School of Fortune

by Amanda Brown

  “What did you perform for Slava?” Benedict asked. “For your entrance skit?”

  “I fell down backward over a crowbar and waved my feet in the air. Then I danced with a bear named Pushkin.” As three forks paused in midair, Pippa realized she had touched a nerve. “He’s quite good.”

  Vik managed to comment, “Pushkin is very particular about dancing partners.”

  “Masha says he’s the star of the circus.”

  “Masha’s a dumb cook. I’m the star of the circus,” Lulu said.

  “Excuse me. I’m the star,” Vik corrected. “Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you’re good.”

  “Back up,” Pippa interrupted. “Is this a circus? I thought it was clown school. Balloons and honking noses. Big feet. Diplomas.”

  After a moment Benedict asked, “Does the name Slava Slootski mean anything to you?”

  “He’s the guy that hands out diplomas.”

  “He’s one of the greatest Russian clowns that ever lived.”

  “Does that prevent him from handing out diplomas?”

  “What’s this diploma crap?” Lulu inquired. “You don’t exactly need one to work in a circus.”

  Pippa took a deep breath. This school was off to a shaky start. “How did one of the greatest clowns who ever lived end up here?”

  “He had an accident getting shot out of a cannon. Someone packed in a double dose of gunpowder and blasted him clean out of the tent. He broke both arms and legs and the explosion made him almost deaf. He came here and lived in the woods. In the middle of winter Masha found him fishing in the river with his bare hands. She took him in.”

  “Did they find the perpetrator?”

  “It was probably Mitzi.”

  “That horrible elephant? Why didn’t Slava make Dumbo burgers out of her?”

  “Mitzi’s a very talented animal. You don’t just grind her up for a little temper tantrum.”

  Oy. “Tell me about Pushkin.”

  “Slava found him when he was a few days old. Orphaned.” Benedict washed down a mouthful of smoked fish with Slava’s vodka. “So Pushkin likes to dance with you?”

  Lulu exhaled a stream of cigarette smoke in Pippa’s face. “You strike me as rather clumsy.”

  For a pipsqueak, Lulu was a major pain, like a splinter under the fingernail. “From your vantage point, everything must look clumsy,” Pippa replied.

  Breakfast continued in silence until Vik leaped to his feet. “They’re back.”

  Pippa saw Slava and his pet bear at the edge of the woods. By the time they crossed the field, all three students had cleared the table and were standing at attention, awaiting their master’s orders. Pippa planted herself next to Benedict and made like GI Jane.

  As if they were invisible, Slava proceeded into the kitchen with his basket of mushrooms. Pushkin paused to lick Pippa’s ankles. “Bitch,” Lulu whispered. “You put sugar on your feet.”

  “I did not,” Pippa fired back. “I just have nice feet.” Lance had often commented on their pulchritude.

  Slava emerged from the kitchen. For a while he watched Pushkin’s tongue explore the crevasses between Pippa’s toes. Then, waving a fish in the air, he called, “Pushkin! Breakfast!”

  Pushkin preferred to lick Pippa’s toes. “In love,” Slava announced blissfully. He yanked Pushkin by the scruff of the neck away from Pippa’s feet. “Enough, greedy boy.”

  Slava led Pippa and Pushkin into the circus tent, where Vik was already circling on a unicycle, juggling. Pippa was amazed at his dexterity, particularly after the vodka. Slava was not. “Faster!” He tautened a low tightrope. “Walk!”

  For a terrible moment Pippa thought he was addressing her. Then she saw Pushkin scramble onto the tightrope. Slowly and delicately, the bear sidled from end to end. “He shows off for you,” Slava said. “Give kiss.”

  Pippa did so. She was beginning to warm to Pushkin, whose furry ears and pointed snout reminded her of a favorite gym teacher. Slava threw a small ball at Pippa. “Play catch.”

  Pushkin was a major leaguer. Once, instead of tossing the ball at Pippa, he gracefully kicked it to her. Once he caught the ball on his nose and balanced it while he twirled around in a circle. Slava was beside himself with excitement. “Look at him!” he cried over and over. Slava unearthed two pairs of roller skates from a trunk. Pippa was not surprised to find that Pushkin skated better than she did. He could certainly juggle better. Pushkin could also ride a unicycle.

  “Enough!” Slava finally barked. “Time for nap.” Pushkin didn’t move. “Lie down with him for few minutes,” he told Pippa.

  “Here?”

  “In bed, where else? Get bottle from Masha.”

  Although busy mashing turnips for lunch, Masha had Pushkin’s milk bottle ready. “Is it good or bad that Pushkin likes me?” Pippa asked.

  “Very good, Cluny. You travel all over world. Wear wonderful costumes.”

  “All over the world?” Pippa echoed unenthusiastically. Thayne would just love her ex-daughter joining the circus. “To tell the truth, I’d be happy with just a diploma.”

  “What is that, diploma?” Masha returned to her turnips.

  Pushkin snatched his bottle from Pippa’s hands and scampered into the last trailer, which was decorated like a seven-year-old’s room. He nestled into a large basket lined with flannel sheets. Curling into a brown ball, he placed one paw around his bottle, the other around Pippa’s foot.

  “I hope you don’t expect a bedtime story,” she said.

  In reply Pushkin removed a large-print edition of Goldilocks from a bookshelf. He dropped it in her lap, curled back into a ball, and looked imploringly at her. “Guess that answers my question,” she muttered, and began to read.

  The bear soon fell asleep. Pippa worked her foot free and tiptoed out of the trailer. At the far end of the field she saw Vik, Benedict, and Lulu doing chin-ups on a set of parallel bars as Slava paced before them, brandishing a whip. “Cluny! Show me strong arms!”

  Pippa was hoisted up to the pole. She lasted about four chin-ups before falling off. Benedict let go after a couple dozen, then Lulu. Slava waited until Vik reached one hundred. “Enough.” He turned to the three weaklings on the grass. “Good clown strong clown. Now do push-ups.”

  Once again Pippa conked out first. Lulu was up to two hundred when Slava threw ropes at them. “Stop. Jump rope now.”

  Pippa did so until her thighs gave way. Slava then had them race around the perimeter of the field. Despite having the shortest legs, Lulu won. “Boys, you let little lady beat you again?” Slava cried. “Go jump in Delaware.”

  Pippa followed her classmates to the river, where they stripped to their underwear. She reluctantly followed suit, exposing lace bra and panties.

  “Very nice,” Vik leered.

  Scowling, Pippa dove into the water. Everyone swam to New Jersey and back. They dressed and did forty minutes of joint-popping stretches in the midday sun followed by a barrage of cartwheels and somersaults.

  “You say back somersault your specialty,” Slava said as she lay retching on the grass.

  “I can do six in a row, Mr. Slootski. Not thirty.” “Lunch!” Masha called.

  Pippa staggered to the picnic table. The midday meal consisted of mashed turnips, buckwheat groats, and collard greens accompanied by buttermilk and more vodka. “Very good food for clowns,” Masha told Pippa, piling her plate high.

  Pippa smiled wanly. “Is that what you do every morning?” she asked Benedict.

  “Slava went easy on us today. We usually have to run up and down the mountain after the cartwheels.”

  Vik swallowed his vodka. “You’ve got to be in great shape to ride elephants and get shot out of cannons. Not to mention set up tents, fly on a trapeze, and dance with bears.”

  “When I got here, I could hardly do a push-up,” Benedict said. “Now I’m up to ninety.”

  “In one week?” Pippa was astonished.

  “Two years.”

&nb
sp; She did the math. “You mean you flunked Slava’s course a hundred times?”

  “The course lasts until Slava thinks you’re ready to work. Don’t worry, he doesn’t charge you more than six hundred bucks no matter how long it takes.”

  Feeling ill, Pippa turned to Vik. “How long have you been here?”

  “Four years.”

  Lulu? “One year. Don’t try to escape, either. Mitzi can smell you a mile away. She’s got razor-sharp tusks and can run as fast as a car. Swims like a fish, too.”

  “What about contact with the outside world? Going home for Thanksgiving?”

  “You don’t get it.” Lulu finished her turnips. “This isn’t Beer and Barf U. You’re at the Russian Circus Arts Academy.”

  The damn Harvard of clown schools. “What if people flunk out? Then they can leave?”

  “Clowns don’t flunk out, Cluny. They either cut it or they commit suicide.”

  Banter ceased as Masha placed a fresh bottle of insect repellent on the table. The outhouse door slammed behind the trailer. Moments later Slava appeared, raring to go. “Lunch finish! Back to work!”

  Slava’s troupe paraded back to the tent. “Cluny, ride Bobo.”

  As she stared at the saddle behind the elephant’s ears, Pippa wondered if she still had health insurance. It probably didn’t matter: if she fell from that height, she wouldn’t be worth saving. Slava snapped his whip an inch from her face. “Ride!”

  Bobo stood placidly until Pippa mounted the knotted rope. Then he did his utmost to shake her loose. Fortunately, having received her first pony at the age of four, Pippa knew how to stay in the saddle. Finally even Slava grew tired of Bobo’s rearing and stomping. “Quiet!” The elephant became still. “Cluny, dismount into net.”

  Pippa looked down. The net looked barely strong enough to catch a kitten. Think diploma. She amazed herself—and everyone else—by doing a perfect swan dive, bouncing a few times, and rolling off the edge of the net to terra firma.

  “Bitch,” Lulu hissed. “You took tumbling.”

  “Twelve long years, Tiny.”

  The class practiced juggling for several hours. Pippa thought her neck would snap when she brought her chin back down. “Break tent,” Slava said.

  Students and elephants flattened the tent in five minutes forty seconds. That was not a better time than yesterday, so Slava made them erect the tent and tear it down again. Still no improvement, so they had to do it a third time. “Five minutes,” he finally announced. “Why you not do this first time?”

  “Inexperienced help,” Vik panted.

  “You’re welcome.” Pippa’s hands looked like 3-D blisters with fingernails. “Why must clowns pitch tents, Mr. Slootski?” “You complain to help? You think you tsarina?” “Eat!” Masha called.

  Everyone trudged to the picnic table, there to be served glasses of cloudy liquid. Pippa sniffed. “What’s this?”

  “Beer from tree bark. Drink! Very good for clowns.”

  Slava downed his glass in one go and poured another. When that was gone, he felt refreshed enough to roar, “Now practice swallow the sword!”

  Pippa couldn’t help but think that, were she home in Dallas, she’d be sitting on the veranda at Fleur-de-Lis, sipping a mojito. Here she was poised on the rim of a slashed esophagus.

  “Something the matter, Cluny?” Vik asked.

  “I had no idea that being a clown was so life-threatening.”

  “Being good at anything is life-threatening.”

  “I see. Excuse me.” Maybe her cell phone would work in the middle of the field.

  Within ten steps Mitzi galloped out of nowhere to breathe down her neck. “She thinks you’re trying to run away,” Vik called.

  Pippa held her cell phone up to Mitzi’s tusks. “Phone! Dingaling!” She dialed Sheldon. No service available. Damn!

  When she returned to the table, Slava made her open her mouth. “Wide! More wide!” He shook his head. “Not big enough for best sword. Vik, teach banana peel.” Slava went with Pushkin into the last trailer.

  Vik tossed a napkin onto the grass. “Say that’s a banana peel, Cluny. Here’s your basic fall.” He splatted onto the ground. “Did you see how I broke the impact with my hands?” “Ah ... not really.” Pippa watched Vik do it again. “I think I get it.” “Try.”

  Despite twelve years of tumbling, which Thayne had financed in hopes of becoming the mother of an Olympic gold medalist, Pippa swiftly discovered that fake falling required a strength and agility beyond her. Vik made her try again and again. “I’d appreciate a mat,” she fumed. “Or at least a helmet.”

  Slava, dragging a large trunk, and Pushkin, holding a tambourine, exited the trailer. Spying Pippa flat on her back, the bear shot over to lick her face. Slava yanked Pippa’s amour away by the ears. “Show me fall, Cluny.”

  Pippa hit the dirt. Pushkin expertly struck his tambourine at the moment of impact. “Very good,” Slava commended. “We do more tomorrow.”

  “She only falls once? You made me do fifty my first day.” Lulu whirled on Pippa. “You slept with him, you bitch.”

  “Never question Slava Slootski!” The master punished Lulu by having her walk on her hands across the field while he taught Pippa how to do Russian cartwheels. It was hard to say who was more disoriented by the time Masha called them for dinner.

  The troupe ate mushroom stew with mashed potatoes. This time Pippa thought Slava’s fiery vodka tasted exquisite. “You like stew with fresh mushrooms?” he asked.

  “Delicious, Mr. Slootski.” Pippa could barely keep her eyes open.

  “Tonight you dance boogie-woogie with Pushkin.”

  “Okay.” She tried to sound enthusiastic. “I didn’t get much sleep on the plane last night.”

  Not Slava’s concern. “Clown’s life of illusion long, hard work.”

  Mitzi bellowed from the other side of the meadow, where she had been uprooting shrubs with her trunk. Pippa turned around. She could swear Mitzi was glaring at her. “Does she have indigestion?”

  “She heard you’re going to dance with Pushkin,” Lulu whispered. “She hates other women touching him.”

  “Oh! Now I’m trying to screw the bear, too?”

  “Shhh.” Masha served another multiton piéce de résistance, cheesecake topped with huckleberries. Pushkin licked all but three off the top then scampered to the clothes trunk. He began pulling out all sorts of costumes and tossing them in the air.

  “Look! Pushkin very excited to dance, Cluny.”

  “So am I, Mr. Slootski.”

  “Liar,” Lulu hissed. “All you want is Slava.”

  “All I want is a diploma,” Pippa hissed back.

  “What you girls whisper?” Slava was getting annoyed. “Tiny, go wash tent. You too, Vik and Stupid.” After they left, Slava dotingly watched Pushkin try on a few hats. “He is wonderful bear.”

  Pippa’s courage made a fleeting appearance as she finished her vodka. “Mr. Slootski, may I discuss something with you?”

  She removed six soggy hundred-dollar bills from her bra and secured them beneath the bottle of insect repellent. “First of all, I’d like to pay you for a week of clown lessons.” She swallowed hard. “I will pay you ten thousand dollars when I get my diploma.”

  Slava’s face clouded. “Why for?”

  “Because I really want a diploma.”

  “Then you leave me?”

  “Yes, that’s a possibility.” Oops, very bad move. “On the other hand, maybe not. This career seems to involve certain skills that I used to have, and could probably work up again, and you’re the best clown in the history of circuses so this would be an honor and challenge, certainly an adventure ...” Pippa’s verbiage trailed off. “Let’s just say I might stay a while.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You try to bribe Slava Slootski?”

  “Never!”

  “Then why you offer me ten thousand dollar? You think I care about money?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. But
you’ll need at least that much to get those trailers moving. And feed Mitzi.”

  “I have plenty money in mattress. I need no more. I need dancer with Pushkin.”

  Never let them see you sweat, honey. A memory of Thayne driving a hard bargain with the Mansion on Turtle Creek flashed across Pippa’s mind. What she needed was ruthless, overwhelming force. Pippa cleared her throat and leaned over the table. “Let’s make a deal, Mr. Slootski.

  You give me a diploma. I’ll dance with Pushkin for six months and give you ten thousand dollars.”

  He thought that over. “One hundred thousand.”

  “Fine! One hundred thousand dollars.”

  Slava laughed from the belly. “Bravo, Cluny! You lie like Russian!”

  Pippa realized she should have made at least a few faces before agreeing to the hundred grand. “It won’t be easy, of course. My father will have to sell his farm.”

  “Farm?” Now Slava was the one leaning forward. “Animal or vegetable?”

  Pippa racked her brain to think of a warm, fuzzy answer. Ah! “He grows mushrooms. Little white ones. They’re very cute.”

  Slava’s eyes burned with rage. “Your father works many years to make ‘cute’ mushrooms. Now you sell his farm like that?” He snapped his fingers. “Dirty your family name?”

  “No! My family name means everything!”

  “Never speak more about diploma, Cluny Google. I do not never steal man’s mushroom farm.”

  “Wait!” Pippa shouted as he stalked off. “We’ll sell my mother’s shoe collection!” The outhouse door slammed in reply. Pippa put her face in her hands. Blithering idiot!

  Now was the moment to run away. Mitzi and Bobo were nowhere in sight, nor was anyone else. Pushkin’s nose was buried in the trunk of costumes. Pippa tiptoed away from the table, ducked beneath the kitchen window, and began picking up speed as she neared the Delaware River. She was nearly in the water when a rope flew over her shoulders and circled her waist. She was jerked into the air like a rodeo heifer and dragged over dirt and rocks back to the kitchen trailer.