Circus Mirandus

by Cassie Beasley

  “But what?”

  She frowned. “I . . . I can’t let you go alone. It was like an adventure we were having together. I’ll go with you.”

  He shook his head. “Your parents.”

  Jenny drew herself up to her full height. “I’ll sneak out of the house.” She said this the way other people might announce their intention to dismantle a bomb.

  Micah gaped at her.

  She threw her leg over the bicycle seat. “I’ll be back at eleven o’clock,” she said firmly. “Call me if the plan changes. My phone number is 555-3612. It’s simple to remember because the numbers double—three, six, twelve.”

  Before Micah could say anything else, she pedaled away.

  Avoiding Aunt Gertrudis on the way in turned out to be easier than Micah had thought it would be. She was in the kitchen, talking on the telephone with Dr. Simon.

  “. . . gave my brother an extra dose,” she was saying. “For all the good it did. That boy won’t let him have a moment’s rest. Did I tell you I found feathers all over the place? Completely unsanitary . . .”

  Micah hurried upstairs before he could hear anything else. He dropped the quipu on top of his bed, and then he went straight to Grandpa Ephraim’s room. The window was open, so the room was bright, and it smelled fresher than usual. But to Micah’s disappointment, his grandfather’s eyes were closed. He crept closer to the bed. If his grandfather’s breath hadn’t been gurgling in and out of his chest, Micah would have been terrified.

  He looked so much worse than he had two days ago.

  Grandpa Ephraim’s cheeks were thin and sunken, and they were much too pale. His hands were resting on top of his bedspread. Micah only resisted the urge to reach for one of them by reminding himself that after tonight everything would be better.

  Midnight couldn’t come soon enough.

  His aunt’s voice was just a mumble through the floorboards, but as long as he was quiet, he would know when she finished her conversation with Dr. Simon. He unlaced his shoes and slipped out of them so that he could walk on sock feet.

  Micah went around the room, looking at the photographs. Every now and then he would tip one a bit to one side or the other to make it crooked. When he did this, the walls looked like Grandpa Ephraim was in charge of them instead of Aunt Gertrudis. Then he reached the corner by the chest of drawers and saw that one of the pictures was already askew.

  It wasn’t very crooked, but every other frame in the room had been so perfectly straight that Micah could have balanced a marble on top without worrying that it might roll off. In the photo, a younger Grandpa Ephraim was wearing a gray suit. He had his arm wrapped around the waist of a pretty woman in a polka-dotted dress. She was very small. The top of her head didn’t reach Grandpa Ephraim’s shoulder. This was Micah’s grandmother.

  He carefully took the photograph off the nail that held it to the wall. He turned it over in his hands, looking for any clues that might tell him what made it different.

  The back of the old wooden frame had a tiny clasp. Micah carefully lifted it with his thumbnail so that he could slip the picture out. The photograph was cool and smooth against his fingers, and as Micah pulled it free, he could see that there was loopy writing on the back of it.

  Ephraim & Victoria Tuttle in the garden,

  photographed by Gertie

  He thought it was wonderful that Aunt Gertrudis had once been nice enough to take pictures of people. He wondered what had gone wrong.

  The mattress creaked behind him, and he looked over his shoulder. Grandpa Ephraim was stirring in his sleep. Micah hastily stuck the picture back into its frame.

  “Micah?” Grandpa Ephraim sounded groggy.

  He rushed over to perch on the edge of the bed. He reached for his grandfather’s hand and held it gently in his own. It was so much thinner and colder than he remembered it being.

  “Look at you,” said Grandpa Ephraim. His eyes were clear, but his head stayed pressed into his pillows. He didn’t lean toward Micah like he usually did. “Growing again. They must be teaching you how to be a giant at school.”

  It was an old joke they had shared because Micah was short for his age. Grandpa Ephraim used to say it every day when he came home from school.

  “I don’t think I’m any taller,” Micah replied. “But I have learned something important.” He bent close to his grandfather’s ear. “Circus Mirandus is coming. Tonight. I’m going to get the Lightbender for you.”

  Micah hated to admit it, even to himself, but a part of him was disappointed that this news didn’t make Grandpa Ephraim leap from his bed with joy.

  “Tonight, is it?” he asked. “You’ll have to make sure you see everything for me. And say hello to the elephant. We always got along well.”

  “I’ll have time for that later,” Micah said. “First we have to get the Lightbender to come for you.”

  Grandpa Ephraim sighed. His eyes held Micah’s. “Promise me you’ll see some magic tonight. Promise me you won’t let worrying get in your way. If you just go, my miracle will take care of itself.”

  “But . . .”

  “Promise me.” His voice was so serious.

  “I promise,” Micah said reluctantly.

  His grandfather gripped his hand tighter. “I want you to have something. For luck.”

  He nodded toward the bedside table, and Micah opened the top drawer. Inside were a Bible, two neckties, tarnished silver cuff links, and one long, dirty bootlace.

  Micah’s breath caught at the sight of the lace. His fingers hovered over it. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s waited a long time to go back to Circus Mirandus.”

  The bootlace wrapped several times around Micah’s wrist, and it was rough and leathery against his skin. He knotted it carefully with his free hand.

  “A nice strong Tuttle knot,” Grandpa Ephraim said approvingly. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  He hesitated then, as if he wanted to say something important and couldn’t decide whether he should or not. Micah leaned toward him, but Grandpa Ephraim shook his head. “Tell me about the last couple of days,” he said. “What have you been up to?”

  Micah thought of his quipu and of the wind. He thought of spending the night in the tree house because Aunt Gertrudis had kicked him out.

  “I’ve got a friend,” he said.

  Grandpa Ephraim’s smile stretched across his whole face. “Do you?” he asked. “Tell me about him.”

  “He’s a girl.”

  “Oh really?”

  Grandpa Ephraim waggled his eyebrows, and Micah snorted. “Noooo,” he said. “She’s a friend. Her name’s Jenny Mendoza, and she’s the smartest person in the whole fifth grade.”

  “She must be if she’s friends with you.”

  Micah told him all about the project and Jenny coming over to help finish it. He tried to make it sound like they had spent all night in the tree because it was an interesting thing to do. He could tell Grandpa Ephraim didn’t believe him by the way that his eyes narrowed.

  “Anyway,” Micah said hastily. “Jenny’s coming with me tonight. She’s going to help me get to Circus Mirandus.”

  Grandpa Ephraim’s noisy breathing paused for a second. “You’re taking her with you?”

  “She doesn’t live far from here. I’ll keep her safe.”

  Grandpa Ephraim’s lips twitched up at the corners. “I’m sure you will. And I’m sure I won’t ever mention your friend’s escapades to her mother and father.” He paused. “But, Micah, have you considered that the circus might not be the right place for her?”

  Micah frowned.

  “She sounds a little . . . rigid,” Grandpa Ephraim said carefully. “And Circus Mirandus is not a rigid sort of place.”

  “She’s my friend,” said Micah.

  Grandpa Ephraim searched his f
ace. He nodded slowly. “You just be yourself tonight, Micah. Who you are is more than good enough.”

  Before Micah could ask what he meant, the mumble of Aunt Gertrudis’s voice downstairs stopped.

  “I think that’s your cue to leave,” said Grandpa Ephraim. “Best not run afoul of her when you’ve got such big plans in the works.”

  Micah agreed wholeheartedly. He slid off the bed and bent down to grab his shoes. He was just standing up when he saw the feather. It was a red so bright that it almost made his eyes water, and it was lying on the floor at the corner of the bed’s footboard. There was no way Aunt Gertrudis could have missed it when she cleaned the room that morning. Micah grabbed it.

  “Has Chintzy been back already?” he asked as he twirled the pristine feather between his fingers. “Why? What did she say?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about.” The expression on his grandfather’s face was strange. “She just had some questions for me.”

  Micah hesitated. “I don’t understand . . .”

  “It’s fine, Micah. I promise.”

  Footsteps were coming up the stairs.

  “Hurry,” Grandpa Ephraim said. “Go.”

  Micah went.

  Circus Mirandus had rarely been as stirred up as it was on its first night in Peal. Most of the performers still didn’t know why they had been dropped onto a new continent so unexpectedly, and the manager was endlessly calling staff meetings to keep everyone up-to-date. Tents had to be set to rights, and schedules had to be rearranged, and of course there was the usual kerfuffle with the menagerie, because no matter how many times they’d done it, the animals still thought that traveling by Door was a rotten idea.

  Chintzy was busy as well. When she wasn’t zipping here and there with messages, she was trying to convince everyone to use “Lightbender,” even though the Man Who Bends Light was being stubborn about the new name.

  The Lightbender was trying to put his tent in order when Chintzy flew in to share the latest news. Because of the sudden move, his books were scattered everywhere, his clothes were strewn all over the floor, and Chintzy’s perch was missing. She sat on top of his dressing table while he stalked back and forth amid the wreckage.

  “It was Victoria,” Chintzy squawked. “In the picture on the old man’s wall. He didn’t want to talk about it, but it was her.”

  “That is impossible,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense. How could Ephraim possibly know her?”

  “I’m not a liar!”

  “I never called you one.” He picked up a lantern, looked at it with a vacant expression, then set it back down in exactly the same place. “But it doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s not all.” She bobbed up and down eagerly.

  He didn’t look at her. “Did you deliver the message to Ephraim?” he asked. “Did you tell him—”

  “I told him,” Chintzy squawked. “Did you hear me? I said that’s not all.”

  “All what?”

  She hissed at him. “That’s not all about her. There’s more.”

  He tossed his hands up into the air. “I cannot worry about her. Not today. Not right now.”

  “That’s new.”

  He glared at her. “If you are not careful I will make you look and sound and smell like an ostrich to everyone for an entire week.”

  Chintzy froze. “You wouldn’t.”

  He started stacking books on the shelves.

  Chintzy shuffled back and forth on the dressing table until she thought she might explode. “It’s important!” she burst out. “I don’t care if you turn me into an ostrich.”

  The Lightbender sighed, and his shoulders hunched. “What?”

  “In the picture, she was wearing a dress with spots on it,” Chintzy said darkly.

  “Is that significant?”

  “She was wearing a dress.”

  The Lightbender had the nerve to look confused. “Victoria was, or is, a girl. They do things like that.”

  “It was a pretty dress and he was in a suit and they were standing very close together.” Chintzy nodded sagely.

  But the Lightbender still looked baffled. She decided she had better spell it out for him. “I suspect,” she said, “that they might have hatched eggs with each other.”

  He stared at her for so long that Chintzy thought he was having trouble coping with the gravity of the situation. She started sorting through the things on the dressing table with her beak to see if he had any smelling salts lying around, but then a sound came out of him that stopped her in her tracks.

  That horrible Lightbender, that wretched magician, was laughing his head off.

  She had never seen anything like it. He almost never laughed, and now he was actually clutching at the shelves for support while he cackled like a madman. He’d obviously cracked under the pressure of the last few days. “I’m serious!” she shrieked.

  “I am so sorry,” he gasped between chuckles. “I know you are.”

  “Micah Tuttle might be Victoria’s grandchick!”

  That sobered him up. “He might,” he conceded. “But it hardly matters right now. We haven’t even met the boy yet.”

  “It will matter to the Head! You know it will.”

  “Not as much as you think,” he said. He caught her doubt-filled eyes with his own. “Let’s not mention it to him just yet, though.”

  “I can keep a secret. The Head was too busy to listen to me anyway. But no more laughing!” She snapped her beak at him. “I don’t understand why you thought it was funny.”

  He held one hand over his mouth to hide what Chintzy was sure was an inappropriate grin. “My dear parrot, I have to tell you, human children don’t hatch out of eggs.”

  Victoria Starling was thirteen years old when her father’s third insanity came upon him. Kinder individuals might have called the third insanity a moment of divine inspiration, or simply a change of heart, but Victoria’s mother had been married to Mr. Starling for two legitimate insanities. She wasn’t inclined to take the more charitable view.

  Victoria herself was never charitable. She thought it was a tremendous waste of effort.

  The first insanity had begun just after the Starlings were married, and it involved an obsession with millinery, which is a fancy word for hat making. Mr. Starling quit a lucrative career in banking in order to make flowery ladies’ hats. They were all quite ugly, and after his retirement, a certain museum kept the collection in storage so that they might bring it out during one of those dry spells when people grew tired of seeing Egyptian sarcophagi.

  The hat insanity ended just after Victoria’s birth, and the second insanity began. Mr. Starling moved his family to the Untamed Wilds of Canada in order to take up a career as a furrier, which is a fancy way of saying that he ran about the woods conking small animals on the head and peeling their skins off.

  Mr. Starling was better at conking and peeling than anyone else. He made a great deal of money, and his daughter enjoyed every luxury a young girl could possibly want. Mr. Starling had gowns and chocolates and porcelain dolls shipped in by the truckload. But Victoria was never quite satisfied with these offerings. What good were fine gowns if there was no one around to be jealous of how lovely you were in them?

  She craved the admiration of others, and that was in short supply in the Untamed Wilds. Victoria felt certain that she was destined for somewhere much more unusual and glamorous.

  Her father’s third insanity was a tremendous disappointment.

  It came in the night and drove Mr. Starling out of bed. He woke his wife and daughter to announce that he was determined to be a missionary to tribes of heathens living in the Amazon rain forest. He was sure these tribes existed in untold numbers and that they would greet him with open arms.

  Mrs. Starling and Victoria protested at extraordinary length and volume, but Mr. Starling would
hear none of it.

  “I’ve found my true calling, darling,” he said to his wife. “Aren’t you happy for me?”

  She burst into tears.

  Mr. Starling reminded her that she hadn’t been all that excited about Canada, either.

  The third insanity took off at record speed. Mr. Starling sold his furrier business for bottom dollar and informed his wife and daughter that they would be allowed only one suitcase each for the journey, since they would be dedicating themselves to a life of poverty.

  Then Mr. Starling made his fatal mistake. Instead of traveling by ships or trains like a normal man of the times, he decided to call in a favor from a friend who had an airplane. The airplane would have to make stops along the way, but it would get them started on their missionarying faster than anything else.

  “I won’t do it!” Mrs. Starling cried. “I won’t go up in one of those newfangled contraptions. I won’t!”

  Mrs. Starling said, “I won’t, I won’t!” until the day arrived and she was stuffed along with her gigantic suitcase into the tiny plane.

  For her part, Victoria didn’t say much at all. She had never experienced one of her father’s insanities before. It was a lot like being struck by lightning out of a clear sky. At first, she was too baffled by the turn her life had taken to be angry, but that began to change when she saw the plane.

  “You’re not serious?” she said flatly. It was the first time she had spoken in days. “I won’t be subjected to this nonsense!”

  “It’s perfectly safe, sweetheart,” said the pilot, shoving her in beside her mother. “I’ve flown this beauty four or five times, and it’s never failed me once.”

  Unfortunately for the Starling family, the fifth or sixth time didn’t go so well.

  When Victoria stopped sobbing, the first thing she noticed was that falling was taking her much too long. Propellers, suitcases, parents—these had all dropped at more or less the same speed toward the earth so very far below her. But judging by the sun, that had been hours ago.