“Now back inside with you. No townies in the backyard.”
Emma smiled at the clown, but didn’t get up. She hoped he would disappear into the tent where she had seen the other clowns go. But he just stood there as if waiting to make sure she wasn’t going to wander the backyard where she didn’t belong.
Horses and bareback riders began lining up at the performers’ entrance. Music spilled from the Big Top and the horses started high-stepping and bobbing their plumed heads. Their lady riders’ costumes glittered with a million sequins, as the horses pranced through the performers’ entrance.
“Go, kid!” the clown said. “You don’t want to miss the Liberty Show.”
“No, sir.” Emma jumped up and dusted the sawdust off her behind. Quickly, she scurried around the last horse in line, putting the spotted pony between herself and the clown. Then she ducked behind the canvas flap at the tent’s backdoor. While she waited for the clown to leave, Emma surveyed the backyard. Little kids chased each other, running in between the many tents and wagons. Clothes hung on lines draped from tent ropes. Several acrobats practiced their routines. And then Emma spotted the menagerie cages, now empty, being rolled toward the railroad flatcars that waited on the track. Workers, many of them black men, pulled down the menagerie and sideshow tents while inside the Big Top the show went on. The circus was coming down and the matinee hadn’t even ended yet! How long before the whole circus would be gone? She had to find Filippo before she was caught or kicked out.
That’s when she spotted the watering trough. A bucket stood beside it, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Of course! She would pretend to be the water boy here in the backyard just as she had been for Boss Man and Sabu that morning. She would fill the bucket and provide water for any thirsty animal she saw. And then she would wash herself.
Music for the equestrian act still echoed from the Big Top. At the far end of the backyard, she spotted her elephants now wearing bright red harnesses on their gigantic heads. They lumbered toward the performers’ entrance with Sabu leading them, dressed in his fake swami suit. Ladies in fancy ruffled costumes—with long, white satin gloves and feathered headdresses—perched atop the mammoth beasts.
Sabu spotted Emma with her bucket. “You still here! Nicht! Away!” He flicked a hand at her. “No water. No pissing elephants!” Sabu yelled. “Stupid boy.”
Not knowing what else to do, Emma tipped the bucket, dumping the water, and ran past Sabu and the line of elephants—to where, she had no idea. She spotted a circus wagon at the far end of the lot, thinking she could duck behind it and not be seen. With her eyes fixed on the wagon, she stepped in a soft pile of elephant dung.
“Hey, Sonny. What you doing in the backyard?” a voice asked. It was Tina, waddling between two tents. She had changed from her rompers into a regular woman’s dress.
“Um . . . I need to see Filippo,” Emma said.
“The Flying Wonder?”
Emma nodded.
Tina started laughing so hard her whole body shook. This lady sure did find things amusing. “That dressing tent down there . . . next to Clown Alley,” Tina said when she had stopped laughing. “Hey, what’s your business with him?”
Emma thought fast. “Ah . . . got an important message for him.”
“Important message, eh?” Tina said. “What’s your name, kid? You’re a townie, aren’t you?” She stared at Emma, her eyes like shiny bits of coal stuck into the plump cheeks of a snowman. Tina placed her warm hand on Emma’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t bother Mr. Filippo now if I were you.” She winked and wobbled toward the waiting train cars.
Of course she would bother Filippo. She hadn’t come this far to worry about manners. She found the hose she’d used earlier that day and rinsed out the bucket. She had to try to make herself presentable. Her entire body felt sticky with sweat. Even though the clouds blocked the worst of the sun’s heat, the air was a blanket. The smells—animal and human—made her stomach churn.
She wiped the foul-smelling elephant dung off her boots on a hay bale. With the water from the hose, she rinsed the checkered handkerchief the clown had given her and ran back behind the empty circus wagon. Here she washed her face, underarms, and hands with the handkerchief. When she thought she’d done as good a job as she could, she wiped the rest of the dung off her boots. By now that handkerchief was brown with filth, her own and the elephants’. Her hair was another matter. That would have to stay tucked in the fedora. She couldn’t risk being caught and thrown out now.
A chill skittered down her spine.
What would Filippo be like? And what would he think of her?
Emma rinsed out the handkerchief as best she could and walked toward the tent Tina had said was Filippo’s.
She heard voices—a man’s…and then a woman’s.
The woman giggled.
The sounds from inside the tent made Emma blush. They were probably kissing. Had Tina been wrong about this being Filippo’s tent? Was the man’s voice she heard not Filippo’s?
Strangely, Emma felt relieved that the man inside the tent may not be Filippo. So, who, then, was inside the tent? And where was Filippo?
“Curly!” Boss Man’s voice behind her nearly startled her out of her underwear. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the matinee?” he asked. This time he wasn’t smiling.
Her heart thumped like a tom-tom, as Boss Man stood staring at her, waiting for her answer. What would she say, do? Maybe it was time for the truth.
Emma pulled the photograph from her bib pocket and handed it to Boss Man. She watched his face, waiting for him to say something.
“Where’d you get this?” Boss Man asked.
She tried to read his eyes, those eyes that were now studying her. “It belongs to my . . . my mother,” Emma said.
“Oh…my…God,” he said and shook his head. “I thought maybe. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Hold on, Curly.” He opened the flap of the tent and called inside. “Romeo, you have a visitor.”
“Not now!” the man said.
“This is someone I think you ought to meet,” Boss Man said.
Emma held her breath, wondering if the man would come out. Wondering who would come out. The air was thick and still, the mid-afternoon dark as twilight. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Finally, the canvas flap on the tent opened and there he stood, just a few feet from her—Filippo the Flying Wonder, half naked, his bare chest shiny with sweat, his dark hair as badly in need of a comb as hers, a cigarette dangling from his lips. When Emma finally took a breath, it was of sweat and tobacco.
“Sapphira’s daughter,” Boss Man told Filippo, then handed him the photograph.
Filippo’s sleepy eyes became wide awake. “Mio Dio!” he said.
Emma bit her lip to keep from crying. She stared at Filippo. Close up he didn’t look quite like she thought he would, like the man who took her breath away only a few minutes earlier under the Big Top.
Before she could say anything, Emma heard barking. She turned and there was Lucky racing toward her. He jumped up on her and tried to lick her face.
Emma fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around Lucky. “Oh, buddy,” she whispered. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Emma!” someone shouted.
When Emma turned in the direction of the shout, there stood Clarence and Teddy at the fence that circled the back lot. “Your ma’s coming!” Teddy yelled.
Emma’s heart nearly stopped and then started thudding hard. Before she could consider what Mother would do if she found her here at the circus, a bare-footed woman wearing a pink satin robe appeared at the tent door. “Popo, what’s going on? You’ve got to get dressed. The finale’s in five minutes.”
The man—Filippo, Popo, Romeo, whoever he was—started toward the tent door, then turned to Emma. “Meet me here after the matinee,” he told her, his voice no longer
gruff. He smiled and scratched his head. “Sapphira’s baby girl. Now ain’t that something?”
Just as Filippo disappeared inside the tent, thunder boomed and the sky opened up. Pea-size hail pelleted tents and yard. Lucky barked frantically.
“Get him out of here!” Boss Man said. “Go.” He pointed at a gate at the far end of the backyard not too far from where Clarence and Teddy had stood a few minutes earlier.
Emma ran, Lucky beside her, toward the gate and the empty railroad car where she told Nan she would be if she had to hide. Now she did have to hide, from the pouring rain and from the awful feeling that maybe she had done something terribly wrong in disobeying Mother, coming to the circus to try and find her father. Still, she didn’t know for certain that this man, Filippo, the Flying Wonder, was her father. But one thing she did know. She couldn’t leave the circus grounds until she found out.
Chapter Twelve
Caught
By the time Emma reached the boxcar, Granddad’s fedora and Clarence’s overalls had soaked up half the sky. She climbed the ladder, Lucky close behind her, and crashed through the open doors, tripping and falling flat on her face.
Inside sat Clarence and Teddy, resting on a bale of hay, laughing at her.
“Shut up, you stinking tattletales,” she yelled. “Why’d you tell Mother where I was?”
“Aunt Sapphira made us tell,” Teddy said.
“You were supposed to help at Dr. Rose’s. Remember?” Clarence said, all high-hat. “But, no, you were off at the circus, exactly where your ma told you not to go. When you gonna grow up, Emma? Did you really think you’d get away with this?”
“Aunt Saffy came home to get you,” Teddy said. “Then Lucky came. We’re no tattletales. She had to whoop it out of us.” He grinned.
Emma glared at her cousins, hands on hips. “Mother would never whoop you. Though she should in my opinion.”
“Don’t get so hoity-toity, Emma Monroe,” Clarence said. “We came here to warn you about your ma. Remember?”
“Yeah,” Teddy said, resting his elbows on his knees, chin in his hands. “Did you get to see the circus? Was it keen?”
Emma nodded. “Most spectacular show on earth.” She shivered, from the wet clothes or remembering Filippo’s triple somersault, she couldn’t tell.
“So,” Clarence said. “Why aren’t you at the matinee anyhow? What were you doing with Boss Man and that other fellow?”
“None of your beeswax,” she said, rubbing her hands over her arms, trying to get warm. Lucky made himself comfortable on the dirty boxcar floor.
“Come on, Emma,” Clarence said. “What are you up to now, besides a heap of trouble?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I did tell you . . . which I’m not.” Hers was a juicy plum of a secret, one that was hard not to crow like a barnyard cock about—the possibility of having a father who was a famous circus performer.
“Tell us, Emma. Please?” Teddy pleaded.
Emma stared at her cousins, itching to tell. “That man with Boss Man? That was Filippo the Flying Wonder. And, I think he’s my father!”
“What?” Clarence said. “You’re looney!”
Teddy laughed. “You ain’t got a pa.”
“Yeah,” Clarence said. “You’re a bastard.”
Emma lunged at Clarence and pounded him with her fists. Lucky stood up and barked. “You take that back!” Emma shouted. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes.
“Can’t take back the truth, Emma. Your ma was never married to your pa. That makes you illegitimate, a bastard, no matter how you look at it.”
Emma unclenched her fists. She could hear her heart pounding. “You don’t know that!”
“I heard my ma tell Pa.”
“That doesn’t make it the truth!”
“So, why doesn’t your ma ever talk about your pa?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Emma said. Which was a lie. It mattered very much.
Why had she shared her precious secret with her stupid cousins anyway? And she had almost showed them the photograph. The photograph! Where was it? She had given it to Boss Man outside of Filippo’s tent. Then what? She couldn’t remember. She had to get it back!
“So, what are you planning to do now? Run away with the circus?” Clarence teased. “You go home, your ma’s probably gonna lock you up forever.”
“But whoop you first,” Teddy said. “When she finds you. You should run away and join the circus.”
“Maybe I will.” She glowered at her cousins, a couple of stupid, lying farm boys with no father of their own to speak of, since he was in faraway California somewhere. “Maybe I will join the circus.”
“Do it,” Teddy said. “You should. I would.”
“She won’t,” Clarence said. “Emma’s just fooling with us.”
“You’ll be eating your words soon enough. I’m meeting Filippo the Flying Wonder after the matinee. I’ll convince him to let me come with the circus, teach me to fly—a father-daughter act.”
Clarence laughed, a huge annoying hoot.
Emma ignored him.
“What if your ma finds you first?” Teddy asked.
Emma froze. Mother! Was she here now…somewhere at the circus?
“Teddy, will you watch Lucky for me? Stay here till I talk to Filippo?” Emma begged her cousin. “Please?”
“OK,” Teddy said. “Can Lucky be my dog if you join the circus?”
She didn’t answer him. Lucky would never be anyone’s dog but hers.
“You better not run off with the circus,” Clarence said.
Emma jumped from the boxcar. She had no time to lose. In a matter of moments Emma would find out if Filippo was her father—if Mother didn’t find her first.
Chapter Thirteen
Humiliation
At the very moment Emma ran toward Filippo’s tent, a cavalcade of menagerie cages rolled toward a line of flatcars that waited on the track. One of the circus trains was pulling out and the matinee hadn’t even ended yet. Boss Man had told her this was a “water stop,” a one-performance stand. All that work for just one show.
The downpour had ended and the air smelled of mud and wet hay. Roustabouts busily dismantled tents and loaded wagons. Music spilled from the Big Top as Emma ran toward Filippo’s tent and quickly ducked into it. Mother would never look for her in the tent.
Emma surveyed the inside, hoping to spot the photograph somewhere, but didn’t see it. The tent held a cot, folding chairs, costumes hanging on a clothes rack, water buckets, a trunk with a tray on top that held combs, brushes, a pair of scissors, and, next to it, a long mirror. She caught her reflection in it. Holy cow, was she a sight. Those filthy wet overalls, her hair crammed inside the fedora. She had to do something to improve her looks.
She pulled off the still-damp hat, undid the rubber binder around her hair, and shook her head, running her fingers through the thick curls that framed her face like a lion’s mane. Next to the mirror stood the rack of costumes—the prettiest dresses she had ever seen, shiny satin, gold and silver glitter! In one of those costumes, even the most plain-looking girl in the world would look beautiful. Suddenly the idea seized her. Maybe she could find a costume in her size. Something that would make even her look pretty to Filippo. But she had to hurry.
She pulled out a dress with a pink satin bodice bespeckled with a million sequins and a tulle skirt and held it up to her chest. It might fit, but she had to be quick. Any minute Filippo would be there. He couldn’t find her half-dressed. Or worse, not dressed at all.
She peeked outside the tent. No performers had entered the backyard yet, but music from the grand finale spilled from the Big Top. After Emma climbed out of her overalls and yanked off her shirt, she caught a glimpse of her reflection and stopped to stare at herself in her underwear. No wonder she had passed so easily for a
boy. Her body gave away no hints of womanhood.
Hurry! she reminded herself. She slipped the satin and tulle costume off the hanger, and stepped into it, yanking the narrow straps over her shoulder. The bodice fell hopelessly low. She had nothing to fill it with. How ridiculous she looked, her undershirt exposed under the pink satin bodice, her big clodhopper boots sticking out from the flouncy tulle. Frantically she searched the rack for something else. There had to be something she could put on, something that would fit. As she shoved the costumes along the rack, what looked to be a photograph lying on the ground caught her eye. She picked up the photograph—a postcard actually. A lady stared back at her, naked from the waist up, her bosom exposed for all the world to see! Emma had overheard Clarence and his pals talk about these naked lady photos—French postcards they called them. She had to show Nan. She wouldn’t believe her eyes. Emma bent down and slipped the postcard into the bib pocket of Clarence’s overalls. At that very moment, the tent flap opened and in walked Filippo.
He took one startled look at her and then laughed. “Holy Moses. What the—”
Emma felt her face heat up like an oven. Then, outside the tent door, behind Filippo’s back, she saw two figures—a woman in a faded wash dress and a man wearing a white shirt, slacks, and cowboy boots. She couldn’t see their faces, but she didn’t need to. It was Boss Man and—Mother!
Her heart began beating fast like the wings of a trapped bird.
“Filippo,” Boss Man called into the tent, his face still hidden. “A visitor.”
Filippo threw Emma a puzzled look, then stepped outside the tent.
“Oh, mio Dio,” Filippo said. “Sapphira!”
Emma dropped to the ground and scrambled under the cot.
“You’re as beautiful as ever.” Emma heard Filippo say.
“I didn’t come for your flattery. Where’s my daughter?”
“Daughter?”
“The girl who came . . . to your tent,” Boss Man said. “Do you know where she is?”
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