The Bonaventure Adventures

by Rachelle Delaney

  “That can’t happen,” Camille proclaimed. For once, Seb agreed with her wholeheartedly.

  “I’m not seeing progress!” the directrice bellowed from the doorway, making them all jump. “Scrub! Chip! Paint!”

  “Oui, Madame,” they chorused. And they got back to work, scrubbing, chipping and painting harder than ever.

  ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, all the weekday students lined up at the front doors at four o’clock sharp. Bruno checked their names off a list, making sure no one was trying to stay behind for a glimpse of Jean-Loup (the Scout was eventually dispatched to find two second-year boys hiding in the janitor’s closet).

  Seb, Frankie and Banjo sat in the student lounge playing cards and waiting for everyone to leave. Music thumped from the theater, where the student performers were rehearsing their routines for perhaps the four hundredth time.

  “I’m so jealous of you guys,” Camille lamented on her way to the door. “You might actually get to see him!”

  Seb shook his head. “We have to go up to our rooms as soon as you leave.” Frankie and Banjo nodded innocently.

  “But you might bump into him,” someone insisted, and Seb turned to see Murray standing near the fireplace. The boy shifted from one foot to the other, looking embarrassed. “And if you do…could you get me an autograph?” He held out a piece of paper.

  Seb took it. “You’re a fan, Murray?”

  Murray nodded. “I want to join his company someday.” Then he turned and hurried off.

  Seb shook his head, watching him go. “Even Murray,” he marveled.

  A few minutes later, all the students were ushered out into the snow, and the doors shut firmly behind them.

  “Finally!” Frankie tossed her cards aside. “Okay, let’s get down to business.”

  “Right.” Banjo tidied up the cards she’d just tossed. “So what happens first?”

  “I can answer that,” Frankie said, whipping a piece of paper out of her pocket and smoothing it on the table. “I’ve got a schedule of tonight’s events.”

  Seb leaned in to see it. “Whoa! Where did you get that?”

  “It was lying on the photocopier,” Frankie said breezily. “What?” she added when Seb and Banjo exchanged a look. “Everyone knows that documents left lying on the photocopier are fair game.”

  Seb wasn’t familiar with this rule, but he chose not to argue. “So what’s the schedule?”

  “J-Loup’s flight arrives at five,” Frankie reported. “They’ll take him for dinner, then be back here at seven thirty for a quick tour. The show starts at eight.”

  “So we should head up to the choir box as soon as we can,” Seb said. “We’ll just bring extra food. I’ll swing by the cafeteria for sandwiches.”

  “Don’t forget the candy,” said Frankie.

  “I wouldn’t,” he assured her.

  “What if someone comes looking for us?” asked Banjo. “Like, to make sure we’re in our rooms?”

  “They probably won’t,” said Frankie. “They’ll all be at the show. But just in case, stuff your pillowcases with clothes, then put them under your covers so it looks like you’re in there, sleeping.”

  “Does that really work?” Seb asked.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Frankie retorted.

  He didn’t. And before he could come up with one, there was an enormous crash. It shook the entire school—lights swayed overhead and pictures shifted on the wall.

  “Earthquake!” Banjo covered his head.

  “Take cover!” Frankie scrambled behind the nearest couch.

  Seb was about to follow when he saw Bruno racing past the common room, headed for the theater.

  “Come on!” He jumped up and raced after him.

  They stopped outside the theater doors, where a dozen teachers were huddled. Bruno pushed his way inside, but no one would let Seb through.

  “What happened?” he called, standing on tiptoe but failing to see over them. He caught sight of Audrey’s rainbow pants and tugged the teacher out of the scrum. “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, Seb.” Audrey gripped his arm. “The stage collapsed! We all knew it would! It was only a matter of time…” She covered her mouth.

  “Someone call an ambulance!” one of the teachers shouted.

  “Wait, someone’s hurt?” cried Seb.

  Inside the theater rose a familiar wail. “They’re all fine!” bellowed Angélique Saint-Germain. “Just a few scratches! The show will go on!”

  And Seb knew just what had happened, even before Audrey explained.

  When the old stage finally collapsed, it took the student performers down with it.

  FOR A FEW minutes, Seb, Frankie and Banjo hopped around behind the teachers, trying to peek inside the theater and determine who’d been hurt. But no one would let them see. Inside, the directrice was still shouting, “The show must go on!”

  “Excuse me, let me pass!” The Scout pushed his way through. “I’m trained as a paramedic!”

  The crowd parted to let him pass, then closed again, only to part once more moments later as the Scout marched through with Marie-Eve in his arms. She was grimacing in pain, and her left foot stuck out at an odd angle.

  “Looks like a sprain,” the Scout reported as he passed. “She’ll live, but she can’t perform tonight. Step aside everyone, let us through.”

  “But maybe she can!” The directrice scurried after them. “We need a second opinion! Someone call the doctor!”

  Once they were gone, the teachers closed into a huddle once more. “What are we going to do?” asked the juggling teacher.

  “We need to fix the stage,” said Audrey. “Or at least clean it up. Jean-Loup arrives in less than an hour—it’s too late to cancel!”

  “There are workers fixing pipes in the cafeteria. Someone get them!”

  The teachers scattered, leaving Seb, Frankie and Banjo at the door. They peered inside at the stage—or rather, at what used to be the stage. The frame remained, but a giant hole gaped in the middle. Off to one side stood two fourth-year student trapezists, also slated to perform that night. Neither seemed hurt, but both were sniffling, consoling each other in whispers.

  “I sure wouldn’t want to be them,” Frankie whispered.

  “Do you think they’ll find another tightrope act?” asked Banjo.

  Before Seb could answer, Oliver Grey appeared at his side. The teacher’s eyes looked weary, and his beard was flecked with lint.

  “You three better go upstairs,” said Oliver. “Trust me, you don’t want a run-in with the directrice right now.”

  “But will they find a replacement for Marie-Eve?” Banjo asked.

  “Not at this point,” Oliver replied, peering in at the collapsed stage. “Yikes.” He shook his head. “This is bad.”

  “One less performer won’t make a huge difference though, right?” said Seb.

  Oliver sighed. “We just really needed this show to go flawlessly. We have to impress Jean-Loup. He’s a very powerful man with a lot of money.”

  “More money than God,” Frankie said, with a nod to Seb.

  “I guess,” said Oliver.

  “Have you ever been to a Terra Incognito show?” Seb asked him.

  Oliver nodded. “I actually went to New York to see the one on the skyscraper. It was definitely cool, but I always thought it could have been better if it had told a story.”

  “That’s how I felt too,” said Seb.

  “So J-Loup’s shows don’t tell stories?” asked Frankie.

  “Not usually,” said Oliver.

  “Hmm.” Frankie’s eyes narrowed.

  “Anyway, you guys better make yourselves scarce. We’ll take care of this mess down here.”

  “Okay,” said Frankie. “We’ll go upstairs.” She pulled the boys down the hall away from the theater.

  “We will?” whispered Banjo.

  They turned the corner. “Of course not,” said Frankie. She chose the nearest door, which happened to lead to the janitor�
��s closet, and pulled Banjo and Seb inside. She shut the door and flicked on the light. “I have an idea.”

  “THAT’S INSANE,” Seb told her.

  “It’s pretty crazy,” Banjo agreed.

  “It’s completely bonkers,” Seb clarified. “We are not performers. We cannot save this show.”

  Frankie pulled out the schedule she’d nabbed from the photocopier. “Just hear me out. This show is a big deal, and now it’s missing one performance—the final performance,” she added, pointing at the schedule. “And we have a performance, ready to go. And when I say we, I mean you,” she added, turning to face Seb. “You’ve written a few of them, haven’t you?”

  “No!” Seb cried. “I mean, yes,” he corrected himself. “But no, we are not performing them. That’s crazy.”

  “And what’s more,” Frankie went on, ignoring him, “your shows tell stories. J-Loup’s don’t. This could make him sit up and take notice.”

  “So we’d just take over the stage?” Even Banjo sounded doubtful.

  “Sure.” Frankie looked at her schedule again. “There must be an opening somewhere.”

  “Frankie,” Seb took a deep breath, for now she was scaring him. “There are a million things wrong with this plan. First of all, the shows I’ve written are just works in progress, and just for fun. I don’t even know how to write a real circus show.”

  “But—”

  “Second,” he continued, “none of us are good enough to perform, especially not me.”

  “Well—”

  “And third,” he went on, “Angélique Saint-Germain would kill us for hijacking this show. Or if she let us live, she’d ship us all out first thing tomorrow. We’d be done.” He stopped to catch his breath, then looked at Banjo. “Help me out here?”

  Banjo chewed his lip. “It is a crazy plan—”

  “Completely insane,” Seb cut in.

  “Would you let Banjo talk?” Frankie snapped.

  “But…but if Jean-Loup isn’t impressed by tonight’s show,” Banjo went on, “he won’t support the school. And if Bonaventure doesn’t get any more money, then we’ll get shipped home anyway.” He looked at his friends. “This might be our only chance.”

  “No!” cried Seb.

  “Yes!” cried Frankie. “Come on, that scene you wrote with the animals in the zoo was really good. Let’s do that.”

  “But I haven’t finished writing it,” Seb protested. “It’s not even close to being ready to be performed!”

  “So what if it isn’t perfect?” said Frankie.

  “It would be scary,” Banjo admitted. “But think what might happen if we don’t even try.”

  Seb paused, for those words sounded familiar. After a moment, he realized it was exactly what the Konstantinov fire breather had asked himself whenever he was (rightfully) frightened of spitting fuel on a flaming torch.

  “He’d still have eyebrows, for one thing,” Dragan had pointed out.

  Dragan.

  Could he help?

  “Hang on,” Seb told his friends. And he let himself out of the janitor’s closet and ran for the common room.

  “SEB!” DRAGAN CLEARLY had not expected a call. “Is everything okay?”

  Seb heard the scuffle and buzz of backstage—people shouting, clown bells jingling, a sword clattering on the floor. He glanced at the clock. The Konstantinovs would have just finished their show. “I need to talk,” he told his father.

  “Quiet people! I need quiet!” Dragan hollered, but the clamor continued.

  “Is that Seb?” someone asked. It sounded like Julie the unicyclist-in-training. “Tell him I said—”

  “Not now!” Dragan roared. Then a door slammed, and all was still. “That’s better.”

  Seb could tell his father had escaped outside, and he pictured him standing in the chilly January night, likely still wearing his top hat and ringmaster jacket. His breath would be rising into the air, maybe backlit by the moon. “Dad, I have an important question,” he said. “And I don’t have much time.” The clock on the wall read five o’clock. Jean-Loup’s plane had just landed.

  “About Maxime again?” Dragan sighed.

  “No,” said Seb. “But he’s still around, right?”

  “Yes,” Dragan said. “For now.”

  “Good. Okay.” Seb drew a breath. “I want to know…” He thought for a moment. “How do you know when something you’ve created is good enough to show the world? Or at least a small part of the world.”

  He heard Dragan stamp his boots on the gravel and rub his arms. “That’s a good question,” he said after a long pause. “A big question.”

  “Yes,” Seb said, hoping he would sum it up quickly.

  Dragan hummed and huffed, and Seb shifted from one foot to another, watching the clock tick.

  “I suppose…,” his father said finally, “I suppose you can’t know.”

  “What?” This was not the answer Seb needed. “There isn’t, like, some kind of test?”

  “Sometimes you just have to put your work out there and see what happens. You have to be brave.”

  “Oh.” Seb swallowed. He’d been afraid of that.

  “It also helps to have a good outfit,” Dragan added.

  “Sorry?”

  “In case what you’ve created really is terrible,” Dragan explained. “Then at least people can admire your clothes.”

  “I see,” said Seb.

  “Distract them with sequins,” Dragan advised.

  “Sequins,” said Seb. “Got it. Thanks, Dad.”

  “Is that all?” Dragan asked, but Seb was already hanging up the phone.

  SEB RETURNED TO the janitor’s closet with his notebook. “I still think this is insane,” he told his friends.

  Frankie punched the air triumphantly. “Sometimes the craziest plans are the best ones,” she told him.

  He gave her the stink-eye.

  They sat down on the floor amongst the cleaning supplies to look at his works in progress. Frankie and Banjo had seen The Great Adventure and even acted it out, so it made sense to go with that one.

  “But I don’t know if it’s my best,” Seb fretted, flipping through his notebook. “I’ve got a few others here.”

  “Let’s see.” Frankie took the notebook, and Banjo peered over her shoulder.

  “They’re just works—”

  “In progress,” Banjo finished. “We know.” Then he and Frankie began to read.

  Seb mauled his lower lip.

  “Hey.” Banjo looked up after a few minutes. “This story…”

  Seb nodded.

  Banjo went back to reading. Frankie stayed quiet, head bowed over the page.

  When they reached the end, they paused for what felt like ages to Seb, who was holding his breath. Finally, Banjo looked up again. “I think these are great,” he said.

  “Really?” Seb gasped, then cleared his throat. “Thanks.” He turned to Frankie.

  She paused for another long moment, then shrugged. “I like them.”

  “Really?” Seb asked again.

  “No,” said Frankie. She grinned. “I love them. They’re our stories!”

  Seb felt weak with relief. “Exactly.”

  Aside from The Great Adventure, he’d been working on two other shows.

  The first starred Theo and Lily on the day they’d first met in the forest, but Seb had staged it on a high-wire. His favorite part was the surprise appearance of the bear—or rather, a performer dressed as a bear, since circus animals really had gone out of style.

  The second show told the story of Cousin Luigi’s wedding. Seb had created an epic battle scene using the parkour tricks and techniques Frankie had taught them. Ideally, he would stage it in a grand banquet hall, and there would be real tiramisu and minestrone soup for a full-on food fight.

  In the interest of time, for it was now six o’clock, they decided to perform The Great Adventure—or as much of it as they could before Angélique Saint-Germain pulled them off the stage.<
br />
  Frankie took out the schedule again. “Marie-Eve was supposed to perform after the trapeze act. So that’ll be our chance: right before the directrice walks out to close the show, we’ll take over the stage.”

  Seb’s stomach pitched. What if the circophiles hated his show? What if Jean-Loup thought it was garbage? What if it really wasn’t ready for anyone to see?

  “It also helps to have a good outfit,” Dragan advised in his head. “In case what you’ve created really is terrible.”

  He turned to his friends. “We need costumes.”

  SEB PEEKED AROUND the purple curtain and across the stage. He could just barely make out Frankie and Banjo, hidden in the shadows of the opposite wing. Banjo was hopping from one foot to another, and Frankie was frowning intently. Or at least Seb thought she was—it was hard to tell, since her face was mostly hidden by a massive lion’s mane.

  The costumes had come together surprisingly well, thanks to the costume closet where they’d hidden back in October. Frankie the lioness had her golden mane, and Banjo was sporting furry monkey ears and a long, curling tail. Seb wore a plastic elephant’s trunk, which he’d attached to a piece of string wrapped around his head.

  He drew back into the shadows to avoid being spotted by one of the riggers, though there wasn’t much chance of that, as they were focused on the trapeze act playing out above everyone’s heads. So far, it had gone flawlessly—the students were twisting and flipping and hanging off the apparatus with incredible strength and precision.

  It was just too bad no one was actually watching.

  The circophiles had truly outdone themselves for Jean-Loup’s special soiree. Seb had seen blue lipstick and braided beards, glass slippers and cat ears. And everyone had capped off their costume with a monocle in honor of the special guest. They strutted around and preened like peacocks, as usual, but less for each other than for Jean-Loup himself.

  The circus magnate was sitting near the back of the theater, on the purple velvet throne from the directrice’s office. Seb had expected him to be tall and superhero-strapping like the Scout, or maybe broad-shouldered with a thick pelt of hair like Dragan. But Jean-Loup was surprisingly small, with almost delicate features. His dark hair was cropped close to his head, and Seb could make out a big bald patch on top. He looked surprisingly normal—or rather, he would have had he not been wearing an electric-blue blazer and a violet-tinted monocle.