John eventually caved, and devised a plan to get to the telephone booth. After much debate, it was decided that John, being the fastest, was going to serve as a distraction to keep the alligator away from Sam as he ran to the phone booth.
Sam’s legs were shaking as he prepared to spring off the ride. He didn’t have long to think though.
“Ready, set, go!” John jumped down from the ride and started yelling and running as fast as he could. Sam didn’t wait to see what happened. He lept to the ground and his feet began pounding on the hard packed earth. He didn’t turn his head but kept it pointed towards the ground. He pushed hard off the dirt, blood was pounding in his ears.
He couldn’t afford a glance behind him to see if he was being chased. The image of the alligator running right behind him on its short, quick legs was imprinted in his brain. He could see its powerful tail swinging back and forth as it closed in on him.  The beast’s breath was hot on his heels. He continued to run, swerving around rides to get the the glass phone booth. When he reached it he slammed the door shut with a bang and collapsed against the wall. He looked through the glass and saw that nothing had been chasing him. There were no shrieks from John, although he didn’t know if that was a good sign or not. After catching his breath for a minute, he inserted his quarter, but paused.
Maybe his friends were right. He could just picture the look on his mom’s face when she would get the call from the police station. Maybe he shouldn’t call anyone. After all, his whole life he has been following the rules. Where has that got me? he thought. No girlfriend, no legendary stories. I’m going to be in high school and I’ve never done anything exciting. No cool stories to tell girls, no secrets to keep from my mom, no nights I’ll never forget. Sam shook his head hard. He could have sworn he heard Ben’s voice in his head, telling him all that. He reached for the dial...

The three friends met back at the park’s entrance gate, just like they had planned. John was worn out from running, but Ben looked scared straight. They told Sam they didn’t have to worry about the alligator for a little while, it had found a turtle and got distracted eating that. Then they started with the questions.
“Well, what did they say? Are the police coming?”
“Did you give them our names? Please say they didn’t call our parents.”
“When are they going to get here?”
“Do we have to wait for them?”
“Sam!”
Smiling knowingly at his friends, Sam casually ran his hand through his hair. “Boys,” he leaned coolly against the fence, “let’s get out of here. There’s a gator on the loose and I don’t want to be around when it get’s hungry again.” John and Ben stared at him in shock and confusion.
“This will be one heck of a story,” John said as the three began to climb the fence, heading back home for the night.