Harold carried his bag across the field, to the orange tent at the edge of the trees. He didn’t stop; he tossed the bag through the door and went back to work with the elephants. For an hour, they practiced pitching, but it wasn’t any good. The elephants, he thought, would never learn to throw a ball.
“Maybe you can’t be pitchers,” he said. “Maybe you just can’t do it.”
Conrad murmured at him.
“It’s all right,” said Harold. “Maybe it was dumb to even try.” He patted Conrad’s leg hard enough to hear the slaps, to shake the dust away. Then he sighed and went to fetch the roses water, bringing bucket after bucket, and each was emptied the moment he set it down. The elephants plunged their trunks inside and drained the buckets as though through straws, then curled them up and squirted the water into their mouths. When they’d had enough to drink they squirted it over their backs, great blasts of water that shimmered in the sun.
“I have to figure this out,” he told the elephants. “I have to teach you how to pitch.”
But instead he thought of Flip. It seemed that no matter where he started, he always thought of her. If he hadn’t taught the elephants to pitch by dinnertime, would she still come and see him at the tent? Would they still hold hands and count the stars?
The bell startled him. Surely Wicks had made a mistake and rung it hours early. Then Harold saw how far the sun had moved toward the west, and he got to his feet with a terrible feeling of hopelessness. He kicked through the grass until he found the ball, then called to Conrad. “Just try,” he said. “Really try, okay?”
But no matter what he did, he couldn’t teach Conrad to pitch. The elephant only waved the ball around, and Harold felt like crying. “It’s no good,” he said. “It just won’t work.”
For ten minutes he stood there, staring at Conrad. Then he heard the plod of a horse’s hooves coming up behind him. It was a steady sound, soft on the grass, hard on the dirt. And Harold turned slowly, expecting to see the old Indian, but instead seeing Flip, riding bareback on General Sherman.
The horse shied away from the elephants, but Flip held it there, twenty feet away, as it pranced and skittered sideways. “So, how’s it going?” she asked.
Harold wanted to lie, to say, “It’s great.” But he couldn’t; he only shook his head.
High above him, she leapt forward and back as the horse stamped its feet. Her face was a blur; he didn’t know if she was smiling or angry.
“But it’s going to work,” she said. “You’re getting somewhere, aren’t you?”
“It’s pretty hard,” he said.
“Well, sure it is.” The horse jostled backward. “All they’ve ever done is their stupid little dance. You’ve got to teach them things they’ve never even thought of. And I think you’re doing great, Harold. You’re doing just fine.”
He gazed up at her. His hand, by itself, went to his chin.
“So don’t think of quitting, okay? Don’t even think of that.”
“No,” he said, and shook his head.
“And you’d better come to dinner now. You’ve been out all day in the sun.”
“Okay,” he said, and started to go, bumbling across the dirt.
Flip laughed. “Well, don’t you want a ride?”
She helped him up. She held his hand for a moment as he ran in a clumsy circle beside the spinning horse. Then she pulled him up, and he settled down behind her.
“Hold on,” she said.
He put his hands on her hips, on the ridges of her bones. “Tighter,” she said, and he pressed as hard as he dared. Then she took his wrist and wrapped it around her waist, and he could feel the hardness of her ribs and the softness of her stomach. He shook, and she laughed. Then General Sherman went off at a canter, and Harold held on far more tightly than he’d ever held to the old Indian. He banged against the horse’s back so hard it knocked his teeth together. But he felt as though he rode on clouds, that he dashed with an angel through heaven.
They took the horse to the stable and went on to the cook tent. Side by side they walked around the corner and met a line of people waiting. Harold gasped; they’d come too soon. In the darkness of the tent the freaks were moving, coming to the door. He tried to step away, back behind the canvas wall, but Mr. Hunter saw him.
“Ah, there you are,” said Mr. Hunter. “Speak of the devil, what? We were just pondering the pachyderms’ progress.”
“Huh?” said Harold.
“The roses, son. Are you making headway?”
“Yes, sir. A bit.” He looked wildly for somewhere to hide. The Gypsy Magda’s bells tinkled in the tent.
“All set for Salem?”
“I hope so.” Harold maneuvered around behind Flip. He wished Mr. Hunter would leave him alone, at least until the Gypsy Magda passed. She was the one he worried about, the one who could shame him with just a look of those black eyes.
“Have they learned to pitch and toss?” asked Mr. Hunter.
Harold shrugged. Everyone was looking at him as he squeezed himself thin behind Flip, as he trembled and sweated. They watched him with curious frowns, and he put his hand up to his chin, to hide the little hair that he imagined they were staring at. He crouched on the ground.
Flip looked back. “What are you doing?” she said. Then Esther came out of the tent with Wallo on her hip, those bizarre little feet making dents in her clothes, his head resting on her beard.
“Hello, Wallo,” said Mr. Hunter. “Why, Esther, what a pretty dress.”
“Gee, thanks,” said Esther in her strange, manly voice. Then she passed, and the Gypsy Magda came behind her, dark and huddled in her scarves, staring fixedly at Esther’s back. Samuel and Tina stepped together from the tent, and Harold lowered his head, suddenly busy with the laces on his boots.
Tina said, “Oh, there he is! Hey, Harold. Hi, kiddo.”
He lifted only his eyes, looking at her over the round darkness of his glasses.
“You took your things,” she said. “All your things.”
He nodded, too embarrassed to talk.
“We’ll miss you something awful.” She was smiling, but Samuel only glowered. “We don’t know what to do with all the space,” she said. “Do we, Samuel?”
His little eyes were half shut. “Maybe we’ll sit there like we used to.”
“Oh, you lug.” She laughed. “But you’ll come and see us, won’t you, Harold? You’ll come when you’re not so busy.”
He nodded too quickly, everything blurring together, as though he peered through pebbled glass. He had to turn his head away to find her again. And by then she was gone.
Chapter
31
From dinner till darkness, Harold worked with the elephants. Flip stayed at his side, and together they worked first with Canary Bird and then with Conrad. But one elephant threw the ball too wildly, and the other wouldn’t throw it at all. And when the first stars came out, the roses were led to their tent, where they tossed the straw into nests and settled down on their sides.
Flip was disappointed. “Maybe they’ll do better tomorrow.”
“I hope so,” said Harold. He wanted to get away from there, to walk with Flip to his little tent.
“I wish you could teach them.”
“I wish there was another one,” said Harold. And then, to show he meant it as a joke, he laughed. But Flip was very quiet.
“There used to be,” she said.
She had her back toward him, fiddling with the harnesses. He could hardly see her at all.
“He was my favorite,” she said. “Even bigger than Conrad, smart as a person almost.”
“What happened to him?” asked Harold.
“He died in a wreck.”
She talked softly, without turning around. Harold had to lean forward to hear her.
“My dad was driving. My mom was beside him. They went over a cliff, and all three of them died.”
“Gosh,” said Harold.
“I was in the next truck. Me
and—one of the riggers. I saw it happen. Right in front of me.”
“How long ago?”
“Oh, ages. A year, I guess. A bit more than a year.”
Harold heard her sniff. The harnesses clattered in the darkness.
“I loved them so much,” she said. “My mom and my dad. I could never have run away like you. I would have missed my mom like crazy.”
The elephants made chuckling sounds as they fell asleep. The straw crackled when they moved their legs or trunks.
“Don’t you miss your mom?” asked Flip.
“A bit.” He missed her a lot when he thought about her, but not at all when he didn’t. The truth was, he missed his dog more than his ma. A little part of him was always thinking of Honey, a tiny part that never stopped feeling rotten—like a toothache—about leaving her behind.
“See?” said Flip. “I would have missed my mom like crazy if I’d ever run away. I couldn’t have gone a mile without running back again.”
She was making him sad, as though misery was a germ that could spread like a cold.
“I wish I was a bit like you,” she said. “I wish I could have run away, you know? I wish I was that sort of person.”
It made him love her even more. Harold had spent his whole life wishing he was like other people. No one had ever wanted to be like him.
Conrad started snoring. A faint rumble at first, it built to a roar. It sounded as though a diesel truck was racing through the tent. Flip giggled. “Let’s get out of here.”
Harold squinted and turned his head, looking for the patch of starlight at the door. He reached out to grope at the darkness and saw his hands like pale blobs, and nothing beyond them. Flip came and led him out. She didn’t say anything; she just guided him like a blind man. He felt the canvas brush against his shoulder, then felt a breeze on his face. He took off his glasses, and his skin shivered.
Flip started him walking, her arm around his. He saw the silver smudge of the Milky Way, blotches of light from tents and trailer windows. He squeezed his glasses, frightened he would lose them.
“Mom would have loved this,” she said. “Everyone camped under the stars. She hated traveling. It scared her, driving at night.”
“My dad told me stars are souls,” said Harold, surprising even himself. He thought he’d forgotten everything his dad had said. “Whenever a person dies, a star gets put in the sky. That’s what he said.”
Flip bumped against him. “That’s nice,” she said.
It seemed funny that he’d forgotten about the stars. Even when his dad had died, he’d forgotten to look for the new one. If it had been off by itself, not mixed in with the smear of others, he might have even seen it.
He looked up, and there were black holes blotting out the Milky Way. He thought for an instant that the stars were dying, until he realized that Flip had led him up to the trees, and their leafy tops covered the sky. Then he stood at the door of the orange tent, and Flip let go of his arm.
“Listen,” she said. “I’m sorta sad now. My mom and everything. If I stayed here with you, I’d just start bawling on your shoulder, so I think I’d better go.”
He didn’t mind if she started bawling on his shoulder. “Just for a bit?” he said.
“No, Harold. I’m sorry.” She eased away, vanishing among the shadows. “Tomorrow, okay? We’ll sit out here tomorrow night. All night, maybe. Cross my heart; I promise.”
She left him alone, and he’d never felt more lonely. He could have kicked himself for asking about the other elephant, for making her too sad to stay.
Harold sat by the door of the tent, imagining she sat there too. With the stars above him, the enormous blotch of stars that he couldn’t possibly have hoped to count, he put his hand on the ground and pretended that hers was there below it. But the stars made him feel tiny and scared; there were so many that he couldn’t imagine the number of people who had died to make them. He wondered which was his father’s, and then if maybe there was one for David. Then he thought of his mother; he pictured her out on the steps, tonight and last night and the night before, each time furiously counting, trying to make sure there wasn’t one for him.
An owl hooted from the trees. A little tinkle of laughter came from a tent in the distance, and a trailer’s squeaky door slammed shut on its spring. And Harold the Ghost sat all alone, wishing he wasn’t. It was the first night in his life he had spent all alone.
Chapter
32
The elephants burst from their tent the moment Harold opened it in the morning. They almost bowled him over as they bugled past, trampling off to their corner of the lot. His glasses on, his shirt buttoned so high that the collar hid his chin, he followed them across the grass to the trodden diamond. He found them waiting there, the bat laid neatly across home plate, as though one of the roses had set it down for him.
“Where’s the ball?” he said. They stood in a line, their ears flapping slowly. They rumbled and purred.
“We can’t play without the ball,” said Harold. “Come on, who’s got it?”
Conrad swayed his head, and Harold saw the red-and-yellow ball nestled in the tip of his trunk. He laughed. “You’re scared I’m going to make you pitch,” he said. “Aren’t you, Conrad?”
The elephant grumbled.
“Okay. We’ll do some fielding first. Is that what you want?” It was dumb, he thought, to expect the elephant to know what he was saying. But he stretched out his hand. “Throw me the ball and we’ll play five hundred.”
Conrad’s head tossed back.
“Just throw me the ball.” Harold flexed his fingers. “Come on, Conrad.”
The trunk swung close to the grass. The ball came out, bouncing and tumbling, then rolling to Harold.
“Gosh, that’s better.” He had only to stoop to pick it up. “You’ve been thinking, I bet. You’ve probably been playing in your sleep.”
He batted the ball and the elephants chased it. They ran it down, kicked it forward and ran it down again. Then Conrad swept it up and threw it back—or bowled it back—with the same lazy swing of his trunk that seemed the best he could do. And Harold praised him so highly that the other elephants stole the trick themselves.
By the time Flip arrived, the roses were bowling back each ball Harold batted. She watched as they thundered across the field in a dusty heap of trunks and flapping ears. Then out from that mass of elephants came the ball, bouncing straight toward Harold.
Flip shrieked. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “You’ve done it!”
“Not really.” He picked up the ball and batted again. The roses went running.
“What do you mean?” she said. “They can bat and field and run the bases. And now—”
“But they don’t play baseball.” Harold leaned on the bat. “They have to put it all together. And they still have to learn to pitch.”
The ball dribbled toward him. He picked it up but only held it in his hand.
“What’s wrong?” asked Flip.
To the west, at the summit of the hills, a cloud of dust floated on the skyline. It moved toward them down the slope. And then a truck appeared, dragging the dust behind it like the tail of a speeding comet. It crossed the river and slowed as it neared the circus.
“Who’s that?” asked Harold.
“I don’t know,” said Flip.
He swiveled as he watched the truck. Max Graf bellowed at him from the edge of the grass. The truck tilted up from the road to the field and vanished past the tents. “Do you think it’s him?”
“Who?” said Flip.
“The Cannibal King.”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“It might be the Cannibal King.” Harold let his arm drop at his side. The ball fell to the ground, and—yards away—the elephants lunged sideways.
Harold waited for the truck to appear from behind the tents. His hand shook, and he slid it up his clothes and into his pocket. He wasn’t sure now that he wanted to meet the Cannibal
King.
“Harold!” shouted Flip. “We don’t have time to look at stupid trucks.”
“Is it him?” he asked.
“No!” she said, sounding terribly angry. Then she sighed and walked up beside him. “Look. I’ll go and see, and you can stay here with the elephants.”
Harold smiled. “Okay.”
“And listen,” she said. “You don’t have to stop for breakfast; you don’t have to walk all that way. I’ll bring you something. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll ask Wicks to make it special.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” said Harold.
“He might if I ask him,” said Flip. “I think he sorta likes me.” She touched his arm. “Okay? I’ll bring your breakfast here.”
He felt light-headed again, her face jiggling in front of him. “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I can—”
“Oh, I’d like to.” She stood even closer. “We’ll have a little picnic.”
“Okay.” He nodded, his chin inside his shirt.
He went back to work when she left, batting the ball for the elephants. But they tired of the game before the first bell rang for breakfast. They moved like slugs across the field, stopping to graze at the grass. And by the time the second bell sounded, Conrad was lying on the ground, his long ribs heaving.
“You’re worn out,” said Harold.
He dropped the bat and the ball and walked down to the cook tent. He hoped that Flip would be surprised to see him, and by the look on her face he was right. She stared at him as he carried his tray from the counter, her eyes as big as the hard-boiled eggs that rolled around and around on his plate.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
He grinned. “Surprised?”
“You shouldn’t have come,” she said.
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