Strange Country Day
Page 13
You’d think I’d be used to being an outcast at the circus, but I wasn’t. Even so, I had to hide my feelings. If Burt sensed a chink in your emotional armor, an ounce of insecurity, it got you more than trouble; it got you a beating. I pretended to wipe sweat from my brow. In reality, a giant alligator tear crept down my cheek.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Burt. “You feeling under the weather?”
“It’s so hot out. I feel like I’m going to puke,” I said.
Burt slapped his thigh in laughter and snorted. “Awww, the poor little monster can’t handle the heat? You want to cool off, do ya? How about I turn you into bloodsicle treats and feed you to the lions?”
I hung my head lower and avoided his gaze.
Burt lifted up my chin, his meat-pulverizing grip tight. “Once you’re done cleaning out the animals’ cages, pick up the garbage and elephant crap off the midway. Then set up the stands in the Big Top. When you’re finished doing that, scrub them all down. If they’re not spic-and-span, even one piece of gum left under the seats, I’ll use that giant hammer from that Whack-A-Mole game to pound you into a pulp.”
“Can’t anybody help me out?” I pleaded in a lame attempt to get some sympathy. But, like trying to calm down our hyperactive chimpanzee, I knew it would be useless.
Burt’s bloodshot eyes smoldered with hate. He got right up in my face. If he wasn’t still holding onto my chin, his rotten breath would have knocked me over. “You’re the human marvel, you figure it out on your own. Unless you have a death wish, slacking off isn’t an option.”
In his customary mode of pushing meanness to whole new levels, Burt punched me hard on the back of the arm before lumbering out of the tent.
Depression sunk in.
One day I hoped this place would become a nightmarish memory, but until I could gather up the courage to leave, I was stuck. Where on earth would a boy like me go? I wasn’t even accepted at the crappiest of circuses. The dreams I had of a better life were just like the pile of empty peanut shells scattered by my feet. Crushed.
One of the lions let out a pathetic roar—his reminder it was feeding time. Tough as it was, when you had eight messed up animals counting on you to take care of them, you had to put personal issues aside. I sighed, got back to my work, and everything went like clockwork until I heard it.
“Ohhhhh-argh-ahhhh.”
It came from behind Bobo’s enclosure.
Just great, I thought, somebody’s trying to pull one over on me again. The other performers’ idea of a good gag usually involved getting me in trouble with Burt. I crossed my arms over my chest, bracing myself for any attacks, and yelled, “Whichever one of you jokers is hiding, you better get out now! ’Cause if you don’t, my dog’s going to rip you to shreds. Either that, or I will.”
I expected one of our midgets to pop out, say “Hahaha, sucker, we got you good,” and kick me hard in the shins with a steel-toed boot. But nothing happened. Total silence. Curiosity got the best of me. I pointed toward the small opening in between the cage and the tent and whispered, “Snaggletooth, make yourself useful, go check it out.”
A mess of a mutt, Snaggletooth adopted me somewhere between Kansas and Nebraska. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t shake the beast. His brown and black hair matted down onto his body. His eyes were as yellow as Burt’s sallow skin. And his jagged teeth, what he had left of them, stuck out every which way—kind of like mine, except I have all my clackers. Needless to say, we made a good pair.
“Ohhhhh-argh-ahhhh,” came the groan again, this time even louder.
My dog raised his ears in alarm, scampered between my legs, and trembled against my knees so violently my own teeth began to chatter. Then, the gangly, three-legged beast lost his balance and tipped over.
“Please help me—” squeaked a high-pitched boy’s voice. Which really flipped Snaggletooth out. The useless mutt ran as fast as a three-legged dog could and hid in a corner behind a pile of sawdust.
I stood in angry silence and flicked quarter-sized flies away, my patience worn thin. “Whoever you are, you better get your lame butt out here now,” I snarled between clenched teeth.
“I c-c-can’t,” said the voice.
“Why? What’s your problem?”
“Well, for one thing,” he said, wheezing. “I can tell by your tone that you’re ticked off. You may want to go all medieval on me and beat me up.”
He had a point.
“And the other?” I asked.
“I’m stuck under something massive, I’m having trouble breathing, and I think my ribs are breaking.”
Bobo chose that exact moment to go ballistic and shake his cage with manic force.
“W-w-what’s going on out there?” the boy whimpered.
“Uh, yeah, about that…” I said, glaring into the eyes of the crazed, cross-eyed bear. Although he stood over seven feet tall, and his four-inch long claws could rip your throat open in one quick swoop, my fear of the grizzly passed a long time ago. We sort of had this unspoken agreement. I gave him berries. He wouldn’t gouge my eyes out. Plus, “the bumbling-bear-of-a-ballerina” looked ridiculous in the pink tutu and rhinestone-encrusted tiara he always wore.
“In order to get by the grizzly, I have to calm him down,” I explained. “By the way, I’m Maverick. What’s your name?”
“Freddie. Freddie Finch,” he said. “Did you say grizzly?”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s harmless unless he hasn’t had his medication or if he’s really irritated.” I handed Bobo a bushel of strawberries through the feeding hatch. “He’s just spazzing out a little now. He’ll be fine in a second.”
Freddie didn’t respond.
“Freddie? Can you hear me?” I asked. “Freddie?”
The pain-in-the-butt perpetrator didn’t utter a sound. My heart jack-hammered against my ribs like swift punches. If something happened to this kid, the blame would be directed at me like a heat-guided missile. Facing Burt’s fiery wrath was the last thing I needed on this scorcher of a day. In an instant, I got down onto all fours. My hands slid across Bobo’s regurgitated strawberry mush and I inched my way in between the side of the tent, into the gap between the canvas and the enclosure. That’s when I saw a tuft of blond, fluffy hair covered in red ooze.
A sickening pit of dread grew in my stomach.
There was too much blood. I was too late and this Freddie kid’s death now weighed down upon my shoulders. Paralyzed with fear, I closed my eyes and did the only thing that came to mind.
“Dear God,” I said. “Please don’t let this chicken-haired kid die. He seems all right, just a little stupid. I guess you did what you could to save him from becoming a First of May at Grumbling’s. But what were you thinking? Why did I have to discover him? I have enough—”
“Nice prayer,” huffed Freddie.
Startled, I bashed my shoulder on a tent pole.
“Sorry, I must have passed out for a second,” he said. “And I totally spaced on your name.”
“I’m Maverick,” I answered, wondering where his body was. Maybe he was a freak like me—like one of the famous ones that didn’t have all their parts? Maybe he was like Johnny Eck, who was born without legs, or Prince Randian, who only had a torso and a head. My imagination was spinning out of control, but I managed to snapback into reality. “Um, Freddie, you can call me Mav, or Maverick. Whatever.”
Freddie’s voice shook when he spoke. “Maverick, I’m not feeling so hot. I’m in a lot of pain and it’s just getting worse. It feels like an elephant is sitting on top of me and something really stinks…bad.”
That didn’t make any sense. All three of our nearly catatonic elephants were shackled to the ground in chains. That was when everything clicked. He wasn’t bleeding; it was just Bobo’s berry spit. And this kid wasn’t even in the animal tent, only his head was. Which meant the rest of his body was either a) outside, under something like a car or b) under something much
scarier. If it was b, Freddie’s situation could be deadly. I had to figure out something quick, or else this fluffy chicken-haired kid could be flattened into a pancake.
“Hold on, Freddie, keep breathing. Sit tight, I’ll get you out of this,” I said, trying to sound confident. But if I was being honest, I panicked more with each passing second.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Sample Chapter: Tracy Tam Santa Command
Sample Chapter: King of the Mutants
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