The Tiger's Egg

by Jon Berkeley

  An intricate pattern of waxy scars covered Stranski’s arms and throat, a legacy of the trailer fire that had almost killed him many years before. His terrible injuries had ended his career as an acrobat, and Gila said that this had robbed him of his good humor as well as his voice, although Miles was sure he must have been short of patience all his life. He poked Miles none too gently in the chest, and wagged his head from side to side like a metronome. Miles had become used to Stranski’s sign language, and he understood this as a reprimand for moving his head. He was sure he hadn’t moved at all, but he was wise enough to heed the warnings of a man who threw razor-sharp knives at him every evening, when he wasn’t sawing him in half.

  Stranski was no less gruff with Hector the monkey. It was the monkey’s job to sneak under the banked seats, pick the pocket of someone in the audience and slip the stolen wallet into Stranski’s own pocket without being noticed. Stranski would keep an eye out for the monkey’s little hand as it reached up from under the seats, and at the end of the act he would single out the unwitting victim and astonish him by producing the wallet from inside a colored handkerchief, before it had even been missed.

  There was a lot to be learned in the days before the circus took to the road. During the day Miles tended the circus zoo under Umor’s and Gila’s instruction. They taught him how to feed and care for the animals, how to keep them healthy and calm and how to end the day with the same number of limbs with which he started it. With every animal bite and aching muscle he felt himself grow in confidence and strength.

  Sometimes, when no one was around, he would try to talk with the lions, but they would gaze at him disinterestedly for a moment and return to their grooming, or to pacing the length of their wheeled cages. Then Miles would talk instead to Tangerine, who would poke his head out of Miles’s inside pocket and smile his lopsided smile at the lions. The life that Little had sung into the stuffed bear while she was still a Song Angel allowed him to climb like a koala and walk like a gin-soaked sailor, but his mouth was a row of clumsy stitches, and he was no more capable of uttering a word than he had ever been.

  Little worked with the circus band for most of the day, coaxing from them an unearthly music that grew sweeter as the days went by. The other performers, too, were tightening up their acts and perfecting their routines, and though Miles spent most of his time with the animals he was soon on nodding terms with everyone in the circus. Everyone, that is, except Doctor Tau-Tau. The fortune-teller’s wagon stood at the end of the field, shaded by a tamarind tree and with its curtains drawn day and night, and never a sign of its mysterious occupant. Miles passed the wagon every evening on his way home to Partridge Manor. Sometimes he would be startled by a jet of steam from the narrow stovepipe on the roof, or a burst of tuneless singing that would break off abruptly as he approached, and he felt his curiosity grow with every passing day.

  “Have you ever seen him?” Miles asked Little as he locked up the elephants’ pen for the night.

  “No,” said Little. “There’s a small bird in his wagon—I’ve heard her talk, but from Doctor Tau-Tau I have only heard snores, and snores speak of nothing.”

  “I wonder what he’s hiding from?” said Miles.

  “Maybe he has two heads,” suggested Little.

  “One called Tau,” laughed Miles, “and the other called Tau.”

  Little put her finger to her lips.

  “Nobody’s listening,” said Miles, looking around.

  “I am,” said Little. “Listen. The bees are singing the flowers. That’s just the sound I needed.”

  “Bees don’t sing,” said Miles. “That humming is made by their wings beating.”

  Little laughed. “Of course they sing, Miles. They hum that part of the One Song that makes the flowers grow, and the flowers feed them in return.”

  “I thought it was you Song Angels that sang the One Song,” said Miles.

  “The Song Angels look after the One Song,” said Little. “They tie it all together, but everything has its part. The bees sing the flowers. The crows sing the thorn bushes and the seagulls sing the wind. Everything is connected, Miles.”

  They were approaching Doctor Tau-Tau’s wagon now, and as they drew closer Miles was sure there were voices coming from inside. Little looked at him, wide-eyed, and they crept forward and stopped behind the trunk of the tamarind tree.

  “You can’t blame that on me,” a voice was saying.

  “Oh, but I do,” said another, with an unpleasant titter. “Who else should I blame?”

  “I didn’t have enough time,” said the first man, and Miles thought he could hear a slight quaver in his voice. “No one should have to work under those conditions.”

  “You lost me my associate,” said the other. “I gave you the job of bringing him back from the cliff, and instead you pushed him right over the edge. You’re an idiot masquerading as a fool, Tau-Tau, and you’ve chosen the wrong time to come out of hiding. It’s not even you I was looking for, but you’ll do for starters!” The man dissolved into a giggling fit, although there was nothing very funny in what he was saying.

  “Wait . . . wait!” said the other voice, sounding genuinely frightened. “I know what you’re looking for, and I think I know where to find it. I’m getting close. We can work together . . . can’t we?”

  The other man tittered again. Something about the sound made Miles’s skin crawl. He felt Little grip his hand tightly. “Tell me,” said the voice, “and you had better not waste my time.”

  The other man lowered his voice. He began to speak rapidly without taking a breath, but Miles could no longer make out the words. He looked at Little, crouched beside him in the grass. “We should leave,” she whispered. Miles nodded, and they crept out onto the road that led to Partridge Manor.

  “Do you think we should tell Lady Partridge?” said Little.

  Miles shook his head. “There’s not much to tell really, and she’d only worry about us leaving with the circus. If we tell anyone it should be the Bolsillo brothers, but I’m not sure it’s any of our business anyway.”

  They walked on in silence toward the big square mansion with its glowing windows, and when Miles glanced over his shoulder he thought he saw a small figure slip out of Doctor Tau-Tau’s wagon and steal away into the night.

  Lady Partridge, gowned, groomed and freshly scented, sat at the head of the table on the night before the circus took to the road. She had invited the Bolsillo brothers to dinner, and they sat in the new dining room, which was smaller and more friendly than the original one had been. In place of the marquises, duchesses and theater directors who once would have been her guests, Lady Partridge felt unaccountably pleased to find herself hosting a dinner for three small acrobat clowns, a boy who befriended tigers and a girl who had fallen from the sky.

  The conversation at the meal was lively. The excitement of their imminent departure had chased the weariness from the circus performers. They had spent the morning unpacking the big top and laying it out in the long field for a final inspection. Every rope and pole and eyebolt had been counted, and the smaller children had walked the spread-out canvas in their bare feet, looking for tears and burst seams. Every hole had been patched and every frayed rope replaced; blocks had been greased and checked for rust, and the whole structure had been packed away again and loaded onto the three long trucks that would carry it from town to town.

  The animals were restless too. They had lived their lives on the road, and knew as they were led into their hosed-down wagons that before dawn they would be starting on their own strange migration through the smells and sounds of the thawing countryside.

  “Red sky at night,” said Gila, gesturing toward the window with a pork rib.

  “Gives my dog a fright,” said Umor.

  “That means good weather, doesn’t it?” said Miles.

  “My dog affects the weather?” said Umor.

  “A red sky,” said Miles.

  “That depends,” said Little. “A r
ed sky means the Council of Light is meeting. The weather that follows depends on how the meeting goes. Usually many things are resolved, so of course there will be calm skies, but if the meeting ends in anger there will still be a storm afterward.”

  “Well,” said Lady Partridge, “let’s hope this meeting goes smoothly.” She tapped a knife on her glass, waking a couple of cats who were dozing on the sideboard. “A toast to the Circus Bolsillo,” she said. “May the new season surpass all expectations.”

  Drinks were raised and glasses clinked.

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Fabio.

  “I’ll drink to anything,” said Umor.

  “Among the reasons I invited you here,” said Lady Partridge to Fabio, “was to ask if you would do me the favor of keeping an eye on Miles and Little for me.”

  “We can look after ourselves, Lady Partridge,” protested Miles.

  “Indeed you can,” said Lady Partridge, “and better than many of your elders, as you have already demonstrated. But it worries me that that dangerous little Cortado man is on the loose again. You may have outwitted him once, but that only gives him more reason to bear a grudge. Only yesterday there was a report in the Weekly Herald that he had been sighted in Shallowford, and while I don’t place much reliance on that bundle of fish wrapping, I can’t say I feel comfortable about you being out on the road while he is still at large.”

  “Well if he was seen around these parts, maybe it’s better that we’re leaving for a while,” suggested Miles.

  “Perhaps,” said Lady Partridge, though she did not sound convinced.

  “Don’t you worry, Lady P.,” said Umor.

  “We’ll watch them like our own cash box,” said Gila.

  “Besides, we’re more than a match for that little half-pint.”

  “Even if we’re just quarter-pints.”

  “There are three of us.”

  “Which makes us a liter.”

  “Thank you, boys,” said Lady Partridge with a smile. “That makes me feel a lot better.”

  There was a soft knock at the door of the dining room, and a small boy in pajamas poked his head around the door. “There’s a man at the door. He says he has a special devilry,” said the boy, who looked half asleep.

  “Thank you, Marcus,” said Lady Partridge. “I rather hope you mean delivery.”

  The boy nodded. He turned to leave, but the door swung open and Fowler Pinchbucket pushed past him, carrying a heavy box and almost knocking Marcus off his feet. “Pardon the interruption,” he grunted, and tried to remove his cap, forgetting for a moment that he had his hands full with his special devilry. He caught the box before it slipped from his grasp, and plonked it down on the sideboard, scattering the cats. “Imported,” he said, as though that explained everything.

  “What on earth . . . ?” said Lady Partridge, inflating dangerously.

  “A present for Lady Pinchpartridge from the Rat Bucket,” said Fowler, clearly flustered by Lady Partridge’s daunting glare. He began again: “A present for Lady Partridge, from the proprietors of the Canny Rat.”

  “I’m not expecting any deliveries, and certainly not at this hour,” said Lady Partridge frostily.

  “Yes, well,” said Fowler, “apologies for that. We keep odd hours, being in the licensed trade, and as soon as we heard that you had taken in the Wednesday boy as well as the rest of our old work . . . our orphans, Mrs. Pinchbucket insisted that I deliver this token of our appreciation. If you see what I mean.”

  Lady Partridge eyed the sweating man suspiciously as he opened the box and lifted out a large mantel clock. It had a black lacquered case, arched at the top and otherwise completely plain. The face was painted with roman numerals, and the hands stood at a minute to midnight.

  “Very nice,” said Fabio, breaking the silence.

  “Your house’ll never blow away with that in it,” said Umor.

  “Well, thank you, I’m sure,” said Lady Partridge, rather taken aback. “Can I offer you a drink before you leave, Mr. Pinchbucket?”

  “No thanks,” said Fowler, touching the brim of his cap. “I’m needed at the taps.”

  As he made to leave, a whirring sound came from the clock, and everyone turned to look. It began to chime, and what a chime it was! The sound was as light and pure as the clock was plain and heavy. It swirled around the candlelit room, carrying with it a flavor of foreign lands that was so strong you could almost smell it. No one moved or breathed until the last echoes faded into silence. Even Fowler Pinchbucket stood transfixed, his hand on the door handle, and a smile invading his sulky face.

  “Why, that’s absolutely beautiful,” breathed Lady Partridge.

  “Like a lark in a cinder block,” said Gila. “What would you say, Sky Beetle?”

  “I like it,” said Little. “Whoever made that lives beside water, and has listened very well to the songbirds.”

  “Is anyone eating that?” said Fowler Pinchbucket, pointing to the last pork rib on the platter.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A DEEPER SECRET

  Miles Wednesday, scarf-wrapped and half-awake, sat on the box seat beside Fabio, who drove the Bolsillo brothers’ wagon at an easy pace along the road that led from Larde to the distant mountains. The birds were beginning to awaken in the trees, and the sky ahead of them lightened toward dawn. Fabio spoke softly to the massive horses that plodded slowly ahead of them, and Miles listened in comfortable silence, not yet awake enough for conversation. He tried to make out what Fabio was saying, but the words were unfamiliar, and punctutated with little chucks and whistles that did not seem to have any meaning.

  The three long trucks that carried the big top had gone well ahead of them, and were long since swallowed up by the orange blob of the rising sun. With them had gone the tent boys, K2 the Strongman and the Bolsillo brothers’ hardworking elephants, Tembo and Mamba. They would reach Shallowford well before the rest of the circus, and there they would make ready the tent to be raised, once more hands had arrived.

  Miles had been allocated the spare bunk in the Bolsillo brothers’ wagon. He had cleared it of polka dot socks and luminous wigs, and found a space among the ropes, the hoops, the cymbals and horns and greasepaint for the small trunk that Lady Partridge had packed for him. Little was to ride with the Toki sisters, a troupe of contortionists who had arrived just weeks before from the Far East. Miles had seen the Toki sisters at practice, tying themselves into a fantastic beast with four heads and many limbs, and he had heard that they could fold themselves up like deck chairs, or make themselves into hoops and roll effortlessly around the ring.

  He leaned out and looked back along the road to see if he could spot Little. Directly behind them came the blue and silver wagon of the mysterious Doctor Tau-Tau, and behind that was the lion cage, driven by the haughty Countess Fontainbleau, and the battered van belonging to Stranski the Magician, followed by the Zipplethorpe family’s horse trailer, but the Toki sisters’ wagon was still lost in the morning mist.

  “When did Doctor Tau-Tau join the circus?” asked Miles.

  “Just after Christmas,” said Fabio.

  “He was abroad for many years,” said Gila.

  “But he was with Barty Fumble’s before that,” said Umor.

  “Why does he never leave his wagon?” asked Miles.

  Fabio shrugged. “Who knows?” he said.

  “None of our business,” said Gila.

  “People join the circus for many reasons,” said Fabio.

  “And it’s not always a good idea to ask.”

  “A man’s wagon is his castle.”

  Miles pulled his overcoat tighter to keep out the biting cold. There seemed little point in trying to tell them about the conversation he had overheard from Doctor Tau-Tau’s wagon, and in any case the fragment he had heard would mean little on its own. He wondered how many secrets the circus carried with it as it wound through the countryside. Perhaps a clue to his father’s disappearance still lurked in one of the painted wago
ns. He always pictured his parents in a wagon with a magnificent tiger’s head painted on it, but he was not sure why, and he knew of no such wagon in the circus.

  “Which wagon belonged to my parents?” he asked. “Is it still with the circus?”

  Fabio cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said.

  “And no,” said Gila.

  “What they mean,” said Umor’s voice from inside the wagon, “is that all the wagons change hands.”

  “They get repainted.”

  “And refitted.”

  “They get married and separated.”

  “Sometimes we make a new one from two old ones.”

  “I once tried to turn one inside out,” said Gila, “but I couldn’t get the wagon through the door.”

  Miles waited for them to finish. “Which one is it?” he repeated.

  “Tau-Tau’s wagon,” said Fabio, staring straight ahead.

  Miles leaned out to the side and looked back along the road. Tau-Tau’s wagon was directly behind them, and for once he could see Doctor Tau-Tau himself, perched on the box seat in his battered fez. His face was round and red, with a little tuft of beard dangling from it so that he looked like a goat in a coat. Miles tried to picture Barty Fumble himself sitting on that very seat with Miles’s mother beside him, but while he could clearly see his barrel-chested father in his mind’s eye, his mother was as indistinct as a noonday ghost.

  He turned back to Fabio. “What was my mother’s name?” he asked. For years he had known nothing about his parents, but in the months since he had learned of his mother’s death in childbirth and the subsequent disappearance of his father from his own circus, he had begun to think that it was time to start filling in the new and hollow feeling that had grown within him.

  “There’s a village up ahead,” said Gila.

  “That’ll be Hay,” called Umor from inside.

  “Nice little inn there,” said Gila.

  “Very reasonable too,” said Umor.

  Fabio kept silent, watching the horses’ broad backs.