Zarconi’s Magic Flying Fish

by Kirsty Murray

  ‘You’re out of luck today, you evil mongrel,’ said Gus. Today he was sure he wasn’t going to drop anything. He felt warm and loose in his body and full of confidence. So far, his record was fourteen revolutions before he lost control, but this time all three balls kept moving fluidly in a perfect rhythm from one hand to the other, making a cascade of colour in the still morning air.

  ‘Hey, everyone!’ he shouted. Caravan doors flew open. Effie, Stewie and Pikkle came over and stood around him in a half-circle.

  ‘Go for it, Gus!’ they shouted as Gus kept on juggling.

  ‘How many turns are you up to?’ called Effie.

  ‘Twenty-seven and counting,’ answered Gus.

  ‘Thirty-one, thirty-two,’ said Effie standing a couple of metres away, her eyes circling to follow the motion of the balls.

  Effie got bored with counting before Gus stopped juggling. Even Buster gave up his hopes of stealing a ball and wandered off to sniff out something more interesting. Only Pikkle stayed watching, cheering him on. Somewhere around the hundred and fifty mark, Gus threw each of the balls high into the branches of the ghost gum and laughed.

  ‘Knives and chainsaws next,’ said Pikkle, slapping Gus on the back. ‘Your old man reckons if I teach you how to stilt-walk, we could get a regular act happening in the show. Maybe we could have a go at doing some passes while we juggle.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Gus.

  As he walked across the circus lot through the rising heat, he glowed with satisfaction. He opened the door of the caravan and did a forward roll onto the floor.

  ‘Silly bugger,’ cawed Lulu.

  Doc looked over the benchtop and frowned at Gus.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be doing your schoolwork, boy?’ he growled.

  ‘It’s Saturday, Doc. I don’t have to do it on Saturdays.’

  ‘When I was a boy, we didn’t take time off. My old dad kept us working seven days a week. If you don’t have any schoolwork, I reckon you should be doing some real work. I’ve got a market-gardener coming by to collect Kali’s turds and could use a hand with the shovelling. Let’s get you a spade.’

  Gus dragged his feet as he followed Doc out to Kali’s enclosure. Ever since he’d found out about his uncle, he’d tried hard to feel sorry for Doc, but being forced to shovel shit on a stinking hot day could stretch anyone’s sympathy to breaking point.

  Kali raised her trunk and made a half-wheezing, half-trumpeting noise as Doc drew closer. She always greeted Doc that way. Even from half a kilometre the sound of his voice could make her stop what she was doing and turn in his direction.

  Doc slipped under the electric fence and Kali stretched out her trunk towards him. Gus leant on his spade and watched as Doc stroked her long pink tongue. She curled her trunk upwards with pleasure.

  A car pulled up with a battered trailer in tow and a dark-haired man jumped out.

  ‘Mr Zarconi,’ called the man, ‘I’ve brought you my trailer for the elephant dung, and a little present for Kali as well.’

  He reached into the back of the trailer and unloaded four big boxes of fruit and vegetables which he lined up alongside the electric fence.

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ called Doc. ‘She’ll enjoy that lot.’

  While Gus shovelled elephant turds into a wheelbarrow, Doc flung the fruit and vegies to Kali. At the bottom of the box was a red and green package which he took out and looked at curiously.

  ‘Struth, what’s this muck,’ said Doc. ‘Quee-sh Lorr-raine,’ he read slowly.

  ‘It’s a sort of pie. It’s got eggs in it,’ said Gus as he wheeled the barrow up to the back of the trailer.

  ‘It’s wrapped in plastic! How’s she meant to get the wrapper off, I ask you. Some people are really stupid when it comes to elephants. And as if Kali would eat eggs.’

  ‘I think it’s a present for you, Doc. Mum used to make quiche. It’s nice.’

  Doc looked down at the box of quiche and frowned.

  ‘I knew a Lorraine once. She was a contortionist with Perry Brothers back in the fifties. The things she could do with her legs! Mind you, I don’t reckon anyone in their right mind would want to eat a pie named after that young lady!’

  Gus rolled his eyes and pushed the hair back from his face. He was hot and sweaty and there was nothing he liked less than having to shovel elephant turds around and listen to his grandfather blather on.

  ‘Can I go now?’ he asked after he’d emptied the third barrowload into the trailer.

  ‘You got something more important to do?’ asked Doc.

  ‘I have to go and practise with Pikkle,’ said Gus, searching for a good excuse.

  ‘You don’t want to go hanging around with him. He’s a punk, that kid.’

  ‘He’s not a kid and he’s not a punk. He’s nineteen years old and I reckon he’s a hot performer. You told him you wanted him to teach me to stilt-walk. You said we could do a routine together.’

  ‘Did I? Yeah, well, maybe I did but don’t you get too chummy with him, my boy. He’s not real circus.’

  Gus dropped the spade and ran across the hot ground to the bunkhouse. The air inside was thick with cigarette smoke. The blinds were drawn and Stewie and Mac were lying on their bunks, the tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dim light. Pikkle sat on a stool with a pair of gloves on, a towel across his shoulders and a bowl of powerful-smelling chemicals between his knees.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Gus, peering over Pikkle’s shoulder and wrinkling his nose.

  ‘Peroxide,’ said Pikkle. ‘I’m gonna bleach my hair.’

  Gus pushed his fringe back off his face and looked from Pikkle to the bowl.

  ‘But where’s all your hair gone?’ he asked. ‘You haven’t got hardly anything left to bleach.’

  Pikkle patted the small clump that was left on the top of his head. The sides and back of his scalp were shaved smooth except for a small triangle of hair on either side that arced over his ears and made an arrow above his cheekbones.

  ‘I just took it off,’ he said, picking up a set of black electric clippers and showing them to Gus. ‘You look like you could do with a clip yourself, kiddo. How about it?’

  ‘The boss won’t like it,’ said Stewie, leaning down from his bunk. He looked at Gus with meaningful expression. ‘You’ll cop it sweet if you let Pikkle turn you into a freak.’

  Gus looked out through the flywire screen at his grandfather. Doc was filling a tin drum with water and offering the hose to Kali so she could drink from it. He watched as Doc bent over, picked up the quiche packet and frisbeed it into the back of the trailer along with the turds.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ he said.

  Pikkle laughed and peeled off his rubber gloves. He put the bowl of peroxide to one side and leapt up from the stool.

  ‘Welcome to Monsieur Pikkle’s salon,’ he said. ‘Prepare yourself for transformation.’

  Gus sat on the stool. A shiver ran down his spine as the clippers lifted a clump of hair away from his scalp. Strands of hair wafted slowly to the floor and a small breeze drifted in through the flywire screen making goosebumps spring up on the newly exposed skin on his neck. He shut his eyes and listened to the buzz of the clippers, transforming him into a new Gus.

  Effie screamed when Gus opened the door to the Cuelmos’ caravan and stepped inside. Buster growled and bared his teeth.

  ‘Steady on, Buster. It’s only me,’ said Gus. He knelt down and stretched a hand out to Buster, who sniffed it suspiciously.

  ‘What have you done to your hair?’

  ‘I let Pikkle cut it – and then he bleached it.’

  ‘It’s so orange! You look radioactive or like some lethal glow-in-the-dark weapon.’

  ‘Thanks, that makes me feel really good.’

  Effie looked him up and down and her expression softened.

  ‘Maybe it’s not that bad. It makes your eyes look really blue. Like an alien,’ she said. She stared at him a moment longer and then said, ‘I think I like it.’<
br />
  ‘I’m glad someone does. I thought Doc was going to kill me when he saw it. He went all red and purple in the face. He looked as if he was going to explode!’

  ‘Well, at least it’s kind of practical for doing trapeze. We might get a chance to practise tonight. Dad just told me we can’t move on until tomorrow morning. The site we were meant to have at Fremantle has fallen through.’

  Whenever the coast was clear, Hannah, Effie and Gus made a beeline straight to the big top to start work. Every day since Busselton, Hannah had taught Gus another move on the trapeze. From the catcher’s lock through to skinning the cat, Gus was slowly building up a repertoire of trapeze tricks. Vytas acted as a guard, making sure no one caught them at it, and would let out a long whistle if Doc or Nance approached.

  ‘You know,’ said Effie slowly, ‘This new haircut. It makes you look like someone else.’ She put her head to one side and stared at him thoughtfully. ‘You look even more like your uncle Gus. He had really short hair in that photo.’

  ‘I don’t want to look more like him. I want to look more like my dad, whoever he was.’

  ‘Well, it explains why Doc went ballistic when he saw you. If he found out you were doing trapeze, he’d really do his block. I reckon your uncle died on the trapeze and that’s why Doc’s so thingy about you going near it. Makes sense.’

  ‘He could have died in a car accident or anything,’ said Gus. ‘He might have choked on a ham sandwich. He could have got some disease. There’s lots of ways you can die without falling from the trapeze and anyway, we do it really safely. Hannah doesn’t take risks.’

  ‘Look, Mr Know-it-all, circus people break their bones all the time even when they’re really careful. You ask Hannah, she’s cracked just about every bone in her body at some time or another. I’ve even cracked a couple of ribs and I’m only eleven! I reckon your uncle got unlucky and something happened to him on the trapeze.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think so. And besides, I don’t see why Doc would be worried about me getting injured. It’s not like I’m his big favourite. He’s always lecturing me and bossing me around. He thinks I’m a total loser.’

  ‘Don’t be so thick. All that stuff about how you have sawdust in your blood and the rest of it – he’s got you all shaped up as the next great Zarconi, he just can’t admit it. And the more you look like that other Gus, the more spooked he gets. Maybe Doc is scared you’ve got the curse of the Zarconis hanging over you.’

  Gus didn’t want to hear any more. He didn’t want to think about falling from the trapeze or people dying of anything. He jumped out of the caravan and ran across the lot, colliding into Vytas as he turned the corner of the big top.

  ‘Where are you off to, little fish?’ asked Vytas, holding him by his shoulders.

  ‘Effie says there’s a curse hanging over Zarconi’s.’

  Vytas raised one eyebrow and looked amused. He turned Gus around and pointed up at the eastern sky. A blood-red moon was rising up over the bush in the eastern sky.

  ‘There is a beautiful full moon hanging over Zarconi’s but I see no curses,’ said Vytas.

  18

  BAD OMENS

  They arrived in Perth late Sunday morning and set up on a wedge of ground between two highways. It was a flat, ugly site and every time a semi-trailer roared past, Kali trumpeted in distress. Doc said at least they’d get a good crowd because everyone could see them, but Gus thought it was depressing. He sat on a campstool in the bunkhouse and watched Stewie and Mac blow smoke rings while Pikkle brewed another round of coffee.

  ‘Circus Destructo’s in town,’ said Pikkle. He heaped a few spoonfuls of sugar into a cup of coffee along with a big splash of milk and offered it to Gus. Gus wrapped his hands around it and took small sips. Pikkle had been trying to convert him to coffee for weeks without much success.

  ‘I’m going to get tickets for tonight. You want to come, kiddo?’

  ‘But we’ve got two shows to do today. Matinee and this evening. We can’t go. We’re gonna do that juggling routine together, aren’t we?’

  ‘Not me. This crew’s not gonna get much of an audience here – a handful of snotty kids in their pyjamas along with their bad-tempered parents. They’ll cope without me. I deserve a night off.’

  ‘There better be a crowd tonight,’ said Mac, hanging over the side of his bunk. ‘The old man owes me two weeks wages and I’m bloody sick of waiting for them.’

  Gus ignored Mac and turned to Pikkle. ‘Can’t we go tomorrow?’ he begged. ‘There’s no show tomorrow.’

  ‘No way. Destructo’s not doing a show Monday night and there’s no way I’m going to miss them – they do all this stuff with exploding chickens. They’re wild.’

  The screen door opened and Effie put her head in.

  ‘Gus!’ she said crossly, giving him the slitty-eyed look. ‘Nance has been looking for you everywhere. You’re meant to phone your mum on Sundays, or have you forgotten!’

  Gus stood up and tipped the coffee down the sink.

  ‘I’m coming,’ he said.

  Effie waited for him outside.

  ‘You’ve been bumming around with that Pikkle a lot,’ she said accusingly.

  Gus just shrugged.

  ‘Don’t you want to phone your mum? You used to hang out to talk to her.’

  ‘I want to talk to her. It’s just I hate the phone and also…well, she was going to come and get me in Perth, so I guess we’re going to have to talk about me leaving the circus.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you want? I thought you really missed Melbourne.’

  ‘Well, yeah. I miss things about it; my mum, Pete Spanner, some of my stuff but I reckon when I go back I’ll miss things about Zarconi’s too. Like, first I have to be homesick and then, when I go back I’ll have to be circus-sick.’

  Effie stopped and looked at him.

  ‘Then you’ll have to make something up about having to stay. If you hang in a bit longer you’ll be flying – you’re nearly there.’

  ‘I can’t lie to my Mum.’

  ‘You are such a wimp, Gus. Maybe you should just piss off. I’d talk my way out of having to leave, if it was me.’

  ‘Yeah, well you’re not me. We all know what a good liar you are, but I’m not like that.’

  Effie’s eyes looked blacker than ever. A truck roared past and her hair whipped across her face. Gus couldn’t hear her reply, but he could tell by the look on her face that he probably was better off not knowing what it was.

  His mum’s voice sounded faint and tired as it echoed across the country. She was leaving hospital at the end of the week and moving into a hospice. He’d have to stay with the circus until Broome and she’d meet him there. Gus tried not to sound relieved. The end of their conversation was drowned out by rain, thundering down on the caravan roof.

  Gus hung up and looked out at the big top sagging a little under the weight of the deluge. Doc, Vytas and a couple of tenthands were out digging trenches to stop the water flooding into the big top. Little rivulets were forming in the dry ground, turning the yellow clay to sticky mud.

  It went on raining all afternoon and only a handful of people turned out to see the show that night. No one could get very excited about performing to such a small crowd. Pikkle had disappeared and so Gus juggled alone. Hardly anyone clapped.

  None of the acts went smoothly. Vytas’s homing pigeons sat in their nesting box in the rigging, refusing to fly to him on cue and spoiling his magic act. Even Kali seemed despondent. Half-way through her act, she walked out into the rainy night, ignoring Cas.

  Effie shook her head and groaned.

  ‘That’s a really bad omen,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve been reading too many Goosebumps,’ said Gus.

  ‘No, I told you. It’s the curse of Zarconi’s. You’re so wrapped up in yourself, you don’t see it. Things are going bad for this circus. We need a really good season here in Perth. We’ve got to make some money. I hear Nance complain about it every night whe
n I help with the take. We need something really special to turn things around.’

  After the show, Gus sat huddled on a corner of the couch and watched as wet and bedraggled circus crew trudged in and out of his grandparents’ caravan collecting their pays.

  ‘City folk,’ sighed Nance, ‘They’re too fussy. Spoilt – too much to look at and not enough to do. We just can’t draw them in.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Doc. ‘There are three other circuses in town, including Silver’s.’

  ‘Who’s Silver’s?’ asked Gus.

  ‘Silver’s Grand Magic Circus,’ said Doc. ‘Can’t beat ’em – people will drive across town to clap eyes on them. Same thing happened when we were in Adelaide – Ashton’s were in town and we had to really do some fancy footwork to keep out of their way. We can’t compete with those circuses. Ashton’s have thirty members of the one family under their big top. And the Glassers – they run Silver’s – they’re a real family business too.’

  ‘Well, we’re a family circus too,’ said Gus.

  Both Nance and Doc looked at him and he blushed a little.

  ‘I know I’m a McGrath but I’m sort of an O’Brien too. And I’m a performer.’

  ‘So you are, sonny Jim,’ said Doc, smiling, ‘so you are.’

  Doc’s eyes grew small and shiny and Gus couldn’t think when he’d last seen Doc smile like that. Suddenly, he felt the back of his neck grow warm. He rubbed one hand against the short orange stubble and looked away. When he turned to look again, Doc was standing in the doorway, staring out into the rain.

  The next morning it was still raining. The trenches around the big top had overflowed and water flooded in under the canvas. Even the sawdust was soggy.

  ‘We’re going to have to move to higher ground,’ said Doc. ‘Go and boot those tenthands out of bed, boy.’

  Gus knocked on the bunkhouse door and called out for Pikkle, but it was Stewie who came to the door, rubbing his eyes sleepily.