School of Fortune

by Amanda Brown

  Masha descended the steps, laughing as she set up an old record player on the picnic table. “You play cowboy with Pushkin? Is his favorite game.”

  Pippa smiled in resignation. “He’s certainly good with a lasso.” Masha untied her. “He love you like Romeo and Juliet. Is very romantic bear.”

  Pippa tried to look happy about it. Slava returned with a fresh smile, having left his recent negotiations with Pippa back in the outhouse. He squinted at an LP lying on the picnic table. “Find Cossack,” he told Pushkin.

  Pushkin unearthed two Cossack costumes from the trunk as Slava dropped the needle on a deeply scratched vinyl disc. “Dress! Dance!”

  Over the next three hours Pushkin and Pippa hoofed their way through every costume in the trunk: gypsies, Apaches, Viennese aristocrats, astronauts, the Flintstones, pirates, cops, nurses. Pushkin’s energy never flagged. Pippa found herself strangely inspired: if she closed her eyes, she could easily convince herself that the strongest, gentlest man on the planet held her in his arms. It was a rare and ecstatic fantasy. When the moon appeared over the Poconos, she finally sat down. “Sorry, fellas. That’s the end of me for tonight. Thank you, Pushkin.” She kissed his nose. “May I go to bed now, Mr. Slootski? Promise I’ll have more energy tomorrow.”

  Had Pippa asked him for the Milky Way, Slava would have said, “Of course.”

  Still in a nurse costume, Pippa drooped to the trailer. For the first time since infancy she didn’t bother washing her face, brushing her teeth, or changing into pajamas. She fell into a deep sleep that lasted until. . . what was that horrible rocking ... an earthquake . . . Mitzi upending the trailer . . . Pippa opened her eyes. Moonlight streamed in the window. She smelled honeysuckle and the Delaware River. The rocking was for real.

  “Slower, you ape,” Lulu whispered.

  Aha: her petite classmate was having sex. Pippa didn’t even want to know with whom—or what; however, the mystery was solved when Benedict’s voice cut through the dark. “Shut up! I’m trying to sleep.”

  “Ditto,” Pippa said.

  The rocking instantly stopped. “You awake, Cluny?” “Thank you for asking.”

  Vik’s head swung over the bunk. “How was dancing, Nurse Ratch-ett?”

  Pippa went outside. Benedict joined her when Lulu’s moans became Wagnerian. She rubbed her aching feet. “What I wouldn’t give for a hot tub.”

  “Let’s go down to the river. It’s almost as warm.” He led the way, not in the least concerned that he was naked. They finally reached the riverbank. Benedict dove in. “Water’s perfect.”

  Pippa unwrapped the Ritz-Carlton hotel soap that Masha had left in a community pail. It smelled fragrant but somewhat unreal, like her former existence. She hesitated a moment, then stripped off her nurse costume and waded in. The water was lusciously warm. Pippa was so entranced with making suds that she didn’t notice a miasmal stench until it was, literally, breathing down her neck: Mitzi.

  “Benedict?” she called softly, paralyzed. “Where are you?”

  Downstream, smoking marijuana from a stash in the goldenrod. “What’s up?”

  “I need you here right now. We have company.”

  Thinking she meant the police, Benedict mashed his joint into the mud and swam away.

  “Benedict?” Useless! Pippa slowly turned around. There stood Mitzi, big as a barn. “Hi.”

  Mitzi emitted a deafening shriek. Pippa watched in horror as Mitzi’s trunk slithered toward her like a giant cobra. The trunk stopped at the bar of soap. “All yours,” Pippa said, placing it on a rock. She slowly backed away.

  Fascinated, Mitzi ate the soap. Displeased at the aftertaste, she thundered after Pippa, who was already halfway up the hill, buck naked, running for her life. Pippa burst into the dorm as Lulu and Vik were winding down in gooey sighs.

  “Make her go away,” Pippa whimpered, diving into her bunk.

  Vik peered over the upper edge. “Now this is a distinct improvement.”

  Mitzi rammed the trailer. Vik was knocked to the floor, where he remained, perhaps unconscious. “What’s going on down there, Cluny?” Lulu asked, annoyed. “Surely you don’t think Vik can get it up again tonight. Give me a little more credit than that.”

  “Shut up! Mitzi’s trying to kill me.”

  A second ramming shook the trailer to its foundation. “Give yourself up, then. I need my sleep.”

  “Fine. If I don’t dance with Pushkin, this circus goes nowhere.”

  “I knew you’d be trouble, bitch.” Lulu hopped out of her bunk, squishing Vik. She removed a large plastic bag from a cabinet and flung open the door. “Come here, precious!” Lulu patted Mitzi’s forehead as the pachyderm consumed enough marijuana for an army.

  “That’s not cruelty to animals, is it?” Pippa whispered as Mitzi shuffled into the forest.

  “I save your neck and you worry about an elephant’s drug habit?”

  Benedict made a belated appearance around the side of the trailer. “You didn’t,” he said, eyes on the empty bag.

  “Mitzi can return it tomorrow in nice neat loaves for recycling.”

  “That was the road kit, you sot!”

  “Go ahead. Hit me.”

  He did, with force. Lulu grabbed a broom and started swinging back as Benedict fended her off with an old ladder. Half the time he missed, smashing a trailer instead. “Vik! Wake up!” Pippa cried. “Lulu and Ben are killing each other.”

  Vik came to and crawled to the doorway. “I put five bucks on Lulu.”

  Pippa got her cell phone after Lulu took a womb-crushing jab in the gut. “I’m calling 911.”

  “Won’t do any good, Cluny.”

  Pippa noticed that, despite his amorous exertions, Vik was ten inches from calling it a night. “Get away from me.” “No way.”

  “Help! Mr. Slootski!”

  “Save your lungs. Slava could sleep through the Battle of Stalingrad. “

  Vik was well on his way to forcible consummation when Pushkin, snarling ferociously, broke through the screen door and batted him away. Pippa fled to the outhouse where, to her amazement, her cell phone rang.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” Sheldon snapped. “Where are you?”

  “Right this moment? In an outhouse. Apparently the only place in Milford, Pennsylvania, with cell phone reception.”

  “How’s the ‘Harvard of clown schools’ treating you?”

  Pippa forced back her hysteria. “Listen, Sheldon, I’ve made a mistake. I’m stuck in the woods with a bunch of lunatics, two wild elephants, and a dancing bear.”

  That was laying it on a bit thick, even for Pippa. Sheldon’s voice became stern. “Don’t tell me you won’t be getting a diploma again.”

  He thought he heard a man and woman hurling coarse genital insults at each other. Then he heard an insistent pounding. A male voice, urgent with testosterone, shouted, “Listen up, baby! I’m naked, you’re naked, what are we waiting for?”

  “Are you naked?” Sheldon demanded. “The truth, young lady.”

  “Yes! So is everyone else! What does that matter?”

  “You were going to buckle down and work. Not party all night long.”

  “I am not partying!” Pippa screamed. “My God! Bobo’s trying to knock the outhouse down!”

  “Bobo who? Is he French? I’ll report him to student housing.”

  “Bobo’s an elephant.” Pippa screamed again. “Go away, Pushkin! Stop scratching on the door!”

  “Is Pushkin the naked gentleman?”

  “Pushkin is the bear.”

  Sheldon winced as she screamed a third time. “I’m going to call in the morning, Pippa. Thank heaven Anson isn’t alive to see his only granddaughter drunk and carousing like a common tart.”

  “Don’t hang up!” Too late. Pippa felt like dropping her phone down the two-holer.

  “You alone in there, sweetheart?” Vik called.

  “Mr. Slootski’s with me.”

  That did the trick.
“Have a nice night, guys! Let’s go, Bobo.”

  Pippa counted to ten and cracked open the door. Only Pushkin remained, holding a Wilma Flintstone costume and Goldilocks in his teeth. Pippa slipped the toga over her head. “Thank you.”

  She followed Pushkin to his trailer and read aloud until his eyelids closed.

  As dawn yellowed the Poconos, Pippa was awakened by sounds of gunfire. She found herself on the floor hugging a mound of brown fur. She shuffled outside to find Slava with a pistol, which he apparently used for reveille instead of a trumpet. “Good morning, Mr. Slootski.”

  Slava’s mouth dropped open. “You sleep with Pushkin?”

  “It got a little noisy in the dorm. You didn’t hear anything?”

  “Nothing. Where is Mitzi?” Slava trudged into the woods. “Wake other clowns, Cluny. We have big, big day.”

  Pippa popped her head inside the dorm. Vik was nowhere in sight. Lulu slumbered serenely beside Benedict: last night’s brawl was mere foreplay. “Up and at ‘em,” she called, slamming the door.

  She went to the river. Masha was there with a washboard and a basket of laundry. “Good morning, Cluny. Okay if I use nice soap?”

  Masha had just scrubbed everyone’s filthy underwear with Chanel Precision cleansing foam. The last quarter inch out of the tube barely produced enough suds to cover Pippa’s nose. “Have you seen Vik?”

  “He sleep with me last night,” Masha said, eyes aglow. “Vik is ver-rrrry sexy boy.”

  Gross! “And you’re a verrrrry sexy girl,” Pippa replied, her ten years of etiquette school finally paying off. “Have you by chance seen my clothes?”

  “I wash them.” They were drying on the reeds.

  Pippa checked the pockets of her soaking trousers. “Did you happen to see any little pieces of plastic?”

  “Over there. You not need them. Slava take care of you now.”

  Pippa plunged into the razor-sharp cattails, where she located her Perdita Rica driver’s license and a Chippa Flushowitz debit card. “When do you think that will dry?”

  “Why you not wear cave outfit today? Very nice fit.”

  Very nice itch, too. However, Pippa had no choice. She returned to the trailer and tucked her last cash reserves into her bodice. Like a prisoner of war, she had to be ready to escape at a moment’s notice. The flacon of Thayne perfume went in as well.

  Her classmates were already doing chin-ups on the parallel bars as Slava paced before them chanting, “Good clown strong clown.” His tone changed when he saw Pippa. “No chin-up for you today, Cluny.” He kissed her hands. “Blister must heal.”

  “Whore,” Lulu wheezed, her face a frieze of agony. “You screwed Slava in the outhouse.”

  “I read Pushkin to sleep last night. He didn’t touch me and I didn’t touch him.”

  “In that case you’re the first couple in the history of dance to keep your pelvises apart.” “Pushkin is a bear. I don’t believe I’m having this conversation.” “What you girls talk again?” Slava shouted. “Nothing, Mr. Slootski.”

  Slava’s hands formed a megaphone over his mouth. “Mitzi!”

  Obviously no one had told him the animal was sleeping off ten pounds of weed. After an hour of calisthenics, Masha served Vik’s favorite breakfast, turnip hash with dandelion greens. Pippa had to admit that the vodka tasted smoother with each passing meal, with each ripped muscle and weeping blister. “What you like to do today, Cluny?” Slava asked, anointing himself with insect repellent.

  Pippa thought a moment. “Could we practice squirting flowers?”

  “That’s your idea of a clown?” Lulu choked. “Some nebbish with a squirting flower?”

  “Yeah. And a big hat. Maybe a buzzing handshake. A happy guy.”

  “Enough!” Slava interrupted. “Is very difficult to do squirting flower.”

  To prove the point he got a box of artificial flowers, plastic tubing, squeeze balls, and glue from Masha’s trailer. Everyone had to not only construct a corsage complete with hydraulic system but also hit a target in the eye from a distance of four feet. The only one who could perform this feat consistently was Pushkin. Pippa came in second.

  “You practiced,” Lulu seethed.

  “I did not. I’m just good at wearing corsages.” Pippa felt a tug on her toga. “What is it, Pushkin?”

  “He wants to dance,” Benedict said.

  Pippa skipped around the table with Pushkin as Slava clapped and sang in delight. When they returned to their seats, Slava dipped Pushkin’s paw in the insect repellent then pressed it on a sheet of paper. “You join Russian circus now, Cluny. Is great, great honor.”

  Pippa stared at the document. “Is this a diploma?” she asked, barely audible.

  Slava smiled. “Da! Diploma.”

  It didn’t look terribly official in the state of Texas but Pippa had three eyewitnesses, four counting Pushkin. “Thank you, Mr. Slootski, from the bottom of my heart. Do you think you could sign it for me?” After he scribbled across the lower corner, Pippa secured the paper in her fur belt. “Thank you so much!” “Thank you so much,” Lulu mimicked.

  Slava got up from the table. “Practice unicycle. I find Mitzi.” He wandered into the woods.

  “How are your unicycle chops?” Benedict asked Pippa. “Nonexistent.”

  Benedict led her behind Masha’s trailer, where six ancient unicy-cles stood in a rack. “Lean against the trailer and start pedaling.” That worked fine until Pippa ran out of trailer. “Keep the pedals under your butt. If you start leaning forward, pedal faster. If you think you’re going to fall backward, pedal slower.”

  “Does this thing have training wheels?” Pippa asked after her tenth crash landing. “I don’t need another black eye.”

  “Keep trying. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  Pippa shot around the side of the trailer and plowed into the picnic table. “Ever hear of brakes?” Lulu screeched, retrieving her squirting flower from the grass.

  “Ever hear of a mouthful of knuckles?”

  “Down, girls.” Vik offered Pippa his arm. “I’ll run alongside.”

  Pippa pedaled into the field. Each time she wobbled Vik caught her, invariably near a sex organ. She couldn’t really complain since it was either that or a grass facial. If nothing else, Vik’s groping motivated her to learn unicycling in record time.

  “You’ve got the hang of forward.” He sauntered off. “Now try ninety-degree turns.”

  Her classmates laughed each time Pippa fell. She thought she had broken every bone in her body when Pushkin swooped out of nowhere and suavely lifted her onto his back, all the while pedaling his own unicycle. “Thank you, darling,” she whispered, clinging to his furry neck.

  A force that she could not explain inspired Pippa to kneel on Pushkin’s shoulders. It felt fantastic to be so high off the ground with the wind in her hair. I have a diploma under my belt! Sensing her elation, Pushkin went into an amazing series of pirouettes, hairpin turns, and seesaws, never once losing his center of gravity or his precious burden. Pippa laughed with delight. Pushkin was better than a flying carpet. Much better than Lance!

  Through her euphoria she was dimly aware of rumbling. A thick, gray hose suddenly coiled around her waist, plucked her off Pushkin’s shoulders, and vaulted her even higher into the air. Hmmm! Mitzi has me in her trunk, she thought calmly. Those tusks look really sharp. She relaxed as Mitzi shook her like a rag doll and unleashed a series of bellicose shrieks. Pippa saw her cell phone fly into the trees. Branches scratched her legs and ripped out her hair as Mitzi rampaged up a hill. The animal suddenly stopped short and unfurled her trunk. I must he the first Walker flung off a cliff by an elephant, Pippa observed, hurtling through space.

  She had the presence of mind to hit the water feet first. Pippa torpedoed far down before her boots hit reedy muck. That shook her out of her reverie: she stroked wildly upward, breaking the surface as the last teaspoon of oxygen in her lungs expired. “Gaaaaaa!”

  “Gaaaaaaa!”
twelve Cub Scouts in canoes screamed back, terrified by the eruption in their midst. A few of the bigger ones began swinging their oars at Pippa as their counselors barked, “SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW! I SAID RIGHT NOW!”

  “It’s a mermaid! Don’t let her in your canoe!”

  “It’s a pedophile!”

  An oar whacked her in the head. Pippa saw meteors. I’m going to drown, she mused, sinking. Thayne’s going to sue the crap out of someone. She sensed an overhead splash then felt a pair of arms cinching her waist. The touch was nowhere near as gentle as Pushkin’s. Thanks for that last ride, Pippa thought, letting the Delaware swallow her.

  Fourteen

  Someone with wonderfully sweet breath was kissing her passionately. Trouble was he pinched her nose before each kiss. As her mind cleared, Pippa slowly realized that she was on the receiving end of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and she was lying on a couple of sharp rocks. She let another kiss go by, then coughed and opened her eyes.

  “Look, Mr. Flores!” a Cub Scout squealed. “She’s alive!”

  Pippa sat up. A dozen inner-city boys gazed at her in fear and fascination. The two adult leaders were also looking at her with mixed feelings: on one hand, she was gorgeous. On the other hand, anyone who jumped off a cliff into the Delaware River was probably on drugs. They had taken the Cub Scouts on a canoe trip precisely to get away from that sort of garbage.

  “Are you a cavewoman?” one of the boys asked.

  “No. This is just a costume.” Pippa’s eyes found her rescuer, a dashing Hispanic with great lips. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude on you like that.”

  He was almost disappointed that she had awakened: kissing this unconscious woman back to life was way more exciting than kissing his wife half to death. Aware that he was supposed to be a role model, Mr. Flores suppressed his lust beneath a fit of indignation. “Sorry?

  You took one heck of a flying leap right in front of our canoes. That’s not what I’d call showing a lot of concern for the safety of others. Not to mention yourself.” He frowned at her sodden faux fur. “And where’s your life vest?”