‘Doc wants you. We’ve gotta move,’ said Gus.
Stewie nodded, called out to Mac, and reached for his coat.
They jumped the puddles that lay scattered across the site and the rain drummed loudly on the hood of Gus’s sou’wester.
‘Where’s Pikkle?’ shouted Gus.
‘He didn’t come back last night. Took all his gear with him too. I reckon he’s shot through,’ said Stewie.
Gus stopped in his tracks. He ran back to the bunkhouse and climbed inside. Mac was gearing up for the weather.
‘Where’s Pikkle?’ he asked. Mac just shrugged and grumpily pushed past him. Gus looked around the caravan and saw that the coffee percolator was missing from beside the stove. He knew Pikkle was gone for good.
Tearing the big top down in the rain was a miserable job. Everything was waterlogged and twice its normal weight. The bales of hay piled up by the back door smelt sour, and the mud sucked at their feet as they moved around the site pulling up stakes.
When Gus told Doc Pikkle was gone, he just shrugged.
‘Thought as much. Probably reckons he’ll get a spot with that Destructo mob.’
‘He didn’t even say goodbye. How could he leave without saying goodbye to me?’
‘I’ve told you before, boy,’ growled Doc. ‘Tenthands are scum. They’re like flotsam and jetsam. They wash in with the tide and then they wash out. No use getting to know them.’
Doc got on the phone and found a spot for them near a housing development north of the city, and by late in the afternoon, they’d set up on the new site. There’d be no show that night but when they were finally set up, Stewie rigged the wire for Gus to practise on while Effie worked out on the web.
Gus sat on the edge of the ring and looked at the wire. He couldn’t get excited about it. He thought about Pikkle and the act they’d planned to do together. Pikkle had made the act look interesting even when the tricks weren’t very hard. Doc never seemed to like Pikkle’s stunts. ‘All front and no skill,’ he’d say with a sneer. But Zarconi’s needed something with front. Fresh new acts that would get the crowds in.
Gus got to his feet and stretched, loosening up the muscles in his back. He tried a few somersaults on the mat and watched while Hannah spotted for Effie. Hannah had told him backward somersaults were actually easier than forward ones, even though they looked tricky because you could keep your eyes on the wire. Gus climbed onto the wire and looked down at the thin cable. Pikkle or no Pikkle, he knew he could put an act together that would really impress the audience. He just needed a good stunt.
After twenty minutes of warm-ups, he decided he was ready to try. He steadied himself, concentrated and flung his body backwards into the air. For a split second, he thought he’d made it. A moment later his chest hit the wire and then his face. It was like being whipped by a huge cable. A strangled scream burst out of him and he crashed onto the mat, winded and bruised.
‘Gus, you crazy boy,’ scolded Hannah. ‘You should have told me you were going to do this!’ She helped him up and examined his face. ‘You must never try that without the mechanic on. Quickly, we must put some ice on your face. You will have a very nasty welt right across it.’
The rain had stopped and the leaden sky was lifting. A silver streak of sunlight cut through the clouds and shone on the surface of the puddles. Gus sat on an upturned bucket outside the tent with icepacks against his face and his chest. He winced as Doc strode over to him.
‘What’s this I hear about you showing off on the wire?’ Doc shouted.
‘I wasn’t showing off. I just slipped.’
‘Here, let me have a look at you,’ he said. He pulled Gus to his feet and started roughly pressing him in the ribs.
‘Hey, do you have to do that? It takes my breath away and it hurts,’ said Gus, flinching and pulling away.
‘I reckon you’ve cracked a rib there, you clumsy idiot. When I was a boy, I didn’t go flinging myself around as if I knew everything there is to know about circus. I listened to my elders. When I was a boy, my dad would have walloped me for mucking around like you have, even if I was hurt.’
Gus threw the ice packs on the ground and clenched his fists.
‘Then wallop me, but stop shouting. I’m sick of hearing about when you were a boy – you’re not a boy any more. You don’t remember what it’s like. You’re just a fat, bossy, mean old man and I hate you,’ shouted Gus.
Doc looked as if he’d been slapped. His eyes were wide and his face flushed dark red. Gus turned and ran. Doc started shouting ‘Boy! Boy! Don’t you run out on me when I’m talking to you! Boy!’
But Gus was already halfway across the lot heading towards the Cuelmos’ caravan. He wrenched the door open and slammed it shut behind him.
Lily lay coiled on the bed. Gus wasn’t afraid, but he didn’t exactly fancy snuggling down with her. He sat down at the kitchen table, his head against the laminex.
Effie found him like that. She was holding Buster. The dog leapt out of her arms and stood on the table, licking Gus behind the ears.
‘Get out of it, you mongrel. It makes my chest hurt to laugh.’ He pushed the dog out of the way and sat up.
‘Boy, do you look gross,’ said Effie. ‘It’s turning blue and purple already.’
Gus touched his face gingerly. He could tell his nose was bigger than before and his left eyelid was so swollen he could hardly open it.
Effie held out one hand and showed Gus a handful of two-dollar coins.
‘Dad cashed me up so I could take you down the milkbar for a treat,’ she said. ‘You should fall off the wire more often.’
They walked away from the circus lot, past the half-built houses of the new housing development. Most of the houses weren’t lived in and the late-afternoon sun shone into empty rooms. The corner milkbar looked lonely, waiting for customers that didn’t live there yet.
‘Home from school already?’ asked the lady behind the counter.
‘We don’t go to school,’ said Effie ‘We’re with the circus.’
‘You mean that ragbag lot down the road,’ said the woman, disapprovingly.
‘Zarconi’s Incredible Travelling Circus,’ said Gus.
The woman leant across the counter and looked at Gus, her eyes narrowing.
‘That’s a nasty bruise you’ve got there,’ she said.
Gus lifted a hand to shield his face from her inquiring stare.
‘It’s nothing,’ he mumbled, backing away. ‘C’mon, Effie,’ he said from the door.
‘What’s the matter with your brother?’ the woman said to Effie.
‘He doesn’t like nosy rude strangers,’ said Effie. The woman caught her breath and stepped out from behind the counter but Effie had already made a dash for the door.
‘That was pretty cheeky,’ said Gus as they walked back towards the lot.
‘Well, she was a real stickybeak. People like that just make trouble for us, and the last thing Zarconi’s needs right now is more trouble.’
19
LIFE BLOOD
For the next couple of evenings, Gus sold boxes of Jaffas and packets of snakes, and helped Stewie and Mac with the props, as he had on his first nights with Zarconi’s. On Wednesday night, a woman in the audience bought three boxes and watched him a lot, even when the show was on and she should have been watching the acts. Something about her made him uneasy.
At the end of the show she came up and asked him what his name was and whether his parents were with the circus. When Gus told her about Doc and Nance, she asked to meet them. Gus left them to it and joined Effie in her caravan. When he told her about it, she peeked through the curtains and watched the woman drive off.
‘More bad omens,’ she muttered.
Two days later, Gus woke up to the sound of the mobile phone ringing. He stumbled off the couch and groped around on the bench for it.
‘Gus, sweetie, are you all right?’ said his mum, sounding small and far away.
‘Mum, it’s not
Sunday. Why are you calling me? Is everything okay?’
‘I’m getting better all the time, honey. But what about you?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, puzzled.
‘You’re not hurt?’
Gus felt his neck prickle with alarm.
‘No, Mum, I’m fine,’ he repeated.
‘Gus, I want you to put your grandmother on the line,’ said his mum, ominously.
Gus turned around to find Nance standing behind him in her dressing-gown.
‘She wants to talk to you, Nance,’ he said.
Nance took the phone while Gus wandered into the kitchen and pulled the fridge door open. He stared into it, pretending he wasn’t listening to what was being said. Nance sure wasn’t saying much, only occasionally trying to interrupt whatever his mother was saying on the other end. Gus had a bad feeling about the conversation.
‘You’re not being fair, Annie,’ said Nance. ‘You know what those busybodies are like. The boy’s fine, it was just a little fall.’
Gus could hear his mother’s voice, so she had to be shouting. He shut the fridge door and began to edge his way towards the door.
‘Well, we can’t hang around in Perth waiting for you to come for him.’
There was more arguing from his mother, and Nance looked flushed and distressed.
Gus kicked the dew off the tops of the grass as he ran over to the Cuelmos’ caravan. Effie was sitting on the bed with Buster in her lap, watching the morning cartoons. Gus leapt onto the bed beside her and Buster immediately jumped from Effie’s lap to his.
‘Traitor,’ said Effie, shaking her finger at the dog.
‘I think my mum wants me back,’ said Gus.
Effie didn’t say anything for a minute.
‘Does that mean she’s better?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘On Sunday, she said she’d meet me in Broome. She’s really tired from all the chemotherapy, and sick a lot of the time, so she’s in this hospice place. She thought once she was out of there, she’d come and get me. I don’t reckon anything much could have changed in just three days. Something else has happened. She’s heard news that’s got her riled. She’s shouting at Nance down the phone.’
‘It’s that nosy parker who dobbed you in. You can’t leave just because of that. Not yet,’ said Effie. ‘You have to come north.’
‘I have to go if she needs me to. And besides, things are bad with Doc. Ever since I told him I hated him, he won’t talk to me. I think he hates me.’
Effie rolled her eyes.
‘Grow up. He doesn’t hate you any more than you hate him. The pair of you are just too alike, that’s your problem.’
‘Me? Like Doc?’
‘You better believe it,’ said Effie.
From across the lot, Nance was calling for him. Effie hooked one arm around Buster and pulled him towards her.
‘You better go and sort it out,’ she said.
Gus reluctantly got up from the bed.
‘It would be good if you’d stay,’ said Effie.
Gus nodded and stepped out into the morning sunshine.
He stopped outside his grandparents’ van and listened to the murmur of voices coming from inside.
‘We can’t lose the boy now,’ said Vytas, pacing up and down the caravan as he spoke. ‘He and Effie, they are the best thing for Zarconi’s. Without the children, the show will not be the same.’
‘I don’t know, Vytas. The boy doesn’t add that much,’ argued Doc. Gus hung his head and wrapped his arms around himself, listening hard.
‘He adds young blood. Life blood! If we lose him, maybe Cas will send Effie away too. If you lose Gus, there is no one for Effie to be with in the desert. Already, Cas is talking about putting her in a boarding school here in Perth. He will send her to a convent. If the boy goes and then Cas and Effie, Zarconi’s will have no future!’ There was a crash as he slammed his cup down on the counter.
Gus peered in through the flywire and saw Doc sitting at the table with his head in his hands.
‘If Annie wants the boy back, he’s hers to take,’ said Doc.
‘Annie!’ snorted Vytas. ‘She does not know how we have changed him! You look at that boy – he came to us scrawny and weak. Now he is strong and beautiful. How can you let him go without a fight?’
‘Look Vytas, get off my back, will you? I’d do anything to keep the kid. He’s a little beauty, but I can’t keep him from his mother.’
‘If she is well enough to have him back, then she should come and get him herself. Then she would see he is born for the circus. Then she would have to come back to us too. I tell you true, Doc, you lose that boy now, you lose more than you know.’
Gus felt his heart pounding so loudly he thought everyone in the caravan could hear it. He was just about to knock on the door when Nance stepped around the side of the van.
‘Gus,’ she said, ‘I’ve been looking all over for you.’
She led him over to a bale of hay beside the horse float and they sat on it together.
‘Look, Gus,’ she said slowly, taking one of his hands. ‘That lady who was here a couple of days ago. She’s just doing her job, checking you’re being looked after and all but she tracked down your mother and started asking questions. It’s really put the wind up Annie and she’s worried about you something shocking. She’s saying she wants me to send you back to Melbourne right away.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Gus.
Nance slumped a little and looked away from him. Her hand suddenly felt small in his. She looked tired, the lines of her face deeper and there were blue shadows under her eyes.
‘Just talk to your mother and sort it out with her. You do what you feel you want to do – what you reckon is right for you, right for Annie,’ said Nance. She handed him the mobile phone and walked away, climbing wearily back into her caravan.
Gus stretched out on the hay bale and stared at the blue sky. The mobile phone felt warm in his hand. All he had to do was dial his mum and his old life would be his again. He could go back to sleeping in a proper bed, living in a real house, going to school and mucking around with his old friends.
There was a scuffling noise on the ground beside him and suddenly Buster jumped up on to the hay bale and started licking his face. Gus sat up and pushed the dog off but Buster wasn’t going to be got rid of so easily. He started yapping, jumping madly around the hay bale, and making little charges at Gus’s feet.
‘Get out of here, you evil mongrel. I have to make a phone call,’ said Gus. But Buster went right on barking, his ears erect, his pointy tail wagging furiously. Gus scooped the dog up, tucked him under one arm and held his snout.
‘That’ll fix you,’ he said. To Gus’s surprise, Buster didn’t wriggle but lay close against him. He could feel Buster’s heart beat, a warm, insistent rhythm. Gus dialled his mum’s number with his free hand.
‘Mum, it’s me.’
‘Gus, darling. Has Nance told you about coming home?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, I’ve just spoken to Kate Spanner. She said she’d be happy to have you stay with them for a week until we can sort something else out.’
Buster had started wriggling and a small growl reverberated through his body. Gus looked down into the dog’s brown eyes and frowned at him to be quiet.
‘Mum, I’m not coming back, not yet.’
‘But Gus…’
‘You said Broome. You said you weren’t well enough and you needed more time.’
‘I’ve changed my mind. I think it’s best if you come back.’
‘No. I’m staying with the circus. Everything is okay. I’m doing fine. Stop worrying about me and just get better. We’ll meet in Broome, like you said before.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ asked Annie, sounding defeated.
Buster was wriggling so much Gus could hardly hold on to him. He started to whine. ‘Yup, I’m sure.’
‘Gus, are you positive?’
&nb
sp; ‘I said yes. I’ve gotta go. We’ll talk Sunday. Bye.’
‘Bye, darling.’
Gus let go of Buster and the dog leapt off the hay bale, growling, and pawing at the straw. Suddenly, he dived between Gus’s ankles and pulled something out from between the bales. A snake writhed and twisted in his jaws and whipped around as he shook it furiously. Gus jumped back onto the hay bale and let out a shout.
Cas came running over, spade in hand, but the snake was already limp in Buster’s jaws. Buster kept on growling, a low guttural noise in the back of his throat. Cas knelt down and gently prised his mouth open, taking the long speckled snake from him.
‘Dugite,’ he said, holding up the metre-long body by its tail. ‘You’re a lucky boy, Gus. They can be very aggressive and deadly as well.’
Gus swallowed hard and Buster wagged his tail and looked pleased with himself.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Effie, coming up behind Cas and looking from Gus to the snake.
‘Buster just saved my life,’ said Gus, kneeling down to pat the dog.
‘That’s no big deal,’ said Effie. ‘That’s just the sort of thing Buster does! What I want to know is are you staying, or are you going?’
Gus spent that night in the Cuelmos’ caravan. Effie hired a couple of videos and the two of them sat on Cas’s bed with Buster between them, eating takeaway pizza. Buster had a pepporoni pizza all to himself as a reward for saving Gus.
It felt like a holiday, not having to pull up stakes by the glare of the floodlights and move on in darkness. They’d only played to a small audience that night, but Doc thought once people knew they were around, the big top would be fuller. They’d spend a week on the site and then move across town to play the suburbs on the northern beaches. Cas suggested Effie and Gus might want to do a week at a local primary school, but they both said they’d work much harder at their correspondence course if he’d let them off the hook.
‘So you talked your mum around,’ said Effie, picking the salami off the top of her pizza and feeding it to Buster.
‘Sort of. She said she’d think about it. I’ve got until Broome.’
Zarconi’s Magic Flying Fish Page 12
