Louise Trapeze Will NOT Lose a Tooth

by Micol Ostow

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Micol Ostow

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2017 by Brigette Barrager

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ostow, Micol, author. | Barrager, Brigette, illustrator.

  Title: Louise Trapeze will not lose a tooth / by Micol Ostow ; illustrated by Brigette Barrager.

  Description: New York : Random House, [2017] | “A Stepping Stone book.” | Summary: A young circus performer has a habit of losing things but she is determined to keep her very loose tooth.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016002258 | ISBN 978-0-553-49751-9 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-553-49752-6 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-553-49754-0 (pbk.) | ISBN 978-0-553-49753-3 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Teeth—Fiction. | Lost and found possessions—Fiction. | Circus—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.O8475 Lw 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780553497533

  This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient™ Leveling System.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v4.1

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  FOR MAZ AND NONIE

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Titles

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. A Perfect Mess

  2. Extraordinary Things

  3. The Great Madame Fortuna

  4. Watery Weirdness

  5. Here Comes the Uh-oh!

  6. You Bet

  7. Siesta Secrets

  8. The Mermaid’s Apprentice

  9. Sink or Swim

  10. A Tattooed Marvel

  11. The Tooth Truth

  12. Monkey Business

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  “Louise! What is going on here?”

  Uh-oh. I looked up from the floor of my bedroom corner. Mama had an extremely what-on-earth?-ish look on her face. That was never good.

  In case you didn’t know, I, Louise Trapeze, am one of the Easy Trapezee trapeze performers in the Sweet Potato Traveling Circus Troupe. That means I get to swing high-high-high up on the flying trapeze and do lots of big-time tricks for the audience. Can you even?

  It also means that instead of living in a regular house, Mama, Daddy, and I travel all around the worldwide with the rest of the Sweet Potatoes in our circus trailers! This month we were in Teeny Tiny Town.

  Inside our trailer, Mama, Daddy, and I all live in one long space together. So instead of a bedroom, I have my own private corner with a million-zillion secret drawers and cubbies for keeping my things tidy.

  But now my things weren’t tidy at all. Actually, they were in a huge, gigantic mess! That was why Mama was making her what-on-earth?-ish face at me.

  The drawers beneath my bed were all half-open with ruffly costume bits and sparkly accessories spilling out everywhere. And my cubbies were empty now that all my fancy barrettes and lacy socks and things were scattered on the floor. I sat in the middle of the whole entire heap with a turquoise Mary Jane in one hand and a silver ballet slipper in the other.

  I looked up at Mama and dropped the shoes. They each hit the floor with a thunk.

  “Sorry,” I said. “But I can’t find my number one favoritest pair of springtime shoes! The gold polka-dot sandals with the waterproof leather straps are G-O-N-E gone! They disappeared right after we got to town.” I frowned. “This is a catastrophe!”*

  Mama’s mouth twitched like she was trying not to smile. “This is definitely a catastrophe, Louise,” she agreed. “In fact, I’d say this is a perfect mess. What did I tell you about keeping your things neat? No wonder you’re always losing your best shoes and your favorite circus accessories. Not to mention other stuff.”

  “Not always,” I said. I crossed my arms over my chest. Always means one hundred percent of the time. And I could think of at least three things I never, ever lost:

  1. My library book of magic tricks from the Funky Town library. I returned that right smack-dab on time.

  2. The teensy china horse that Daddy brought me all the way back from Paris (that’s in France, a whole other country from here!). It only has the one little chip on its little horse hoof.

  3. The BFF charm bracelet Stella Dee gave me when I turned six. She has an exact matching bracelet of her own! We wear them on special occasions that we plan out together beforehand. The rest of the time, I keep my bracelet on the shelf over my bed so I can see it sparkle whenever I look up.

  Maybe I’m not the super-tidiest person of all times, but I hardly ever lose extra-special things like those sandals. This was just the strangest.

  Mama raised an eyebrow. “Not always. But what about the baton with the spiral streamers? When was the last time you saw that?” I didn’t say anything. “And that light-up hula hoop you were using on your trampoline last month? Where did that go?”

  I shrugged. Probably it was somewhere in our giant prop trailer, but Mama had a point. I couldn’t tell her exactly where that hula hoop was. I glanced at my shelf, where my charm bracelet was twinkling away. I could show her that, but I didn’t think it would help.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll clean this all, I promise. But I can’t right this second!”

  Now Mama really did smile. “Oh?” she asked. “And why not?”

  Mama was smiling because, really, she knew just what I was so excited about. I peeked at the kitty-cat clock on the wall. “Because!” I said, jumping up. “I’m late to meet Stella!”

  I needed to get to Stella lickety-split! We were going together to watch the Teeny Tiny Town Spring Carnival set up!

  And here is one other bestest-ever thing that I love:

  The Teeny Tiny Town Spring Carnival!

  Every springtime, the Sweet Potato Circus makes a special visit to Teeny Tiny Town. The town puts together a giant carnival with rides, and games, and even fried cookies with sugar that you sprinkle from a shaker! We Sweet Potatoes perform special acts for the crowds. This year, I’m supposed to do my light-up hula hoop on the trampoline.

  (If I can find it!)

  A carnival plus a circus all smushed together into one stupendous fun-time event! Can you even?

  Today everyone was setting up for the carnival, and I was ninety-six percent exploding from excitement.

  Except there was one secret, four percent amount of mixed-up feelings happening to me, too.

  Stella had lost exactly one tooth. And Fernando Worther, Ringmaster Riley’s son, had lost seven of his baby teeth by now. (He’s nine years old.)

  Only I, Louise Trapeze, had been waiting for foreverness for my first loose tooth. And now it was finally here! So that was one feeling I had.

  But there was another feeling mixed up in my brain, too:

  Actually, I was an eensy bit afraid about my loose tooth!

  The loose tooth was a l
ittle bit hurty. So what if it hurt when it finally came out?

  What if it was bleedy?

  I do not like bleedy times. Not one bit. And if you’re bleeding in your mouth, you can’t even put a Band-Aid over the hurt part.

  As I walked to meet Stella at the entrance to the fairgrounds, I poked my tooth with my tongue. Yikes! It felt even wigglier now than it did yesterday!

  Well, I am the boss of my own mouth. I decided to keep all my baby teeth in there for as long as I could. And if I didn’t tell anyone about my loose tooth, they couldn’t say anything to change my mind.

  It was going to be hard to keep my loose-tooth secret from Stella, but I had no choice!

  When I found Stella at the entrance to the fairgrounds, her smile was almost bigger than her cheeks. She was so, so excited about the carnival. Behind her, Clementine waved her trunk all over the place. (That’s the elephant way of being excited.)

  “Sorry I’m late,” I told her. “I couldn’t find my shoes!” I tried to speak softly, with my mouth a little bit closed-ish, to keep the wiggly tooth a secret.

  Stella nodded. She knew just which shoes I meant because of being my BFF. If she noticed my closed-ish mouth, she didn’t show it.

  “The gold sandals,” she said. “They’re so pretty.” She looked down at my stripy flip-flops. “But I like those, too.”

  “Thanks!” I said. My tooth made a wobble, and I quickly curled my lip around it.

  This time, Stella did make a look like she noticed what I was doing. I ignored it and made my voice as loud as I could: “Let’s go see the tents getting set up!”

  Off we walked. Right away, we saw lots of amazing carnival-ish things happening. To the right was the Mermaid Dunking Tank! At the dunking tank, people pay a ticket to throw a ball at a bull’s-eye. If you hit the bull’s-eye, the mermaid on the platform falls into the tank!

  (It’s a good thing she has a silvery-scaled fish tail that’s perfect for water.)

  The mermaid’s whole entire fancy name is Katrina the Underwater Princess. When she performs, she wears a long red wig with thick-thick-thick bangs, special waterproof glitter all over her body, a seashell bathing suit top, and, of course, her mermaid tail. But right now she was just in normal clothes. Her blond hair was in a ponytail, and she looked more like a Regular Person than an Underwater Princess.

  But she also looked very happy to see us! “Louise Trapeze and Stella Dee Saxophone! My two favorite Sweet Potatoes!” she called. She gave us a giant three-way hug. “And Clementine, too, of course,” she said, patting Clem’s trunk. “What are you girls performing for the carnival this year?”

  “I’ll probably do my light-up hula hoop on the trampoline,” I said. (I just had to find it!)

  “I’m going to do a human pyramid on top of Clem with my mom and dad,” Stella said.

  “Those sound terrific!” Katrina replied. “I hope you’ll have time to take a shot at the bull’s-eye.”

  “We for-definitely will!” I promised. We waved goodbye and walked on.

  The next thing we saw was the tall-tall-tall Ferris wheel. Stella and I are actually old enough to go on it by ourselves now that we’re seven whole years old. Even though it’s a little scary way-up-high in the air, it’s also super fun. Especially when you have your BFF’s hand to hold.

  Just then, Stella grabbed my elbow and squeezed hard. “Louise!” she said. “What’s that?”

  I looked to where she was pointing. There was a tent I’d never seen before. Over the tent was a black banner with swirly white writing. It said The Great Madame Fortuna: Psychic Extraordinaire.*

  But I wasn’t sure what psychic meant. There was only one way to find out! I grabbed Stella’s hand and went running!

  Up close, the front of the tent was full of interesting things: a deck of extra-big cards with special drawings on them, a shiny crystal ball, and a jumble of tea mugs in jelly-bean-bright colors.

  A crystal ball…cards…tea leaves? Suddenly, I knew where we were.

  “Stella!” I exclaimed. I was too excited to worry about covering up my wobbly tooth. “I think psychic is the grown-up word for fortune-teller!”

  “You are correct, my dear!”

  I looked up to see an old lady coming out from behind a curtain at the side of the tent. Her hair was white, and she wore a sparkly scarf tied under her chin and a long dress with a moon-and-star pattern all over.

  “Are you Madame Fortuna?” I asked.

  “Correct again! The Great Madame Fortuna herself! What a smarty-pie you are!” Madame Fortuna smiled, and I could see that some of her teeth were gold!

  “So you can tell fortunes and predict the future?” Stella asked.

  “Only if you ask nicely,” Madame Fortuna said, laughing so big I could see those golden teeth again.

  I looked at Stella. Stella looked at me. Neither of us had ever had our fortunes told before. It was an exciting idea but also a little bit nervous-making. Maybe Madame Fortuna would tell me that I was finally going to learn to do a triple backflip on the trampoline! But what if she read my future and saw something uh-oh-ish, like that I’d never, ever find my light-up hula hoop again?

  Or—even worse—what if she predicted that my loose tooth was for sure going to hurt when it came out? That would be terrible news.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the future if it was going to have some kind of uh-oh.

  “Are you two getting your fortunes told?”

  Ugh. There was Ferret-breath Fernando. For once, he wasn’t wearing his stilts. But his pet ferret, Linus, was perched on his shoulder like always.

  Fernando is a giant know-it-all. Of course he would show up at the fortune-teller’s tent just when I was feeling slightly nervous.

  “We are,” I told him. “Stella and I have such bright-and-shiny futures, we’re definitely not scared at all.” I felt a little twinge* of pain in my tooth when I said that, but I pretended everything was completely normal and regular.

  Fernando raised one eyebrow at me. “Great,” he said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll supervise.”

  “We don’t need supervision,” Stella said.

  But Fernando wasn’t going anywhere. And since I’d already said I wasn’t scared, now I needed to prove it.

  “What fun!” Madame Fortuna said. She waved us into the tent. Stella and I gave each other a glance, but we followed Fernando in.

  (Even if I was an eensy bit nervous, I was curious, too!)

  Inside was a small, round table set up for fortune-telling. The walls of the tent were lined with shelves that held extremely interesting things: magnifying glasses in all shapes and sizes, twinkly jewel-colored rocks called crystals, and dice with different squiggly symbols on them. I even saw a jar full of feathers in one corner! Feathers!

  And then! Out from behind a curtain came a swooshing sound and a flash of fur!

  Stella gasped. “It’s a monkey!” she said, pointing.

  It was a monkey! He was small and brown and wore a bow tie the same color as the moon and stars on Madame Fortuna’s dress. He swooped onto Madame Fortuna’s shoulder and gave us a monkey-ish grin.

  “Not just any monkey,” Madame Fortuna explained. “This is Tarot. Tarot cards are special cards with pictures that I use to tell fortunes. And Tarot the Monkey is in charge of shuffling the deck for me!”

  “Wow!” I said.

  “Correct. He’s also good at ticket taking,” Madame Fortuna said. “And he can roller-skate.” Tarot smiled in a proudish way at that.

  She pulled three chairs around the little round table, plus one for herself. “Now,” she said, settling into her seat, “which of you is first?”

  Stella gave me a glance. I nodded back at her in a knowing-what-she-was-thinking way. She stepped forward, and Madame Fortuna gave her big-time laugh again.

  “Wonderful!” she cried. “Let’s get started!”

  “First things first,” Madame Fortuna said. She took Stella’s hand into her own. “What’s
your name?”

  “I’m Stella Dee Saxophone,” Stella said. Her voice was a little bit shy.

  Madame Fortuna grinned. “Hello, Stella! This is going to be fun!” She made a thinking face. “Now that we’re properly introduced, I think for you we’ll try…the crystal ball!” She looked at Fernando and me. “Please keep quiet while I concentrate.”

  Fernando and I both nodded. I could tell he was as impressed as I was. A crystal ball! Fascinating.

  Carefully, Tarot placed the crystal ball in front of Madame Fortuna. I peered at it as closely as I could, but the crystal just looked like cloudy glass to me.*

  Only, Madame Fortuna wasn’t really looking at the crystal ball. Instead, she had one hand on either side of it. Her eyes were half-closed like she was concentrating big-time.

  “Hmm,” she said. “I see you standing on top of your elephant friend’s back.”

  “That’s Clementine!” Stella said, excited. “My family performs with her in our act.”

  “No wonder I also see a grown-up man and woman on either side of you,” Madame Fortuna added. “Your mother and father?”

  “Is the man tall and skinny, and the woman short and skinny?” Stella asked.

  “They are indeed!” Madame Fortuna agreed.

  Stella gasped. “It must be them!”

  Madame Fortuna pressed her hands even tighter against the crystal ball. “That image is fading, Stella,” she said. “Now I see…” She leaned forward. “Hmm.” She shook her head like she was clearing it out. “Now I see…water?”