Balthazar Fabuloso in the Lair of the Humbugs

by I. J. Brindle

  “Out of all of our hides.” Mr. Fabuloso grimaced. There wasn’t an employee in the Magic Mansion Dinner Theater who didn’t live in fear of its owner, Rose Pfeffenfucher, and her vicious, penny-pinching ways. “But today we have an even bigger problem,” he added, shoving the horseshoe into Stan’s baggy blazer pocket. “The Fistulas are in the house and we all have to work together to undo their stinky mojo.”

  Behind the curtain, in the shadowy pre-show darkness, the stage had a mysterious, breathless feeling, like an egg about to hatch. Even the tacky purple and gold Christmas tree managed to look magical.

  “Well, my fabulous, fabulous Fabulosos,” Mr. Fabuloso intoned as they all held hands in a circle. As he spoke, the worry cleared from his eyes, the stoop straightened out of his shoulders and he became once again the tall, dark, dashing man that Magic Gurrrrl magazine editors had swooned over all those years ago.

  “Look at us! Have you ever seen anything more fabulous?”

  Swiveling his outsized nutcracker head, Balthazar looked from his father’s care-worn features and freshly waxed mustachios, to his mother’s dimples and deeply etched focus lines, to Gaga’s proudly arched nose and low-cut dress, to the twins’ floppy rat ears and gap-toothed grins, to Fanella, who pulled a face and pointedly wiped Balthazar’s palm-sweat off her hand.

  “Listen,” Mr. Fabuloso said, inhaling deeply. “Do you hear that?”

  Through the thick, dusty curtains came the sounds of tinkling glasses, clattering cutlery and low-voiced waiters mixing in with a synthesizer version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker overture.

  “Breathe it in. Do you smell that?”

  All Balthazar could smell was a steamy waft of baked ziti mixed with sickly sweet rose air freshener.

  “Our fans,” Mr. Fabuloso continued. “Those people on the other side of that curtain are giving us a precious gift. Two hours out of their lives. Two hours they will never get back. They’ve all made an effort to be here. So let us, too, make an effort. Let us make these next two hours the most fabulous two hours they’ve ever had!”

  “Except for the Fistulas,” Mrs. Fabuloso added, eyes glittering darkly. “Them we send slithering back to the swamp that spawned them.”

  In the wings, Stan started the countdown on his fingers. Ten . . . Nine . . . Eight . . .

  “Be yourself,” Gaga reminded Balthazar, patting his big nutcracker cheek. “Dat is vhere de real magic is.”

  “Except I don’t have any real magic,” Balthazar reminded her.

  “Right, right. Oh vell, you must be yourself anyvay,” she replied, “seeing as everyone else is already taken.”

  “Nuts, nuts, nuts,” Balthazar recited woodenly as the curtains swept open and the stage lights blazed up. “Nuts to you, nuts to me, nuts to everyone I see!” Shaking cellophane-wrapped bags of candied nuts out of a secret compartment up his sleeve, he lobbed them out into the audience.

  “Eeeee!” Mrs. Fistula screamed through a mouthful of creamed spinach. “Nut allergies! Nut allergies! I’m swelling! I’m swelling!” Then she burst into shrill laughter, spattering goopy green gobs everywhere.

  “Improvise,” Mr. Fabuloso coached from the wings. “Say something clever to put those boffins in their place.”

  “Smile,” Gaga urged, ignoring the fact that nobody could see him through his big papier-mâché head. “Turn on the charm!”

  “You’re doing great!” Mrs. Fabuloso encouraged.

  “An evil spell has trapped me in this state.” Balthazar soldiered on. “Why must I be cursed with this nutty fate?”

  “Because you’re a loser!” Blake hollered back. “With a freakishly large mutant head!”

  A few audience members snickered disloyally.

  “Snowflake, snowflake sparkling bright,” Balthazar continued, his thoughts drifting to baseball. His gym teacher had said he had a good arm. Suggested he try out for the team. Which he would have loved to do except he had rehearsal that day. And why exactly was he thinking about baseball at a time like this?

  “Nutso’s talking to a snowflake now?” Blake guffawed. “What a freak!”

  “Grant me the wish. . . .” Focusing on Blake’s grotesquely gaping mouth, he wound up for the pitch.

  Time slowed as a bag of nuts left Balthazar’s hand, curving in a perfect arc toward the Fistulas’ table and . . .

  “Yeah, a wish not to be a . . . gack!” Blake spluttered as the nut bag hit home.

  Before any of them had time to react, Gaga appeared onstage with a loud POOF, spraying the Fistulas with facefuls of glitter.

  “Nuts to the nuts,” she said, and winked as the tide of laughter turned in their favor. With a wave of her wand, all the lights on the Christmas tree blazed into life. The show was off to the races.

  “Could we have been more fabulous?” Mr. Fabuloso said, gleefully slinging an arm around Balthazar’s shoulders, applause still singing in their ears as they hurried backstage to get ready for the second act. “You sure showed them. Those pustulant Fistulas must be ready to pop!”

  Finally free from the dreaded nutcracker head, Balthazar smiled drowsily. He still ached at bit from his fall through the bathroom floor.

  “Your best performance ever,” Mrs. Fabuloso gushed, applying more liner around his eyes. “Did you feel anything? A little glimmer?”

  Balthazar shook his head.

  “Never mind, never mind. With or without magic, you’re a star.”

  Log # 368

  I don’t believe in zombies, but I think I might have just seen one. Which sounds all cool and everything in theory, but is actually pretty unpleasant in person.

  To rewind a bit, intermission started pretty much like you’d expect, with my parents arguing about the dud bad-luck charms Moms had bought off the weird hobo and Moms stabbing her dessert fork into the back of Dad’s hand because how dare he criticize her when at least she had done something instead of sitting around like some unemployed failure. My hopes that the spurting blood would get us kicked out and save us from a future in dinner theater were quickly dashed when it became obvious the idiots around us thought it was all faked for their benefit. Soon there was quite the little crowd around our table, including a gaggle of goo-goo-eyed girls lining up for selfies with Blake. Note to self: remember to kill yourself before you develop hormones.

  Anyway, as all this was going on, Humphrey spotted a blowfly pattering over a splatter of creamed spinach. Only before he could pounce, stupid Blake swatted it away and off it zipped across the theater and disappeared through the keyhole of this little door beneath the stage.

  Luckily for me and Humphrey, the door was unlocked, so we could follow it. The area under the stage was dark and dusty, and the only light we had to see by were these weak slivers of light filtering through the floorboards over our heads. The air was stale and very, very cold, much colder than the dining room, and it smelled like rotting meat. But the creepiest thing was the sound, like swarming flies but with a whisper to it, too. Like a promise.

  Then I felt something under my combat boot. Something soft and organic. Suddenly it lurched up, the zombie or whatever it was, shadows churning over its face, so deep and dark it looked like there was no face there at all. A hollow, whispering buzz swarmed out of the emptiness, and the cold deepened, pressing in around me.

  I backed away—one step, two steps—then I ran.

  I don’t know. Now that Humphrey and I are back at the table, with the bright rose-colored lights and raspberry Jell-O, I’m beginning to wonder if I overreacted. It could have been just some homeless guy seeking shelter on a cold day, or a trick of the light. Or a crappy-food-induced hallucination. I’ve heard bad ziti can do that.

  6. Scene-Stealer

  Back in the Fabulosos’ dressing room, all the hurried costume changes, makeup touch-ups and prop checks made intermission feel like it was over before it had even begun.

  “Okay, girl,” Balthazar said, tucking Rover’s tail under and sliding her into the secret compartment in his sl
eeve, “this is it.”

  All ready for the next act, he took a deep breath, poured himself a steadying capful of cocoa from his thermos and was just raising it to his mouth when Fanella pounced.

  “Okay, Dweebazar, we’re on!”

  “Hey,” Balthazar protested as the warm cocoa splashed down the front of his costume.

  Fanella, beyond noticing such things, continued pushing him back toward the stage. “Don’t block my light. Don’t fidget when I’m talking. Say your lines quickly and don’t milk them. Keep your eyes on me at all times. Oh yeah, and remember to be amazed and enchanted by everything I say and do. And don’t look nervous, because that makes people worry about you and steals focus. This is about me, not you.”

  She was so busy lecturing that she forgot to look where she was shoving, and pushed Balthazar right into their hapless stage manager, sending all his carefully compiled lists flying into the air in a flurry of white.

  “If you screw this up for me,” Fanella said, scowling, as they took their places onstage, “I’ll staple your ears to your forehead.”

  Then the curtains swooshed open, the music surged up and Fanella, suddenly all dewy sweetness, pulled a vial of sparkly bubble fluid from her pocket and began to sing.

  “I know you have troubles,” she warbled, waving her bubble wand through the air, “so I am offering you these bubbles. A bubble for your thoughts. A bubble for your troubles. And we will float away from care like sudsy-wudsy bubbles.”

  She was supposed to be singing this song to Nutso the nutcracker—a song to bring him courage in the darkest hour of his battle against the twin Rat Kings, who had already gnawed their way out of a giant ball of baker’s twine and were now randomly handcuffing themselves to each other. But Fanella only had eyes for one real boy—a boy whose attention was fully focused on uploading a picture of his upside-down-spoon face to his Twitter feed.

  Undaunted, Fanella sang on, ignoring Mrs. Fistula, who was pointedly fluffing her bad-luck peacock feathers at her, and Mr. Fistula, who had rudely buried his nose in Macbeth, and Pagan Fistula, who was blandly popping every bubble that came close with a dessert fork. Louder and louder she sang, filling the air with more and more bubbles, until, with her last shrieking high C, the bubbles all burst and Blake finally looked up.

  “Catch it if you can.” Fanella smiled, blowing a few more bubbles, then plucking one out of the air, bouncing it on the stage and tossing it to Blake.

  “A rubber ball,” Mr. Fistula sneered as Blake caught the rainbow shimmering orb. “Big whoop.” But as Blake held it up get a better look, it popped.

  “Easy come, easy go.” Fanella winked, eyes shining, cheeks flushed, and, in that instant, looking truly like the star she so badly wanted to be. “Fidget and die,” she whispered to Balthazar through her smile as she tossed a little gold jingle-bell into a freshly blown bubble.

  Instead of popping, the bubble captured and held the little bell inside its thin, shimmery skin. Gasps and applause filled the dining room.

  Balthazar had no plans to fidget. These were actually his favorite kind of moments on stage—the moments when he could just slip quietly under the radar and not be noticed. In fact, he had already settled into a comfortable state of semiconscious autopilot when a sudden strange tussle up his sleeve jolted him back to consciousness. The sensation was so unexpected, it took him a moment to realize what it was. And when he did, it was too late. Rover had wriggled out of the secret compartment and was loose in his sleeve.

  Balthazar frowned. Rover had never done anything like this before. Doves aren’t wrigglers or explorers. Put them in a snug, contained space, and they basically just zone out until you’re ready to produce them. Which is what makes them so perfect for fake stage magic. But there was no time to get into the logistics of it all now. The fact of the matter was, the dove was now raking his arm with her scrabbling claws. Quickly, before she could flap out onto the stage, Balthazar closed his hand around the wriggling bump in his sleeve.

  “Do that again,” Fanella ventriloquized, blowing bubbles around a glittery sugarplum and a sprig of holly, “and I will pound you into hamburger meat.”

  The stage lights had shifted to purple, and swirly, dramatic music throbbed through the air. A tiny goldfish in a bubble floated past Balthazar’s face.

  Fanella was coming up to the climax now—the part where she sent a hundred flickering votive candles in bubbles floating out into the audience like fireflies in a midsummer night’s dream. The part where hushed and reverent stillness was essential to the overall effect. Flitting about the stage balletically, Fanella captured more and more candles in her iridescent bubbles, all of them rising up and bobbing around her in a glowing cloud.

  Come on, Balthazar urged her silently. Hurry up! He needed to get offstage to sort Rover out, but he didn’t dare move and disrupt the moment.

  Suddenly a cold, wrenching pain stabbed deep into the side of his thumb. The dumb bird had pecked him! Hard! “AHHHHHHHHH!”

  “It’s Rover,” Balthazar started to explain as Fanella whirled on him furiously. But just as he tried to form the words, the bird arrived at his armpit.

  “You think this is funny?” Fanella demanded as Balthazar let loose a loud whoop of tortured laughter in her rage-splotched face.

  “No,” Balthazar pleaded, bubbles popping and twinkling candles falling all around him. “Just . . . just shut the curtains!”

  But it was too late. The runaway lump had gotten around to the back of his costume now, between his shoulder blades but heading south fast.

  “What’s that?” Mrs. Fistula screeched delightedly as Balthazar groped around his back.

  “Somebody isn’t potty trained,” Mr. Fistula tsked as the lump scrabbled down into Balthazar’s pants.

  “No, it’s not—” Balthazar began, but he was interrupted by a loud, horrifying rip from the backside of his costume. Out through the rip burst a wild blur of white feathers, flashing talons and black, bottomless eyes.

  Black? Balthazar thought in a fog of confused humiliation, as the bird kamikazied out over the howling heads of the Fistulas and the rest of the guffawing audience. Black? But Rover’s eyes were pink. . . .

  “GNIZ AMA sawt aht!” the twins hooted, trying to high-five Balthazar as the curtains whisked closed.

  “The show must go on,” Mr. Fabuloso blustered.

  “I don’t think anyone even noticed,” Mrs. Fabuloso said soothingly.

  “Of course they noticed!” Fanella sobbed indignantly. “A bird burst out of his butt!”

  “Not on purpose,” Balthazar protested miserably.

  “Duct tape!” Gaga prescribed, pulling a roll from her purse and scrrrrching off a strip. “Just a quick patch job and ve’ll be back in de business. Bend over.”

  Balthazar shook his head. The timing couldn’t be worse, but what clearer sign can you get than complete public humiliation in front of a dinner theater full of people?

  He took a deep breath, then he said it. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mr. Fabuloso said. “It was just a little wardrobe malfunction.”

  “You’re doing great!” Mrs. Fabuloso insisted.

  “No,” Balthazar said, “no, I’m not. And I’ve never been great. I’m not like the rest of you. I’m not a performer.”

  “N-Now, Balthazar,” Mr. Fabuloso stammered, turning pale under his greasepaint, “it’s true you’ve never been exactly normal, but the Fabulosos are a family act.”

  “Normal?” Balthazar shouted. “I’m the only normal one in this family! Why can’t you all try being normal for a change!”

  Everyone fell silent, staring at him like he had just asked them all to start eating boiled kitten heads for breakfast. On the other side of the curtains, the audience was quiet, too. He guessed he must have been shouting pretty loudly. “I quit,” he said, and, legs shaking at the enormity of what he had just done, he left the stage.

  7. The Other Side of the Curtains

>   “You made the right decision.” Stan slurped sympathetically as Balthazar slumped past him. “Not all of us are cut out to be a special. Cough drop?”

  Balthazar’s stomach flip-flopped as he looked down at the tin of lint-flecked mentholated candies. “Uh, no thanks.”

  Alone in the dressing room, he let out a long sigh. He had finally told his family who he really was, and the world hadn’t ended.

  Technically speaking, the changeup was not that big a deal. The Fabulosos all understudied each other’s parts, so it was easy to make the switch. So there’d be one less rat, and the performer playing Nutso would now talk in weird gibberish twin language. As Mrs. Fabuloso said, most people probably wouldn’t even notice.

  Balthazar quickly wiped off his stage makeup, changed into his street clothes and took a long look at himself in the mirror. Except for the faint black smudges around his eyes, he looked like what he was—a regular, everyday kid. And at last he was free to be that. No more spandex. No more tramping about the stage like a doofus. If he was going to fail, he might as well do it on his own terms.

  His thumb throbbed as he screwed the cap back on his thermos. Looking down at the dark, bruised puncture, he suddenly remembered his crazy pet. As much as he wanted to strangle that insane feather duster, he was also pretty worried. Something really weird must be going on with her to make her freak out like that. And then there had been that weird blackness in her normally pink eyes. He needed to find her. Right away.

  His thumb hastily bandaged, Balthazar slipped silently past the box office where Rose Pfeffenfucher was plopped toad-like in her pink Aeron chair, triple-checking her receipts. Then into the lobby, where the Fistula girl had ducked out of the show and was sitting on one of the giant rose ottomans, teeth sunk deep into her own arm like some kind of freaky Little Miss Muffet zombie cannibal.