Max shakes his head. “Doubtful. You’re too young to understand this, Lily, but sometimes, no matter what you do, kids don’t turn out how you’d hoped. Luckily we have Howard. He’s the future of Wild Walker’s Circus.” Max claps his hands together. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to make sure our hungry tigers haven’t torn off a worker’s arm.” He winks. “That’s a joke, kiddo.”
I watch them drive off, feeling like the only story I got was the one they fed to me.
26
On the path to the far side of the giant circus tent, two guys in tank tops that accentuate massive muscles and myriad tattoos pass me—they’re pulling wagons piled with colorful pedestals.
“You’re the reporter, right?” one of the guys asks, stopping.
“Yes.”
The second guy scratches a nose broken so many times it looks like a staircase. “Otis asked us to keep an eye out for you, help you find your way.”
“Just heading to the food cart,” I say with a smile, hiding my annoyance that Walker’s PR guy is keeping me under watch. The smell of grease hits by the far corner of the big tent. My mouth floods with saliva. The food cart is painted bright purple with a sliding window on the front. A girl bustles around inside. “Hey,” I call out. Pretty eyes circled with thick liner study me. The girl’s brow and nostril are pierced with tiny gold rings that complement her bronze-toned skin.
“What can I get you?”
“Lunch?” I reach into the pocket of my shorts for money.
“Your food is free.”
“What? I can pay.”
“Not what the family wants.” The girl flips her braid over one shoulder. “Anyway, we don’t take cash. Performers eat on credit. Workers use coupons.”
“Coupons?”
The girl shrugs. “It’s none of my business.”
“Meaning?” She gives me a flat look. Okay, moving on. “I’m Lily.”
“Esmerelda. Soirez. My family is the featured trapeze act. Six generations. We’re from Venezuela.”
“You’re on my interview list.”
“Otis told me.”
“Mind if we talk now?”
Esmerelda shrugs. “Guess not.”
She does not seem thrilled. “So you do that? Trapeze?”
“I flew before I could walk.” Esmerelda eyes me. “I’ll make you a burrito, extra cheese, avocado and double rice. You’re too skinny.”
I pull out a pen and my notebook. “Isn’t it terrifying?”
Esmerelda scoffs. “Flying? No. It’s in my blood.”
I think about saying it’s in my blood, too. “Does anything scare you?”
“You mean like the dark or something?”
I mean like hearing a man’s voice telling you to drive your car into a group of little kids, watching your best friend’s face morph into a monster or people screaming so loudly in your brain that you consider taking a hammer to your own head to crush the voices. “Yeah,” I say, “like the dark.”
Esmerelda laughs. “Nah. Only thing that scares me is failing.”
Jealousy slithers through my belly.
“You can come watch us. Practice starts in twenty minutes in the big tent.”
“That’d be cool. Hey, how old are you?”
“Fourteen.”
“Can I take your picture?” She nods, so I take a few shots while she finishes making my enormous burrito. The first bite is beyond delicious. “Mmm. Thanks. So you love working for Walker’s?”
Esmerelda’s smile disappears. “I know about zoo people. You look down on the circus. But Wild Walker’s is the best thing that ever happened to my family. I’ve got a Twitter account. I read what people are saying about your little elephant not belonging here. She’s just an animal. Real people work here with real kids who get an education in the United States of America and the chance for a better life. Think about that before you write something shitty about our circus.”
She turns her back. I guess we’re done. There’s a shady spot down the path so I sit on the grass, finish my meal even though part of me wants to go back, explain that my goal here is only to get into USC, away from Pennington and Calvin. My article was picked up again, monkey or not. A quick search on my phone yields USC’s admissions office number. Since Sawyer is no longer on Team Lily, I need to step up.
“Ben Jackson, USC Admissions,” a man answers on the third ring.
“I, um, I’m applying to your journalism program for next year. I have a recently published article I’d like to email to be included with my application?”
The poodle lady walks by with two prancing black dogs heeling perfectly by her side.
“Just email it to me, Ben Jackson-at-USC Admissions-dot-edu.”
“Great. It’s been picked up by the AP.”
“That’s nice.”
Nice doesn’t sound very promising. “Thank you for taking the—” I start, but he’s already hung up.
Sawyer once explained what it felt like to throw a Hail Mary shot in lacrosse. How, from the corner of his eye, he could see the time running out on the scoreboard in blinking red, that his muscles tightened like an overly tuned guitar, the way the release of the ball toward the opponent’s net left him suspended, breathless. The thing is, Sawyer almost always made those shots. For mere mortals, what we feel is the plummet back to earth, the hard landing.
I call Sawyer. As I wait for the recording—because by now I get he’s not going to answer—I wave off a mosquito feeding on my shin. It leaves an itchy red dot beside the other bites. “Florida sucks,” I grumble.
After four rings, Sawyer’s message kicks in. “It’s Sawyer. You know what to do.”
“You listened, nonstop, gave me advice, let me sleep over when I needed to escape Calvin, stayed my friend even after you became übercool, and in return I sang you SJ’s songs, off-key. But I do care. If it’s any consolation, Florida is a humid, smelly swamp. Okay. I miss you. I’m sorry. You don’t have to be my friend anymore, but please don’t hate me because—” I get cut off. A robotic voice asks if I’m satisfied with my voice mail. I’m not, but I leave it anyway.
“That’s quite a frown.”
The man looking down at me is mostly bald with a neat, gray goatee. Tinted purple sunglasses don’t quite hide a scar that bisects his left eyebrow all the way down to the middle of his ruddy cheek.
“It’s too nice a day for a pretty girl to be upset. Tell Uri what’s so wrong.” He sits down on the grass, pats my thigh like we’re old friends.
I hold out my hand. “I’m Lily.” We shake.
“Ah, the zoo girl who writes newspaper articles.”
The way he says it, with his thick accent, makes me smile. When he rolls up the sleeves of his cotton shirt, there are scars running along his muscled, ropy forearms.
“What do you do here?”
“I am the Great Gregorvich,” he says with a half bow. “I perform with six black bears.”
“From the looks of it, your bears don’t like you very much.”
Uri breaks into a grin. “Young lady, bears love me. Sometimes they just don’t know it.”
“Where are you from, originally?”
“Romania.”
“How long have you been working for Walker’s?”
“Twenty-seven years.”
“Wow. That’s a long time.”
“Longer than you’ve lived?”
“Yeah.” Uri pretends my words are a knife in his heart. I laugh, which feels good after the past few days of gloom. “So, you knew Howard and Otis as kids?”
“Is this an interview?”
I take a sip from my water bottle. “You’re not on my approved interview list, so I guess it’s off the record.”
Uri picks at a patch of clover, pulls the top off a flower and flicks it. “Otis us
ed to be my favorite. He had a true gift with animals.”
“Otis? I heard Howard is the gifted one.”
Uri looks at me sideways. “Who told you that?”
“There are tons of photos of him as a kid with the elephants, like he was practically born to be their trainer. Otis has no photos with animals.”
“Young lady, you’re supposed to be a reporter.”
“I heard that Otis worked with you?”
“That was Maximus’s idea.”
“What happened?”
“My bread is only buttered on one side. But I will tell you that young Otis used to follow around the elephant trainer like a puppy. Damned if he didn’t sleep with those giants most nights. Especially the one that came to Walker’s real young. Miracle that kid wasn’t crushed ten times over.”
“So why isn’t Otis the elephant trainer?” Uri doesn’t answer. Two showgirls run by. Their suntanned legs are long, lean, and the feathers in their hair make them look like exotic birds.
“Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for,” Uri says.
“Pardon?”
“Tennessee Williams, an old American playwright, said that, not me.”
Despite the heat, goose bumps appear on my arms. “What made you say it?”
Uri’s eyes twinkle. “The way you were looking at our showgirls. Seems like it’d be more fun for a young gal to make news instead of just telling other people’s stories.”
I’ve been on both sides of that coin. It’s preferable to put on fake glasses, keep my head down and avoid risks. But the guy trains bears for a living, so my guess is he won’t understand playing it safe. “On the record, do you love your job?”
“Sometimes.” Uri takes off his sunglasses. His left eye is missing.
The eye socket isn’t gross, just saggy, pinkish, an empty shell. But it is weird to see an eye without its eyeball. “Did a bear do that?”
Uri chuckles. “No. A woman I thought I’d tamed.”
I don’t know what to say.
“Don’t frown, little girl.” Uri slowly gets to his feet. “The one certainty in life is that it changes.”
That, I don’t tell him as he walks away, is what keeps me up at night.
27
The sun overhead is so hot that my skin is already turning pink. I head for the circus tent. It’s not on Otis’s list of places I’m allowed to go, but Esmerelda invited me so I act like I know where I’m going, wait until there’s no one around then quickly duck inside the tent before one of Otis’s spies can stop me.
The area inside the tent is divided into three massive rings that are surrounded by a circular row of bleachers climbing at least four stories high. It’s got to be ten degrees cooler in here, which still makes it in the low eighties, and the air smells of animals, mingled body odors, plastic. I pause to let my eyes adjust to the dimmer indoor light before climbing up the bleachers for the best view.
In the center ring Esmerelda’s family balances on two platforms high in the air. There are five men and four women, all different ages, in silver outfits that hug lean bodies. Two trapeze bars swing between the platforms above a wide net made from woven ropes. One of the men lets out a yip. An aerialist from each side grabs their bar, launching a few seconds apart. The woman releases her bar, flips, spins. The man, now hanging upside down from bent knees, arches to meet her, hands clasping her forearms. For the first time I wish my glasses weren’t fake, because it’s impossible to see if the girl is Esmerelda. I take them off and zoom in with my camera. It’s not her.
The first pair returns to a platform and a new pair steps to the edge. One is Esmerelda. The camera’s shutter clicks as she swings several times, reaching higher, her body gracefully arcing through the air. When she releases the bar, she spins in a tightly tucked ball...one, two, three, four and... The man swinging toward her stretches his arms to catch her. Their timing is off. Esmerelda spins again, her body no longer tucked, before landing on her back in the net. I remember to breathe. She somersaults to the ground, runs to the ladder to climb back to the platform, like what just happened is no big deal.
“You don’t have permission to be in here.”
I almost drop my camera. Otis stands in the row above me. What is he, a freaking tiger? The butterflies in my stomach once again flutter multicolored wings. Stupid butterflies. “Why are you here?” I blurt.
“I’m a Walker,” Otis says like he’s talking to someone who is mentally challenged. “As we discussed, I’m happy to arrange for you to take some photos, but we’re putting together a new show so I need to control what you see.”
Note to self: stop forgetting that Otis is a total asshat. “Esmerelda invited me to watch.”
“I don’t think—”
“I won’t write about it. Promise.” Esmerelda reaches the platform. “What she does? It’s amazing.”
Otis hesitates. “Yeah. It is.”
It’s hard to look away from his eyes, which have suddenly thawed, but I force myself to watch Esmerelda grab the bar. Someone yips. She swings, gains height, releases, spins... Otis leans forward and squeezes my shoulder. Fingers of heat seep beneath my skin and a blush I hope he doesn’t notice creeps across my chest. Esmerelda misses the catcher’s hands and somersaults down to the net.
“Damn. She almost had that one,” Otis says, withdrawing his hand.
“What’s she trying to do?” I ask, still feeling the imprint of his touch. He climbs over the bleachers and stands beside me, so close that the blond hairs along his tanned arm brush against my bare skin. It’s hard to focus.
“Not that long ago, fliers used to call triple somersaults salto mortale, the deadly leap. The speed they needed to rotate three times made their brains lose track of where they were in space. Even seasoned artists sometimes broke their necks when they missed the catcher and fell. Esmerelda is working on five rotations. That skill has been successfully performed by only a handful of fliers in the world.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Otis as Esmerelda again swings. His jaw muscle clenches. This time Esmerelda’s hands touch her catcher’s but slip. She falls at an angle, barely landing at the edge of the net.
“If five somersaults are so dangerous, why do Esmerelda’s parents let her try it?”
Otis chuckles. “You met her. She’s a force to be reckoned with. I doubt her family could stop her even if they wanted to.”
I shake my head, trying to understand a world where parents encourage their children to follow their dreams, even if they get hurt or die trying to achieve them.
“You don’t approve,” Otis says.
“It’s not that. It’s—”
“My mistake. I thought reporters were supposed to be nonjudgmental.”
“If you think the trapeze is so amazing,” I say, “why don’t you do it?”
“Because I was born into a family of wild-animal trainers.”
“You don’t do that either.”
Otis’s face shifts into a flat mask. “If you want to watch, interview other performers or take photographs, I’ll set up some times for you,” he offers. “But I’ve already given you a chance to talk to my folks and Esmerelda, even though they have nothing to do with your elephant.”
“She’s your elephant now. I’m just trying to give people a glimpse of her new world.”
Otis leans down until his lips brush my ear. I don’t back away. I won’t give him the satisfaction of thinking I’m scared.
“Tell the truth, T. Lillian Decker,” he says, his breath hot. “You’re looking for dirt on us.”
I don’t know where I find the balls, but I ignore the sweet scent of his sweat and whisper back to him, “You have no idea what I’m looking for.” We stare at each other, inches apart, and even though sweat is trickling down my back and my pulse is thrumming, I refuse to break
first. A commotion below turns both our heads. Howard walks into the tent with three of his elephants. I recognize Jake and Tambor. Howard moves his elephants to different spots in the side ring with only the touch of his hand.
“If you’d prefer, I can get someone to escort you out,” Otis offers. “How about Clem? You seemed to like him.”
This time I definitely break first, square my shoulders and descend the metal steps. No wonder Max is disappointed in his son and Howard has zero respect for his brother. Otis Walker is a total jerk. Stepping into the harsh Florida sunlight instantly coats my skin with sweat. It must be over a hundred degrees. I really, really hate Florida. A bee buzzes by my ear. I run, because if it gets caught in my hair I’ll never get it free. Been there.
A text chimes.
ADDIE: Text me after 6:00 p.m. feeding. Local vet will come in the morning
My uneasiness instantly returns. It’s like watching from the shore as someone struggles to keep their head above the water’s surface, unable to swim out to save them because if I try, I’ll drown, too.
With three hours left until my shift, I do the only thing I can...find a shady spot on the far side of the tent, take out my iPad and start working on the second article.
Swift Jones’s New World
Swift Jones’s new world isn’t just filled with tigers, bears, llamas, dogs and a herd of male Asian elephants. She will be surrounded by some of the most talented human performers in the world.
Esmerelda Soirez, age fourteen, is the youngest member of the Flying Soirez Family, sixth-generation trapeze artists from Venezuela.
“Wild Walker’s is the best thing that ever happened to my family,” Soirez said. “Real people work here [Wild Walker’s Circus] with real kids who get an education in the United States of America and the chance for a better life.”
Tina and Maximus Walker, owners of Wild Walker’s Circus and the tiger trainers, also strive to be top-notch and are proud of the circus and their animal trainers.
Over the past forty-eight hours, Swift Jones has made one new friend, a dog, Flea, who never leaves her side. Soon she’ll meet the male elephants that will be her new family. Howard Walker is certain that once the calf gets used to her new environment, she will thrive.
When Elephants Fly Page 16
