The Bonaventure Adventures

by Rachelle Delaney

  How many monocles did the man have? Seb wondered, picturing entire closets overflowing with them. Maybe even entire castles full.

  Beside Jean-Loup hovered Angélique Saint-Germain, dressed in a floor-length crimson gown. She was pointing to the trapezists and whispering in Jean-Loup’s ear, and he was nodding, though he also seemed to be stifling a yawn. Seb hoped it was due to jet lag.

  Would The Great Adventure wake him up? Seb wondered, and his heart began to hammer. This was by far the craziest thing he’d ever done, which was really saying something for a boy who’d grown up in a circus.

  He took some deep breaths and tried to focus.

  The workmen had patched the stage after its collapse, but all the performers were avoiding the boards laid hastily over the giant hole. Seb had warned Frankie and Banjo to stay away from them too—if the boards gave way, they’d plummet right down into the basement, and probably break all kinds of bones.

  “And we’d be trapped when the directrice came looking for us,” Frankie had added darkly. Banjo had turned pale.

  “Hey, this was your idea,” Seb reminded her.

  “I know,” Frankie said defensively. “I’m just preparing us for the worst.”

  Onstage, the trapeze was rising back up to the ceiling, and the student performers were hanging sideways off it, waving good-bye to the crowd. Jean-Loup acknowledged them with a nod as he flagged down a server for more champagne. The circus magnate was looking downright bored.

  “Well,” Seb whispered, adjusting his trunk, “hopefully this makes him take notice.”

  They’d only had time to rehearse The Great Adventure once, in Audrey’s clown classroom, before sneaking backstage. Frankie and Banjo were familiar with their parts, but Seb himself had never actually acted out any of the roles. He was having particular trouble with a simple tumbling routine near the end of the scene.

  “I just can’t do this, guys,” he’d moaned to his friends when he ended up in a heap on the carpet.

  “Yes, you can,” said Frankie. “Just keep your chin tucked and shoulders strong.”

  “And anyway,” Banjo added, “you’re an elephant. You’re not really meant to tumble.”

  This had made Seb feel slightly better—if all else failed, he would just be an elephant.

  Across the stage, Frankie raised her hand to get his attention. And then, just as the stolen schedule had said it would, the lights went out in preparation for Angélique Saint-Germain’s final appearance.

  “This is it,” Seb whispered. And he stepped out onto the dark stage.

  FOR A FEW moments after the lights came back on, no one even noticed them—the circophiles were too busy chatting and stealing glances at Jean-Loup. But eventually, their chatter subsided as they spotted a monkey, a lion and an elephant on stage. A few of them giggled and pointed.

  Behind his plastic trunk, Seb tried hard to get into character, to really channel his inner elephant. But the thock of Angélique Saint-Germain’s high heels backstage was growing louder as she approached. His knees began to tremble.

  She appeared in the wing he’d just left and froze at the sight of them on stage. Her hands flew to her mouth. She took a step forward, then a step back, and Seb guessed she was trying to decide which was worse: letting the bêtes noires hijack her show, or stomping out on stage to publicly wring their necks.

  He decided to let her sort that out. He had a show to perform.

  Banjo the monkey had already sprung himself loose from his imaginary cage, and he was tumbling around the stage, delighted with his newfound freedom. Seb watched him leap and cartwheel, and he commended himself on the casting decision: Banjo was a first-rate monkey.

  While the monkey went to work on the lion’s cage, Seb stole a glance at the circophiles. Some looked puzzled, others amused. Others had returned to their conversations, uninterested in the act on stage.

  Once they were all free from their cages, the animals took off into the night and onto the streets of Bucharest. The lion went boldly, trying to scare off dangers with air kicks and punches. The monkey tumbled excitedly behind her. And the elephant took up the rear, inwardly questioning his decision to leave the safety of his cage for a world of uncertainty.

  It quickly became clear that they needed each other. When they lost their way, the monkey scampered up the lion’s back and perched on her shoulders for a better view. When an imaginary stray dog gave chase, the lion fought it off with an impressive sequence of kicks. She even threw in a flip off the stage, which made a few circophiles gasp.

  And when the trio sensed approaching humans, they tossed a big tarp (also borrowed from the costume closet) over the elephant and hid underneath it together until the danger had passed.

  Seb could never remember quite when it happened, but at some point, he forgot about the audience and the directrice backstage and even the possibility of getting shipped back to Eastern Europe the following day. He forgot about everyone and everything except the elephant he was pretending to be and the monkey and lion beside him. He even forgot how bad he was at acrobatics, and threw himself into his tumbling routine, which was far from perfect, but not so bad for an elephant.

  It was almost as if time stood still. It was, as Maxime had said, a sense of “flow.”

  The scene ended with the trio running off into the Romanian countryside, uncertain where they’d end up or what adventures awaited. It wasn’t exactly a happy ending, but Seb was fine with that too. It left things up to the audience’s imagination, so they could make up their own stories after the show ended.

  Only when Frankie gave him a good shove toward the wing did Seb come back to himself—a boy in an elephant costume who’d just hijacked a very important circus show.

  “Go,” she ordered. “Now.”

  He did as he was told, not even looking at the audience as he ran for the wing and ducked into the shadows.

  “Where do we go now?” Banjo asked.

  “Out the back door,” said Frankie. “Follow me.”

  “Wait!” Seb said, for he’d heard something. “Hang on.”

  “No time!” Frankie snapped. “She’ll be after us.”

  But Seb couldn’t move. “Do you hear that?” he whispered.

  They stopped to listen.

  Out in the theater, the circophiles were applauding.

  THE DAY AFTER the impromptu premiere of The Great Adventure, Seb, Frankie and Banjo found themselves once again sitting on the bench outside Angélique Saint-Germain’s office, listening to Bruno pound out a concerto on his computer keyboard. No one knew quite what would happen when the directrice let them in, but all agreed it probably wouldn’t be pretty.

  Oliver Grey had said as much when he’d intercepted them backstage the previous night.

  “You guys need to get upstairs,” he’d told them. “Right now.” And he’d hustled them out the back door and into the stairwell. “Stay in your rooms ’til you’re told otherwise.” And he’d glanced around, as if expecting the directrice to appear, on a rampage.

  Banjo and Frankie took off running up the stairs, but Seb stayed back.

  “Did you see it?” he had to ask.

  Oliver nodded, lips pressed tightly together.

  Seb braced himself for the worst. “What did you think?”

  Oliver sighed. “Seb, you just hijacked a really important performance. With a modern circus show you wrote yourself.”

  “I know,” he whispered, holding his breath.

  “This is not going to go well for you,” Oliver said, shaking his head. “Which is too bad, because that was a really good little show.”

  Seb let out his breath. “Really?”

  “Really,” said Oliver. “I shouldn’t be proud of you, but I kind of am. But that isn’t going to stop her from wringing your neck.”

  “I know,” said Seb. But now he was grinning—he couldn’t help it. His very first show was “really good.”

  “Go to bed,” Oliver told him. “We’ll talk about this tomo
rrow.”

  Seb ran upstairs, feeling equal parts terrified and elated. He’d written and performed a circus show that had made a theater of circophiles applaud. His favorite teacher was proud of him. And what’s more, he was rather proud of himself.

  He barely slept a wink that night, and when the Scout came to collect them all the next morning and escort them to the directrice’s office, he could tell Frankie and Banjo hadn’t either.

  “Are you uncomfortable?” Banjo asked suddenly.

  “Obviously,” Frankie grumbled, shifting on the bench.

  “I meant Bruno,” said Banjo.

  The directrice’s assistant looked up from his computer.

  “It’s just that I think your desk is too small,” said Banjo. “Maybe you should ask for a new one.”

  Bruno stopped typing. He looked at Banjo liked he’d never seen him before.

  “He’s right,” Frankie chimed in. “What have you got to lose?”

  “Nothing but a very small desk,” said Banjo.

  Before Bruno could answer, the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, listened, then put it back down. “She’s ready for you,” he said. “All of you this time.”

  “Just think about it,” Banjo advised him as they filed into the office.

  Angélique Saint-Germain was seated at her whale-sized desk, in front of her wall of accomplishments. She’d changed out of her crimson gown but hadn’t bothered to take off her makeup from the night before. Her lipstick was smudged and her mascara clumped, and she reminded Seb of Stanley the clown, post-performance.

  They stood before her desk, shoulder to shoulder, and the directrice stared at them for a very long moment before demanding, “What on earth were you thinking?”

  Frankie and Banjo looked at Seb. He stepped forward. “We were just trying to—”

  “You were not invited to perform!” she cried. “Did I not make that clear? You…you misfits, you felons went and hijacked the most important soiree for the most important person in the entire circus world! What were you thinking?” she bellowed, waking Ennui, who’d been snoozing on his cushion beside her desk. The dog grunted.

  “Answer me!” the directrice snapped. “Whose idea was this?”

  “Mine,” Seb said quickly. “Look, I—”

  “Yours.” The directrice’s eyes locked on him. “Of course it was. How very like a Konstantinov—always needing to be in the spotlight.”

  “That’s not true,” he began.

  “You are truly your father’s son!”

  “Well, of course I am!” Seb cried in frustration. Frankie poked him in the ribs. “Sorry,” he added, and took a deep breath. “Look, I—”

  “You are truly your father’s son,” the directrice went on. “Except, as we have established, you have no talent for performing. That show—if we can call it a show—was terrible. Abysmal. Appalling, even. Your form was off, all of you. Your tumbling was terrible. And parkour? In an acrobatics performance?” She threw her hands in the air. “What were you thinking?”

  “I wanted to tell a story,” Seb said quietly.

  “A story?” the directrice repeated. “A story? Who cares about stories? What matters, as I have told you—”

  Just then, the door opened and Bruno stepped inside.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “I have a message,” he said. “I thought you should know now.”

  “Now?” cried the directrice. “Why now? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of—” She stopped, and her eyes widened. “It’s not from him, is it?”

  Bruno nodded.

  “Mon Dieu.” She clasped her hands at her heart, then beckoned for Ennui to come to her. The dog looked the other way.

  “Ingrate,” the directrice hissed, then turned back to Bruno. “Well, what is it? Say it quickly.”

  Bruno paused for a long moment, and Seb could have sworn he saw the corners of his mouth twitch. Was Bruno enjoying this? he wondered.

  “He’s going to donate,” said Bruno.

  The bêtes noires gasped.

  “I knew it!” Angélique Saint-Germain tore at her hair. “I knew he’d drive me back into hiding and tar my reputation—” She paused. “Wait, he’s what?”

  “He is?” Banjo exclaimed.

  Frankie cursed in Italian.

  Now Bruno couldn’t hide his smile. “Jean-Loup said he enjoyed the show last night. Especially the last performance.”

  “He did?” Seb’s mouth fell open.

  Bruno nodded. “He said he appreciated the story. In fact, it’s inspired a new idea for a Terra Incognito show, in which he plans to set some circus animals free, back into the wild. It’s a statement about the modern circus,” Bruno added. “He hasn’t worked out the details yet.”

  Frankie swore again, this time in French.

  “Anyway,” Bruno went on, “he’s going to send us a check.”

  “A check,” the directrice whispered. “For…how much?”

  “Let’s discuss that later,” Bruno said, nodding at Seb and his friends. “But it’s a significant sum.”

  For a moment, Angélique Saint-Germain sat very still, staring into the middle distance. Then her gaze snapped back to the bêtes noires. “Leave us,” she told them. “Now.”

  They didn’t have to be told twice.

  “SEBASTIAN.” THE SCOUT tapped him on the shoulder. “Phone call for you.”

  Seb looked up from his math homework, which he’d been doing in the student lounge. “For me?”

  The Scout nodded, then strolled away, smiling.

  Seb jogged over to the phone and picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Sebastian,” said Dragan Konstantinov. “I have an important question for you.”

  “Dad!” Seb exclaimed. His father had never once called him at school. “Is everything okay?”

  Seb heard a scuffle on Dragan’s end, then his father snapped, “Would you give me some space? I am talking to my son!”

  “All right, all right,” muttered Stanley the clown.

  “Seb,” Dragan said again, and Seb steeled himself for bad news. “I received a call from Angélique Saint-Germain just now.”

  “Oh!” Seb sighed with relief. “Right. She said she was going to call you.”

  “And she did,” said his father. “She called me to sing your praises, to tell me about your intelligence and creativity! Sebastian,” he said seriously, “is the woman all right? I mean, is she all there?”

  Seb had to laugh.

  “She said you had the makings of a future circus director! That you created a brilliant show that knocked the monocle off Jean-Loup! Jean-Loup! Is this true?”

  “I guess so.” Seb grinned.

  For a moment, Dragan fell silent. Then he let out a whoop. Somewhere behind him, all the Konstantinovs began cheering as well. Bells jingled. A horn honked.

  “Bravo!” cried Maxime. “Bravo, Seb!”

  Seb’s mouth was starting to hurt from smiling. It had started that morning, when the Scout delivered a note from Angélique Saint-Germain, written on nice, heavy cardstock that was smooth to the touch. It read:

  Sebastian Konstantinov, Francesca de Luca and Banjo Brady:

  You are welcome to apply for early admission to your second year at the Bonaventure Circus School. This is a privilege reserved for only the most promising students. We hope you will accept this offer and stay with us another year, continuing to work hard and contribute your unique talents to our world-class circus school.

  Sincerely,

  Angélique Saint-Germain

  P.S.: You are, of course, no longer on probation.

  “I’m proud of you, Seb,” said Dragan.

  “Thanks, Dad,” said Seb.

  “I wonder…” his father went on. “I mean, if it doesn’t interfere with your schoolwork, perhaps you could…” He paused and cleared his throat. Seb waited. “Perhaps you could start working on a show…for the Konstantinovs. Something we could tackle when you come home this summer?”

>   “Yes!” Seb practically shouted. “Of course! I’ll get on it right away.”

  “Just…” Dragan lowered his voice. “Just make sure there’s a ringmaster in it.”

  “I will,” Seb promised. “But Dad—” He glanced behind him, where Frankie and Banjo had appeared in the doorway, dressed in winter coats and mitts. “I’ve got to go, okay? My English teacher is taking us to Mont Royal to go sledding.”

  “Who’s us?” asked Dragan.

  “My friends.” Seb grinned again. “The bêtes noires.”

  He hung up the phone, then ran to join them.

  La Fin

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  UN GRAND MERCI to all who helped in the making of this novel, whether by listening to me ramble on about the modern circus, accompanying me to shows on various continents, reading incoherent first drafts or even bravely attempting to teach me circus acrobatics. I am deeply indebted and still mildly bruised.

  Special thanks to:

  Lynne Missen, the greatest editor I could hope for and a wonderful human as well, and the entire team at Penguin Random House Canada.

  Marie Campbell, for championing my work, believing in the worlds and characters I dream up and for thoughtful and savvy advice.

  Vikki VanSickle, Tanya and Julia Kyi, Kallie George, Zoe Grames-Webb and Louise Delaney, for being astute and amenable first readers.

  My circus mentors, especially the remarkable Natalie Parkinson-Dupley at Toronto’s Hercinia Arts Collective, Duncan Wall, Lori Sherritt-Fleming and the crews at Cirque-ability and the Vancouver Circus School. (I do want to note, however, that while I did pester various circus pros at various schools, Bonaventure and all those in it are creations of my imagination, not based on anyone or any place I encountered.)

  And finally, wholeheartedly, to the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Access Copyright Foundation for supporting my work and that of so many Canadian artists. We truly could not do what we do without you.