They had been packing up the bookshelves in the living room when his aunt spotted the bootlace on his wrist. She left and returned a few seconds later with a pair of scissors. She slapped them onto the dusty shelf in front of Micah.
“Cut it off.”
He saw her distorted reflection in the shiny metal of the scissors. Her lips had disappeared into a stern frown. “Don’t you want magic to be real?” he asked as he turned to face her. “Maybe just a little bit?” If he could find even a shred of common ground with her, the next few years would be a lot easier.
But Grandpa Ephraim’s Gertie was long gone, and Aunt Gertrudis looked at Micah like he had asked her if she wanted to contract a rare disease. “I want my life to go back to normal. I want to make the best of a bad situation. I don’t want to cling to infantile fantasies. Cut it off.”
Micah pushed the scissors aside. “I won’t. Not ever.”
He didn’t know what had changed since their last argument over the bootlace. Maybe it was how he said, “I won’t.” He would have told her that two plus two equaled four in exactly the same way.
She took the scissors back to the kitchen and stopped speaking to him.
It was an improvement in some ways. They didn’t argue anymore. But this new version of Aunt Gertrudis had given up on Micah, and she went about getting her life “back to normal” as though he wasn’t even going to be a part of it. She didn’t mention him in phone calls to her friends. She stopped asking him about school. Micah felt like a piece of furniture.
The trip to Arizona in Aunt Gertrudis’s car was the longest Micah had ever been on, and they had only been driving for three hours. Even mute, she had a special way of making every mile last for an eternity. When she merged onto the interstate, the sun coming through the windshield turned the car into an oven.
“Do you mind if I turn on the air-conditioning?” Micah asked.
When she didn’t answer, he turned the air-conditioning on.
Aunt Gertrudis turned it off.
It was the closest they had come to a conversation in days.
Furniture, he reminded himself. Ugly furniture that she never wanted in the first place.
He watched the other cars pass by. A little girl wearing a hat with bunny rabbit ears on it waved at him from a minivan. Micah waved back gloomily. He hoped the girl was going to wherever Circus Mirandus was. She would fit in there.
After a while, the other cars stopped passing them. Traffic crawled down the highway. When Aunt Gertrudis had to hit the brakes to avoid rear-ending the truck in front of them, she hissed like an angry old cat.
“People are so inconsiderate here.”
Not long after that, traffic stopped completely. They were caught in a jam.
Micah watched the families in the cars around them while his aunt muttered under her breath. The car grew warmer and warmer in the sun, and his eyelids grew heavier and heavier. He let them fall shut. He was almost asleep, right on the edge of a thought that looked like it might be a dream, when he heard pipes.
And drums.
Micah jerked forward so quickly that his seat belt caught and yanked him back. He unbuckled it and whipped his head around. They were still stuck in the traffic jam. Some people were getting out of their cars and stretching. Others were climbing on top of their vehicles to look ahead toward where the problem must be.
“Ridiculous,” Aunt Gertrudis grumbled.
Micah saw one of the climbers, a teenager in a T-shirt covered with skulls, point. He started to shout.
Micah reached for the handle of the car door.
“It’s probably a wreck,” said his aunt.
“No,” said Micah. “I hear music. The music.”
He got out of the car. When she didn’t tell him to get back in, Micah hesitated. “Don’t you want to see?” he asked her. “You could give it one more chance.”
She looked at him. For a moment, Micah thought she was considering it, but then she turned away. She gripped the steering wheel like it was a life preserver.
Micah started walking. Aunt Gertrudis never called him back.
Micah passed minivans and tractor-trailers and cars, and he still couldn’t see anything but traffic. But the music was getting louder. He started to jog toward it, then to run. Please, oh please, he thought as his feet beat the pavement.
When he reached the cause of the traffic jam, he stopped dead.
“It was an earthquake, man,” said a pale guy standing next to him. “It has to have been an earthquake.”
Micah was too shocked to say anything at all. A chasm had been torn across the interstate and as far as he could see in either direction. It was so deep that it looked like it went to the center of the planet, and craggy rocks jutted from the walls. A Greyhound bus was so close to the edge that the asphalt under its front wheels was crumbling.
Across the gap, a hundred yards away, Micah could see other interstate travelers staring back at them. Everyone looked as amazed as he felt.
“Man,” said the pale guy. “Dude, this is going to be all over the news. It’s like the new Grand Canyon.”
The music was still calling Micah from the other side of the chasm. He couldn’t possibly reach it. He walked right up to the edge and stared down. It was so far it made him dizzy, so far that it should have been impossible. It reminded him of how much it had hurt to fall from the gorilla balloon, and he took a step back.
The drums pounded in his ears. The pipes filled the air. It was too cruel. Why would Circus Mirandus be calling him if following the music meant walking over the edge of a canyon?
Maybe, thought Micah. Maybe I’m just imagining it. Was it possible to want something so much that you could hear it even when it wasn’t there?
No, he decided. He knew he wasn’t imagining the music. Circus Mirandus was out there somewhere beyond this cliff. The Lightbender was out there. Micah inched forward until the toes of his sneakers were over the edge. He could feel the empty underneath them.
His stomach clenched as though he’d already fallen. Don’t look down there, he told himself. He started to take a step back, but then he paused.
“Don’t look down,” Micah said aloud. His voice echoed off the canyon’s walls.
Micah knew this was one knot he couldn’t untangle. Whatever he chose, he would be taking a huge risk. Stepping forward might mean falling to his death. Going back to Aunt Gertrudis might mean never seeing Circus Mirandus again.
Was it worth it?
Micah closed his eyes. He heard the pale guy shout, “Dude! That kid’s gonna jump. Someone grab him!” But nobody did. Part of Micah waited for the ground to drop out from under him, but it never happened. He just kept moving forward with his eyes shut tight until the music stopped.
He listened. It was very quiet now. He couldn’t hear the roar of people or cars. His chest started to ache. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out in one big gasp and opened his eyes.
In front of Micah was an almost-empty stretch of interstate. Almost empty, because a man in a long leather coat stood in the center of it beside an elephant. The Lightbender spread his arms wide and smiled.
“Hello, Micah,” he said. “How do you like my miracle?”
Grandpa Ephraim had never wanted the Lightbender to save him. He hadn’t wanted to use his miracle for himself, but for Micah. The Lightbender explained everything as they rode Big Jean toward an EXIT sign.
Grandpa Ephraim’s last wish was for Micah to have the chance that he himself had lost. He had asked the Lightbender to teach him to use his magic; he had asked him to take Micah to Circus Mirandus.
“I don’t think you can imagine how shocked I was,” the Lightbender said. He was holding Micah close, as if he was afraid he might lose track of him if he let go. “I have spent my life making magic for children, but I have neve
r tried to teach a child before. I have certainly never tried to raise one.”
“You’re doing fine so far,” said Micah. He was almost breathless with happiness. “You’re doing more than fine.”
He couldn’t believe that this was really happening. He was going to live with the Lightbender. He was going to learn magic. Grandpa Ephraim could have asked for anything for himself, and instead, he gave Micah everything.
“Yes, well,” the Lightbender sounded a little embarrassed. “I have not had the job for very long. I assure you that I will make plenty of mistakes in due course.”
“And Mr. Head?” Micah asked. “He really doesn’t mind?”
“He was . . . reluctant to risk welcoming someone so young and untried into our ranks.”
“Because of what my grandmother did.”
The Lightbender didn’t disagree. “He wanted me to make absolutely sure that you loved Circus Mirandus as much as we do.”
Micah realized then that the canyon across the interstate had been a test. “That cliff,” he said.
“Some of my better work,” said the Lightbender. “Did you like it?”
“Um . . .” said Micah. “Remind me not to make you angry. Ever.”
The Lightbender was still laughing when a familiar red-feathered blur plummeted out of the clear blue sky. Chintzy landed on top of Jean’s head and dropped an envelope into Micah’s lap. He looked at the return address.
It was from Jenny.
“Do you know what that girl is going to do to my workload?” the parrot huffed. “You’ve been living with us for ten minutes.”
Micah ripped it open, and a letter fell out along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. He was surprised to see that Jenny’s handwriting was even sloppier than his own.
Dear Micah,
Welcome to Arizona! My mom is letting me send this letter next-day mail so that it will be waiting for you when you arrive. I hope the trip with your aunt wasn’t too bad.
I know you just left, but I already miss you. Thank you so much for my bracelet. It really does make me feel like you’re not so far away.
I’ve been doing some research on Arizona. I made a list of fun facts for you about the state. Daddy says we might have time to vacation this summer, and I’m trying to convince him that the desert will be more educational than Florida.
I need to get this letter in the mail, so I’d better go now. Please write back.
Your friend,
Jenny Mendoza
P.S. Holy smokes! Chintzy!
I don’t even know how she got in my room, but she told me that the Lightbender has some kind of test for you and that you’re going to pass because she’s given you a hint and that she’ll deliver your mail from now on. Holy smokes, Micah! Are you really going to live at Circus Mirandus? Write back NOW.
“You have a wonderful friend in her, Micah,” said the Lightbender.
“The best,” Micah agreed. He touched the bootlace at his wrist. “I know we’ll probably be traveling all over the place, but is there any way I can visit her sometime?”
“This is how it starts,” Chintzy warned the Lightbender. “Next he’ll be asking you for a pony.”
“I will work something out with Mr. Head,” said the Lightbender. “Children don’t usually visit Circus Mirandus more than once, but then again, we don’t usually have a child living there.”
He raised an eyebrow at Chintzy. “And he can have a pony if he really wants one. We have plenty of them.”
Micah reread Jenny’s letter while Chintzy bickered with the Lightbender. He couldn’t believe how very good his life was going to be. Big Jean stomped along at elephant speed, but Micah knew they would catch up with Circus Mirandus eventually. And when they arrived, he wouldn’t have to worry about tickets or being invited in.
You never need an invitation to go home.
Acknowledgments
When I wrote the first draft of Circus Mirandus, I was alone with my words and my imagination and my prayers. But the first draft was a mighty tangle. This page is for the magicians who helped me unravel it.
My sister, Kate Beasley, read it first and last and a hundred times (no, really) in between. She is a marvelous writer with her own stories to tell, but she always finds the time. Kate, you are my favorite. We go together like toast and cheese.
Susan Fletcher, Martine Leavitt, and Uma Krishnaswami are three of the smartest, most generous people I have ever met. They all left their marks on the manuscript while I was studying at VCFA.
Elena Giovinazzo is that agent. She can fix your novel and explain the publishing industry and assuage all your fears with a single phone call. I adore her, and the rest of the Pippin Properties family, forever.
My editor, Namrata Tripathi, is the perfect guide. She is brilliant, and she makes me want to be a better writer. I am so grateful to her for believing in Circus Mirandus. She and the team at Dial are exceptional in every way.
And, of course, I want to offer an elaborate and lengthy thank you to the readers. But I’d better not. Life is short, and wonderful stories are waiting for you.
Go find them.
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