Piper Morgan Joins the Circus

by Stephanie Faris

  For Cambryn Nicole, who has grown into a beautiful young woman

  CHAPTER

  1

  Whoosh!

  I stopped behind my mom, staring up at the big bus in front of me, my mouth hanging open. On the side of the bus was a big sign that read BIG TOP CIRCUS. Plus, there were pictures of elephants and tigers. Best of all, there were three others just like it, all lined up.

  Just a little while ago I’d been upset that we were leaving my friends and my teachers and my school. But now I wasn’t even thinking about that. I was thinking about how awesome it was that we were about to get on a big bus and go to the circus, where my mom would be working.

  Buses were super noisy. Whooshes and hums and even honks as one bus drove by, its driver waving at ours. But that bus didn’t have the words BIG TOP CIRCUS in huge letters on the side. Ours did.

  “Keep up, Piper,” Mom said, reaching out to take my hand. I had my new hot pink purse in that hand, so I switched it to the other and slipped my hand into my mom’s much bigger one.

  She was walking fast, which meant I had to run really, really hard to keep up. Lots of steps for every one Mom took. If I didn’t keep up, I’d miss the bus and have to stay here.

  I ran faster. I wanted to stay here, but even more I wanted to ride on the bus with animals on the side.

  My mom’s new job was as an assistant. That means she takes care of stuff for people. A person will send her jobs to take care of stuff for people, but the jobs are only temporary. “Temporary” is when something doesn’t last long. Her last job lasted two days. The person said if my mom was willing to go anywhere, she might be able to find a job that would last a long time. As long as she wasn’t fired again like she was from her last job. For now, we were going to live with the traveling circus people.

  The bus made a loud whoosh noise just as we were stepping on. I thought we’d just made it and almost started jumping up and down. But when I turned around, there were still bunches of people standing outside. Bunches of suitcases, too. The bus wasn’t leaving yet, just making funny noises.

  “Let’s find our seats,” Mom said, tugging on my hand. I followed her, expecting to see ballerinas and stuff. Instead, there were just normal people, standing in the aisles and sitting in their seats.

  Some guy was showing people where to go. He wasn’t dressed up either. Just a boring old shirt and a boring old pair of pants. He looked like someone I’d see in the grocery store.

  “Julie Morgan,” Mom told him. “This is my daughter, Piper.”

  “Hi, Piper,” the man said, leaning over to look at me and talking to me way too loud. Like I was four or something.

  I didn’t say anything, just looked at my mom. I gave her my “this guy is scaring me” look because . . . well . . . he was. But the good thing was, he stood back up and stopped talking to me.

  “You’re in the very back,” the man told Mom in a very businessy tone. I noticed he didn’t talk to her like she was four.

  We went to our seats. There was a girl sitting in the seat in front of us, next to an older woman. She was about my age. She stood up in her seat and turned to stare down at me. That was all she did. Just stared.

  “My name’s Lexie, and this is my mom,” she finally said, pointing to the person next to her. “What’s your name?”

  “Piper,” I said. “Piper Morgan.”

  Her mom yelled at her to sit down, so she disappeared. I thought for a second, then kneeled in my seat so I could talk to her. I could just see over the top of the seat.

  “My mom said there are ballerinas in the circus,” I told her.

  She squirmed around in her seat and looked up at me. “There are not,” she said.

  I looked at my mom. She’d said so! But Mom was looking down at her phone. I decided to let it drop and ask Lexie if she wanted to be my new best friend.

  “We just came from Florida,” Lexie announced. “We had a circus on the beach.”

  “Awesome!” I said. I wondered where we were going now. Mom hadn’t told me. It didn’t matter. I was just glad I had a new friend.

  “Do you want to be friends?” I asked.

  I picked my best friend Dania out the first day of kindergarten and we were friends for a very, very long time. Until we had to move.

  “No,” Lexie said. “I don’t want friends.”

  She turned around and started playing some game. I was trying to think of something else to say, like, Fine! I don’t want to be your friend either. But Mom made me sit down because the bus was going soon.

  I would have pouted, but when I started to sit down, the best thing ever happened.

  I saw a real-life ballerina!

  FAIRGROUND FACT #1

  Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus uses circus trains to get to your city. The trains have beds for the performers and workers and special cars for the animals. People line up by the tracks to see all the colorful train cars when they know the train is passing by.

  Other circuses use RVs and buses to move from one place to the next. The people sleep in RVs, and the animals get to see the country on the interstate from the trucks and trailers. It’s easier because they can get the animals and people to cities and towns that don’t have railroad tracks.

  Still, I think sleeping in a train car would be more fun, though. Don’t you?

  CHAPTER

  2

  Lexie was wrong. There were  ballerinas.

  The ballerina I saw was beautiful. She was tall, wearing a pink T-shirt and pink pants and no makeup. She had to be a ballerina. She even had her hair in a bun like ballerinas do.

  “I have to go talk to Mr. Winkles,” Mom said. “He’s my new boss. But Miss Sarah will sit with you.” She pointed to the lady in the pink outfit.

  Miss Sarah gave me a big smile.

  “This is Miss Sarah,” Mom said. “She’s a performer. I’ll be right up here if you need me.”

  Mom walked away, leaving me with Miss Sarah. I wanted to know what a “performer” was and if it was like being a ballerina, but she was a new person. And new people make me shy.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Piper,” Miss Sarah said. “How old are you?”

  Grown-ups always ask that. Along with, “What grade are you in?” and “Do you have a best friend?” I always answer, but it’s kind of annoying answering the same questions over and over and over.

  “Seven,” I answered.

  “Seven,” she repeated. “That’s really big.”

  Not really, I thought, but I didn’t say so.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  She laughed. I wasn’t sure why. She’d asked me, so why not?

  “I’m nineteen,” she said. “I’m one of the youngest performers. I help watch children like you while your parents work. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  I felt less shy now. “What do you do in the show?” I asked.

  “I’m out in the audience during the show entertaining the crowds during the acts,” she explained. “It’s really fun. I usually do a dance before the tigers come into the ring.”

  I sat up straighter in my seat. She was like a ballerina. I’d met a true-life ballerina.

  “Can you show me how to be a show performer?” I asked.

  “I think I can do that,” Miss Sarah said with a big smile.

  I jumped out of my seat and looked down at “I don’t want friends” Lexie. “Guess what?” I asked.

  She looked up at me.

  “I get to learn how to be a circus performer,” I declared. “And you don’t.”

  “Sit down, young lady,” Lexie’s mom scolded. It looked like the bus would be pulling away soon, so I sat down.

  Lexie turned
in her seat and said so that only I could hear, “Um, I’m already a performer. I’ve been with the circus for forever. Your mom’s just filling in until Mr. Winkles’s secretary gets back. Then you’ll be gone.” She gave me a fake grin and whipped around in her seat.

  I looked over at Miss Sarah. I did not like Lexie. I wondered if I could have a grown-up as a best friend. But would she want to be my friend? I was just temporary, like Lexie said.

  Maybe this wouldn’t be so fun after all. What was I going to do?

  FAIRGROUND FACT #2

  They call the circus the “big top” because at one time, circuses were always held in big tents. When the circus came to town, they would set up a tent in a big, open area. The workers put bleachers inside and everything. The tents were always really colorful, pretty, and huge.

  Circuses mostly aren’t in tents anymore. They’re in big buildings like stadiums and arenas, where concerts and big ice-skating shows are held. This means instead of being in tents, animals like elephants and monkeys get to go inside those buildings. When the circus isn’t going on, the animals stay outside in an area where they’re safe.

  CHAPTER

  3

  The bus was no fun. And we were on it for four whole hours. But the circus was funner!

  Mom says “funner” isn’t a word. It should be “more fun.” “Funner” is a funner word, though.

  “That’s Lexie,” I whispered to Miss Sarah as we watched her go into the aisle from her seat. “She doesn’t like friends.”

  Miss Sarah told me it wasn’t nice to talk about people, but I didn’t think it was nice to not be my best friend. I would have told Miss Sarah that, but we were rushing off the bus. And in front of us was a really big, fancy building.

  We were in the middle of this town with buildings everywhere. The place where the circus was being held was called an “arena,” and they had concerts and circuses and stuff there. Miss Sarah said so. She said they used to have these things in tents, but buildings were better because more people could fit in them.

  The building was humongous. I looked up at it, my eyes wide. It was round like a spaceship, and there were lots of people going in and out of it.

  And not just lots of people. There were also a lot of animals. Like elephants.

  “ELEPHANTS!” a girl from the other bus screamed. She started running.

  “April Capshaw,” I heard a woman say. She was rushing after the girl, trying to catch up. She was saying the girl’s full last name. That meant she should stop or else she was about to get in trouble. At least, that’s what happened when my mom used my first and last name.

  The girl didn’t stop.

  She probably would have run all the way to the elephant if a big guy hadn’t picked her up. He lifted her way off the ground. I think that was almost as cool as petting an elephant. He had on overalls like Old MacDonald in the little play set I’d had when I was a kid. His belly was big like Santa’s, and his head was completely bald. It was even shiny where the sun was hitting it.

  “Whoa there, little missy,” the big guy said cheerfully. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  And you know what? The girl kept running. Her legs were moving in the air like she was still running to the elephant.

  The woman finally caught up with her. “April, get down from there.”

  “But—but—”

  “I know, elephants,” the woman said. “What did I tell you about elephants?”

  The big guy let April down. She and the woman went inside.

  “What did she tell her about elephants?” I asked Miss Sarah. ’Cause she should know.

  “You can’t play with them,” Miss Sarah explained. “It’s the rules.”

  “Ever?” Great. No friends and no elephants!

  Miss Sarah laughed. “You can if you’re supervised.”

  I wrinkled my nose, looking up at her. “Why?”

  “Because those are the rules,” Mom told us. “And we want to make sure you are safe.”

  I didn’t know Mom was nearby. Was she spying on us? I started to get mad. But then I got an idea in my head. It just popped in there, from out of I-don’t-know-where.

  “Can Miss Sarah supervise me?” I said, excitement in my voice. “Please, please, please, please, please, please!”

  One of my friends at my school said if you said “please” lots of times, sometimes moms said yes. Mostly they just said to stop saying “please,” though.

  “We have to get inside,” Mom said.

  I added more pleases. Lots of pleases. So many pleases, Mom made that face that said I’d gone too far.

  She told me that sometimes. “Piper, you’ve gone too far.” But I hadn’t gone anywhere. Except a long, long way on a bus.

  “Don’t you want to see what inside looks like?” Mom asked.

  Inside. I looked at the big building again. It was so pretty, with lots of windows. A big sign with the words THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN was hanging in front of it. It had lots of pretty colors.

  “Yes!” I yelled. I tugged on Miss Sarah’s hand.

  “Piper,” Mom said. “Be nice!”

  I nodded at Mom and started pulling Miss Sarah toward the building. I could not wait to see all the stuff inside, and then I wanted to come back out to pet the elephants. Maybe they’d even let me feed them with peanuts. I’d seen that in a cartoon once.

  Inside the building wasn’t exciting at all. It was pretty boring. Just a big hallway with a bunch of people running around. A bunch of them were running the same way, though, so I tugged Miss Sarah’s hand that way.

  We followed two guys through a doorway that led into this big, huge room. A girl my age walked by holding a real-life monkey! I could do that.

  “Can I do that?” I asked Miss Sarah. “I want to do that.”

  “Let’s go meet Mr. Winkles,” Mom said, still behind us.

  Mr. Winkles. Was that the monkey? It sounded like a monkey’s name.

  Then I remembered Mr. Winkles was my mom’s boss.

  Mr. Winkles was standing near some guys who were putting up a small colorful wall on the floor. “That’s a ring,” Miss Sarah said. “There will be different rings around the floor.”

  I was still looking around when Mr. Winkles walked over to us. “You must be little Piper,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “I’m seven,” I replied. Because seven isn’t that little. I wanted to make that clear.

  “Wow,” he said, but I could tell he was just saying that.

  “Piper likes animals,” Miss Sarah said. “I think we should make her a member of our Little Explorers Club.”

  “That sounds nice,” Mom said.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Winkles said. “Your mom and Sarah have work to do. While they’re working, why don’t I take you out and introduce you to Big Top Bubba?”

  Big Top Bubba. I’d bet that was the elephant I saw outside. I started bouncing up and down on my heels. Finally! I couldn’t wait to go.

  “I’ll be right in here if you need me,” Mom said.

  The elephants were outside. They’d have to come inside for the circus, though.

  “How do the animals get in?” I asked Mr. Winkles as we walked. There were more people around now, and all of them seemed to walk faster when they saw Mr. Winkles. Probably because he was the boss and they wanted him to think they were working hard.

  “There are big doors at the back of the building,” he said. “Sometimes they even drive cars in here. Wouldn’t that be fun to see?”

  Not really. I’d much rather see elephants walking around in there than cars driving around. But Mom said to always be nice to people, so I kept my lips tightly clamped together.

  “Good afternoon,” Mr. Winkles said to a man in overalls as we got closer to the place where all the animals were being kept. There was a big fence around the area.

  The man Mr. Winkles was talking to was the one who had stopped that April girl from running earlier. He was a big guy, but he had a fri
endly face, so he wasn’t scary-big.

  “This is Piper,” Mr. Winkles said. “She wants to be a Little Explorer.”

  I still wasn’t sure what that was, but it had to be good. Especially since we were out here with the elephants.

  “That’s perfect!” the guy in overalls explained. “We just lost one of our explorers. She’s a performer now.”

  “The girl with the monkey?” I asked Mr. Winkles.

  “Yep,” he said.

  “I’m Big Top Bubba,” the guy in overalls said.

  Wait. Bubba was a person?

  Bubba, who was not an elephant, shook my hand. He pointed to the elephant. “And this is Ella.”

  Ella the Elephant. I liked that.

  “Would you like to take a ride with Ella?” Big Top Bubba asked. He grinned. “It’s how we welcome new people here.”

  Would I? That would be the best thing ever!

  I started bouncing up and down on my heels again.

  I felt like I was on top of the world. I loved it.

  Big Top Bubba walked with me the whole time, so it was safe. He was one of those people who can make animals behave. Not that he’d have to make Ella the Elephant behave. She was the best elephant ever.

  Mom came out and watched for a while, but Mr. Winkles started talking to her and she left. I tried not to watch, but it looked like my mom might be in trouble. I hoped not. If she was in trouble, Mr. Winkles might make her leave, and then I wouldn’t be able to play with the elephants anymore. Or meet anyone new.

  I wanted the circus to be my forever and ever home. I wanted to be a performer and have friends.

  By the time we made it around the last time, I had an idea. It was the perfect plan.

  “Can I work in the circus?” I asked Big Top Bubba as he started to walk to Ella’s pen. “I could ride the elephant for everyone to see.”

  Big Top Bubba laughed. “Didn’t anyone tell you?” he asked. “That’s what a Little Explorer does. You’ll be helping me.”

  That was the best news ever. It meant we could stay. I’d work really hard and be the best Little Explorer. That way they’d keep us around even if they got mad at my mom.