Chap­ter 7 begins with Will and Jim walk­ing through the silent night, a sense of unease sur­round­ing them. As they move through the qui­et streets, Will’s atten­tion is drawn to a shad­ow that seems to be fol­low­ing them. He men­tions it casu­al­ly to Jim, but Jim, with his usu­al unflap­pable demeanor, reas­sures Will that no one is around. He also seems to be irri­tat­ed by something—likely the state of the world around them—and express­es his frus­tra­tion with a Bap­tist preach­er he’s encoun­tered. This ear­ly inter­ac­tion sets the stage for their adven­ture, and the appear­ance of a tum­ble­weed, play­ful­ly rolling across their path, adds a fleet­ing moment of light­ness to an oth­er­wise tense atmos­phere. Their bond is imme­di­ate­ly evi­dent, as they both face the strange night ahead, with curios­i­ty and a touch of cau­tion in their steps.

As they con­tin­ue walk­ing, a gust of wind sud­den­ly car­ries a hand­bill toward them, its paper flut­ter­ing light­ly through the air. The boys watch as it lands at their feet, and they eager­ly pick it up to see what it says. The hand­bill announces the arrival of Cooger and Dark’s Car­ni­val, which is set to arrive the very next day, Octo­ber 24th. This news sur­pris­es Will, as he knows that car­ni­vals typ­i­cal­ly end after Labor Day, mak­ing this one seem out of place and some­what mag­i­cal. Despite his skep­ti­cism, Will is drawn in by the excite­ment that Jim radi­ates, who eager­ly reads aloud from the hand­bill. The attrac­tions list­ed, such as “Mephistophe­les, the Lava Drinker” and “The Mon­ster Mont­golfi­er,” only add to their sense of won­der. Jim’s imag­i­na­tion is sparked as he pic­tures these extra­or­di­nary feats, while Will begins to feel a ris­ing curios­i­ty about what these strange and unusu­al promis­es might mean.

The grow­ing ten­sion between the two friends is revealed through their dif­fer­ing respons­es to the car­ni­val. Jim’s excite­ment is pal­pa­ble as he immers­es him­self in the idea of the car­ni­val and the pos­si­bil­i­ties it brings. In con­trast, Will remains cau­tious, try­ing to main­tain a sense of real­i­ty and not get caught up in the fan­ta­sy. Jim’s eager­ness to dive into the adven­ture con­trasts sharply with Will’s hes­i­tan­cy, show­ing the boys’ dif­fer­ent approach­es to life. Will tries to keep his feet firm­ly plant­ed in the real world, skep­ti­cal of the carnival’s authen­tic­i­ty, but Jim’s infec­tious enthu­si­asm pulls him clos­er to the dream­like allure of the event. As the hand­bill is caught by the wind and blown away, the boys are left to won­der whether the car­ni­val is real or just a fleet­ing illu­sion. Will’s skep­ti­cism gives way to a grow­ing sense of intrigue as he con­tem­plates the idea of a car­ni­val arriv­ing in town at such an unusu­al time.

The chap­ter moves for­ward as the boys con­tin­ue their jour­ney, even­tu­al­ly reach­ing their homes. As they part ways, Jim, con­cerned that Will might be upset with him, calls out to make sure every­thing is okay between them. He promis­es that they won’t let any ten­sion stand in their way again, reas­sur­ing Will that their friend­ship is intact. Despite this exchange, an unspo­ken sense of excite­ment lingers in the air, a silent agree­ment between them that some­thing extra­or­di­nary is about to unfold. The sky above is dark­en­ing with the promise of an impend­ing storm, and the storm seems to reflect their grow­ing antic­i­pa­tion for the mys­te­ri­ous car­ni­val. The sense of impend­ing change hangs over them both as they retreat into their homes, with the night still filled with the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what lies ahead. The car­ni­val rep­re­sents a chance for adven­ture, dis­cov­ery, and the unknown, a chance for them to expe­ri­ence some­thing beyond the ordi­nary, and they are both drawn toward it. With the door of their homes clos­ing behind them, the chap­ter leaves read­ers with a feel­ing of eager expec­ta­tion, as if the boys’ jour­ney is just begin­ning and the mys­ter­ies of the car­ni­val are about to unfold.