The Fearsome Firebird

by Lauren Oliver

  The Firebird had apparently made a decision about Thomas. “Shrimp!” it screeched, still in that weirdly human voice. “Silly shrimp! Nosy, noggin-headed noodle!”

  Thomas blushed all the way to his ears and backed away quickly. “Not very friendly, is it?”

  “Let me see,” Sam said, holding out his hand to Mr. Dumfrey. The card had been folded in half. Inside was a crumpled Tendermint gum wrapper, which Sam flicked off with a fingernail, noting several others like it in the wastepaper basket. Even the card smelled vaguely like mint.

  “Sir Barrensworth really likes his chewing gum,” Sam said.

  “Sir Barrensworth lived for years alone in the wilderness,” Mr. Dumfrey said. “If that is the worst habit he acquired, he should consider himself lucky.”

  Beneath Sir Barrensworth’s name was an address, 1270 Park Avenue, and the words: Explorer. Adventurer. Collector of Rare Speecies.

  Sam frowned. “Species is spelled wrong,” he said.

  Mr. Dumfrey snatched the card back. “Probably a printer’s error,” he said, waving a hand. “Don’t you see how lucky we are? We’re saved! The Firebird will be the star of the show—and all for the bargain price of fifty dollars.”

  Sam nearly choked. “Fifty dollars?” That was more than the museum made in a month.

  “Cheap!” the Firebird squawked, ruffling its feathers. “Cheap! Cheap!”

  “It would be worth more if you wrung its neck,” Thomas mumbled.

  It was Max’s turn to receive an appraisal from the Firebird. This came even quicker than it had for the others.

  “Animal!” the bird screeched. “Beastly, untrained animal!”

  “You’re one to talk,” Max said, without seeming the slightest bit offended. And she stuck out her tongue.

  Suddenly, with a yowl of pure rage, Freckles bounded into the room and, claws outstretched, leaped directly for the cage on Mr. Dumfrey’s desk.

  “Freckles, no!” Sam yelled.

  Max just managed to catch Freckles by the scruff of his neck and haul him backward before he could work a paw between the cage bars. Even after Max deposited him on the floor, Freckles continued to growl, circling the desk, watching Mr. Dumfrey’s newest acquisition with an expression of pure greed.

  Cornelius ruffled his feathers in such a way that he appeared to be chuckling.

  “Clever cat!” he squawked. “Very clever cat!”

  “On the bright side,” Pippa said as soon as Mr. Dumfrey had dismissed them and they’d managed to shoo Freckles out into the hall, “if the museum folds, at this rate we can just open a zoo.”

  Even though there was no morning performance scheduled, Max headed straight for the Odditorium after excusing herself from Mr. Dumfrey’s office. As always, the big hall smelled faintly of old popcorn and bubble gum. The floor, despite daily scrubbings, was sticky as she made her way down the aisle toward the stage. The lights were dimmed, and in the shadows she saw Kestrel moving between the seats, searching for trash discarded by previous audience members and giving the faded felt cushions the occasional scrub with a large shoebrush.

  Max cleared her throat. Kestrel straightened up. His large, dark eyes seemed like holes seared into his face, and Max felt suddenly uncomfortable. She crossed her arms.

  “Miss Fitch wants you upstairs,” she lied. The museum’s seamstress and general manager was so severe that even Mr. Dumfrey didn’t dare contradict her. The first and last time Max had made the mistake of seeking Miss Fitch out to ask a question, she had spent five hours in the costume shop, getting poked with needles and strangled with yards of taffeta.

  Kestrel didn’t say a word, but loped immediately toward the door. Max held her breath until he was gone. There was something about Kestrel that made her think of graveyards, or lost cats, or the vacant buildings of the Bowery, sad and skinny and dark. Like he was absolutely contagious with tragedy.

  Once she was absolutely sure she was alone, she hefted herself onstage. The Odditorium looked different when there was no audience to fill it—sadder but also more beautiful, like an exotic flower wilting behind glass. She moved backstage, blinking in the gloom, and located the large, spinning board she occasionally used in one of her most successful tricks, the Spinning Pinnacle of Death. The wheel was fitted with leather arm- and ankle-straps by which Danny would normally be restrained. While the wheel spun, Max would throw a series of knives—eight or ten, depending on how she felt—so that by the time Danny was released, she had re-created him in metal silhouette.

  Today, however, she was interested in a different kind of target practice.

  She shoved the wheel across the stage, grunting a little. Finally, satisfied, she stepped back, counting off fifty feet. From her position, the Spinning Pinnacle of Death, with its multicolored rings, looked just like an oversized dartboard.

  It was perfect.

  After once again checking to make sure that the Odditorium was completely empty, she kicked off her shoes and then, hopping to maintain balance, peeled off both socks in turn, wiggling her toes to get the blood working. Then she removed a knife from the back pocket of her blue jeans—a pair Lash had given her, which fit almost perfectly after she’d cuffed the hems several times—and set it on the floor.

  The first difficulty was in merely picking the knife off the floor. She tried with her right foot, and then with her left. She switched back to her right foot. She spread her toes as wide as they would go. She stomped down on the handle. Still, the knife kept slipping.

  It was all much harder than she’d thought. And the harder it was, the angrier she got, and the more desperate to succeed.

  Finally, by wedging the knife handle in the space between her big and second toes, she managed to get the knife airborne. Now she was standing on one leg, and she briefly pinwheeled her arms and hopped a little from left to right. When she could finally balance without wobbling like a top on a floor made of Jell-O, she took a deep breath, keeping her arms outstretched, and tried to imagine Howie’s face sitting directly in the middle of the colored wheel, pinned there like Danny was during their act. That black hair, practically shellacked in place. That smile that was like the blinding-white grin of a predator. The bright blue of his eyes.

  How had she ever believed, even for a single second, that he might be the teensiest, tiniest bit cute?

  Suddenly energized by a wave of fury, she let out a half-mangled cry and threw. Or kicked.

  The knife arced through the air . . .

  Then clattered and skidded toward the wings, landing at least ten feet away from the target.

  She tried again. This time the knife slipped from between her toes too early and went skittering across the floor like a giant, rotating insect. Her next try was even worse. She released too late, and the knife soared into the air at a nearly vertical angle, so she had to dive out of the way to avoid getting sliced in two by its descent. The more frustrated she became, the worse her throws (or kicks; she couldn’t decide)—until at last, with a short scream of rage, she snatched up the knife with her hand and hurled it straight into the very center of the wheel, and then, for good measure, threw another three knives after it, thwack, and thwack, and thwack, so that the four blades aligned in the approximation of a deeply scowling mouth.

  Hearing a step behind her, she whirled around, gripping the last of her knives in one raised hand.

  “Don’t shoot!” cried a pale, skinny man standing in the door to the Odditorium, holding up both hands.

  “Who are you?” Max demanded, keeping her knife raised and hoping that in the dim light the man didn’t notice her furious blushing. She wished she hadn’t taken off her shoes. It seemed somehow to place her at a disadvantage. “What do you want? How long have you been standing there? Why are you spying on me?”

  “I—I’m not,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t. I’ve got a letter, that’s all. For delivery to 344 West Forty-Third Street.” He held up an envelope as proof, and at last Max lowered the knife, returned it to her pocket
, and jumped lightly off the stage.

  The man took a step backward as she approached, and she saw that his face was covered with light stubble. He was wearing old clothes that were patched, sewn, and brushed, treated with care that only the very poor give to their belongings. The man’s eyes traveled nervously over the room with its vaulted ceiling, speckled with mold; and the low-hanging banner trumpeting the Freak Show to End All Freak Shows!; and the large props visible on the stage, including the Spinning Pinnacle of Death but also a large coffin that Goldini sawed in half during his act.

  “Don’t be a baby,” she said as she reached for the letter in his hand and he gasped and jerked away. “I’m not going to cut your fingers off.”

  The man looked unconvinced, but he at last allowed Max to take the letter, immediately backing up several paces, safely out of reach.

  Despite all of Monsieur Cabillaud’s lessons, Max was not yet a very good reader. She didn’t understand why whole and hole sound the same but could be spelled differently, or how bill and bill could be spelled the same and mean different things. How come sign was pronounced sine and yet signal wasn’t pronounced sine-al?

  Still, she had no trouble recognizing the names written precisely in black ink on the front of the envelope.

  For Thomas, Pippa, Max, and Sam.

  Instantly, she got a very cold, very icky feeling, as if someone had just dribbled mud down her spine.

  “Where did you get this?” she croaked out. But when she looked up, the man was gone. Obviously, believing his duty done, he had fled the museum and its strange inhabitants.

  She opened the envelope with shaking fingers. The ripppp of the paper seemed very loud in the empty space. But she could barely make out the words on the page in front of her. It was as though, in an instant, she’d forgotten all of Cabillaud’s lessons. Her heart was pounding. Words swam around on the page like fish in a pool of white water. She couldn’t get her mind to focus long enough to try to tack them down into any order.

  One word, and one word only, jumped out at her, clear as a flashlight beam in the middle of the night.

  Max was suddenly overly aware of how alone she was, here, in the vast Odditorium, with all its strange shadows. . . .

  She hurried out into the lobby, where the large paneled windows at least gave the room a bright, busy look, and nearly collided with Monsieur Cabillaud.

  “Watch where you are going!” he huffed out, in a French accent made even more pronounced by his stuffy nose.

  Mumbling an apology, she hurried to the performers’ staircase and took the stairs two at a time, stopping on every floor to check for Pippa, Thomas, and Sam. She found them in the attic. Sam was still wearing his pajamas, and he blushed a deep scarlet when he saw her, for a reason she couldn’t fathom.

  “Look,” she panted out, shoving the letter at Thomas and nearly tripping over Freckles, who gave a reproachful meow.

  Thomas read the letter and his face darkened. Pippa, who was reading without even looking over the page, went white. Sam took the letter from Thomas, holding it carefully between two fingers.

  “Out loud,” Max said in a strangled voice. She already knew who it was from. She just needed to know what it said.

  Sam read, in a trembling voice:

  “‘Congratulations, children, on another inspiring display of the powers I gave you. I’m so proud. Soon, I hope, you’ll be very proud of me.’”

  It was signed with a single name; the word that Max had seen and immediately recognized:

  —Rattigan.

  N-U-M-O-N-Y-A.

  N-U-M-E-O-H-N-I-A.

  K-N-E-U-M-O-N-I-A.

  Max gnawed on the end of her pencil. Her brain ached from the effort of thinking. Why did spelling have to be so ridiculously complicated? And why did certain words have to be so much longer than other words? If Max ever became president, she would mandate that no words could be longer than two syllables.

  Of course, then she couldn’t be president. She’d have to be the present. Or the predent.

  Monsieur Cabillaud thwacked a ruler down on Max’s paper. “Eyes on your test,” he said with a severe glare. “Five more minutes.”

  It was no use. She couldn’t concentrate. Not after the news she’d seen this morning, about Howie and stupid amazing armless Alicia, and certainly not after the letter they’d received.

  Pippa had, predictably, wanted to go to the police. “This proves it,” she’d squawked, sounding exactly like Mr. Dumfrey’s pet cockatoo, Cornelius. “This proves that Rattigan was involved in what happened at the bank. That means he’s in New York.”

  Thomas shook his head. “All it proves is that Rattigan reads the newspaper,” he’d said. “Look,” he added, when Pippa opened her mouth to protest, “I know Rattigan’s to blame. You know Rattigan’s to blame. But that doesn’t help us, not as far as the cops are concerned.”

  Sam was still staring down at the page with an expression of disgust, as though the paper was covered not with words but crawling insects. “What about the last bit,” he said, “the part about making us proud? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Thomas’s face was grim. “It means he has something planned,” he said. “Something big.”

  “Three minutes,” Monsieur Cabillaud announced, and then sneezed loudly.

  Max sighed and gave it one last shot. P-N-E-U-M-O-N-I-A. She shook her head. Now that definitely wasn’t right. But before she could erase it, someone began to scream—a high, anguished wailing that rattled up through the floorboards and made Max’s teeth hurt.

  Monsieur Cabillaud leaped up from the edge of his desk, where he had been perched. “Stay here, children. Keep your eyes on your—oof.” He didn’t finish his sentence. Already, Max had barreled by him, practically knocking him off his feet as she sprang toward the spiral staircase. Pippa and Sam followed quickly after her.

  Monsieur Cabillaud fumbled to restore his glasses to his small, sloped nose. “As your tutor, I demand zat you all get back here zees instant!” he screeched.

  But it was too late.

  He was speaking to an empty classroom.

  From various corners, closets, and rooms, the residents of the museum materialized, pouring down the stairs toward the source of the sound like bits of paper swirling down a giant drain. Lash appeared with a lasso looped over one shoulder. Betty came out from the bathroom with her beard wet and set into pink rollers. Caroline and Quinn, who had been squabbling over a particularly pretty spangled dress, came down the stairs with the item in question still gripped between them.

  Max nearly collided with Mr. Dumfrey as he emerged from his office wearing red-toed slippers and an expression of deep irritation. From the faint lines crisscrossing his face and the large ink stain marking his chin, she judged that he had once again fallen asleep on his desk while attempting to sort out the monthly financial reports.

  “What in Houdini’s name is that awful racket?” he said as first Max, then Sam, then Pippa, then Lash, then the twins, bounded by him.

  “Sounds like a prairie dog choking on a prickly pear,” Lash shouted back, and Mr. Dumfrey, joining the back of the line, allowed himself to be swept up by the current of motion and carried downstairs toward the lobby.

  On the second floor, Miss Fitch, with a thimble on her thumb and several pins in her mouth, emerged from the costume department, neatly dodging a wax replica of the Tree of Knowledge, behind which the door to her quarters was concealed. She was followed by a shirtless Danny, who was being fitted for a new tuxedo to use in the ballroom dancing act.

  In the lobby, they found Smalls and Gil Kestrel already gathered. Thomas had taken his usual shortcut through the walls, and was just brushing a fine layer of dust from his clothing.

  General Farnum was on his knees in front of his flea circus, both hands pressed to the glass, leaving smudgy fingerprints. His face was contorted with grief.

  Mr. Dumfrey shoved through the crowd. “General!” he cried. “What’s gotten into you? What�
�s the matter?” Dumfrey had very little tolerance for dramatics, unless he was the one performing. “Speak, for God’s sake.”

  For a moment, General Farnum’s mouth worked up and down, as if he were trying to chew through an invisible bit.

  “Go on, General,” Lash said, giving him a nudge.

  With a deep, shuddering sigh, Farnum finally managed to speak.

  “Dead!” he choked out. “All of them—dead!”

  For the first time, Max noticed that the glass terrarium, usually full of zipping dark shapes, was perfectly still. Peering closely, she saw hundreds of miniature specks freckled across the sand: dead fleas, small as the point of a pencil, piled on the floor of the circus.

  Betty gasped. Smalls put a massive arm around her and hung his head.

  “Good night, sweet fleas, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,” he said solemnly, wiping a tear from one eye.

  “Maybe they’re only napping,” Caroline suggested.

  “Don’t be an idiot, Caroline,” said Quinn. “Of course they aren’t napping.” She turned to General Farnum and laid a hand consolingly on his shoulder. “Maybe they’ve just come down with a bad cold.”

  Mr. Dumfrey bent forward to more closely examine the fallen insects. “This is very unfortunate. And the circus was doing so well . . .” He shook his head and then brightened. “Good thing about the Firebird. With just a little training, it’ll be shipshape for the show.”

  General Farnum seemed not to hear. “All those years of training . . . Handpicked them myself, from Tennessee to Tallahassee and all the way to Tahoe. I’ll never find a better group of fleas, never.”

  “Hmmm.” Lash removed the top of the terrarium, scooped up a handful of the dead fleas, and began to prod them with a finger. “Nope,” he said, depositing the fleas back into their tank. “Nothing doing. Dead as a doornail, each and every one of them.”

  “It was an ambush.” The general sounded as if he were choking on a large and very dry baked potato. “A cowardly sneak attack.” Then, in an instant, his face transformed. Gone was the grief, replaced by an expression of such utter rage that Max felt almost frightened. He rocketed to his feet and spun around, pointing a knobby finger at Danny.