Prince of Air

by Ann Hood

  “My name is a palindrome,” Hannah had announced as soon as they settled into the apartment’s kitchen.

  “It is?” Maisie asked, unsure what exactly that meant.

  “Madam, I’m Adam,” Hannah said.

  “Um . . . what?” Maisie asked.

  “A man. A plan. A canal. Panama,” Hannah said.

  Had her voice always been this flat and somehow I never noticed? Maisie wondered.

  “The Panama Canal?” Maisie asked.

  She remembered her mother’s advice about small talk. Listen carefully to what the person is saying and make a smart or witty comment about it to show you are interested.

  “We haven’t studied that yet in social studies,” Maisie said, struggling to think of something interesting to say on the topic. “But I know it’s . . . um . . . in Panama . . .”

  Hannah said, “Go hang a salami. I’m a lasagna hog.”

  The popcorn popped in the microwave. The bubbles popped in the glasses of ginger ale. Otherwise, there was no other sound. Until Hannah stood up and announced she was leaving.

  “Thank you for the soda,” she said, even though she hadn’t taken one sip.

  “The popcorn’s ready,” Maisie said, holding the steaming bag as evidence. She hated how desperate she was for a friend that she would try to make this weirdo stay longer.

  “No thank you,” Hannah said.

  She frowned as if she was thinking hard.

  “Elm Medona,” she said after a moment. “Elm Medona is not a palindrome.”

  Maisie shrugged.

  “Hannah,” Hannah said in her strange, flat voice. “H-A-N-N-A-H.”

  “Okay,” Maisie said.

  “And backward. H-A-N-N-A-H.”

  “Oh!” Maisie said, finally getting it. “That go hang a salami thing is the same backward? Really?”

  “Go hang a salami,” Hannah intoned. “I’m a lasagna hog.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” Maisie said. She opened the bag of popcorn and offered it to Hannah.

  “I don’t like the kernels when they get stuck in my teeth,” Hannah said.

  Maisie put the bag of popcorn on the table beside the untouched glasses of ginger ale.

  “Maybe it’s an anagram,” Hannah said.

  “Maybe.” Maisie said thoughtfully. She knew Phinneas Pickworth had loved anagrams. There was the one for the Fabergé egg, Maisie Pickworth all shuffled around. She would have to talk to Felix about figuring out Elm Medona’s anagram.

  Now, Maisie looked at Felicity’s pale, hopeful face.

  “I would like to be your friend,” Maisie said.

  Felicity smiled. She shook the wooden box she’d been holding, then turned it upside down, letting the colorful sticks fall onto the table.

  Later, after many games of pick-up sticks and Francois went off to bed, Felicity explained about albinism.

  “It runs in families,” she said softly. “My father didn’t have it, though. He had dark, curly hair and dark brown eyes and beautiful olive skin.”

  “What happened to him?” Maisie asked, thinking of her own father.

  “After I was born like this, and then Francois came along and was also an albino, he left,” Felicity said sadly. “I don’t really remember him. But I have this.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wrinkled sepia photograph of a man in a bowler hat. His dark eyes stared out at Maisie.

  “My father left, too,” Maisie said.

  Felicity’s white hand patted Maisie’s.

  “I can’t see you until dinner tomorrow,” she said. “We can’t go out in the sun.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maisie said.

  “Sorry? For what?”

  “I don’t know. That you can’t go out in the sun and that your father left and—”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Felicity said. “It’s just my bad luck.”

  After just a couple of days, Felix almost forgot that Myrtle had four legs or that Jojo stood only two and a half feet tall. They seemed like anybody else he knew and liked: funny, smart, and good storytellers. All of them were. One night as he lay on his cot, he wondered what their lives would be like if they didn’t have the dime museums. How would they live? Who would hire Willy the Werewolf, for example, with his face completely covered in hair and his fanglike teeth? Maybe Harry was right.

  But all of it disgusted Maisie. She hated how people paid a dime just to stare and point at them. Now that she and Felicity LaSalle were best friends, she hated that Felicity had to perform in something called a freak show. Felicity wasn’t a freak. She had a genetic condition, that was all.

  “They’re like animals in a zoo,” Maisie said. “It’s wrong, wrong, wrong.”

  Felix felt confused about all of it. Like Maisie, he never went into the sideshow tents. Instead he spent the evenings watching sword swallowers and fire-eaters and, of course, Harry and Dash. But at meals and after shows, he sat with Willy and Unthan and Jojo—all of them—and enjoyed their friendship.

  The next to the last night before they were scheduled to leave Ohio, Maisie and Felix walked around the grounds as usual. And, as usual, a line of people for the sideshow snaked around the tent.

  Maisie shuddered at the sight of all those people willing to pay dimes to gawk at her new friends.

  She pointed to the sign hanging on the tent that shouted in big letters: FREAKS!

  “Look at that,” she said, disgusted.

  Felix decided it might be time to share his theory with Maisie.

  “I know,” he said carefully. “It’s terrible. But don’t you kind of think that it’s maybe okay?”

  “Are you crazy?” Maisie said, looking at him like he had gone mad. “They have birth defects. They’re not freaks. They’re people with disabilities.”

  “But what would they do in the real world? Do you think they could get jobs driving buses or fixing things or—”

  “I don’t know,” Maisie said. “That’s not the point. The point is that all of these people are paying to stare at them and laugh.”

  “You don’t know that,” Felix said, his opinion starting to waver. “We’ve never gone inside. Harry said people were amazed by them.”

  “Amazed that someone has four legs or looks like a monkey or whatever. Not amazed by them as people,” Maisie argued. “I bet they don’t even realize they are people.”

  “Well,” Felix said, “there’s only one way to find out.”

  “Oh no,” Maisie said. “I’m not going into anyplace that bills itself as a freak show.”

  “Well, I am,” Felix said. “I want to see for myself exactly what goes on in there.”

  Felix headed for the back of the tent where the performers entered, Maisie on his heels.

  But as he lifted the flap of the tent to enter, Maisie grabbed his arm and stopped him.

  “I think it will upset us,” she said quietly.

  “Us?” Felix said.

  “I’m not going to let you go in there alone,” Maisie said.

  They looked at each other for a moment.

  It was so unusual for Felix to take charge like this that Maisie finally relented. In her heart, she knew it was a mistake to go inside. But she nodded her head, took her brother’s hand, and lifted the flap of the tent to enter.

  Maisie and Felix joined the crowd of people waiting to enter the sideshow. To Maisie, the entire group seemed sweaty and disgusting. The air was heavy with the smell of that sweat mixed with cigar smoke and earth and animals from neighboring farms. She held her breath as long as she could, then took a few gulps of air. Felix hadn’t let go of her hand. She watched him watching everyone, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the barker shouted. “Come and view li
ving monstrosities so horrible you very well may not sleep tonight. Were it not for an accident of birth, you might very well be like them. You, too, might have been . . .”

  He paused, letting his eyes stop briefly on each face in the front of the crowd.

  “A freak!”

  All at once, the crowd moved. Maisie held on tight to Felix as they got pushed forward.

  The first thing Maisie saw was the LaSalle family. They sat together in a fake parlor pretending to play cards as if they weren’t on display.

  She watched as people stood, staring in horror, at the LaSalles.

  “Zombies!” one woman screamed, burying her face in her husband’s jacket.

  Maisie pushed through the crowd.

  “They aren’t zombies,” she said loudly. “They’re just like you and me.”

  She caught sight of Felicity shaking her head no, but how could Maisie let this woman make fun of her friend?

  “They have a genetic condition,” Maisie continued. “Albinism.”

  “Out of the way, little lady!” someone yelled.

  “Please,” Felicity whispered. “Go away.”

  Maisie looked at her, surprised.

  “But—”

  Felicity made a shooing motion with her hands.

  The crowd yelled for Maisie to get out of the way. Embarrassed and saddened, she let Felix pull her along.

  In a small empty space, Maisie could see how the sideshow was set up. The performers stood on little stages, each one acting as if all of these people weren’t staring at them and heckling them. The Bearded Woman combed her beard. Willy the Werewolf paced back and forth, pounding his chest and grunting. The Armless Wonder wrote a letter, holding the pen with her toes. Frieda and Hans, the little people, were dressed as a bride and groom and sat in a miniature kitchen eating breakfast, even though in real life they didn’t even like each other very much.

  Felix and Maisie watched as people heckled their friends, laughed at them, or shivered in fear. Women covered their eyes with their hands and men taunted The Giant and Willy, poking them with their canes.

  “Hey, freak,” one man said to Unthan. “Can I touch your flippers?”

  Without any expression, Unthan slid one of her feet toward him.

  “Ew!” the man’s wife said.

  Maisie looked at Felix. “Had enough?” she asked him.

  He nodded.

  Together, they made their way back through the crowd and out into the warm night.

  From another tent, Harry’s voice announced the beginning of The Metamorphosis.

  “Want to go watch?” Felix said.

  “Okay.”

  In silence they walked into Harry’s show, taking seats in the back. Felix tried to pay attention to the trick, but his heart felt too heavy to enjoy it. What those people have to endure is not worth it at all, he thought. Maisie was right.

  As Maisie and Felix neared their room, Felix saw the LaSalles lugging a big trunk across the dirt.

  “Hey! What are you guys doing?” he called to them.

  Little Francois LaSalle stopped.

  “Leaving,” he said, his voice sounding very small in the dark, quiet night.

  “Leaving? Now?” Felix asked him.

  Francois nodded. “We got kicked out. Said we were trouble.”

  “Oh no!” Maisie said. “It’s my fault!”

  She ran across the muddy field to Felicity, whose red-rimmed eyes looked even redder than usual.

  “I’ll tell them it was my fault,” Maisie said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Mrs. LaSalle rested her hand on Maisie’s shoulder.

  “There’s no use explaining to them, Maisie,” she said. “They think we’re troublemakers now, and there’s no changing their minds.”

  “But where will you go?” Maisie asked desperately.

  “Don’t worry, darling,” Mrs. LaSalle said. “There’s dime museums all over the Midwest. We’ll catch up with another one, maybe in Pittsburgh or Cleveland. They’re always looking for freaks.”

  “But you aren’t freaks!” Maisie insisted.

  Mrs. LaSalle tousled Maisie’s curls. “We’ll be fine,” she said.

  The three LaSalles started off again.

  “Felicity!” Maisie called.

  Felicity turned to her.

  “You’re my best friend,” Maisie told her.

  Felicity grinned. “You’re my best friend,” she said, and then she blew Maisie a kiss before continuing on.

  That night on her narrow cot, Maisie couldn’t sleep. All she could think about was the LaSalles’ fate. What would happen to them now? Where were they sleeping? How would they get all the way to Pittsburgh or Cleveland? She hated to think of her friend homeless, ridiculed, and afraid.

  As soon as the first light of morning came through the small window, someone pounded on the door.

  “It’s Harry! Open up!” Harry shouted.

  Maisie got up and let him in.

  “Pack up,” he said, smiling wide. “I just got booked at Tony Pastor’s.”

  “Where’s that?” Maisie said.

  “Tony Pastor’s New Fourteenth Street Theater. In New York City,” Harry said. “We’re going back home.”

  Mrs. Weiss was not happy to see Maisie and Felix again. She frowned at them and muttered in whatever language she spoke, banging pots and pans onto the small stove.

  “Mama,” Harry said, throwing his arms around her, “are you making us your famous goulash?”

  “To welcome you back home,” she said, softening.

  Two years earlier, when Mr. Weiss died, Harry had promised to take care of his mother. It was obvious to Maisie and Felix that Mrs. Weiss favored Harry. When he walked into a room, her usually stern face lit up.

  “Maisie here is helping me with my enunciation, Mama,” Harry explained. “And Felix is a magician, too.”

  Mrs. Weiss barely glanced at them. “Hah!” she muttered.

  When the oil in the pan began to sizzle, Mrs. Weiss set about slicing onions and tossing them into the hot oil. She sprinkled a big amount of paprika on the onions and stirred. The little kitchen filled with the spicy aroma.

  “That smells really good, Mrs. Weiss,” Felix said.

  “Ach!” she said dismissively as she took beef cubes from butcher paper. “Everyone out!”

  Harry laughed. “Okay, okay, Mama,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “We’ll leave you to your goulash.”

  Out in the parlor, Maisie asked Harry where his family came from.

  “Appleton, Wisconsin,” he said.

  “Harry,” Maisie said, “your mother is not from Wisconsin. And neither are you.”

  Harry sighed. “Mama and Papa were born in Hungary, yes. In Pest. Papa was a very wise man. A rabbi.”

  “How did you get from Hungary to Wisconsin to here?” Felix asked.

  “Papa followed work wherever it went,” Harry said.

  “Our father, too,” Felix said, getting that sad feeling he got whenever he thought about how far away their father had moved. “He’s an artist. A sculptor. But he took a job at a museum in Qatar.”

  “The Middle East,” Maisie added.

  “He’ll send for you?” Harry asked. “When he gets settled?”

  Felix shook his head. “We live with our mother.”

  “Families sometimes have to do this,” Harry said matter-of-factly. “Separate in order to survive.”

  “Tell us how you got so good at magic,” Felix said. He didn’t want to talk about families separating. He didn’t want to feel sad.

  “When I was just nine years old, I learned to pick up needles with my eyelids, hanging upside down,” Harry said, boasting. “I was the Prince of A
ir! And people paid to come see me in our backyard in Appleton. I loved to perform. And then one day, my father took me to see a magician named Dr. Lynn. Dr. Lynn’s most famous trick was to cut up a man—”

  “Cut him up?” Maisie said. “What do you mean?”

  Harry made a chopping motion with his hands. “Cut off an arm and a leg and even his head, then throw them all into a cabinet, close the curtain, and after a while, the man shows up, all in one piece. I watched that trick, and I knew I had to be a magician like Dr. Lynn. Better than Dr. Lynn!”

  “You will be,” Felix said.

  “Ha!” Harry said. “I already am! I’m a magician and an escape artist, and now I’m working on cracking locks. All kinds of locks. This is an interest I’ve had my whole life, and I just keep getting better and better at it.”

  Mrs. Weiss laughed from the kitchen. “You learned to open locks just so you could get at my pies, Ehrie. That’s what I think.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Harry said.

  He glanced at Maisie. “I mean, isn’t it?”

  For half a second, Harry Houdini almost charmed her. Almost.

  After the dinner of goulash and wide egg noodles followed by peach pie, Harry sequestered himself in his room to practice for his opening at Tony Pastor’s the next night.

  “Let’s take a nice long walk,” Maisie suggested to Felix.

  They had tried to help Mrs. Weiss with the dishes, but she’d scowled at them and ordered them out of the kitchen.

  It was a warm June night, and even with the windows open, the Weisses’ apartment on East 69th Street felt stuffy and airless. A walk sounded like a great idea to Felix.

  But once outside, Maisie grabbed his shoulders and, with her eyes bright with excitement, said, “Let’s go see our old apartment.”

  Felix groaned. “Not again,” he said.

  When they’d held the coin and ended up following Alexander Hamilton from Saint Kitt’s to New York City, Maisie had insisted that if they went to Bethune Street they might be able to figure out how to time travel forward enough to land smack into the time before their parents got divorced, when they’d all lived there together and been happy. But when they finally found the spot, Bethune Street was not even a street yet—it was under the Hudson River.