All I could think to do was snatch up my stuff and sprint.
I ran and ran. With that stupid suitcase and backpack. I ran until I was sure he wasn’t following me. Out of breath, I finally stopped to look around. I was on this small-town street with buildings that had these weird western fronts. I felt like I was on the set of a cowboy movie or something. Bend didn’t look like anything like this.
Well, of course this isn’t Bend, I realized. The truck driver wasn’t Carl, so he wouldn’t be headed to Bend.
Suddenly the extra hour it had taken to get here made sense.
You’re a real genius, Ryan.
I stared at my watch. It was nine-thirty. I was more than an hour late to meet up online with Eli and I was in the wrong town. Right in front of me was a big, two-story building with a plaque that read Sisters Library. So at least I knew where I was. I was in Sisters. I knew a little bit about that town. They had a big quilt competition every year and Mom had tried to quilt a giant tent for it. (Sadly, she ran out of fabric. Dad just said, “Thank god.”)
At least the library was open. I glanced around to make sure the chicken truck guy wasn’t around, and then went inside.
The library was bright and air-conditioned and mostly empty. I went straight to the computers and logged into the final secret email account I’d made for the actual rescue part of the Rescue Mission. There was nothing from Eli and he wasn’t online. I checked my watch again. Nine-thirty-five. Where was he? He was always online.
I sighed and looked up where Sisters was on a map (what a weird name for a town). I’d overshot Bend by about twenty-five miles.
Perfect, Ryan. Perfect.
While waiting for Eli to come online, I browsed for new information on Bartholomew. I hunted around for photos from people who went to his shows, but as usual, there weren’t any. Bartholomew’s Circus apparently has huge warnings about “no cameras, no phones.” Anyone caught taking a photo gets their phone snapped in two by security guards. So aside from the hundreds of selfies taken in front of the tent, there wasn’t ever much else to find.
I clicked over to Bartholomew’s website. It looked the same as ever, like someone had made it and then forgotten all about updating it. Simple and boring—definitely not the website you’d expect for a circus as well known as Bartholomew’s. It was just a single page with a couple of pictures and small white text on a black background. Eli and I found it weird that there were no fancy graphics, no way to buy tickets, no promotions, nothing. Zilch. I mean, even I could have made a better page. It was like they thought their name spoke for itself:
Bartholomew’s World-Renowned Circus of the Incredible!
See the Most Marvelous, Miraculous, Stupendous, and Spectacular Circus in the World!!!
See Captivating Contortionists!
Gasp as Extraordinary Tiger Tamers TAME Tigers!
(and Other Dangerous Creatures!)
Witness the Death-Defying and Altogether Unbelievable Human Cannonball!!
It’s Dramatic, It’s Splendid, It’s Fantastic, and it’s Incredible!
ALL ROLLED INTO ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT!!!
And there, at the bottom of the page: Shows.
I scanned it, wanting to see if there’d been any changes. The list of cities, dates, and times was the same as it had been for the past few months. I scrolled back up, and the picture of the circus tent caught my eye, as it always did.
Someone had taken the photo at night, with a full moon rising behind the huge tent. You could only see the front of it, but it looked like it was the size of a football field. The top of the tent had a tall, blue-and-red striped dome. The material looked pretty heavy-duty. I hoped Will’s pocketknife would cut through it, like I’d planned.
There were two lines of people leading up to the entrance. The weird part was you couldn’t see anyone’s face. There must have been a hundred people in the picture, yet nobody was turned toward the camera. Everyone faced the circus, like they were hypnotized.
Like Bartholomew had cast some kind of magical spell on them.
The picture always gave me the chills if I sat and looked at it too long.
Eli still wasn’t online. I sighed so loudly that a guy near me in a cowboy hat glanced up from his magazine. I pretended I was frustrated because the mouse was broken.
Eli was going to have to find me a different ride to Albuquerque. I’d screwed it all up. I mean, a chicken truck? In what alternate reality would Eli’s cousin be driving a chicken truck?
I tried to stop blaming myself. I mean, the guy did pull up and stop next to me. How many people would stop at that exact spot at five a.m.? It was just pure, bad luck. And maybe a bad sign. Well, if you believed in stuff like that.
And Eli still wasn’t online to help me! Getting even more frustrated, I punched the desk. A few people looked and I reddened.
“Sometimes you have to unplug the mouse to get it started again,” said the guy in the hat. I nodded and did it just to avoid looking crazy.
I turned back to the computer, drumming my fingers on my knee. Come on, Eli.
It might be hard to believe, but a lot of people want to get into the circus. They send out these audition videos showing off their talents, hoping a circus will respond and give them a chance to apply in person.
I know this because, about a year before Mom disappeared, she showed me her own circus audition. She shared it only with me; I was the only one she trusted. She told me to keep it a secret, which I did. I never even told Eli about it until after she was gone.
The video was…well, it was incredible. I mean, over the years I’d gotten a few glimpses of what she could do. I knew she was good at gymnastics, that she could throw knives, and that she wasn’t scared of wild animals. But the video was the first time I got a glimpse of all the stuff she was capable of.
I’d heard of people walking on hot coals before, but I’d never seen someone do it on their hands, blindfolded, while carrying a watermelon between their knees. That would have been impressive no matter who it was, but the fact that it was my mom made it totally unreal.
So I had known that my mom wanted to join the circus. But I’m sure she hadn’t expected to attract the attention of someone like Bartholomew. I’m sure she hadn’t expected that a black van would pull up one morning and throw her in a sack and haul her off. And I’m sure she wouldn’t have gone if she’d known he’d never let her see her family.
She’d never have signed up for that.
Eli and I had heard about something called “Stockholm syndrome,” which was this weird thing where people fall in love with their kidnappers. My mom was strong, so I didn’t really think she could succumb to something like Stockholm syndrome, but Eli thought that could be why she sounded so happy in some of the postcards. I argued my point again, that she was probably using the happy postcards as a way to fool anyone who was watching her.
Either way, Eli cautioned me to be ready, though, just in case she was weird when I found her. I hated to admit it, but it was possible. Who knows what can happen to a person who’s been trapped and stressed out for so long?
I checked the email account again and saw that Eli had finally logged on. We’d agreed ahead of time: no real names. I was “Joe” (which was spy talk for a deep cover agent). Eli chose “Peter Parker” (because he loves Spiderman).
Peter.Parker: What happened?
Joe: I messed up. Got on a chicken truck.
Peter.Parker: Why?
Joe: I thought it was Carl.
Peter.Parker: Oh boy. Where are you?
Joe: Sisters.
Peter.Parker: Oops. Close, but no cigar.
Joe: Can we continue with Plan A?
Peter.Parker: Too late. You missed the ride.
Joe: Great. What now? Walk home?
> Peter.Parker: No. Plan B. One moment.
A few minutes passed. Nothing from Eli. A few more minutes. I was getting impatient.
Joe: What’s Plan B?
Peter.Parker: Hold your horses!
I was rolling my eyes when the librarian walked by with a stack of papers. He taped one to the side of the nearby printer. I didn’t have to squint to see that it had a picture of me on it. It was my school yearbook photo from the year before, the one with me blinking. And below that:
Missing Child Alert
For
Greater Oregon Area
Ryan Zander, 12 Years Old
5’4” Brown Hair, Brown Eyes,
Mole On Upper Lip
Last Seen in Brenville, Oregon
At 10:00 P.M.
Possibly Wearing Harry Potter Pajamas
I was angry for a split second about the whole mole thing—and embarrassed about the pajamas—then I saw that the librarian was putting the posters on every other bookshelf. A few people wandered over to look at them.
This situation was not good.
It was way too early for a missing poster. Eli and I had done the research. Odds were I should have had a full twenty-four hours before the news went out but—there it was. Dad must have found me missing right after I left last night. He must have gotten his friend Officer Barton to help him speed up the process.
I was toast.
I pulled Will’s baseball hat down low on my face and stared at the computer screen. I was just a student doing research. Doing homework. But wait—school got out yesterday. Was I studying for summer school? I realized I hadn’t seen any other kids in the library. Also, I had a suitcase and a backpack. That definitely wasn’t helping.
I pushed my bags under the desk with my foot. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw an old guy looking in my direction.
I typed quickly:
Joe: Got it yet?
Peter.Parker: One moment.
Joe: No time. It’s getting hot in here.
Peter.Parker: So take offall your clothes?
Ha ha, Eli. Nice song lyric.
A blonde woman wandered over to a shelf of encyclopedias right behind me. She pretended to browse, but she was looking at me. I pulled the bill of my cap even lower. I could barely see out from under it.
Peter.Parker: 1555 Northeast Hayesville Road. Go out of the library, take a right and go 2 blocks. Then make another right and go 6 blocks.
Joe: Then what?
Peter.Parker: Wait out front, by the road. Look neat. Put on your suit. Driver will think it’s your house. Getting a ride to your grandma’s funeral in Boise.
Joe: My what? Albuquerque! Not Boise!
What was I thinking, having Eli help me? He was crazy. Then, he read my mind:
Peter.Parker: You don’t trust anyone, that’s your problem.
Great. A quote from an old Spiderman movie.
Peter.Parker: Be there in ten minutes. Trust me! Over and Out.
I scrawled the address and the directions on a piece of paper. The encyclopedia woman was at the front desk, talking to the librarian. The lady touched her lip, right in the same spot my freckle is, and then they both looked in my direction.
Crap, crap, crap, crap.
I grabbed my bags and headed toward the front door. My luggage suddenly seemed ridiculous. I was obviously a runaway.
The encyclopedia woman and the librarian got to the door before I did. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of me. I tried to act normal, but I was forced to stop right in front of them.
“Excuse me, but—” the woman began. I turned on my heel marched down an aisle of kids’ books. They followed at a fast clip.
“Young man?”
“Ryan?” the man called.
I cringed. They knew my name.
I strode, head ducked, down random aisles, trying to get to the stairs leading up to the second floor. Right before I reached them, though, the librarian sprang out in front of me.
I abruptly turned to follow an aisle that ran right below the second-floor balcony. The railing was maybe ten feet up—and I could see an emergency exit up there at the end of the building.
If I could get up to the second floor, I’d be home free.
“We just want to help you!” came the man’s voice behind me. He still hadn’t moved from blocking the stairs. He probably figured I was trapped.
Shows what you know, I thought.
Besides letting Will teach me the high dive, destroying a library was about to be the craziest thing I’d done in my life.
At the end of the aisle, I summoned all my strength and hurled the empty suitcase up and over the second-floor railing. And then, before anyone could stop me, I climbed the bookshelf.
“Not the shelves!” the librarian shouted, running toward me. The encyclopedia woman materialized from another aisle and grabbed at me, but I was already too high. As I climbed, I kicked books off the shelf, causing the librarian to yelp.
My heart thudded, but I kept going. Once on top of the shelf, I scrambled over the railing. In my scrambling, though, my backpack knocked into a massive mobile of the solar system. Mars plummeted to the ground, where it shattered, followed by Saturn. The librarian was already bounding up the stairs, using the kind of words you never hear a librarian say under normal circumstances.
I swung over the railing, grabbed the suitcase, and raced to the fire exit door.
It said, Use Only in Case of Emergency.
I’m used to following rules, so I hesitated a second before snapping out of it. This was an emergency. When I punched the door open, it set off a blaring alarm.
“Stop!” bellowed the woman.
I got out onto the fire escape and slammed the door shut behind me. I was ten feet or so off the ground, and there were no stairs! There was just a rusty-looking ladder that I guess you were supposed to push down, but I couldn’t see how.
Nice emergency exit, I thought, cursing under my breath.
I kicked at the ladder but didn’t have time to figure the stupid thing out, so I threw my suitcase off the side and climbed out onto the edge of the fire escape. There was some sort of metal furnace box thing a few feet away, and when the librarian burst out onto the fire escape, I had to jump. I landed on the edge of it, but I couldn’t keep my balance. I pitched off the side, landing hard on the lawn next to my suitcase.
I looked up and saw the librarian on the fire escape and a few other people looking out windows.
I didn’t have any time to feel sheepish.
I sprang to my feet, snatched up the suitcase, and booked it. They were about to call the police—if they hadn’t already—so I didn’t stop running this time. I zigged and zagged, around western shops and through backyards and llama pastures, all while homing in on the directions Eli had given me for Hayesville Road.
Mom hadn’t always wanted to be a human cannonball. According to Will (which means according to Dad), she had been basically normal before I came along. She had had a job at the mayor’s office. She liked watching TV with Dad and baby William. She read. She was into baking.
But everyone knew it wasn’t really me that changed her. It was the accident.
A couple months before I was born, Mom and Dad were driving back from Bend when their car was hit by a drunk driver. Dad was okay—he’d been wearing his seatbelt. For some reason, Mom wasn’t. When the car hit them, Mom flew right through the front windshield like—well, like she’d been shot out of a cannon. The paramedics found her twenty feet away, stuck headfirst in a snowbank. She went into a coma and everyone thought we were both going to die. There were lots of tears and hospital visits from everyone she knew. But then, four days later, she woke up like nothing had happened.
She was different, thou
gh. Will told me that she wanted to become a human cannonball because she had liked flying through the windshield so much. But that’s just ridiculous. The doctors said some medical stuff about how head traumas can have weird side effects. Like after the accident, she could never sit still. She always complained that her back and her eyes hurt. She quit her job and didn’t even try to get another one. Then she got all these weird hobbies: hula-hooping, juggling, riding a unicycle. She got more excitable. More reckless. She said, according to Will, that she “needed to live a real life.”
Dad talked about her like she’d become an entirely different person. One time, late at night, I heard him on the phone with Uncle Donald.
“It’s like nothing’s good enough for her. Not me, not the house, not even Brenville. I mean, how can all this open space be suffocating?”
So from everyone else’s perspective, she’d changed. But for me, she’d always been weird and exciting. Okay, maybe even a little cuckoo. But that was the only version of Mom I’d ever known. And I don’t think I would have changed her if I could.
I jogged down a dirt road, thinking, How were they on to me so fast? Eli said we’d have a day before my dad even noticed I was missing. And then a few more before police would look for me—and by then, I’d be on my way home.
Maybe we’d underestimated how fast Dad would catch on. Or maybe Will noticed his stuff was missing and told on me. I guess when your dad is BFFs with the local sheriff, you get prioritized. Either way, I was already a wanted man.
It wasn’t even ten yet, but it was hot. My back was covered in sweat because of the backpack, and I still had feathers all over my clothes.
My clothes! I needed to have my suit on. Eli had said I was going to…a funeral?
I guess he’d been right about bringing the suit.
I was wondering whether I’d gone too far when I saw the street sign: Hayesville! I walked until I found the address; it didn’t look like anyone was home. The mailbox said Moe.
Checking my watch, I saw I had five minutes to spare—five minutes until what, I didn’t have a clue.
I ducked behind the Moes’ garage and threw on my suit. I skipped the coat, though—it was way too hot. I tried to straighten myself up a bit, using the sweat in my hair to smooth it down. Gross? Yes. But effective.
Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible Page 6