Caroline blew a loud raspberry, spraying spit all over her own face. She laughed at herself. “Poppy’s always such a killjoy.” She shook her head, still chuckling. “He’s not wrong, though. Homer and I’ve had some pretty close calls with our schemes. Probably best not to risk your life and limbs until we know if we like you or not,” she teased.
Annis paused, a forkful of hotcake hovering within inches of her mouth. “So, if you invite me to join a number in, say, a month or so...”
Caroline shrugged. “Likely not a good sign.” Then she grinned. “I wouldn’t worry too much, though. I’m digging this rebel attitude of yours already. Honey on hotcakes. That says a lot about a person.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Homer chimed in. “It belies an absence of common sense and complete disregard for the basic need for it.”
Annis wasn’t sure what to make of his statement. It wasn’t until the entire table began to chuckle and snort that she understood it was just another joke at her expense. She was also beginning to gather the compliment in it. They all poked fun at each other a lot, so including her in the fun was their way of making her feel part of the group. It wasn’t the most conventional way to include someone, and definitely no way she’d ever been welcomed by new friends in the past, but she appreciated it nonetheless.
“Makes perfect sense, then,” she said, finally committing to the bite dangling at the end of her fork.
“What’s that?” Homer asked, clearly eager to hear how she’d respond.
“Why you’d invite me to join your act. Obviously, lack of common sense and complete disregard for any need for it would be required to participate, judging by the two of you, anyway.”
More laughter ensued, confirming what she’d suspected. They liked her. They accepted her as part of the crew, no matter how new she was or how little they knew of her. She was one of them now.
“What’s your Brooks and Bennet story, anyway?” she asked, realizing she hadn’t yet heard any Homer tales. There were no obvious, visible, physical anomalies about him. “I mean, Caroline clearly has some sort of rubber spine, but what makes you so superhuman you felt a need to run away to the circus? And don’t tell me it’s your skill for juggling because I’ve got Hugh’s grand scheme of things all figured out. Juggling is the thing you want people to see. What’s the other thing? The thing they see that confuses them and hides you?”
All eyes turned toward him, as though they’d never heard the tale for themselves. “Yeah, tell us why you’re superhuman, Homer,” Sawyer egged him on.
Homer slowly chewed his last bite, and then set down his fork as he swallowed. He slowly wiped his mouth with his napkin before finally clearing his throat. “Alright, then. I will.” He directed a smirk at Sawyer before winking briefly across the table where Caroline sat. She blushed in response. Annis thought it extraordinarily romantic to see a couple who’d clearly been in love for quite some time still be able to act as though they were only just on the cusp of their romance.
“My superhuman power is... I can’t see.”
“What?” Surely he was joking. “Of course you can see,” Annis said. “You catch flying, flaming things. You have to be able to see to do that.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” He chuckled. For the first time, Annis noticed his gaze didn’t catch on anything. “Not the case though, as it turns out.”
“You’re messing with me,” Annis insisted. “Right? Another joke? Another poke at gullible Annis?” she turned toward Sequoyah, and then Sawyer, who smirked and shook his head. “A bit of tragic irony in it when you realize one of the most beautiful women on earth is married to a blind man.”
Annis still refused to accept it and turned to Caroline, who, even if she were in on the joke, would be first to give it away.
“No joke, Annis. He’s blind as a bat, he is.” Her mouth curved tenderly as she looked at him. “Just makes the adventure that much more entertaining.”
“And terrifying!” Annis said, thinking of the knives Homer tossed around Caroline’s body. “How do you do it? How do you catch things you can’t see?” she asked.
Homer squared his shoulders, sitting up straighter, using his hands to gesture as he spoke. “There’s more to it than just watching the objects go up and down. You might say I’m a better juggler for not being able to rely on vision alone. I have to calculate the time it takes for each piece to rise and fall, estimate the strength it takes to launch it up to where I want it, and sense the air move like wind around the object as it flies up and falls back down. I’ve learned to become aware of countless details most people would never learn because they rely only on their eyes, completely disregarding all their other senses.” His hands dropped carefully into his lap as he finished. “I promise you, Annis. I’ve never taken a risk I wasn’t confident I could overcome. Not where Caroline’s well-being is concerned. And, as much as she likes to tease, we rarely include others in our act for the very reason that its success depends on our working together, in complete unison. And that we do exceptionally well. In fact, I’d like to think it’s my real superhuman power.” He smiled, and it was enough to make Mabel coo at her end of the table.
“You’re making every woman at the table blush, Homer,” Sawyer grunted.
“Thank you for telling me,” Homer mused. “I’d assumed, but it’s always nice to hear it confirmed.”
The laughter started all over again.
After breakfast, everyone moved a bit more slowly with their bellies filled. “What do we do next?” Annis asked, holding one hand to her stomach and stretching the other over her head to try to make more room within for her breakfast to settle. She’d indulged. But she’d enjoyed every last bite so much that she’d asked Momma for an extra helping of hotcakes, which she’d folded into a napkin and neatly stored in her pocket for later.
“We make our rounds, see what still needs doing and who needs help,” Sawyer answered. “Nothing around here ever runs as seamlessly as it ought to. There’s always one thing or another that goes awry and changes up the usual routine.”
“It’s my favorite part, though,” Sequoyah said. “Doing the thing you weren’t planning on doing. Keeps things interesting.”
“You would think that,” Sawyer groused, less impressed with the unexpected tasks that always came their way. “Obviously, you’ve never been two feet tall while trying to place a tiara on an elephant.” That had happened just yesterday, Annis recalled. In hindsight, she was sorry she’d missed it.
Sequoyah laughed. “You think it’s any easier at six feet than at two? Those four feet don’t make much difference when you measure it up against an elephant, my friend.”
Sawyer grimaced. “I maintain my argument. No one made you stand on anyone’s shoulders.”
“Not true. When you couldn’t reach, we got August. And, yeah, I had to climb up on his shoulders. And it worked. And everyone laughed until they cried. Don’t remember anyone finding the sight of you standing on my back to be all that amusing.”
Sawyer was hardly convinced.
But Annis was onto other things. “Meanwhile, what about me? I didn’t get to climb onto anyone’s shoulders and I most definitely did not get to dress up any elephants in tiaras. If anyone should feel bad for anyone right now, it’s clearly me.”
Sawyer was baffled into silence.
“I’m sorry, we’re being so inconsiderate,” Sequoyah said, sounding almost sincere. His expression, however, faltered. “Please, tell me how we can make it up to you, Annis?”
While it was clear to Annis that he was not being at all serious, she was content to take him by his words over his meaning. “Well, you can start by swearing to never, ever leave me out of all the most ridiculous fun ever again.”
“Done. I swear.” He nudged Sawyer, who still hadn’t said a word, aside from some grumbling under his breath. “We both do, don’t we, Sawyer?”
“Uh-huh.” Apparently, he couldn’t be bothered to even prete
nd to take her seriously. Not that she blamed him. She could hardly take herself seriously. If it weren’t for Sequoyah’s willingness to play along, she’d never have found the courage to make such silly demands for no reason other than her own amusement.
“And second,” she paused, thinking. “You can scour the site for the most obnoxious, most dreadful, most unexpected task to pop up today, and then let me do it.”
This Sawyer jumped on. “Done!” He grabbed Sequoyah’s arm, tugging him forward. “Come on. Let’s start at the monkey cart.” Annis instantly regretted her request.
Her regret lifted, however, shortly after arriving at their destination. Though she’d feared the worst, what she encountered was nothing short of spectacular.
His Royal Harris, as she had no choice but to call him—silently, inside her own head, where Harris would never hear her—was frantically running in circles, taking it in turns to scream for help and then curse in a hoarse whisper until his face turned an explosive shade of puce. After a brief inhale, he resumed hollering. People were starting to gather around him on all sides, looking eager to help but clueless about how. There appeared to be no obvious problem outside of Harris’s clear distress.
“What’s wrong?” Sawyer was the first to reach him in a moment of relative calm, when Harris had cycled back to the uttering of hellacious swear words, some of which were completely new to Annis.
“That rat bastard!” Harris hissed, pointing an angry finger up toward the roof of the train. “He stole Babe’s brooch. And now he won’t give it back!” He lunged forward, as though he were prepared to fly up there and tackle the tiny—and most adorable, in Annis’s opinion—monkey who’d come to a brief halt, only to start running again at the sight of Harris.
“Maybe if you just ignore him for a minute, he’ll lose interest in the game and just come down on his own,” Sequoyah offered. Annis knew nothing of monkeys, but this one did remind her an awful lot of Benji, her neighbor’s cheeky little grandson, and that particular tactic had worked on him more than once.
“Can’t do that,” Harris said through gritted teeth. “Every time he sits still for even a second, that little cretin tries to eat it!”
Sawyer’s eyes lit up. “Let him!”
“I beg your pardon?” Babe came bounding forward through the crowd. “That brooch was my grandmother’s. Few things mean more to me than people, Sawyer, but at this very moment, that brooch is outranking you!” Meanwhile, the monkey, who Annis guessed was the other Jacob, settled down on his haunches and opened his mouth wide. Annis admired the gold brooch’s Victorian style, with a diamond-haloed emerald at its center, even as Jacob was poised to swallow it. This time, an entire Brooks and Bennet army went after him, which sent him running again.
“I’m saying,” Sawyer raised his voice to be heard over all the commotion, “let him eat it and then catch him.”
“And then what? Wait until it passes through him?” Babe looked horrified.
Sawyer, on the other hand, was so pleased with his idea that he could barely contain himself, bobbing slightly at the knees, rubbing his palms together as he spoke and grinning from ear to ear with delight. “Exactly. I’ve even got a person all lined up for the job of retrieving the brooch after. Annis can wait for him to poo and then search through it for the brooch when he does. Every time he does. Until she finds it.” He glanced over his shoulder and up to meet her eyes, a satisfied smugness radiating from him. “You said you wanted the most obnoxious, most dreadful, most unexpected task. Well, I do believe we’ve found it.”
Annis let out a nervous giggle. “You’re not serious.”
“No, he’s not,” Babe cut in sternly.
“I was, actually,” Sawyer corrected, slowly deflating from his gleeful high. “What’s wrong with my plan?”
“You mean other than the part where my grandmother’s brooch ends up buried in monkey poo? Oh, nothing, Sawyer, nothing at all.” Babe took off, following the handful of people still trying to catch Jacob or, at the very least, convince him to give up the brooch.
“Just wait. Whether they like my plan or not, odds are still good the monkey eats it. So, don’t go thinking you’re in the clear yet,” Sawyer taunted Annis as the two of them, along with Sequoyah, hurried to catch up with Babe and everyone else.
“I suppose I’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen, then, won’t I?” Annis said, though she had no clue how she might go about convincing Jacob not to eat Babe’s brooch, but committed to the plan, anyway. She had no intention of ever sifting through monkey poo on a disgusting treasure hunt. “And, for the record, what you’re suggesting I do is not in any way similar to having to place a dainty crown on the head of a brilliant elephant. I don’t care whose shoulders you had to stand on, the levels of humiliation are simply beyond compare.”
“She’s getting feistier,” Sawyer mumbled to Sequoyah, who walked on to his left. “Have you noticed?”
Sequoyah nodded. “It’s a good thing.”
Annis sped up and feigned exuberant interest in Jacob just to keep them both from seeing her face glow as red as the monkey’s little vest.
By now, Jacob had given up running the length of the train and was busy hopping from one object to the next, using everything from the shutters above the windows to Harris’s head as a temporary landing while heading for solid ground. This meant bad news for the chase. As soon as his little feet touched down, he’d be free to run wherever he chose. There’d be no hope of catching him. Annis watched as Jacob gave one sly glance over his shoulder, and instantly recognized the expression on his happy little monkey face. He really was no different from Benji, her neighbor’s grandson. The recognition sparked something in Annis’s mind. She had a plan.
“Ooooh, Jaaaacob,” she called to the monkey in a sing-song tone. “Look what I have here for yoooou.” Annis drew out the last syllable as she pulled from her pocket the now crumbled bits of hotcake she’d saved from breakfast. “Would you like to have this? Smell how yummy it is.” She held it out to him a little further, watching him lean in for a better whiff. His little hands began to fidget while his nose and mouth moved wildly at the scent.
Everyone watched, holding their breath and holding completely still, waiting to see if Jacob would take the breakfast bait.
“Don’t do it,” Sawyer whispered. Annis shot him her sternest of glares.
“I think he’s going to,” Sequoyah said, his voice hushed to match Sawyer’s.
Annis said nothing. She didn’t dare to make a sound, worried it might startle Jacob and set him off running again.
Her worries were for naught. Within seconds, he’d dropped the brooch where he stood and launched himself at her. He landed on her arm and clutched her hand with his, wrapping his feet around her wrist while he devoured her leftovers.
“Tulip, you’re my absolute favorite person,” Babe said, picking up her heirloom and then smothering Annis in a hug so enthusiastic that Jacob bolted. When she released Annis again and dropped a glare on Sawyer, she spoke silent volumes. “You, not so much, Smalls.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved his hand, dismissing her distaste with him. “I’m sure it’ll shift next time one of your rollers winds up under the train car and you need someone to crawl under and get it.”
“I could do that,” Annis piped up, corners of her mouth fighting to stretch upward.
“See?” Babe said. “That’s how someone truly helpful sounds. They don’t make suggestions about heirlooms and monkey poo.”
“Alright, alright,” Sawyer finally conceded with a grumble. “But if you’d heard the previous conversation, you’d have been a great deal more supportive of my monkey poo plan!”
“I doubt that very much,” Babe huffed. She then kissed the top of Annis’s head and pinched Sequoyah’s cheek before she sauntered off to join Hugh, who was clearly ready to put this morning’s newest batch of monkey business behind him.
“Thank you,” Harris said, still looking frazzled as he j
oined their threesome. Jacob sat, perfectly well behaved, on his shoulder once more. “I hate monkeys. I really do.”
“Then why do you work with them?” Annis asked, baffled by his confession.
“Because they’re also the only part of my life I can make sense of,” he muttered, shaking his head. “And,” he added, a small smile returning to his face, “they’re also the most fun I’ve ever had.”
Annis thought of the sight of them all, swinging around the circus tent as though they were jumping vines in the heart of a jungle. She smiled. “Yes, I imagine they are.”
As Harris returned to his duties, Annis turned to Sawyer. “Can we call it a truce, then? I admit that I was silly to make demands I clearly didn’t fully understand, and you agree to stop trying to find the most torturous task for me to do?”
“It doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun, but sure,” Sawyer agreed. “I can move forward from here knowing you saw reason and I was right. Even if you didn’t have to stick your girly little fingers into any poo.”
“Thank you,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”
“Now, then, if we’re all done playing games,” said Sequoyah, ever the voice of reason, “perhaps we can get back to doing something a little more productive?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Annis insisted innocently. “I feel as though I’ve been very productive recently. I saved a brooch from a monkey. I’m practically a hero. How much more productive would you like me to be?”
He shook his head and grinned. Even Sawyer couldn’t argue with that.
There were still plenty of tasks left to do before showtime and soon the trio was back at work. They bathed the horses—several had gotten carried away rolling in the dust after breakfast—and built a variety of temporary structures all meant to contain the furrier members of Brooks and Bennet in a roomier, more comfortable setting than their train cars provided them. By lunchtime, it was all they could do to pick up a sandwich and keep going, working as they ate. It wasn’t until the sun slowly began setting on the horizon that Annis found she had time to catch her breath and collect her trailing thoughts.
The Wild in her Eyes Page 10
