But then the gymnasium door squeaked open, and in slipped Banjo.
“Trouble,” Seb finished.
“Monsieur Brady!” Monsieur Gerard bellowed. “Explain why you are late! Again! Encore!”
“I-I-I’m sorry,” Banjo stammered. “I just…got turned around.”
Monsieur Gerard pointed at the wall. “You will sit this class out today, Banjo. And tomorrow you will arrive on time.”
“I’m sorry, I—” Banjo began.
Monsieur Gerard drove his finger toward the wall.
Banjo ducked his head and followed it.
“Francesca!” the teacher hollered not five minutes later, as they began their practice. “Your form is completely off. I’ve never seen you so sloppy! Try again.”
Frankie rumbled under her breath but did as she was told.
“Non! Non!” Monsieur Gerard tore at his hair. “You are not trying. You are not striving for perfection.”
Frankie flipped down from what Seb thought was a perfectly decent handstand. “What’s the point?” she asked, righting herself.
“The point?” Monsieur Gerard repeated. “The point?”
“Frankie,” Seb murmured nervously.
“The point, Mademoiselle de Luca,” he yelled, “is excellence! To excel in acrobatics, or any circus skill, you must have discipline. And you lack it complètement. You might be a decent freerunner—”
“Traceur!” Frankie snapped. “I’m a traceur. I do parkour.”
The entire gymnasium grew suddenly quiet.
“I don’t care what you do,” Monsieur Gerard said, his voice now quiet. “Today you will do nothing but sit and watch with Monsieur Brady.”
Frankie opened her mouth to protest, then closed it and headed for the wall. Practice resumed.
Seb watched her join Banjo, leaving him to attempt handstands by himself. And suddenly, everything just felt very heavy—Maxime’s illness, the state of the Konstantinovs, the directrice’s note, the cold showers, his friends on the sidelines. It made his shoulders weak; there was no way he could pull off a handstand.
And so, he joined the bêtes noires.
“You’re going to be in so much trouble,” Frankie said as he sat down beside her.
“I know.” He could feel Monsieur Gerard’s glare without even looking at him. “So, what’s the difference?”
“Huh?”
“Between freerunning and parkour,” he said. “How are they different?”
“Oh. Well, parkour is about getting places, fast,” said Frankie. “Freerunning is more about being creative. Freerunners do lots of tricks, and it’s fun to watch—there’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s not my thing. Parkour has a purpose. It’s what you need when you’re running for your life—” Suddenly she stopped.
“Wait, what?” asked Seb.
“Running for your life?” Banjo whispered.
Frankie shook her head and closed her mouth tight.
“What do you mean?” Seb persisted, but she refused to say. “Come on, Frankie, you can’t just—” he began.
“Silence!” roared Monsieur Gerard. “One more word and you’ll be back in the directrice’s office!”
Seb snapped his mouth shut and forced himself not to say another word. It wouldn’t have done any good, anyway—Frankie’s lips were sealed, and he knew she meant it.
MONSIEUR GERARD WASN’T the only teacher out of sorts, it turned out. After the emergency staff meeting, all the teachers at Bonaventure seemed off. The juggling instructor botched a simple behind-the-back toss. The aerials teacher accidentally tied herself in a knot while climbing the silks. And at dinner that night, some third-year students recounted how their unicycle instructor had gotten his pant leg caught in his spokes and tumbled head over wheel.
The following day, things were no better; even Audrey Petit wasn’t acting like herself in clown class. Her usual prance was more of a walk, which made her billowy rainbow pants sag.
“Cold in here, isn’t it,” she remarked, rubbing her arms. The Scout hadn’t yet been able to fix the hot water heater.
“Freezing,” said Frankie, who’d taken to wearing her clown nose for warmth.
Audrey nodded, then drew a deep breath and forced a smile. “Well, then, we’ll just have to get moving! Today we’re going to go exploring.”
“Outside?” Murray grimaced.
Audrey shook her head. “Right here in school.”
“But we’ve explored the school,” Camille pointed out. She, too, had been out of sorts since the previous day, when Monsieur Gerard called her cartwheels “average.”
“You’ve explored it as yourselves,” said Audrey. “But you haven’t explored it as clowns.” She gestured for everyone to gather around her, and they did—for warmth if nothing else.
“The clown lives in the present moment,” Audrey told them. “Most of us, especially adults, spend a lot of time thinking about what’s coming next, or what just happened, or sometimes what happened a long time ago, and how we could have changed it.” Here she looked at Seb, who’d just been pondering what might have happened if he’d never left the Konstantinovs.
He shook his head and tried to focus.
“And that’s why clowns can see things differently,” Audrey continued. “Audacité will see the same object as I do, but she’ll find a different use for it—one that suits her right in that moment.” She held up a finger. “Watch.”
Audrey popped her red ball onto her nose and began skipping around the class, smiling wide. When she reached Frankie, she stopped and began inspecting her scarf. Frankie drew back, but Audacité persisted, grabbing the scarf and unwinding it from Frankie’s neck.
“Hey!” Frankie cried, and a few students giggled. Seb wondered if Audacité had perhaps forgotten the crunch of Frankie’s left hook. He hoped she knew what she was doing.
Audacité ignored them all, holding up the scarf and shrieking with delight, like a small child with a new toy. Then she began to play with it, first as a skipping rope, then as a parachute, then a lasso. She swung the lasso, trying to capture Frankie, and eventually, even Frankie laughed.
“You see?” Audrey slipped off her nose. “How your inner clown feels in the moment determines how they see the things around them. If Audacité was feeling sad, she might have used Frankie’s scarf as a giant tissue for blowing her nose.”
Seb was relieved. That would not have gone well for Audacité.
“Now.” Audrey clapped her hands. “We’re going to explore the school as clowns. Touch things and smell things and feel things. Find new uses for the objects you encounter, based on how your clown feels in the moment.”
The students charged out of the room, and Seb followed. He headed for the library, thinking maybe his inner clown could find a new use for a book. But just as he rounded the corner, Frankie popped out in front of him, red nose peeking out over her scarf. Seb jumped.
“I’ve got it!” she announced.
“Sorry, what?” he asked, composing himself.
“I’ve got it,” she repeated, pulling off her clown nose. “Believe it or not, this was inspiring.”
“You’ve found your inner clown?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got an idea for curing Banjo. And it’s a good one this time. Not that yours weren’t,” she added quickly.
Seb shrugged, still a little disappointed that they hadn’t worked. “Okay, what’s your idea?”
But Frankie shook her head. “Tomorrow morning. In the gym,” she said. “I’ll explain then.” She pulled up her scarf and jogged away.
ON SATURDAY MORNING, Frankie stood before Seb and Banjo, fists on her hips and woolen cap pulled down over her ears. “Okay, you two,” she said. “I’ve made you wait long enough.”
“You’re killing us, Frankie.” Seb sighed. “What are we doing?”
“We’re going to explore the school,” Frankie announced. “Like we did in clown class!”
“Exploring the school as clowns?” Seb r
aised an eyebrow. “How is that going to help?” It also sounded like an awful way to spend a Saturday.
“Not as clowns,” Frankie corrected him. “We’re going to explore as traceurs.”
“We’re doing parkour?” asked Banjo.
Frankie grinned. “When you become a traceur, you start to see your city differently. Instead of roads and sidewalks and signs, you’ll see obstacles and ways to get around them. The city becomes a new place, even if you’ve lived there all your life. I think it could help Banjo get to know the school.”
“Okay.” Banjo licked his lips. “I’m up for trying it.”
“Maybe I’ll just watch,” said Seb. He wasn’t sure Audrey, their supervisor that weekend, would be up for an impromptu trip to the hospital.
“Don’t worry,” said Frankie. “Parkour is about speed, but also safety. Come on.” And she turned and jogged out of the gymnasium. Banjo followed, and Seb took up the rear, wondering what he was getting himself into.
First, Frankie ran to the cafeteria, where she taught them to jump over chairs and land soundlessly on the balls of their feet.
“No easy feet,” Seb quipped.
“Less joking, more jumping,” said Frankie. But she was smiling.
Next, she ran to the theater, where she had them climb up onto the stage without using their knees, then leap off and land with a roll to break the fall. Miraculously, the fall was the only thing Seb did break. He credited that to the saints watching over them.
“Thanks, guys.” He clapped the statues on the shoulder on his way out, now headed back to the gym. There, Frankie showed them how to tic-tac, or run at a wall and use it as a springboard.
Once they’d learned a few skills, the exploration began. They ran up hallways and down stairwells, springing off walls and hurdling chairs and the odd potted plant. They dove in and out of classrooms, gasping for breath, cheering each other on. Soon Seb stopped thinking about his bad form and the possibility of broken bones. All that mattered was the next turn they’d take and the obstacles they’d find.
Until they heard a voice that sounded like Angélique Saint-Germain.
Frankie ground to a halt, and Seb and Banjo had to fling themselves back to avoid bowling her over. She put her hand up for silence, and they huddled together, listening. Had they imagined it?
Something cold and wet hit Seb square on the head, and he yelped and looked up. Overhead, a pipe was dripping; underfoot, water was pooling fast.
“This is not the way Saturdays are meant to be spent.”
It was definitely the directrice’s voice. And she was headed their way.
“Go! Go!” Frankie shoved the boys toward the nearest door, which was mercifully unlocked. They dove inside just before Angélique Saint-Germain rounded the corner.
“Where are we?” Banjo whispered.
Seb felt around in the darkness until his hand found what felt like a feather boa. “Costume closet,” he replied.
Frankie opened the door just a crack so they could all peer out.
“Saturday mornings,” Angélique Saint-Germain was saying, “are to be spent reading the newspaper. In slippers. With scones. Not fixing leaky pipes.”
“Agreed,” someone replied, and Seb caught sight of the Scout, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and brandishing a wrench. “Though I’m more of a cinnamon bun kind of guy,” he added.
The directrice was not amused. “I’m just glad you were home when I called,” she said. “Bruno is useless when it comes to fixing anything.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say use—” the Scout began.
“Useless,” Angélique Saint-Germain repeated. “Here it is. Can you fix it?”
“I think so,” the Scout said, assessing the leaky pipe. “I dabbled in plumbing, years ago.”
“Of course he did,” muttered Frankie.
The Scout opened a stepladder and climbed up while the directrice watched below, arms crossed. Ennui sank down on the wet carpet, looking like he too was missing his Saturday scones.
“Things are getting dire, Michel,” the directrice said.
The Scout removed a ceiling panel and stuck his head into the gap, humming in agreement.
“Pipes to patch, furnaces to fix,” she went on. “And where is the money going to come from? You know who hasn’t made any donations yet.”
Seb swallowed. He was fairly certain he knew who.
The Scout made another humming noise that seemed to mean it was indeed a quandary.
“Well, you don’t know the half of it,” said Madame Saint-Germain. “Remember that boy who fell from the silks last year? What was his name?”
“Daniel?” came the muffled reply.
“That’s the one.”
“How is he?” The Scout pulled his head out, looking concerned.
“Nothing a little surgery won’t fix, I’m sure.” She waved at him to continue working.
“That was unfortunate,” the Scout said, resuming his work.
“Indeed,” said the directrice. “When a student falls from a ripped silk that was too old to use in the first place, it does nothing to improve a school’s reputation.”
“I meant for his arms,” said the Scout.
“Yes, yes, that too.” The directrice waved this away. “But now rumor has it his family might be suing us. And that cannot happen, Michel. We’re already in the red. Deeply in the red.”
“In the crimson,” whispered Seb.
“What?” said Frankie.
“Nothing.”
Ennui lifted his head from his paws and turned to stare at the closet door. Then he heaved himself up and trudged over to it, sniffing deeply.
“Oh no,” Seb whispered. “Go away.”
Unsurprisingly, the bulldog didn’t obey. Instead, he stepped right up to the door and nudged it open with his nose.
“Oh no you don’t.” Frankie quickly pushed it back and held it there. The dog whined.
“What are you looking at, Henri?” the directrice asked. “What’s in there?”
The bêtes noires held their breath.
“Probably a rat,” the Scout said, pulling his head out of the gap in the ceiling tiles. “I saw one in the janitor’s closet the other day.”
“Gross,” whispered Frankie.
The directrice shuddered. “That’s exactly my point. This place needs fixing, which means we must cut costs elsewhere.” She gestured for him to keep working, and he stuck his head back in the gap. “The teachers won’t take it well, as we saw at the emergency staff meeting. But it’s necessary. Some of them will have to lose their jobs.”
“Where will you start?” the Scout asked, sounding a bit wary.
“I’m thinking with Bruno,” she said.
He motioned for her to pass him the wrench. “Is that really necessary?”
“I need to start somewhere,” she said, passing it. “And Bruno is fairly useless.”
“But then you won’t have an assistant,” the Scout pointed out. “You’ll have to answer your own phone calls.”
The directrice shuddered again. “Good point. Perhaps I’ll keep him a while longer and get rid of the juggling teacher. You know how I feel about jugglers.”
The Scout hummed in response, and the pipe stopped dripping.
“The other option,” Angélique Saint-Germain said, bending to pick up Ennui, “is to get rid of a few students. Just a few. The ones we know will never be world-class performers.”
“Uh-oh,” Frankie whispered.
The Scout retreated down the ladder, then wiped his hands on his jeans. “Which students do you have in mind?” he asked, now sounding very wary.
“You know exactly which ones,” she replied. “The bêtes noires.”
Seb, Frankie and Banjo gulped.
“I still don’t know what you were thinking, recruiting them in the first place,” the directrice said. “That Banjo from Stumptown? He hasn’t made it to a class on time yet.”
“Stumpville,” Banjo croaked. They hushed
him.
“And the de Luca delinquent? There’s something you’re not telling me about that one, isn’t there, Michel?”
Frankie sucked in her breath.
“Frankie is a talented traceur—” the Scout insisted.
“And the Konstantinov boy!” the directrice went on. “No skills, no charisma and he tells absurd lies! What were you thinking?”
“Well, his father—”
“His father. Exactly.” She stabbed the air with a finger. “That’s the only reason I haven’t shipped the boy back to Moldova, or wherever. I’m still holding out hope for Dragan’s money. Though I have to say, I’m quickly losing patience. Sebastian hasn’t even replied to my note. It’s a bad sign, Michel.”
“What note?” Banjo whispered. Seb shook his head.
“Angélique,” said the Scout. “Please give them a bit more time. I know it’s hard to see, but each one of them shows promise. Even Seb.”
The directrice frowned. Seb cringed down to his toes.
“Just until spring,” the Scout insisted. “And in the meantime, we’ll think of other potential donors. Come on, let’s go put our heads together. I’ll buy you a scone.” He steered her away, and Ennui gave the closet door one last glare, then trudged after them.
Once they were long gone, Frankie pushed open the door, and they all crawled out.
“This is bad, isn’t it,” Banjo said, shaking sequins from his hair.
“Really bad,” Frankie confirmed. Seb nodded, feeling ill.
“If I get sent home, Theo and Lily will be so disappointed,” said Banjo. “They said this was the most alternative of alternative educations. They were so excited for me.” He chewed on his lower lip. “I can’t let them down.”
“If I get sent home,” Frankie began, then stopped. “Well, I can’t get sent home. I just can’t.”
And if I get sent home, Seb thought, there’s no one left to save the Konstantinov Family Circus.
“I can’t either,” he said.
“So what can we do?” asked Banjo.
“It sounds like the only thing that’s going to save us—and the Bonaventure Circus School—is money,” said Frankie.
The Bonaventure Adventures Page 13
