The Bonaventure Adventures

by Rachelle Delaney

  “Wow,” said Seb. Now this was a story.

  “So what did they do?” asked Banjo.

  “The only thing they could,” said Frankie. “They started selling popes.”

  “Popes?” Seb repeated.

  “Popes,” Frankie confirmed.

  Every week, Rocco de Luca would go out and buy a box of little plaster pope figurines. Then his wife, Rosa, would spread them out on the floor of their little apartment and set to work painting them. But Rosa wasn’t a practiced artist, and she didn’t have the steadiest hand, so a lot of her popes turned out looking like they’d eaten some bad shellfish.

  “My dad said that was the beauty of it,” said Frankie. “No pope can live forever, so it’s best to have a figurine that doesn’t really look like the current one. He said it made for a timeless souvenir.”

  That sounded like Dragan-type logic. “And he sold enough of them?” Seb asked dubiously.

  “Not really,” said Frankie. “My brothers and I had to…help out.” She paused for another long moment. “So we picked pockets in the piazzas.”

  Seb’s mouth fell open.

  “We got pretty good at it,” Frankie went on. “Tito would grab the wallet or purse, then pass it to me while Aldo caused a distraction—rustling up some pigeons, or faking an injury. Sometimes we’d bring little Pio along to stage a tantrum. Pio has the best tantrums.” Frankie smiled. “And then I’d take the prize and run.”

  “Using your parkour skills!” said Banjo.

  Frankie nodded. “And that’s how I met the Scout. I stole his wallet.”

  “You didn’t!” Seb gaped.

  “I did. But I didn’t know he’d dabbled in parkour. I thought I’d lost him, but he followed me up onto a rooftop, and there was nowhere to go. He told me he wouldn’t turn me in if I signed up for circus school. I’d already had a few warnings from the polizia, so…” She sipped her chocolat and shrugged.

  “That’s…amazing,” said Banjo.

  “One of the best stories I’ve ever heard,” said Seb. It also explained a lot—like why her French was riddled with curse words, and why she couldn’t get sent home.

  “Hey, you three!” Oliver appeared beside them. “We should probably head back now.”

  “Already?” they groaned, but Oliver stood firm. Reluctantly, they set down their mugs and shuffled back into their coats. But as they headed toward the door, Frankie pulled them both back. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?” she whispered. “Even the Scout promised not to.”

  “Never,” said Seb. “If you guys keep my secret too.”

  They shook on it with mittened hands, then stepped back out onto the snowy street and headed home, their bellies warm with chocolat chaud and their heads swimming with stories.

  Part 4

  JEAN–LOUP

  SEB SPENT MUCH of the holidays by the fireplace in the student lounge, reading or playing cards with Frankie and Banjo. If he wasn’t there, he was in Oliver’s office, discussing the shows his teacher had recommended he watch.

  “So what’d you think about Rapunzel?” Oliver asked one afternoon. He had kicked off his sneakers and propped his stocking feet up on his desk.

  “Pretty good,” Seb replied. In that one, a tightrope-walking Rapunzel had been stuck on a high-wire rather than in a tower. Her prince was an aerialist—except he’d had to climb a very long blond wig instead of his usual silks. “It was fun to watch. There were a few weird ones on that list, though,” he added. “Like the one with the people wearing antlers and walking around on their hands?” He shook his head. “I don’t think I understood that one.”

  Oliver laughed and tipped back in his chair. “Yeah, that was a weird one. But that’s kind of the beauty of the modern circus. It can be so many different things.”

  Seb nodded. “So do you think a good story makes a good circus show?”

  Oliver considered this. “Personally, my favorite shows are the ones that tell stories,” he said. “The ones that aren’t just about skills, but also plot and character—the things we always talk about in English class.”

  “Right,” Seb said. “Those are my favorites too.” It was heartening to know Oliver felt the same, even if Angélique Saint-Germain didn’t. He wanted very badly to tell Oliver about the Konstantinov Family Circus, and how he was fairly certain he could save it with some fresh, new shows. But he couldn’t—even if Oliver was almost a friend, he was still a teacher at Bonaventure. It was too risky.

  “You know, Seb,” Oliver said, “I think you’d be really good at writing circus shows.”

  “Me?” Seb hadn’t expected this. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “I do,” said Oliver. “You’re a good writer, and you understand all the skills performers can use to tell a story.”

  Seb wasn’t convinced: he barely knew how to write normal stories, let alone stories for circus performers. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Start with one you’ve been writing,” said Oliver. “You have a few in progress, don’t you?”

  Seb nodded. “I don’t know if they’d make good shows, though.”

  “Don’t overthink it,” Oliver advised. “Just try it for fun. This is one case where we’re not striving for perfection,” he added with a grin.

  This made Seb feel a bit better, and he started writing his first circus show that night, after Frankie and Banjo had gone upstairs to bed. He chose the story he knew the best—the one about the animals escaping the zoo, which he’d tentatively titled The Great Adventure. And he tried to write it out like a play, but with circus performers expressing themselves through basic acrobatics.

  It was hard work—very hard, in fact. Right up there with trying to master a handstand. But this kind of hard work left him feeling excited rather than exhausted. Most of the time, anyway.

  “What’s wrong?” Banjo asked one day toward the end of the holidays. He and Frankie were playing cards while Seb tackled a particularly challenging scene.

  Seb looked up from his notebook. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re making faces,” said Frankie. She furrowed her brow and bared her teeth.

  Banjo nodded. “Like that.”

  “Oh.” Seb rubbed his forehead. “I’m just a little stuck. I can’t picture how performers would act this out.”

  “Can we help?” asked Banjo.

  “Oh, no,” Seb said quickly. “This is just a work in progress. You don’t want to see it yet.”

  Frankie rolled her eyes. “We don’t want a performance. Let us help. Strength in numbers, remember?”

  Seb frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on.” Frankie jumped up. “It’ll be fun. Tell us what to do.”

  “Okay.” Seb sighed. “Um, Frankie, pretend you’re a lion.”

  “Easy.” Frankie crouched low to the ground.

  “And Banjo, you’ll be a monkey.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be a monkey.” Banjo looked pleased.

  “And you’re on a city street for the first time in your lives.”

  Banjo and Frankie did as they were told, dodging pretend cars and hiding in imaginary shadows. He’d give them instructions, like when to tumble or jump, and they’d show him what it looked like. Sometimes they even added their own moves—Frankie, of course, had the lion doing parkour within minutes. But it helped, very much so. Within an hour, Seb had a pretty solid scene.

  “That was fun!” Banjo said afterward, collapsing on a couch. “Where did you get the idea for that show?”

  “From real life,” Seb admitted. “Well, sort of.” And he told them about the day he’d awoken to find all the animals gone.

  “Wow.” Banjo shook his head in wonder. “That’s some story.”

  “A story inspired by real life,” Frankie added. “Those are the best kind.”

  Seb agreed. And it gave him an idea for his next show.

  AS COZY AND quiet as the holidays were, Seb found himself looking forward to the new semester, or at leas
t to having a few more people around. And judging by the other students’ faces when they returned to Bonaventure in January, they were happy to be back as well.

  “Does everyone seem a little, I don’t know, brighter to you?” Banjo asked as he, Seb and Frankie stretched side by side in their first Basic Acrobatics class of the new year.

  “That’s because some of us took a two-week-long nap,” Sylvain said, plopping down beside them.

  “And because we’re halfway to summer,” added Frankie.

  “Yes!” Sylvain held up his hand for a high five. This time, Frankie actually slapped it.

  But it was more than that, Seb decided, looking around. Several students were whispering excitedly, even with Monsieur Gerard there, overseeing their stretches. Actually, he realized, even Monsieur Gerard looked excited. Was…was he smiling? Seb blinked. The ends of his mustache were definitely perked up.

  “Weird,” he said. “Something’s up.”

  “Of course it is.” Camille sat down with them, flushed and breathless. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Heard what?” asked Seb.

  “He’s coming!” she squealed.

  “Who’s coming?” asked Banjo.

  “Everyone!” Monsieur Gerard clapped his hands. “Our directrice has requested our presence in the theater for a special announcement. Come, we mustn’t keep her waiting.” He gestured to the door, and his face split into an actual smile.

  “Oh, that is just creepy,” Frankie whispered.

  Seb agreed. He also couldn’t help but remember the last time the directrice had interrupted Basic Acrobatics for a special presentation. He hoped this one had nothing to do with unmasking a bête noire.

  They filed out of the gym and down the hallway with the other students. In the theater, they grabbed three seats together, among the other first-years.

  Just as she had four months before, Angélique Saint-Germain marched out onstage, gripped the microphone and gestured for quiet.

  “Clearly, some of you have heard the rumors,” she began. “And I can confirm them to be true. We will soon have a very special visitor at our school.” She flashed a smile so bright it made Seb wince. “Jean-Loup is coming.”

  For a moment everyone was silent, then the students erupted into gasps and squeals.

  This time, Seb recognized the name straight away. “He is?”

  “Who’s that?” asked Banjo.

  “Wait, doesn’t loup mean wolf in French?” Frankie asked. “A wolf is coming?”

  “I met a wolf once,” Banjo recalled. “In the forest. They’re not as scary as everyone thinks, but I wouldn’t want to face one without John and Yoko.”

  Seb shook his head. “Jean-Loup is a person.”

  In front of them, Giselle turned around. “Not just any person,” she clarified. “The most important person in the circus world.”

  “What’s so great about him?” asked Frankie.

  “He has a big circus company called Terra Incognito,” Seb told her. “They stage performances in far-off places—”

  “Like on a high-wire strung across the Grand Canyon!” Giselle burst in.

  “And on the roof of the Leaning Tower of Pisa!” added Camille.

  “Right,” said Seb. There had been a Terra Incognito show among those Oliver had recommended for him—a daring trampoline act set atop a New York City skyscraper. It was a first-rate performance, but there hadn’t been a story, which had left Seb a bit disappointed.

  “He’s got a ton of money,” Sylvain added. “Also a monocle.” He held up his finger in a circle around one eye.

  “Huh,” said Frankie. “You’d think if he’s so rich he could afford real glasses.”

  Camille and Giselle gave her exasperated looks.

  “Quiet, everyone!” the directrice called, and the students obeyed. “I’m glad you all understand how important this is. It’s a momentous occasion. A once-in-a-lifetime experience. A man like Jean-Loup never takes time out of his extremely busy schedule to visit a school. I, however, have a personal connection—”

  “I heard he was madly in love with her,” Camille hissed.

  “But she left him at the altar!” added Giselle.

  “Oh, stop.” Frankie rolled her eyes.

  “Actually, that might be true,” Seb whispered, recalling Dragan’s story. “But I’m not sure about the altar part.” In any case, he had to see the man who’d trumped his father for the directrice’s affections.

  “Jean-Loup will be arriving very soon,” the directrice went on. “This Friday, in fact. He’ll begin by touring the school, and it is absolutely critical we make a good impression. An excellent impression,” she added. “Flawless, even.”

  “Oh.” Seb nodded, suddenly understanding. He lowered his voice and leaned toward Frankie and Banjo. “She must want Jean-Loup to help the school.”

  “Would he do that?” said Banjo. “Oh, do you think he’ll fix the hot water heater?”

  “He’d better,” grumbled Frankie. “If I have to take one more cold shower I’m going to go insane.”

  “I mean, she wants him to donate money,” said Seb.

  “We’ll be giving Jean-Loup a tour of the school, and also hosting a Friday night soiree in his honor,” the directrice went on. “Of course, no students will be invited, except a select few who will perform.”

  The students moaned. Seb, Frankie and Banjo, however, exchanged a quick glance.

  “Not invited,” Frankie murmured. “But not technically forbidden.”

  “Now, now.” The directrice raised a finger. “Lest you think you will not be involved at all, fear not. Here at Bonaventure, we are like family, aren’t we? We share in the school’s successes and wallow together in its failures.”

  She smiled at them again, teeth gleaming under the stage lights. “I assure you, each one of you will play an important role in the momentous visit of Jean-Loup.”

  “THIS WASN’T EXACTLY the role I was hoping for,” Camille said as she dipped a rag into a bucket of scalding water, then used it to scrub the cafeteria wall.

  Beside her, Giselle sighed. “I thought we’d get to give Jean-Loup a tour.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Frankie. “Also, you two need to stop complaining.”

  Camille and Giselle looked over at the cafeteria table where the bêtes noires were stationed, picking hardened wads of gum off the underside. The twins resumed scrubbing the wall.

  It was the day after the big announcement, and the directrice had canceled all classes in preparation for Jean-Loup’s arrival. No one at Bonaventure was excused—even the teachers had been put to work patching leaks and mending rips in the carpets. Meanwhile, the directrice patrolled the halls, Ennui at her side, surveying progress.

  “I can’t believe we got stuck with the gum,” Frankie grunted, chipping at a pinkish wad that looked as if it had been stuck there for decades.

  “Makes sense to me,” grumbled Seb. Who else would Angélique Saint-Germain choose to do the dirtiest work? He hacked at a mottled green piece, which popped off the table and hit him square in the face. “Gross.”

  “I have a question,” said Banjo.

  “Shoot.” Seb wiped his face with his sleeve.

  “Jean-Loup has money, right?”

  “More money than God,” he confirmed, quoting Dragan.

  “And the directrice wants to show him that Bonaventure needs his money, right?”

  “I think so.”

  “So wouldn’t it be better to leave everything as it is—dirty and falling apart?” Banjo asked.

  Seb and Frankie stopped chipping. Banjo had a point.

  “But I’m not going to be the one to suggest it.” Frankie resumed her fight with the gum.

  “Less talk!” Angélique Saint-Germain commanded from the cafeteria door. “If you’re talking, you’re not cleaning!”

  “Oui, Madame,” all the students in the cafeteria chorused, picking up the pace.

  “She’s even scarier than usual today,”
Sylvain observed once she had left. He was touching up the paint on the baseboards.

  “She’s stressed,” Giselle told him. “J-Loup is a huge deal. That’s what his fans call him,” she added. Then she grabbed Camille’s arm. “We should get monocles for his visit!”

  Sylvain snorted.

  “He’ll never see them,” Camille told her. “J-Loup doesn’t arrive until after we leave on Friday. They’ll give him a tour, put on the show and then he’ll be gone forever.” She pouted. “The only students who’ll see him are the ones chosen to perform.”

  Again, the bêtes noires exchanged a glance. The promise of watching the show—and Jean-Loup himself—from their hiding spot was the only thing getting them through the preparations.

  “They’re so lucky,” said Giselle, wiping what looked like ancient spaghetti sauce off the wall.

  “I don’t know about that,” said Sylvain. “Marie-Eve was one of the chosen ones, and she hasn’t stopped practicing on the tightrope for two days. Her friends have to bring her meals to the gym because the directrice won’t let her leave.”

  “That’s not true!” said Camille.

  “That’s the rumor.” Sylvain shrugged. “And I believe it. Can you imagine what she’d do if a student were to mess up in front of J-Loup?” He slashed his paintbrush across his throat. It left a white streak. “Oops,” he said.

  “What will happen if the school doesn’t make a good impression?” asked Banjo.

  “An excellent impression,” Frankie corrected him. “Flawless, even.”

  Sylvain snickered. The twins hushed them.

  “Jean-Loup could tell the whole circus world that Bonaventure is a bad school. It would hurt our reputation,” said Giselle.

  “And the directrice’s,” Seb added.

  “Plus, it could ruin the school’s chances of getting funding,” said Frankie.

  “So if Jean-Loup doesn’t like the school,” Banjo said slowly, “we might all have to go home.”

  They fell silent. Banjo was right.

  Frankie cursed in Italian under her breath.