Harper and the Circus of Dreams

by Cerrie Burnell

  As the helicopter rose into the sky, Great Aunt Sassy waved a velvet glove through the mist and called a fond goodbye. She was off with the Dutch Opera House for a weekend in Holland, while Harper was staying with Madame Flora at the ballet school on floor three.

  “Let’s split up and find someone to take us to the circus,” said Ferdie eagerly.

  The children nodded and scampered away. Harper knocked on the ballet school door, but Madame Flora gently shook her head—she was teaching classes all day.

  Ferdie and Liesel raced home to their flat on floor five. But their father, Peter, a famous German writer, only muttered about having to finish his next novel. Brigitte, their mother, was halfway through painting a portrait of Ludo the cat.

  Nate’s mom was at the library, and his two older brothers were fixing a broken guitar, so he tried the Lucas family on floor seven, only to find them having a party for the twins’ birthday.

  The last person left to ask was wise old Elsie Caraham.

  “Oh, Harper,” Elsie sighed, “I would love nothing more than to visit that extraordinary circus. But I have to look after Memphis and Tallulah’s kittens.”

  Harper knelt to stroke the little bundles of fur and tails. A kitten with silver and black stripes whipped out a claw and scratched her. Harper didn’t mind at all. If there was one thing she loved, it was cats.

  Elsie tutted. “That kitten’s a little bit wild,” she mumbled as she waved Harper away.

  Harper wandered out of Elsie’s flat and went to find the others. They were perched on the rooftop, looking down at the sleek white streets below.

  “We’ve never crossed the city alone by foot,” said Harper.

  “And the trains won’t run in the mist,” said Ferdie.

  Liesel kicked a potted plant. She was feeling very irritable indeed. “If only I were a mouse,” she grumbled. “Then my nose would lead us to the Circus of Dreams.”

  “We just need to wait until the mist clears,” Harper said soothingly. “Then I can fly us there in the Scarlet Umbrella.”

  Nate put his head to one side. “Maybe we don’t need to wait.” He shrugged. “Maybe I can lead us there. I can find my way around in the dark, so the mist shouldn’t be that different.”

  The others clapped their hands in delight. Though Nate couldn’t make out his friends’ faces, he felt the warmth of their gaze, and he grinned at them. “Come on! Let’s do it!”

  “What if we lose sight of you?” asked Ferdie. “It will be like we’re wandering through Star-stealer cloud.”

  “Instruments!” yelled Liesel. “If we all play the same song, we can follow the sound.”

  Everyone nodded, and Smoke gave a yelp of agreement, shaking her fur and scattering stars. The children quickly picked them up and wove them into their hair. They looked quite wonderful, as if they’d been sprinkled with moon dust. “Goodbye,” they called to the other residents as they clattered down the stairs, promising to bring back stories from the circus.

  As afternoon shadows fell across the city, four proud figures emerged through the murky mist, each of them edged with the glow of fallen stars. First came a boy with a golden-eyed wolf. Upon his head—over his pork-pie hat—was a trusty tambourine, and in his arms he carried a bronze trumpet he’d just started learning.

  He was followed closely by a girl as nimble as a little brown mouse. In one hand, Liesel held a bow, and in the other, her gleaming violin. Behind her came Ferdie, with his squeaky button accordion gripped tightly to his chest.

  Last came the girl with the rare musical gift. Harper could play any instrument, although she’d never really known which one was truly for her. This time, Harper had chosen Great Aunt Sassy’s Mexican banjo.

  Three paces behind the line of children tiptoed Midnight, his white-tipped tail almost invisible in the frosty mist. Harper cleared her throat and called out a count of four, and they all began to play.

  As they wove through the empty streets, Nate and Harper kept the main tune going, a folk song of fairy tales. Liesel played the harmony, and Ferdie added off-key chords that sighed. This mist is nothing at all like cloud, Harper thought.It’s full of marvels and mystery.

  Crossing the city was no easy task. It was a huge jumble of streets, lined with museums and cafes and birdhouses. It normally rained every single day, in many different ways. But the mist had stolen away the rain, leaving the air feeling cold and crisp.

  Nate followed the deserted train tracks until the scent of lilacs filled his nose. “We’re at the Museum of Flowers!” he yelled, honking loudly on his trumpet.

  A few steps later, Smoke gave a sudden growl and Nate paused, bending down to feel the ground around him. It was soft and mossy like the bank of a river. Nate pulled a star from his pocket and dropped it, listening for the sound of its splash. They had reached a small, dark canal. Carefully Smoke guided the children alongside it. Then the air was alive with the twitter of birds. “The Central Aviary,” Nate said with a grin. “We’re halfway there.”

  On they stumbled, down a street lined with pancake houses and across a leafy park. Somewhere along the journey, Midnight wandered away. But Harper wasn’t worried. Midnight knew the city as well as he knew his own whiskers.

  As the mist thinned, everyone stopped still. Above them was something that seemed to have fallen from a dream. The unmistakable red-and-gold of a circus tent, only this one was floating high in the clouds.

  Chapter Five

  THE RED-AND-GOLD TENT

  The first time you see magic, you will feel it in your heart and know it in your toes. The air around you will thicken and the world will seem to glitter. Nothing else will matter but the wonder of impossible things coming true. This was how the children felt as they stared at the red-and-gold tent. Harper could not stop beaming, for the circus seemed so familiar, like she had seen it before, long ago.

  “How does it stay afloat?” gasped Ferdie, ignoring the urge to reach for his pencil and start scribbling a thousand stories.

  “I don’t care how,” yelled Liesel, who knew that something extraordinary was happening and felt her heart soar with joy.

  Nate sensed the splendor of the tent above, and Smoke, for once, was perfectly still.

  “Hot air balloons!” said Ferdie suddenly.

  Harper and Liesel saw that Ferdie was right. The red-and-gold tent was held in the air by a huge indigo balloon. Behind it was a carnival of other bright tents, all hanging from colorful balloons, towed through the sky by birds.

  “Look! That’s the way in,” shrieked Liesel, pointing to a rope ladder that dropped down from the tent.

  The children tucked their instruments away and hurried to join the line. The moment Liesel put her foot on the ladder’s rungs she felt a sense of enchantment tickle her feet, and she darted up the rungs as quick as a mouse. Ferdie climbed fast behind her, his scarf seriously billowing, his eyes wide open with wonder.

  Harper flipped the Scarlet Umbrella open and spun it upside down. “Meet us at the top!” she said to Nate, helping him and Smoke climb in. With a little tap, she sent the umbrella sailing toward the clouds. Then she placed her feet on the rungs and stepped toward the sky.

  Though the ladder was light and thin, it was safe and easy to climb. The City of Clouds spread out below, and Harper saw that everywhere except the park was still cloaked with mist. The scent of woodsmoke and toffee apples came drifting down, and Harper paused.

  “Perhaps I visited this circus when I was small,” she murmured, “or perhaps I came here in my dreams.” For even though it was new and exciting, something about it also felt like home.

  “Come on, I want to go in!” screamed Liesel, who had reached the top and was going wild. Ferdie scrambled up after her and held the umbrella steady for Nate to climb out.

  “I think we’re standing on solid Dragonsmoke,” said Nate, inspecting the ground beneath his feet.

  Liesel dropped to her knees and nibbled the cloud. “No, it’s bitter cotton candy,” she sai
d, laughing.

  “Ready?” said Harper. “Let’s go in!”

  Together they stepped into the red-and-gold tent, and into a new adventure.

  Chapter Six

  THE LIGHTNING-LEADER

  The inside of the tent was made entirely of black velvet. On a throne of silver in the center sat an old and startlingly elegant woman who, just like Skylar the storm-stirrer, had lightning in her hair. “How many tickets would you like?” she asked.

  The children fidgeted. No one had thought to bring any money.

  The woman with lightning hair seemed to read their minds. “Never mind,” she said kindly. “I believe you know my great-granddaughter, Skylar.” They all nodded happily. “So perhaps you can just give me something precious instead.”

  “Are you a storm-stirrer, too?” whispered Liesel, who was so struck with awe she was almost speechless.

  The woman’s brown eyes twinkled and her silver-gray afro crackled with blue light. “I’m a lightning-leader,” she explained. “I stop the storm once the circus has arrived. There’s only ever been one storm I couldn’t tame.”

  “Which one?” asked Ferdie, his mind dancing with words.

  The lightning-leader shook her head almost sadly. “Why, the Fearsome Storm, of course,” she replied.

  Everyone was quiet. In the velvety darkness Nate reached for Harper’s hand.

  “That’s a very special storm to us,” Harper murmured. The lightning-leader nodded and studied Harper’s face for a moment before beckoning Ferdie to come forward.

  Ferdie fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a handful of poems. “Will one of these do as a ticket?” he asked brightly.

  The lightning-leader sat taller on her throne and considered it, and then she took a single sentence from the middle of the poem, plucking the pencil letters right off the page and turning them into smoke.

  The children gasped and Liesel stepped up, hoping the lightning-leader might turn her into a mouse or a wicked spider, but the lightning-leader simply reached out a slender hand and lifted a drop of rain from Liesel’s tangled hair.

  Next, Harper played a melody of miracles on the Mexican banjo while the lightning-leader just gazed at her oddly.

  Nate played a tremendous trumpet solo, while Smoke shook the tambourine in her teeth. The lightning-leader laughed softly and pinched a strand of fur from Smoke’s silvery coat.

  “You may pass,” she announced, peeling open the curtains. The four children and the wolf thanked her and darted into the Circus of Dreams.

  An entire city of little tents bobbed before them, each pitched upon a cotton candy cloud. The tents were every color you could imagine—and some you could not. They were held in place by hot air balloons and linked together by sugary bridges that were as thin and wiry as cobwebs. “What shall we see first?” cried Liesel, feeling her feet suddenly drawn toward a striped tent.

  “Whatever you wish,” Harper said, smiling.

  “We could split up and try to find the storm-stirrer?” suggested Nate.

  “Whoever finds her first, play three sharp notes,” said Ferdie. “Music is our secret signal!” The children waved goodbye and set off through the floating circus.

  Chapter Seven

  THE CIRCUS OF DREAMS

  Ferdie strode across a cotton candy bridge toward a tent that smelled like Paris. Inside, he found a cake shop like none he had ever seen. Chocolate eclairs were sculpted into the shape of glass slippers. Marzipan mice had jelly bean hearts that seemed to beat in their tiny chests. And a miniature library of books had been carved out of gingerbread.

  “Go ahead, have a nibble—everything’s free,” came a friendly voice.

  Ferdie looked up to see a tall baker in a sweeping black apron. His long hair and beard were the blackish gray of storm clouds, but his eyes were warm and kind.

  Ferdie took a bite of a book. “That’s incredible,” he said dreamily, for instead of tasting gingerbread, he heard the lines of a story inside his head. It wasn’t just any old sentence, but the very same one the lightning-leader had taken as a ticket. “What else shall I try?” Ferdie asked.

  “One of these,” said the storm-cloud baker, offering him a cookie shaped like a harp. To Ferdie’s delight, it filled his mind with music. The tune was dreamy and starry and made him think of summer moons. Next, he sipped sweet tea from a cup made entirely of cake. The tea tasted of strawberries, and with the taste came a memory.

  All at once Ferdie was lost in his thoughts, remembering his seventh birthday when Liesel had stolen Elsie Caraham’s prize strawberries to give him as a gift. So he didn’t see the storm-cloud baker open a dark umbrella and fly to the top of the tent to fetch some lemon curd. Nor did he see him sail down again and tuck the umbrella under the counter. Instead, Ferdie stood completely still, enchanted by the memory of strawberries. Then he thanked the storm-cloud baker, waved a serious wave, and hurried on to explore the next tent.

  *

  On the other side of the circus, Harper was halfway across a swaying pink bridge when she heard the same tune she had played for her ticket. She skipped after it into a tiny tepee draped with flowers. There, in the middle, curled upon a silken cushion, was Midnight.

  “There you are!” Harper laughed, hugging her cat tightly. You see, Midnight was a most unusual cat. He had a way of knowing exactly where Harper was going to be, long before she arrived. Nobody ever knew how he did it.

  “Come in, come in,” came a crackly voice. Harper saw a little old woman with crimson lips and nightshade curls perched on a stool at the back. “She looks like a character from one of Great Aunt Sassy’s operas,” Harper whispered to Midnight, who gave a meow of agreement.

  “I’m Faydra, teller of fortunes,” the woman cackled. “Ask me a question, and I shall find you an answer.”

  Harper thought for a moment. She would have loved to ask about her parents—where they might be, what they were like. But she didn’t quite dare to. So instead she asked, “Which instrument is truly for me?”

  Faydra glared at a shiny crystal ball and mumbled, “Listen, Harper, you must play the instrument that quiets a storm. That is the only way.”

  Harper didn’t understand what that meant, but she thanked Faydra all the same, popped Midnight onto her shoulder, and wandered away to discover what lay in the next wonderful tent.

  On the farthest cloud from Harper, Nate and Smoke were taking their time, feeling the strangeness of the spun-sugar bridges and breathing the smells of woodsmoke and toffee.

  Smoke stopped, her ears pricked to the wind. Nate crouched beside her and listened. Slowly, a song came calling to him. A song of sea light and frozen tides, as if the singer were deep underwater. It was the most haunting melody Nate had ever heard.

  “Follow the song,” he whispered to Smoke, and he kept his hand on her back as she strolled into a crowded tent. Nate couldn’t quite make out what color the tent was, but he supposed it was mystical turquoise.

  Inside it was packed. There was a rush of air above him and, from the top of the tent, Nate saw a silvery shadow swing into the light. A woman on a trapeze, he guessed, only she was swinging in and out of a pool of clear water, her song never faltering. Nate imagined her to be beautiful, like a mermaid acrobat with eyes the color of the sea. And he was right, for her eyes were a wintery sea-gray and filled with a look of sadness.

  At the end of the song, just before she dived from her trapeze and into the water, she searched the crowd as if she was seeking someone out. But Nate was too far to feel her gaze, and the tent was too crowded for Smoke to see that around her neck the sea-singer wore a garland of feathers and fur—fur plucked from the coat of a silver wolf.

  A little way off Liesel stood outside a striped tent, staring at a sign that read THE DAZZLING RAT DANCERS. She had never seen a rat before. The City of Clouds had once been overrun by them, which was why every household now had a cat, but that had been long before she was born.

  She crept inside, her heart beating with
hope, but the tent was empty. Liesel stared as a boy stepped out of the darkness and onto a fine tightrope. He was tall, with narrow eyes and slightly pointed teeth. On a string around his neck he wore the same glistening raindrop that had been pulled from Liesel’s hair. She watched curiously as the boy began to play a melodeon. The instrument crumpled and sagged in his hands, and the boy seemed half asleep, even when nine enormous white rats came scampering forward. The rats were so nimble and quick, it was like watching miniature ballerinas. It was beautiful, but also quite boring.

  Liesel was very disappointed. “Your rats are very dull,” she called. “They don’t even look wicked!”

  The boy snarled angrily, showing teeth that were like those of a rat.

  “What makes you think rats are wicked?” he snapped, walking on his hands up and down the tightrope.

  Liesel tried to hide how impressed she was. “It says so in all the fairy tales.” She shrugged.

  “Not my rats,” said the boy said as he hung upside down by his knees. “I trained them myself. Watch this!”

  He began to play the melodeon again, only this time the tune was a merry muddle of madness, sending the rats into a series of flips and tricks. The boy turned a somersault and landed on his knees at Liesel’s feet, a trail of white rats spinning behind him.

  Liesel clapped until her hands hurt. “Why don’t you play that song in your show?”

  The boy chuckled sadly. “I want to, but my uncle won’t let me. He’s the ringmaster, Othello Grande. He controls the entire circus.”

  Liesel blinked and held out her hand, deciding that she liked this bedraggled rat boy. “I’m Liesel,” she said boldly. “I’m sorry your uncle’s so strict.”

  The boy shook her hand roughly. “I’m Rat,” he said with a vermin-like grin. “It’s okay. When the curtains are closed we do the tricks we want to do, anyway.”

  Liesel’s eyes brightened. “When can I see that show?” she asked.