The Palace of Laughter

by Jon Berkeley

  “What on earth is he laughing at?” Miles thought to himself, but then he remembered the stolen antidote he had taken, and he forced a small laugh out of himself for Bobogeek’s benefit. It felt like a strange noise to be making.

  “Not sure I’d have recognized you, mind, with that funny hairstyle,” Haunch went on. “Must be all the fashion, eh? You’re the second lad I’ve seen with a funny hairdo since I came in here. Tell you what,” he said, leaning close and tapping his nose with a thick finger, “come round and clean my yard next week, and I’ll keep some sausages by for you this time. You’re a good little worker, lad.” His breath smelled of the brandy that he had had the foresight to bring with him on the journey, which no doubt also accounted for his mood being lighter than usual.

  Miles wondered for a moment who it could have been that Haunch saw with an odd hairstyle, and decided that it must have been himself, as Bobogeek steered him down through the seats to the front row. The other seats had been filling up steadily, and the circus band had taken their places among the strange assortment of pipes, horns and gongs in the pit at the far side of the ring. Miles could spot many other faces that were familiar to him from his hometown: Piven the baker and his wife sat opposite him, and behind him was Flifford the bicycle mechanic, difficult to recognize without smears of gray axle grease decorating his face. Father Soutane sat over to the right, listening earnestly to the stream of gossip that Lily the florist poured into his ear. There was not much that Lily did not know about what went on in Larde, and where there were gaps in her knowledge she was happy to fill them in with details that she made up herself.

  The boom of an enormous gong signaled the arrival of the clowns, who trotted and cartwheeled down among the seats and spilled out onto the clean sawdust of the ring. The band struck up the same crazy music that Miles and Little had heard from the tunnels the night before. The music looped and squealed, but it did not sound at all funny this time. Miles watched the rest of the audience, some of whom were already beginning to chuckle, and he took his cue from them. When the clowns began an exercise routine that looked like a chaotic kind of tai chi, Miles made himself laugh along with the rest.

  He could see Silverpoint, in his tall chef’s hat, directing the exercise routine with graceful movements that the other clowns were failing miserably to mimic. Silverpoint glanced over at him, and Miles could see his eyes searching the benches for Little. His face remained expressionless, and after a moment he looked away.

  Haunch’s shoulders were shaking now with laughter. Miles couldn’t remember if his own shoulders shook when he laughed—he had never thought to check. He tried shaking them, but it just felt silly, so he contented himself with producing laughter of the non-shaking variety. Bobogeek was scanning the rest of the audience, his arms folded and his crutches parked by his side. His face wore a miserable scowl.

  All of a sudden the music stopped, and the clowns froze with it. In the center of the ring stood the Great Cortado, his hair slicked back and curling behind his ears, the huge mustache on his small round face perfectly waxed and pointed. He had changed into a dark blue suit with silver buttons, and he spoke without trumpet or megaphone, his voice booming around the packed theater as though it belonged to a man four times his size. “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Palace of Laughter,” he began. “Tonight it is your Immense Privilege to witness the most spec-tac-u-lar, the most Fan-tas-tical, the most Hil-larious Ex-travaganza of Laughter…,” and on he went, word for rolling word, with the opening speech that Miles had heard from the tunnels the night before. The audience listened a trifle impatiently, eager to get past the introduction and on with the promised hilarity. Some tittered at the sight of the Bolsillo brothers, who were not having as much success as the other clowns at staying still, and were having a little spat with much rib digging and eye poking. Fabio was picking the Great Cortado’s pocket as he spoke, pulling out a large handkerchief and looking at it with an expression of disgust.

  Silverpoint was staring Miles in the eye, as though he could find some clue there as to the whereabouts of Little, and how they had become separated, but Miles could give no kind of signal without making Bobogeek suspicious. The Great Cortado was approaching the end of his speech. “…be prepared to be entertained as you have never been entertained before!” he boomed. “Tonight the greatest comics in the Wide World will take you Beyond Laughter, and your Lives will be Transformed, FOREVER!”

  The people clapped and cheered. “Didn’t they hear what he just said?” Miles thought to himself. “What do they think he meant?” It seemed so obvious to him, squeezed into his seat and waiting for disaster to befall him in one guise or another.

  A cloud of blue smoke enveloped the Great Cortado, and when it dispersed he was gone. Miles felt pretty sure he had not disappeared through the trapdoor. He searched in the dimness of the banked seating and spotted Cortado after a moment, slipping out through one of the exits at the back, unnoticed by the mesmerized audience. The band had struck up as he finished speaking and was in full flight again. The music seemed a meaningless babble. In the middle of the ring lay a clown, dressed in a tramp costume and with a downturned white mouth painted on a blackened face, who Miles guessed must be a stand-in for the injured Bobogeek. He was trying to sleep under an open newspaper. Between his feet lay a small white dog, who kept snatching the newspaper in his teeth and pulling it over himself. Each time he did this the clown gave a violent shiver and grabbed it back.

  The tramp clown finally got the upper hand. He began to snore like an ox, the band counting out his snores with booms and clashes of their gongs. The Bolsillo brothers, meanwhile, were wobbling at breakneck speed around the ring on their unicycle. While Fabio pedaled, Gila and Umor perched on his shoulders. Umor whistled, and the elephant ambled down through the startled audience and began to chase the unicycle. The people of Larde laughed until they cried, and the music squealed on.

  Miles listened to the harsh, ugly laughter and he began to understand now what Little had said about the One Song. The hysterical braying of the audience was not real laughter. It had been torn from the One Song like a single filament from a rope, and without the harmony of the other strands it could cut through the soul like a taut wire cuts through cheese. He tried to block out the sound and concentrate on the show, searching among the flapping boots and rainbow trousers for any sign of Tangerine. As he forced out a noise that he hoped would suffice for laughter, he worried too about Little. He hoped that she would have wasted no time in escaping up the chimney once they had closed the door behind them. If she delayed too long Genghis would surely find her still there on his return, and without Cortado to control him there was no knowing what he might do. Miles pictured her flying up the length of the chimney and out into the night sky, and holding on to that thought, he forced his attention back to the antics in the ring.

  If you have ever had to wait in the wings for your part in a play or a show, you may have some idea how Miles felt as he sat wedged between a large butcher and a smelly clown and watched for his moment. The antidote he had taken certainly quenched laughter, but it did not have the same effect on nerves. His stomach was full of knots, and half of him wished that something would happen that would prevent him from having to leap up on the stage at all. His timing would have to be perfect, and there would be no second chance.

  He stole a glance at Bobogeek. The smelly clown was staring at his snoring substitute with a look of sour boredom on his unwashed face. In the ring, the snoring clown was having a dream. Another clown, dressed like a clean and colorful version of himself, perched behind him on a large boulder, holding a small fishing rod. He whistled loudly as he fished, a broad white smile painted on his face. Behind him Miles could see Fabio Bolsillo attempting to oil the elephant’s knees. His two brothers were proving more of a hindrance than a help. A lot of oil ended up underfoot, and there was a great deal of slipping and sliding.

  The fishing clown suddenly caught a bite, and after a brief s
truggle a sea lion appeared from behind the rock, the end of the fishing line in her whiskered mouth. The sea lion was dressed in a lime green tutu, and the fishing clown lost his heart to her at first sight. He tumbled off the rock and landed on one knee, clasping his hands and serenading the sea lion with a wordless barking song. The band played on, and the audience howled with laughter.

  The tutu-wearing sea lion turned tail and fled, the fishing clown hot on her tail. His hat fell from his head and began to run around the ring as though it had a life of its own. Miles watched it curiously. Suddenly the hat came to rest, and a small orange bear climbed out. Tangerine!

  Miles almost leaped from his seat at once. The newly washed bear had regained some of his bright orange color, but there was no mistaking his floppy legs and his slightly crossed eyes. Besides, there were not many stuffed bears who could stumble about a circus ring on their own, waving at the audience and tripping up the performers. The people of Larde, purple faced from laughter, clutched their sides and pointed at Tangerine. So much was going on at one time that many of them seemed unable to decide which way to turn. A look of bewilderment began to mix itself with the laughter in their eyes. The music raced ever faster, and the action in the ring became a whirlwind. The fishing clown seemed somehow to have died. The Bolsillo brothers ran out from behind a screen in their undertaker suits, carrying a coffin. It was shorter than the clown, but they wedged him into it. They lifted the coffin, and the bottom fell out, corpse and all. The Bolsillo brothers threw away the coffin and buried the fishing clown in a mound of sawdust. A giant daisy pushed its way up through the mound.

  Miles was distracted briefly by a light from the back of the auditorium, and he saw Genghis slipping in from the hallway outside. His face was black with soot and with anger, but he appeared to be alone. Miles looked back at the ring. The elephant had reached over Fabio’s shoulder and grasped the daisy with his trunk. He pulled, and the clown came up from the mound, stiff as a board and still clutching the daisy in his intertwined fingers. Miles could no longer see Tangerine. He searched the ring, but the bear was nowhere to be found. The Bolsillo brothers were chasing the resurrected clown, who had stolen their unicycle and ridden it straight through Silverpoint’s pie. Silverpoint was shooting firebolts in all directions. His face wore its usual calm expression, but the firebolts seemed to be coming thick and fast, and there was barely a clown in the ring whose trousers, hat or wig wasn’t smoldering. The band was playing like a party of dervishes, and the booming, clanging and squealing made Miles feel as though his head itself were one of the gongs.

  Genghis was making his way toward him now, pushing the stupefied Lardespeople aside as he clambered over the benches. Miles looked back into the ring in desperation. Silverpoint was pointing straight at him, his cool eyes fixed on Miles’s face. A firebolt crackled through the air toward him, finding its mark just above him and to his left. Bobogeek let out a howl of surprise. His eyebrows had disappeared and his tufty hair was smoking. “Oy!” he roared. In the center of the ring the trapdoor was opening, and from it poured a thick cloud of purple and green smoke. Beside the trapdoor Silverpoint was shouting something at Miles that he couldn’t catch. The Storm Angel cupped his hands around his mouth. “You’re on!” he yelled.

  Miles felt as though he had suddenly been unglued from his seat. He leaped into the ring as the shape of the throne began to emerge from the colored smoke. The three Bolsillo brothers were leading the elephant around the back of the throne, ready to park her on the trapdoor. Fabio tossed the oil can into the air as Miles ran toward the pillar of smoke. “Mind the holes,” shouted Fabio. What holes? The floor was flat and smooth beneath the sawdust. The ring seemed twice as large now that he was in it. A blur of open-mouthed faces filled the surrounding darkness. He caught the oil can and almost dropped it straight through his fingers. The outside of the can was slippery as a fish, and more oil was pouring from at least three different places. Those holes! The throne continued to rise. He reached the smoke cloud, still searching for Tangerine, and tried to stop, but the floor was already slick with oil, and though his feet stopped, Miles kept going. He collided with something hard and fell backward into the greasy sawdust.

  As the smoke began to clear, he could see he had hit the edge of the open trapdoor. He scrambled to his feet with difficulty, oil still pouring from the holes in the can. The dark shape of the throne loomed above him, already nearly at its full height. He had lost precious seconds, but it was not too late. The narrow spout would not pour quickly enough, so he grasped the slippery can with both hands, leaned out over the yawning hole, and turned it upside down. For a long second nothing happened, then the last few drops of oil dribbled from the can and began to trickle slowly down the steel pillar.

  Miles held his breath. The can was empty. The smoke was dispersing, and he squinted up at the throne that towered above him. It had not slipped downward by so much as an inch. Time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. He could see the Great Cortado high above him, framed in the glare of the lights. “Now you have felt…,” the Great Cortado began, and stopped. “Now you…” He leaned out from his throne and stared down at Miles, who was suddenly aware of how funny he must look: a failed, half-shaved saboteur coated in oil, soot and sawdust.

  He expected to see a look of thunder on the Great Cortado’s face, but to Mile’s surprise it looked as though two people were fighting for control of his features. Cortado seemed to be struggling not to laugh. Suddenly it dawned on Miles what must have happened. The Great Cortado had not had any antidote! Standing in the creaking elevator earlier that evening, he had unknowingly swallowed nothing more than a mouthful of plain water from the brass tap in the laboratory. Now a thousand nights of concentrated laughter were welling up behind his reddening face, looking for a way out, and only Miles could understand what was happening.

  He glanced quickly about him. Silverpoint and the Bolsillo brothers were looking at him expectantly. The audience’s laughter had begun to falter, and a number of clowns were advancing on him menacingly. He thought of Little, hiding somewhere below, far from the world of light and freedom where she belonged, and the tiger’s words echoed in his head: “A friendship should be judged by its depth, not by its length.” Miles nodded to himself. It was time to set her free.

  He picked up the empty oil can and threw it at Bobogeek’s stand-in, who was getting too close for comfort. The can bounced off his head with a loud toink, and the tramp clown slithered comically in the grease before losing his balance altogether and landing heavily on his padded backside. “On with the show!” shouted Miles. The Bolsillo brothers exchanged puzzled glances, then sprang into action as though Miles’s words had released their over-wound clockwork. Gila, rolled into a ball, came careering across the ring and bowled over three of Cortado’s clowns like skittles. Umor grabbed the crutches from Bobogeek, who was slithering across the ring on one plastered foot. He hopped up onto the crutches like a pair of makeshift stilts and tottered over to the fishing clown, now the same height as him. “Look at me, I’m normal!” Umor hollered. The audience laughed. He grabbed the fishing clown’s nose and tweaked it hard. The clown gave a yelp of pain.

  The band, confused, struck up again, and their insane music rattled around the theater, bringing more laughter in its wake. A clown’s curly green wig burst suddenly into flames, and another found the seat of his pants on fire and began to run around the ring shouting for a fire hose. A burly clown with a long red nose like a carrot grabbed Silverpoint from behind. There was a loud crack, and the man staggered backward with blue sparks flying from his ears. Miles expected to be confronted with an irate Genghis at any moment, but he seemed to have vanished into thin air, yellow socks and all. A strangled sound came from above him, and he looked up to see the Great Cortado pointing at him with a quivering finger.

  “This boy…” He choked, the words barely escaping his throat. “This boy…has ruined…my…show.”

  And he began to laugh.

 
; CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  TIN CAN’T

  The Great Cortado, clownmaster and laughter-tamer, stood on his throne high above the people of Larde, and laughed. He threw back his head and opened his throat wide and a volcano of laughter roared up into the Palace of Laughter’s domed ceiling. It bounced off the pillars and echoed around the walls until it filled the entire theater. He doubled over and clutched his stomach, he bellowed and hooted as the tears ran down his cheeks. Year upon year and show upon show, joke after joke after gag after pratfall came back to him in an irresistible rush, and with no antidote to protect him his face turned pink, then purple, and the veins stood out on his forehead like knotted string. His face-painted henchmen stared, openmouthed, as he crumpled to his knees and tumbled slowly from his perch, falling twelve feet to the floor below and landing with a clang, his head wedged tightly in the empty oil can.

  There was a moment’s stunned silence, then Silverpoint stepped in front of the Great Crumpled Cortado. He raised his arms as he had seen the Great Cortado do every other night for months. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he shouted, but before he could get any further he was interrupted by a growl from Bobogeek, who had struggled to his feet and was standing unsteadily on his good leg. He pointed at Silverpoint and Miles. “Saboteurs!” he yelled in his nasal whine. “Hypnotists! Subversives! They’re trying to take over your minds. Don’t listen to a word!”

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” began Silverpoint again, shouting louder this time. “Now you have seen the true power of laughter. Elemental laughter that can restore your souls to—”

  “Don’t listen to him!” yelled Bobogeek. “He’ll turn yiz into baboons.”

  At this, Silverpoint’s calm expression cracked slightly. He sent a firebolt flying at Bobogeek’s chest, knocking him backward into another clown. Behind them the faces in the crowd were looking confused and angry. They were muttering to one another, and some were shouting, “Saboteurs! Hypnotists! Baboons!” Somewhere in the middle of the crowd a man was still laughing uncontrollably. It sounded like Genghis.