The Bonaventure Adventures

by Rachelle Delaney

  Eventually Seb gave up asking about his mother, for in the end, he told himself, it didn’t really matter. She was simply no longer devoted to the charismatic ringmaster and his less-than-charismatic son. She’d chosen a life without them.

  Had Angélique Saint-Germain been in love with Dragan? he wondered. He concluded it likely, and read on.

  Sebastian Konstantinov! she wrote in one letter. What a fine name. A name destined for greatness!

  Seb snorted. She clearly had no idea.

  He must be eleven years old now, she went on. Are you training him in acrobatics? Aerials? Please don’t say he’s a contortionist. You know how I feel about contortionists.

  Then she went on to describe the school she’d founded in Montreal, which Seb believed was a city in Canada—it definitely wasn’t on his homemade map. She aimed to fill it with only the most promising young circus stars. For who better to shape the minds and bodies of the next great performers than Angélique Saint-Germain? she wrote.

  Seb was beginning to understand why she and his father had gotten along so well.

  But Dragan seemed to have resisted her requests to send Seb for a visit.

  You’re holding out on me, she wrote in one of her final letters. I know Sebastian is a rising star—no son of yours could be anything but. First-year students at my circus school are usually twelve years old, but I would make an exception for such a talent. Please send him.

  Only then did it occur to Seb that his father wasn’t telling her the truth: that his son didn’t have an ounce of talent for circus skills. Likely, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it—he was that ashamed. The realization made Seb’s stomach sink, and he almost abandoned the letters altogether. But there was only one more to read, so he unfolded it.

  You want to keep his talent to yourself, Angélique accused Dragan. While I suppose I understand this, you must know that the circus world is changing. The shows created today aren’t like the one you trot around Eastern Europe.

  “Yes!” Seb whispered in the darkness of the closet. “Tell him,” he urged Angélique Saint-Germain. “Tell him about the stories!”

  But she didn’t mention stories. Instead, she said, Dragon, you owe your son—the heir to your company—an education in the ways of the modern circus. Think about it, and if you ever have a change of heart, you may contact my Scout at the address below.

  Seb folded the letter back up, wondering whether he should tell his father that he’d read it and all the others. But what good would that do? And anyway, the letters hadn’t been his to read.

  So he tied them back up, tucked them under a pile of tasseled epaulettes, and did his best to forget them.

  LARGELY, HE HAD succeeded. In fact, Seb barely thought about the letters again until a few days after the animals were abandoned at the Bucharest Zoo.

  He hadn’t spoken to Dragan since he’d stormed out of his caravan. So when Maxime the sword swallower found him in their own caravan one evening and asked him to come to an important family meeting, Seb couldn’t help but groan.

  “I’m really busy,” he said, pointing to the mystery novel he was rereading for the thirteenth time. It was part of a small collection he kept hidden under his bed, as his father had a tendency to use books for other purposes, like propping up tables and lining animal cages.

  “Come on.” Maxime sat down on Seb’s narrow bunk. “You can’t not speak to him forever.”

  Seb looked up from the novel and considered this. “I probably could,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Maxime agreed, for Maxime was very agreeable. “You probably could. But what good would it do?”

  “Maybe he’d regret abandoning our animals,” Seb grunted.

  “Ah bien.” Maxime sighed. “I know it’s been a hard week for you. But I bet the animals are doing fine. They’re…how do you say…entreprenants.”

  “Resourceful,” said Seb. Maxime hailed from Marseilles and had taught Seb quite a bit of French over the years. “I guess so,” he said, though he wasn’t sure how resourcefulness would help them in the zoo. Unless, say, the monkey used his lock-picking skills to bust out of his cage, then freed his circus friends. Seb pictured them all sneaking out onto the dark streets of Bucharest and making a break for the countryside. It made him smile—but only for a moment, for it was just a story. It didn’t change what had happened.

  “They aren’t doing fine,” he snapped, picking up his book again. “They’re miserable, I know it. They feel betrayed.”

  Maxime sighed and folded his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry, Seb. I wish I could make it better.”

  Seb lowered his book again. “It’s not your fault,” he grumbled, for there was no point in making Maxime feel bad about it. Maxime was his favorite Konstantinov. Not only did he take time to teach Seb French and work on his homemade map of Eastern Europe, but also he’d brought him to the show that had changed everything for Seb.

  It happened about four months prior, while they were traveling through Russia and found themselves in Saint Petersburg with two entire days off. Maxime suggested they hop a fast train to Finland, just on a whim. And so, a mere four hours later, he and Seb disembarked in the seaside city of Helsinki. As devoted circophiles (a word Maxime had taught him, which meant “circus lovers”), they immediately went to see a show.

  But this wasn’t just any old circus show. There was no big top, no animals, no tinny orchestral music—just a few dozen chairs arranged in a circle in a tiny theater with stark white walls. Seb had just begun to question whether they were in the right place when two men appeared onstage, dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Now Seb was certain they’d come to the wrong show. But before he could tell Maxime, the men launched into their performance.

  Like actors in a play, they told the story of two brothers torn apart by a feuding family, only to find each other years later while fighting in a war, in opposing armies. Except they told the entire story through circus acts. They acted out their teenage antics through a hand-balancing routine, one man perched atop the other. To show their frustration at being separated, they did a ropes routine, climbing and twisting and dropping from daring heights.

  And when they met again during the war, the men pulled a giant teeterboard onstage and began to bounce on either end of it, flipping each other higher and higher with such intensity that Seb nearly stopped breathing. When the show ended, his knees were almost too weak to give them a standing ovation. Almost.

  He’d probably thanked Maxime four hundred times for that trip to Helsinki. And for teaching him that a different kind of circus existed—one that involved stories.

  Now Seb sat up and slipped his novel back under the bed. “Okay, fine, I’ll come to the meeting.”

  “Courage, mon vieux.” Maxime took his hand and pulled him up. “Family is important. Both the family you’re born into and the family you choose.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Seb sighed. “Hey, Max?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m glad you chose to be a Konstantinov.” In fact, there was no one else he would have preferred as a fake brother.

  Max grinned. “Me too, Seb.” He clapped him on the shoulder and steered him toward the door.

  INSIDE HIS CARAVAN, Dragan had set up a card table and a few folding chairs, as he always did for family meetings. When Seb and Maxime entered, they found him seated at the table, flanked by Stanley the clown and Juan the contortionist. Dragan gave Seb a wary look. Seb looked away.

  A minute later, Julie the lion tamer slunk in and took her place as well. Exactly what she would do now that the lion was behind bars in Bucharest had yet to be determined. Possibly that was a topic on the meeting agenda.

  “Well, then,” said Dragan, “let’s get started.”

  “Wait,” said Seb. “Where’s Aunt Tatiana?”

  “Not coming,” Dragan replied.

  “What? Why?” asked Seb. Tatiana had been one of the very first members of the Konstantinov Family Circus; she never missed a family meeting. Dragan wave
d away the question, which Seb decided was not a good sign. He pushed his chair back from the table and folded his arms across his chest.

  “As you’ve likely guessed, this family meeting is about finances,” Dragan began. He nodded at Stanley, who pulled out his reading glasses and some spreadsheets. Stanley had been an accountant in New Jersey before joining the Konstantinovs.

  “Things are looking dire,” he reported. “We’re in the red. Like, really in the red. Scarlet, you might say.”

  “Or crimson?” Maxime suggested. “Is crimson darker than scarlet?”

  “A shade or two,” Juan confirmed. He’d been a cosmetologist in Barcelona before joining the Konstantinovs.

  “Anyway,” Stanley sighed, “the point is we’re losing money.”

  “But now we don’t have to feed the animals,” Dragan pointed out. “We’ve cut costs there. That must help.”

  “Not enough,” said Stanley. “It barely saves us anything.”

  “So what you’re saying is,” Seb cut in, “there was no point in getting rid of the animals.”

  “Yes, there was,” Dragan snapped. “We need to modernize our acts. And circus animals have gone—”

  “Out of fashion.” Seb rolled his eyes. “Right.” Of course, he knew Dragan was right; modern circus shows rarely involved animals. But it still wasn’t fair. Once again he brought to mind an image of the monkey springing all the animals free and leading them off into the night. It made him feel a bit better, even if it was just a story.

  Dragan pulled out a notebook. “The fact remains, we need to take new measures.” He flipped the book open. “So I’ve come up with some options.”

  “Let’s hear ’em.” Stanley leaned back in his chair and put his giant red shoes up on the table.

  “Option one,” Dragan began. “We leave Eastern Europe and head someplace new. Australia, maybe. Or Zimbabwe.”

  “Can’t afford it.” Stanley shook his head. “We’re in the red, remember?”

  “In the crimson,” offered Maxime. He elbowed Seb. “That’s poetic, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not bad,” Seb agreed.

  Dragan gave them the stink-eye. “Option two. We rebrand. Get a new logo. Maybe a catchy acronym—we could be the KFC.”

  “I think that one’s taken,” Seb pointed out.

  Dragan struck it off his list. “Option three, then.” He leaned forward on the table. “We get rid of another act that’s gone out of fashion.”

  “Ah.” Julie the lion tamer nodded. “You mean the contortionist.”

  “Hey, he’s right here!” Stanley exclaimed. “Have a little compassion!”

  “Is it me?” Juan paled.

  “Of course not,” Dragan said impatiently. “I’m thinking about the bearded lady.”

  “What!” Seb cried. “Not Aunt Tatiana!”

  “Bearded ladies,” Dragan declared, “have gone out of fashion.”

  “But she’s family!” Seb protested.

  “And she makes the most delicious goulash,” Juan added.

  “And she gets the mail,” Julie pointed out.

  The Konstantinovs murmured in agreement. Over the years, Aunt Tatiana had established an elaborate system of mail delivery, which involved letters being shipped from the Konstantinovs’ main post office box in Prague to various people she knew around the continent. It was highly complicated, but Dragan insisted on it, on the off-chance that he received some glowing fan mail.

  “Maybe you could take care of the mail,” Stanley said to Julie. “What else have you got going on now?”

  “I’m taking up the unicycle,” she informed him, then looked at Dragan, who nodded. “Apparently, it’s back in fashion.”

  “The point is, Aunt Tatiana is family!” Seb repeated, thumping the table for emphasis.

  Dragan threw up his hands. “Well then, you come up with a better option!”

  Seb sat back and took a deep breath. Aunt Tatiana had been like a mother to him, ever since his own had left for dental school or a baguette or whatever. He pictured Aunt Tatiana left by the side of the road, her beard still in its bedtime curlers, as the caravans sped off into the night…

  It made him feel like he’d been stabbed by one of Maxime’s duller swords (which actually had happened on a few occasions—when you bunked with a sword swallower, it was pretty well inevitable).

  “Just…just wait,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “There has to be a way to modernize the circus without getting rid of any more Konstantinovs. What about—”

  “Stories are not a solution,” Dragan warned.

  Seb closed his mouth.

  As soon as he and Maxime had returned from Helsinki, Seb had beelined for Dragan’s caravan to regale his father with all he’d seen.

  “Circus and stories together, Dad!” he’d said dreamily. “It’s the best of everything. Imagine if we were to create shows that were more like plays, but with circus acts. We’d sell more tickets, I just know we would.”

  Dragan, however, had only sniffed. “The Konstantinov Family Circus is keeping the traditional circus alive,” he’d informed Seb. “When you have talented and skilled performers, you don’t need to distract the audience with stories.”

  And to Seb’s great surprise and utter disappointment, he wouldn’t hear another word about it.

  “He doesn’t get it,” Seb had later lamented to Maxime. “I bet he’s never seen a show like that.”

  “I’m sure he has,” Maxime had replied. “But he’s never created one, so he’s probably scared of the idea. Plus,” he added, “modern circuses don’t usually have ringmasters.”

  “But ours could,” Seb argued. “We’d have a role for everyone, so no one would be left out. I’m sure we could come up with something great.”

  Maxime had agreed. But neither of them had been able to convince Dragan.

  If only there were some way to make him see that the circus world is changing, Seb now thought, staring at his father across the card table. That modern shows weren’t like the one they toured around Eastern Europe.

  Then he paused, for those words sounded oddly familiar.

  And he remembered the letters.

  DEAR MR. SCOUT,

  I have decided to take Madame Saint-Germain up on her offer to attend the Bonaventure Circus School.

  Seb paused, tapping his pen on his chin. Did that sound presumptuous? What if they’d been annoyed when they hadn’t heard from Dragan? What if they’d forgotten about Seb altogether? He crumpled the paper and pulled out a fresh sheet from the small stack in his father’s caravan, where he sat before the pore-illuminating mirror. He had to be careful not to waste it.

  Since the family meeting two days prior, Seb had managed to steal a bit of time on Stanley’s laptop, and he’d learned a few important things about Angélique Saint-Germain’s circus school. First, he’d learned its name: the Bonaventure Circus School. He quite liked that. It sounded like an adventure.

  Second, he learned that the city of Montreal was indeed in Canada—in a province called Quebec, where most everyone spoke French. This, too, felt promising, thanks to Maxime’s lessons.

  Third, he learned that most students attended Bonaventure for four years, until they were sixteen years old and ready to join a professional circus company. This sounded reasonable to Seb; four years would give him enough time to find a way to save the Konstantinovs.

  However, he also learned a fourth, not-so-promising thing: that any student wanting to attend Bonaventure had to audition. And according to the website, competition was fierce.

  There was no denying it; if Seb had to audition, it would be all over. He still cringed to think of his failed attempts at mastering circus skills, not to mention all the Konstantinovs he’d let down. The last thing he wanted to do was relive that.

  But if for some reason he could get around it…If, say, he penned a really persuasive letter…

  He bent over his paper and tried again.

  Dear Mr. Scout,


  I’m Sebastian Konstantinov, of the Konstantinov Family Circus. About a year ago, Angélique Saint-Germain generously offered to let me attend the Bonaventure Circus School, and I hope that offer still stands.

  He paused and read what he’d written. It was good, he decided. He pushed on.

  HE POSTED HIS letter in Sofia, the biggest city in Bulgaria (and featured prominently on his homemade map). He mailed it himself rather than handing it off to Aunt Tatiana, for she would have wanted an explanation, and he wasn’t ready to talk about it. For one thing, he knew the Konstantinovs would flip out when they discovered he’d applied for school halfway around the world. But most important, talking about what he’d done would make it real—not just an idea in his head. And when it was real, he’d actually have to consider what life would be like at a circus school halfway around the world, without any Konstantinovs for company.

  He wasn’t ready for reality yet.

  He didn’t know what to expect after posting the letter. He might never hear back from the Scout at all. Or he might receive a rejection, a thanks-but-no-thanks. There was also a chance that the Scout would want to arrange an audition, or request a video demonstrating Seb’s skills. And in that case, it would be all over. This was another reason not to tell the Konstantinovs what he’d done: there was no sense in getting them all excited only to have everyone’s hopes dashed.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long to find out his fate. The answer arrived a mere two weeks later, during an impromptu afternoon rehearsal. The Konstantinovs had just set up in a small town across the Serbian border, and no one knew quite what to expect from ticket sales. In an attempt to get everyone’s mind off their troubles, Dragan had called a rehearsal.