Ghost Boy

by Iain Lawrence

  He shrugged. “You said you’d come by and you didn’t.”

  “I had things to do,” she said, suddenly angry. “Some people have to work, you know, to keep a circus running.”

  Harold turned away. He walked up from the water, past the round, deep holes stamped in the mud by the elephants’ feet.

  “Where are you going?” said Flip.

  “Nowhere.”

  “You’re not quitting, are you?” Flip followed behind him, but he didn’t look back. “You’re not going home, are you, Harold?”

  He heard her running through the mud. She caught his sleeve and stopped him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know we had to work. But the canvas came and we had to get it ready because we’re moving on today.”

  Harold pulled away. He trudged back to the scorched bit of ground where he’d slept. His pillowcase was damp and spotted by the dew, and he shifted it to a higher place already warmed by the sun. He unfolded the top and put his razor inside. “Is he your boyfriend?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  “Roman,” he said.

  “Oh, he’d like to be. He thinks he is, I guess.”

  “But he’s not?”

  “Oh, maybe once,” she said, standing right in front of Harold. “But I hardly like him anymore.”

  She smiled at him, then reached out and smoothed his collar down. “He’s just a rigger, that’s all he is. He puts up tents and takes them down. Not like you.” She patted the wrinkles from his shoulders. “You teach elephants how to play baseball. And he’s scared of them, believe it or not.”

  Harold closed his eyes as her hands tingled across his chest.

  “Look,” she said. “We’ve only got an hour—just an hour—before we start packing up the tents. Can’t we practice with the roses?”

  He swayed on his feet, that same squirly feeling coming back. He’d been foolish, he thought, to get angry when all she’d been doing was working. He opened his eyes, and they were level with hers on the sloping bank.

  “Please?”

  He thought that if he tried to talk, only a squeak would come out. He nodded instead.

  “Gee, thanks,” she said. “You’re a sweetheart, Harold. You really are.”

  Harold fetched the bat and ball, and they practiced by the river, above the banks where the ground was hard and dry. Harold worked with Conrad, trying to show him how to pitch. Max Graf batted, and Canary Bird fielded, trumpeting up and down the riverbank with his great bulk shaking like jelly.

  Flip was the catcher. “Max misses more than he hits,” she said.

  “Well, so does Dixie Walker,” said Harold.

  “But it’s sort of boring.”

  They shouted back and forth across the diamond. “I thought you’d be standing there,” said Harold. “Where you are. You could do all sorts of funny things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Crank his tail,” said Harold. “Like you’re trying to start a car.”

  He came and showed her. He leapt up to spin the tail, then laughed. “What if the drummer makes a sound like a car backfiring?” He held his nose, pretending he’d smelled something awful.

  “Yeah,” said Flip. “Okay.”

  He kicked dust at the elephant’s foot; he dragged down the corner of an enormous ear to whisper something in it. He cavorted like a clown, and Conrad—with an angry trumpet—stomped down to the river, into the water.

  “If he misses a pitch,” said Harold, “you make the batting box bigger.” He sketched it into the ground with his heel, then a bigger one, and a bigger one still. He pretended to sweep it with a tiny brush, then grabbed Max Graf’s trunk and used it like a vacuum hose.

  Flip laughed until she cried. “That’s great,” she said, her cheeks streaming. “Oh, Harold, that’s terrific. I’ll have the greatest act that ever was. Or we will, I mean. The circus will.”

  “But the pitching,” Harold said. “That’s the problem. If they can’t learn that, it’s useless.”

  He watched as Conrad stomped through the shallows, spraying water through his trunk. “He’s having another fit,” he said.

  “Maybe a clown could pitch,” said Flip.

  “No. Then you’d just have people playing baseball. It has to be the elephants.”

  “There isn’t time,” she said.

  Conrad raged through the river, squirting water so far that it misted on Harold’s glasses. He wiped them dry, then his hand stopped in midair. “I’ve got it!” he cried. “A bucket. We need a bucket.”

  “What?” said Flip. “He’s going to throw a bucket?”

  “No.” He took her hand and pulled her along. “I’ll show you what I mean.”

  Harold dragged her to the ball, picked it up and carried on, pulling Flip behind him. They splashed through the mud and into the river, and he whistled for Conrad to come. He grabbed the elephant’s trunk and plunged it under water. “Take a drink,” he said.

  The trunk pulsed as it filled. Then Harold pulled it up and corked it with the ball. “Blow!” he shouted.

  Conrad had no choice, his nose was so full of water. With a blast of spray, with a popping sound, he snorted out the ball. It soared above the river, the red stripe spinning on the yellow, a straight and perfect pitch. It plopped onto the grass beyond the bank, and Harold grinned. “Strike one.”

  “That’s it,” said Flip. “That’s it; you’ve got it.” She took Harold by the hands and twirled him in a circle. She spun him around and around, until the river and the elephants blurred across his glasses, until Conrad pried them apart with his trunk.

  “Hey!” said Flip, but she was laughing. She pushed at Conrad’s trunk. “What are you, his bodyguard?” And then her laughter stopped. Someone else was standing there.

  Chapter

  35

  Roman Pinski was only fifteen. But he was bigger than most men twice his age, made strong and taut by the swinging of sledges and the labors of a circus lot. He held the baseball bat in three fingers, by the bulge at the end of the handle.

  “What’s all the giggling about?” he asked. The bat swung in his hand like a bell clapper.

  Flip was disheveled. Wet from the river, spotted with mud, she stood breathing hard from her laughing. She brushed a hand through her hair. “Hello, Roman,” she said.

  He stood just above the mud, looking down at Harold. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Huh? What are you doing here, Whitey?”

  Harold hung his head so far that the glasses nearly fell from his nose. It seemed to him, right then, that Liberty had come after him, that it always would come after him, like a pack of dogs, no matter where he went.

  “I asked you a question.” Roman leered at Harold. “What are you doing here, Whitey?”

  Flip laughed. “What do you think he’s doing here, you goof? He’s got a baseball and a bat and a buncha elephants. What does it look like he’s doing?”

  “Making time,” said Roman. “That’s what. It looks like Maggot’s making time with you.”

  “His name’s not Maggot, and it’s not Whitey. It’s Harold.” She stood between them, facing Roman. “And what does it matter to you what he’s doing?”

  “I don’t like freaks,” said Roman.

  “Harold’s not a freak.”

  “He looks like one.” Roman swung the bat against his boot. It made a steady thudding like a drum. “Hey, Maggot. Why are you so white?”

  Harold’s shoulders tightened; his arms crossed against his stomach. He only had to wait, he knew, and Roman would just go away.

  “Are you sick or something?” The bat thumped against Roman’s boot. “You look half dead.”

  Harold could see him only as a blur in the arc at the top of his glasses. All around him the ground shivered and shook, and Canary Bird was a gray jelly looming over Roman’s shoulder.

  “Hey, Flip,” said Roman. “Don’t you think Maggot looks half dead?”

  She stood close beside Harold, the river up to their ankles. “
Just go and do your stupid rigging. Just leave us alone, okay?”

  “Who’s going to make me?” Roman grinned. “You going to make me, Whitey?”

  Harold felt himself shriveling, tightening, like a spider poked by a stick. His legs wanted to run, but the rest of him couldn’t. He’ll stop, he thought. He’ll go away.

  “Look at him. Those dumb little glasses. Take them off, Whitey. I want to see your eyes. I bet they’re pink, huh? Little pink eyes like a rat.”

  “They’re blue,” said Flip. “Now leave him alone.” There was an angry tremble in her voice. “Give him the bat and leave him alone.”

  “This bat?” Roman held it up. He took a step closer, from the grass to the mud. “Is this your bat, Whitey?”

  Harold’s fingers stiffened into fists. The nails pressed into his palm. It was David’s bat, not his, and he was frightened that Roman would break it in two just for the pleasure of that, or suddenly hurl the thing into the river, laughing.

  “You want your bat?” Roman held it out as he took another step, and another, crossing the mud to stand at the edge of the water. The river crept in behind him, filling the hollows his boots had made. “Go on; take it. I got better things to do than stand around and look at the freak show.”

  Harold stretched out his hand. He knew what would happen, and it did. Roman pulled the bat away.

  “Take it, Whitey.”

  He’d played the game a thousand times—ten thousand times, perhaps—with his schoolbooks and his winter hats, his mittens and his fishing poles. He’d played it with the tears rolling down his face. And he decided now, with Liberty five hundred miles behind him, that he just wouldn’t play it anymore. The bat dangled before him.

  “Take it, Maggot.”

  He didn’t move—not a muscle. The bat was just inches from his chest.

  “You dumb white freak.”

  Conrad’s ears flapped behind Harold, throwing shadows over Roman and the river. From his throat came the low rumble that could set Harold’s hair tingling if he heard it from a distance.

  Roman glanced up. He took a step back, then—grinning—came forward again. “Don’t you want your bat, Whitey?”

  Roman’s fingers, curved around the top, nudged against Harold’s chest. “Take it,” he said, and pushed again.

  It wasn’t hard enough to topple him, but Harold stepped back.

  “I could bust you in two,” said Roman. “I could punch right through you if I wanted.” He prodded Harold’s breast with his fingers, each time a little harder.

  Conrad’s rumbling sounds deepened. His trunk thrashed at the river.

  “You’d better stop,” said Harold.

  Roman sneered. He mimicked the Ghost’s soft voice: “You’d better stop.” Then he poked again, harder than before. “Come and make me, Whitey.”

  Harold moved backward. His heel caught on the river bottom, and he staggered and fell, sitting down in the water. He heard Conrad roar a terrible roar, a wail like a siren, that started low and ended with a shriek. He felt the trunk thrash at the water, and he saw Roman’s eyes swell huge with fright.

  Conrad came surging past Harold, right over Harold, with the water coursing around his legs. The elephant’s belly covered him like a thick gray cloud. Flip screamed, and Roman dropped the bat; he turned and ran. He slipped on the bank and clawed with his fingers; he pulled himself up to the top. The mud on his hands grew as thick as boxing gloves. Then he stood on the grass and shouted back, “You keep that thing away from me. You stinking freak.”

  Conrad trumpeted. His trunk curled high above him. Roman was shaking his hands, spraying mud across the grass. And all the time he kept retreating, until only his head showed over the bank. “I’ll get you, Whitey,” he shouted. “I’ll smash your stupid white face.”

  Harold didn’t move. Roman’s shouts faded away, and then he saw Flip wading toward him, her legs splashing through the water, her body hidden by the elephant. She stooped and looked under Conrad’s belly. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He nodded. He crawled out, and the trunk snaked down to help him. Then he stood by Conrad’s shoulder, and he didn’t think he’d ever move from there.

  “Take him up to the tent,” she said. “Get his harness ready, and I’ll meet you there in a minute. And whatever you do, don’t leave the roses alone.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I gotta talk to Roman.” She wiped a clot of mud from Harold’s cheek. “I gotta set things straight.”

  Harold watched her cross the mud and climb the bank. He waved to her, but she didn’t look back. Then he put his hand on Conrad’s trunk. “Come on,” he said, and started walking.

  He stayed in the elephant’s shadow. With Conrad beside him, and the other two roses plodding behind, he felt safer than he ever had. For the first time in his life he crossed an empty field without a twinge of fear. He walked into the elephants’ tent, took a harness from its peg and dragged it back to the sunlight.

  On the grass he stretched it out. But no matter how he pulled at the pieces, he could see no sense in all its chains and buckles. The breakfast bells rang, but he kept at work, frowning to see the tangles he was making, each one bigger than the last. And he was down on his haunches, still puzzling it out, when Flip walked up behind him. She had changed her wet and dirty clothes for clean ones, and she carried a tray in her hands.

  “I brought you some breakfast,” she said.

  He took the plate of eggs and blackened toast, and he sat on the grass to eat it. Conrad stood above him, leaning left, then right, his ears flapping slowly.

  “I guess Roman’s pretty mad at me,” Harold said.

  “Good guess.” She dragged a chain through a loop of leather, and it clattered into a heap. “He wanted Mr. Hunter to get his gun and go shoot Conrad.”

  “What?” said Harold. “Why?”

  “’Cause he turned so mean.”

  Harold squinted at her. “Conrad didn’t turn mean.”

  “No.” She laughed. “Roman did.”

  “So nothing’s going to happen, right?” Harold held a bit of toast above his head. Conrad took it in his trunk. “Mr. Hunter isn’t going to shoot him, is he?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve got to help me now.”

  Harold held the plate up and let Conrad take the last of his toast and eggs. Then he stood and helped Flip put the harness on the elephant.

  It went quickly once he saw how it was done. With Conrad kneeling, they stretched the leather in place. Then Flip made him stand and tightened the buckles under his belly. “Down trunk!” she said.

  Again Conrad knelt before her, with the clumsy grace Harold thought he would never get tired of seeing. The knees bent; the great bulk of the elephant’s head came down to rest on the ground; the trunk spread across the grass.

  Flip stepped up it, over the forehead, onto the ridge of the elephant’s spine. She sat facing Harold. “Okay. Climb on.”

  “Me?” asked Harold.

  “Sure,” she said. “Someone has to drive him.”

  He grinned and followed Flip, sprawling up across the hardness of the skull, crawling to the spine. It seemed much higher than he’d thought, and he clung to the harness as he turned himself around.

  “Shove your feet under the strap,” said Flip. “You’re going to steer him with your feet, like a bobsled.”

  She pressed against his back, reaching past to show him what to do. Then her arms circled his stomach. “Tell him, ‘Up trunk.’”

  “Up trunk,” said Harold, and felt himself soaring higher, backward, floating up above the ground. And he laughed from the feeling of it, the giddy sense of flying.

  She showed him how to start the elephant going, how to turn him and how to stop him, how to step him backward. Clinging to the harness, Harold circled the tent, then turned and circled the other way, with Flip holding so fiercely to him that he felt every part of her pressing at his back. But she had to hold him
; he teetered on Conrad’s bony spine like a drunken man.

  “Tighten your legs,” said Flip, laughing. “Let go of the harness.”

  “I’ll fall off.”

  “You won’t,” she said. “Put your hands on your hips.”

  He sat straighter then, rocked to and fro by the elephant’s odd, lopsided gait. He settled into it as the ground blurred past below him. But still Flip hugged him from behind, leaning on his back with her chin resting on his shoulder.

  “Are you ready to work him alone?” she asked.

  “Alone? Gosh, I don’t know,” he said. “I—”

  “Don’t worry so much!” She squeezed him. “It’s easy. Go where people tell you and leave the work to Conrad. He’s done it so often you’ll just be along for the ride.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Now let me off.”

  He made the elephant kneel, and Flip slid down to the grass.

  “Up trunk!” said Harold, and felt himself soaring, giddy again. He looked down at her from an incredible height, feeling enormous himself, as though the strength and the size of the elephant were now his own.

  He went off to his job feeling that nothing could hurt him.

  Chapter

  36

  Sidewalls were stripped from the tents, rigging wires and quarter poles removed, and the great buildings of canvas came tumbling down. Center poles were taken out, the canvas sections separated. Then men lined up along their edges and ran the canvas across, folding it into squares and strips, into bulky rolls that weighed two thousand pounds or more.

  The elephant was the machinery of the circus. Now a tractor, now a skidder, now a donkey engine, Conrad dragged the canvas and the bundled poles across to waiting trucks. Chains were connected and disconnected, derricks and pulleys rigged. And the elephant—with Harold on his back—strained at his harness, kicking gouges in the field, to load the circus a ton at a time onto the backs of Fords and Chevrolets, until the trucks sagged on groaning springs.

  And the last thing loaded was the elephant. Harold drove him up a ramp at the back of the Diamond T, into a stall with long, slatted windows cut in the side. He chained him there, then clambered out, and saw that the convoy was already moving.