Real Girls Don't Rust

by Jennifer Carson

  I tell Travis all of this, and he listens and nods and asks an occasional question. It’s the first time I’ve talked about my promise to Jackson with anyone. I’m surprised at how easy it is, there in a balloon basket with a near-stranger. When I finish I think maybe he’ll talk about his brother, but he doesn’t. We sit in silence, but it’s nice. Comfortable, even.

  I go back the next night and help him fold the balloon again, but this time he tells me apologetically that I can’t stay. “I have to get up early tomorrow, to fly to my other job.”

  “You have another job?”

  His eyes skirt around me, focusing on some point in the distance. Last night when I was talking his eyes seemed to look right into me, but he has a funny way of avoiding eye contact when he answers questions. “At another carnival, couple hundred miles from here. I work there while this one is traveling, and then switch back while the other one travels.”

  “Gee! You must make a lot of money.” I hope I don’t sound as jealous as I am. “What’s the other carnival like? Does it pay better? They looking for mechanics?”

  Travis frowns. “You wouldn’t want to work there.”

  That doesn’t answer my questions, but I let it go even though curiosity is chewing at me like a hungry dog. “I’ll take your word for it. Bet it’ll be nice for you tomorrow, up in the air while we’re trudgin’ along in the dust.”

  A ghost of a smile flits across his face. “It will.”

  I get up at just after dawn the next day. Travis is already gone. I spend the morning helping pack the beasts into the steam wagon, Dr. Fish’s pride and joy, the only thing big and powerful enough to transport them. The rest of the equipment, as well as any of the important people (which does not include me), ride in horse-drawn wagons. One of the carnival-goers at the last town asked why we don’t have the beasts pull our wagons, which shows how much he knew about mechanical beasts—nothin’. Having to constantly clean and rewind them would make them slower than horses, not to mention more trouble, and they’d be completely useless over rough ground. No, beasts like these are purely for spectacle, not for ease of transportation.

  As we leave I detour into the little two-bit town, stopping at the general store to mail the mouse to Izaly, as well as letters for Delancy, Seb, and Tucker. I ask the clerk if there’s any mail for Laraby Sunderland—Dr. Fish has our itinerary mapped out for the next six months, and I sent copies to Delancy and the boys, saying they could write to me in care of the towns’ general stores and I’d be sure to ask at every stop—but there’s nothing.

  I try not to be disappointed.

  The weeks and towns begin to run together as life in the carnival settles into normality. Clem teaches me maintenance for the clockwork-powered Aero-wheel. I become friends with the two youngest roustabouts, and we play jokes on the older, grumpier ones. My clockwork key for Jewel continues to develop. And twice there are letters waiting for me, once from Delancy and once from Seb.

  But my favorite part of those days, if I have to admit it, is the time I spend in Travis’s balloon basket. We talk about all sorts of things, the way I used to do with Jackson, though most often it’s about the past or the future—our happiest memories, or our biggest dreams. I get to hear about how Travis practically grew up on this balloon, with his brother piloting, taking any sort of flight work that would pay. And how Travis dreams of flying around the globe someday, living in the sky, and only stopping for fuel.

  We don’t talk much about the present. About how I miss my family so much I feel hollow at night when I try to sleep. Or about how ragged he seems to be running himself working two carnivals. One night I dare to suggest that maybe he should stick to one (this one, I privately but fervently hope). He’s looking so pale and tired lately, the way Jackson had looked right before he got so dreadful sick.

  “Can’t,” Travis says. He starts pacing the perimeter of the balloon basket. He’s normally so calm and still that I know I’ve upset him. I don’t press him further.

  He leaves the next morning for the other carnival, and I try to put him out of my mind as I fine-tune my clockwork key. It’s all but done; I just have to find a private moment with Jewel to test it before I show everyone else. I’ve been dropping ten-pound hints to Leroy that I’m going to be putting him to shame.

  I don’t see Travis again for four days, till he surprises me by coming over while I’m doing the beast maintenance. I’ve never seen him away from his balloon before, and I think maybe he wants to talk, but after we say hello he doesn’t say anything more, just watches me work. After awhile I forget he’s even there. By the time I’ve finished he’s gone.

  That night when I go to see him he says, “You’re really good with all that machinery, aren’t you?”

  “I reckon.”

  “I watched you. You get that same look in your eyes my brother used to get when he was piloting. Like it’s just you and your work and nothing else matters.”

  I open my mouth to say, “There are plenty of places I’d rather be,” but then I realize he has a point. I’d trade my life at the carnival in a second for life with my siblings, but when I’m working I never think about missing them. I only think about what I’m doing. It’s a consuming feeling, and a satisfying one.

  My mouth is still hanging open like an idiot, so I say, “You get that look, too…when you’re piloting.”

  He nods, still looking at the balloon and not at me. “Can I tell you a story?”

  “Of course,” I say, hoping I’ve managed to keep the surprise out of my voice.

  It’s a full minute before he starts talking, and he’s pacing again. “I’ve told you about my brother, Isaias. How he was the only family I ever had. How he started flying at sixteen, and a year later he took me with him. I was seven. Those next eight years…you can’t imagine any happier. Isaias would take all sorts of jobs with his balloon, and in between we would go wherever we wanted. And as I got older, he taught me how to fly.”

  I’ve heard most of this before, but I don’t say anything, don’t try to hurry him along. I sense that he’s building the story, that he can’t tell the rest of it without starting with this. I nod my head, encouraging him to go on.

  “I was fifteen when we stopped at the carnival. It had been awhile since Isaias had had a job, and a friend of his told him once that balloons could be big draws at carnivals. So Isaias arranged a deal with the carnival owner, Mr. Skorp. We would give rides for a few days, and pay him thirty percent of our earnings.

  “It was a sizeable town, and we drew large crowds. Made more money than we’d seen in a long time. At the end of three days we paid Skorp his share, and then camped out for the night. We figured on going all the way to the Pacific Ocean next. It’s supposed to be magnificent.”

  Travis pauses again. I begin to wonder why he’s telling me this story when it so clearly bothers him. But instead of suggesting he stop when his silence starts to stretch too long, I urge him on. “What happened?”

  He sits down facing away from me, as though he’s telling his story to the darkness. “In the morning Skorp was waiting for us. Said he’d like us to stick around, be a permanent part of the show. He offered Isaias a weekly salary, far less than we’d made in the last three days. Isaias said no. Skorp asked him to reconsider, asked him to come into his wagon and talk for a minute. I could see Isaias didn’t want to, but he agreed. I stayed with the balloon.

  “I don’t exactly know what happened next. The next thing I remember is waking up with a lump on my head and a pain in my hand. Skorp was there, and he told me Isaias was dead, and I would be, too, unless I did exactly what he said.

  “I was to work for him, giving balloon rides. While I was unconscious, he’d had the carnival mechanic put a clockwork device in my hand. He said they’d tried it on Isaias first, but it was a delicate procedure and they’d ended up killing him. They’d put another device inside the balloon. Both needed to be wound in a very specific way once a week. If the balloon isn’t wound, it e
xplodes. If my hand’s not wound, I die.”

  My jaw drops as I try to process this. It feels like a story, made-up, something you’d read in a penny dreadful or hear about third-hand and know that it was embellished with each telling. Travis is still acting a little twitchier than usual, but his relative calm makes it even harder to believe he’s telling a story about himself. If it was Leroy or one of the roustabouts telling me this, I’d laugh at him, ask him if he took me for a gullible girl. But this is Travis. He’s not a liar. He’s not crazy. This is real.

  “I’ve been working for that carnival ever since. ’Bout a year ago, Skorp decided I should work here, too. He’s old friends with Dr. Fish. Now they both get the benefits of my services, and I only have to stay with the carnival I’m actually working for.”

  “Does…does Dr. Fish know about the…devices?”

  “I don’t think so. He’s never mentioned them. He’s never the one to do the winding, either. Skorp has the key to ensure I come back.”

  “Are you sure that the balloon would really explode? That you would really die?” I ask.

  “Course not!” he all but yells. “But it’s a deuce of a risk to take. Balloons are hard to come by. Expensive. And it’s the last thing I have of Isaias.”

  I throw my hands up in the air that he thinks of the balloon before himself. “Lives are also hard to come by,” I point out.

  “That, too.”

  “Can I see your hand?”

  He peels the glove from his left hand and holds it out to me. I pull it closer to the kerosene lantern and stare. Tucked into the flesh between his thumb and wrist, as expertly inserted as if it were a natural part of him, is an intricate clockwork device. Structurally it reminds me of the beasts’ gears but on a smaller scale, though the setup is not exactly the same. I probe gently at the flesh around it, and can feel that it extends beneath the skin. “Does it hurt?”

  “When it first happened. Not anymore.”

  I attempt to stick my pinky nail in the keyhole, then pick carefully at where Travis’s skin meets the metal. I’m dimly aware that I have distanced myself from the situation, that I have forced myself to forget that this is Travis and instead become fascinated with the intriguing device. “Will you show me the part on the balloon?”

  He leads me to the balloon’s control panel and opens a flap on the basket’s side. Holding the kerosene lantern close, I kneel down and scrutinize the small device. This one looks surprisingly less complicated than the one in his hand. “How does he wind it?” I ask.

  “There are two keys. He winds the balloon first—some kind of special pattern—and then he winds my hand.”

  “Do you feel anything when it’s being wound?”

  Travis’s eyes are far away again. “It’s awful. I can feel the vibration straight up my arm.”

  I stand up, try to draw his gaze back to me. “Why did you tell me all this?” I ask, though I have a feeling I already know.

  His eyes drift back to mine. “You’re the first person I’ve trusted in three years. And you’re a mechanic.”

  “And you think I can get it out.”

  “Maybe not. But I was hoping you’d be able to tell me if it’s possible.”

  My head spins faster than the Aero-wheel. All the ways this could go very, very badly begin to dawn on me, but his eyes look so hopeful I know I have to do something. “I’ll try. It’ll take some time, though.”

  He gives me a half-smile. “I’m surprisingly patient.”

  I don’t sleep much that night. In the morning I find Travis as soon as breakfast is over. The daylight makes it easier to examine the intricacies of the devices, though there’s not much to see. I’m used to the gear drives in the beasts, which I can pop out and disassemble to learn all their secrets. All I can glimpse of these devices is what peeks out of Travis’s skin and the wicker basket. I try to squelch my frustration as I look and gently prod for nearly an hour. Then I take a walk, distancing myself from the hubbub of the carnival so I can turn things over in my mind. The device on the balloon is definitely the simpler of the two. I know next to nothing about explosive devices, but it doesn’t seem large enough, or complicated enough, to blow anything up. And that makes sense to me, too—after all, the balloon is a valuable commodity. Blowing it up would be devastating to Travis, sure, but it wouldn’t benefit the carnival either. I’m almost certain it’s harmless, but if I’m wrong the consequences will be disastrous.

  The device in his hand is even more troubling. If the device in the balloon is fake, then this one could be, too, but my gut tells me it’s not. I ponder on it all day. Part of me wants to tell Travis that I just don’t know, that there’s nothing I can do. But I can’t say that and I don’t want to. He’s relying on me. I can’t let him down.

  Jackson once said that always wanting to fix everything—everyone—even when I can’t, was both my best quality and the one that would get me in the most trouble. He told me that a week or so before he died, when I was fussing around him and trying to fill his head with plans for the future.

  “You can’t make me live just by wishing hard,” he’d said. “Haven’t you learned yet that wanting to fix things is a whole different story than being able to?”

  These words hammer around in my head now, but I do my best to push them aside.

  I don’t visit Travis after the carnival closes. A plan has been taking shape in my mind all evening, but I’m not ready to tell him just yet. I lie on my bedroll, eyes open, mind racing, and wait for the rest of the carnival workers to fall asleep.

  When everything is dark and quiet, I get up and sneak into the steam wagon. It’s mostly empty—the beasts stay outside in nice weather—and Jewel seems to glow in the light of my lantern. I pat her once as if she’s a real animal, then insert my clockwork key into her keyhole and wind it.

  Jewel instantly springs to life, taking a few steps and tossing her head in such a cunning way that I gasp with delight. I wish I could bring her out to the field and put her through all her paces. I wish Old Clem and Leroy could see her—could see what I have done—but instead I back Jewel up to her original position and withdraw my key. I have a long night ahead of me, but confidence bubbles in my belly.

  In the mechanics’ wagon I shut the flaps securely and light my lantern. Now I have a private office for the night, and several hours to rebuild my clockwork key to fit in the device in Travis’s hand. Tomorrow will be our last night in this particular town, which means Travis will leave the morning after. Of course, he’ll be back, and the sensible part of my mind tells me it might be better not to rush this, but my heart wants badly for him to never have to leave our carnival.

  It’s hard work for my weary eyes in the dim light, but I’m not letting that stop me. I dismantle my key for Jewel. It’s too large to fit the keyhole in Travis’s hand, and I need some of the parts. I try not to think about Jewel, or how proud Old Clem would have been, or how my success would have shut Leroy up. I rebuild the key slowly, rooting through Clem’s stash for smaller gears and pins, using tweezers to assemble the tiniest bits, holding my breath in the most delicate moments for fear that I may disrupt the balance.

  I spent enough time that day looking at the keyhole in Travis’s hand, as well as poking into it with a bit of wire, that I have a good idea of its shape and depth. I mold a casing out of a thin piece of tin to house the device and solder a keyhole on top, choosing one that I know Clem has several spare keys for. I’ll give Travis one, and keep the other myself just in case he loses his. I wrap the whole thing in a handkerchief, which I stow in the deepest pocket of my coveralls. Then I tidy up the wagon.

  I manage an hour’s sleep before Pierre’s bell rings for breakfast. Fuzzy-brained, I do my best to help Clem bang some dents out of a beast’s hide, while Leroy asks, “So when exactly are you going to show us how you fixed Jewel?”

  I pretend to ignore him while he laughs and calls me “Miz Can’t-fix-it.”

  The afternoon belongs to me, and I go
immediately to Travis. “I can take the device out of the balloon,” I say as I clamber aboard the balloon’s basket.

  “What about my hand?” Travis asks.

  This time it’s me who avoids eye contact. “Not so much, but I’ve got a plan. One thing at a time, though. You might want to go stand by the wagons.”

  “Why?”

  I crouch in front of the device by the balloon. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure this thing is not going to explode, but on the off chance I’m wrong…”

  “On the off chance you’re wrong, we’re exploding together,” he says, sitting on the seat behind me.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  So I set to work dismantling the device, which is even simpler than I thought and definitely not explosive. “Done,” I say, turning to Travis. “Skorp lied about the device on the balloon, but I think he’s telling the truth about the one in your hand. I can’t remove it, but maybe I can fix it so you can do the winding yourself. You’ll never have to go back to the other carnival, or even stay with this one…if you don’t want to. Your balloon—and your life—will be yours again.”

  I finally dare to look at his face, but his expression is blank. I can’t tell if he doesn’t believe I can do it, or if he’s shocked I can, or what-all. I don’t ask, just take his hand in mine and pry the glove off.

  “You know, you’re the first boy whose hand I’ve ever held,” I say conversationally.

  “Rumors will fly.”

  I look at him and we both half-smile. I hope he doesn’t notice how damp my palms are. Lack of sleep isn’t helping my nerves. Nor is my sudden doubt about my abilities, despite my test run on Jewel.