Skycircus

by Peter Bunzl

  As darkness fell, the children in their cage shivered in anticipation.

  Soon, the last light was extinguished.

  The butterflies inside Robert’s belly fluttered sharply, as if they had wings made of broken glass.

  For better or worse, the show was about to begin.

  Slimwood and Madame Lyons-Mane stepped through the curtains in a flash of limelight. Robert and Lily watched them through the hole in the backcloth. As they set off walking in opposite directions around the sawdust ring, Lily searched the faces of the crowds in the front row for Dr Droz, but she couldn’t see the woman anywhere.

  Slimwood unbuttoned his red swallowtail tuxedo as he walked, and Madame shook loose her blonde hair and fake beard. She wore the same vermilion dress from the show in Brackenbridge and carried the same striped parasol.

  As they had before, Slimwood and Madame met each other at a point directly in front of the VIP section and threw their arms up in the air.

  “MESDAMES ET MESSIEURS!” Madame shouted. “Je m’appelle Madame Lyons-Mane.”

  “And my name is Slimwood!” Slimwood added.

  “Bienvenue dans notre cirque, pour un spectacle MAGNIFIQUE d’un qualité UNIQUE!”

  There was more talk in French, but Robert could barely listen. He had to do something while the entire crew were out there and engrossed in the show, he had to take a chance – perhaps if he spoke to the rest of the circus folk they would help?

  He scrambled away from the hole in the curtain and waved at the adult performers in the room, who were wandering around like dazed drudges.

  “Please listen!” Robert whispered.

  Malkin joined in, letting out a quiet yap to attract their attention.

  Some of the circus folk stopped what they were doing, including Bruno and Gilda Buttons.

  Their backs were to him, but he could see them shift uncomfortably as he spoke, so he could tell they were listening.

  “You may have thought it’d be only Lily and me and the hybrid children who’d be punished by Madame and Slimwood, because we weren’t part of the circus family, but you can see for yourselves, it’s your own children too.”

  None of them had turned. He tried again.

  “If you keep silent then you’re complicit, and eventually, when they see you won’t stand up for yourselves, they’ll come for you.”

  Lily came to stand next to him and took his hand. “Look around,” she said quietly. “You think you don’t have it so bad because you’re not the ones in here behind bars, like us. But ask yourself this: are you really outside the cage? Or are you trapped too?”

  “What you do tonight could make a difference,” Robert added softly. “We have a plan that could mean we all get out of here. If you’re prepared to stand up and be counted by helping us, then you won’t just be saving my life, and Lily’s, you’ll be saving your own.”

  That was it, that was all he could think to say. He hoped they’d taken it in, and that, when the time came to act, they would help. If they didn’t he and Lily and the other children would be on their own out there in the dark.

  The jangling filler music from the band told them the introduction to the show was over, and everyone moved quickly to their places. Madame and Slimwood trooped back in from their opening speeches, followed by the Lunk.

  Auggie and Joey were still in the ring, doing their clown act. When that was finished, the next few acts went on. Then Madame came over and let Silva and Dimitri out of the cage.

  “Silva,” she said. “You may join your parents. Dimitri, you’re up after them. Get the horses ready.”

  Silva joined Bruno and Gilda Buttons, who were waiting behind the curtains. The music started, signalling the start of the acrobats’ set and Slimwood announced them as they entered the ring: “MESDAMES ET MESSIEURS! Nous vous présentons…THE FABULOUS BOUNCING BUTTONS!”

  Madame, Joey, Auggie and the rest of the roustabouts stepped out to join Slimwood in watching the performers, leaving only the Lunk guarding them. This was it. It was now or never. And who knew how long they had before someone would return.

  Robert signalled to Dimitri outside the cage who was preparing his horses. Dimitri ducked down and when he reappeared he had his length of lasso rope in his hand.

  He crept round the front of the horses and threw it – watching it land, first go, around the Lunk’s neck.

  Quickly, he looped the rope round one of the cage bars, pulling it back through and tying the end round the horse’s neck. Then he slapped the beast on its flank so that it leaped forward, pulling the Lunk off his feet. The mechanical man was dragged up against the outside of the cage with a bong!

  Luckily, the sound was covered by the noise of the crowd and music from outside.

  The Lunk struggled to get himself upright, but before he could, Lily threw her scarf over his eyes so he couldn’t see and Robert inserted the winding key in the back of his head, jamming the mechanism in the wrong direction, hoping upon hope that Lily was right and this was the emergency method to switch a mechanical off.

  The Lunk opened his mouth and let out a screech that luckily was muffled by Lily’s scarf draped around his face. Then his limbs went still.

  “He’s stopped,” Robert whispered to Lily. “Now we need to open him up.”

  He used the handle of the winding key to undo the screws on the back of the Lunk’s head-panel and then wrenched it out of the way with the end of the teaspoon.

  They peered in at the stopped internal workings of the Lunk’s clockwork brain.

  Between the hairspring, gear train, balance wheel, fork pin and escapement mechanisms, Robert found the part that he thought might be the primary motor cortex and set to work using the spoon and the key as his tools, pulling out cogs and making some adjustments. Before he finished, he reset some dials on the time clock at the centre of the Lunk’s mechanical brain.

  “I’ve timed his breakdown to occur in fifty minutes’ time,” he explained to everyone, “when they come to get Lily for the finale. The Lunk should be walking with you across the ring at that point, Lily. When you see his eyes flicker, you should get out of the way quick as you can, because I don’t know exactly what he’ll do when his system malfunctions.”

  Luca and Deedee looked aghast and delighted at the thought. Angelique smirked. Dimitri glanced over his shoulder to check no one had heard them. The rest of the performers were whispering amongst themselves in shocked belief at what they were doing.

  Quick as he could, Robert closed the panel on the Lunk’s head and wound him up again. Then he, Dimitri, Luca and Lily undid the rope around the Lunk’s neck. With the help of Deedee and Angelique, they strained to tip the heavy mechanical man back upright and away from the cage.

  Robert could hear Slimwood still narrating the act. “See the Buttons jump like tiddlywinks! See them shine in their most daring acrobatic feat, on the see-saw!”

  They were just in time – that was the Lunk’s cue to bring out the see-saw. He sprang back to life, wavering around and clutching at his head as if he was drunk, before picking up the see-saw and creaking off to carry it onstage. Robert hoped that when the moment arrived, the timer would go off and his efforts to reprogram the Lunk would work. He’d done all he could.

  Act by act, the show continued.

  As it got closer to the end and Lily’s moment in the limelight, the children in the cage and the circus folk and roustabouts milling around backstage got more and more antsy. Order was beginning to break down. The other acts had obviously taken in what Robert and Lily had said to them, and some of them were refusing to go on.

  Lily could see them through the bars of the cage, arguing with Slimwood. He’d already had to axe some of them from the bill.

  “It’s no good,” she said anxiously to Robert and Angelique. “The show’s running short. The Lunk’s not going to malfunction until the show’s over; I’ll already have been in the X-ray-cinematograph machine.”

  “Then we need to do something to
slow things down,” Robert said.

  “I can stay in the air for as long as you like,” Angelique said. “Elongate my act. Delay things so we’re back on schedule for the timer.”

  “You’d do that for us?” Malkin asked.

  Angelique nodded. “This may be my one chance to change things in this circus for good. To make everyone in the audience really see what’s been going on here.”

  “Thank you,” Lily and Robert whispered together.

  Malkin nudged his nose into Angelique’s palm to thank her too.

  Angelique’s music started to play, and out front, Slimwood began his introduction of her. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WITNESS THE FIRST OF TWO ASTOUNDING FINALES! A monster so magnificent, a hybrid so hypnotic, that they call her the fairy-princess of England…”

  Angelique shook as he continued speaking.

  “At the end of your act, just don’t come down,” Robert said. “They’ll have to let you carry on.”

  Angelique nodded. Her face suddenly looked very nervous, and her hands were shaking. Lily thought she should probably try and say something to calm the flying girl’s fears.

  “All you have to do,” she said suddenly – to herself as much as Angelique – “is take a chance and step into the light.”

  Robert nodded. “Think of the story of Icarus,” he said. “Once you’ve fallen, you pick yourself up and try again. Then you can finally be free.”

  “I suppose it’s the only way to stop the torture and bullying…” Angelique said.

  Robert smiled. “That was their plan all along – divide and conquer. Treat people differently; make one group fear and hate the others. If no one pulls together, then Slimwood and Madame will never be defeated.”

  “But now you have the chance to help do that,” Lily said, and as she spoke she saw Deedee and Luca and Dimitri were listening too. “The adults believe in you, Angelique, since you saved one of their own. Slimwood and Madame, they’re big bullies. No different from any other kind of bully. We can fight them together.”

  “You’re right.” Angelique nodded as she paced around the middle of the cage, leaning a little lighter on her stick. “I was already different before all this. They may have been the ones who made me a bird, but they were also the ones who put me in a cage, and they don’t deserve my loyalty, or my fear.”

  The colour was already returning to her face, and Lily felt a small amount of relief. But her thoughts were stopped as Madame stormed through the curtain and towards the cage with the Lunk. Unlocking the door, she pulled Angelique out and hustled her towards the arena.

  Lily watched her friend go, her back a little straighter than Lily had seen it before. She glanced around the cage at everyone else – each of them looked a little less dejected now. They were all standing up, ready to take the battle into the ring as soon as Lily went out there. Her eyes alighted on Robert and Malkin, her best friends, who had been through everything with her, and she knew they would play their part when the Lunk malfunctioned to get her out.

  She was up next after Angelique. And now there was nothing left to do but wait for her turn.

  Angelique didn’t return after her act. Lily could only think she was in the rafters, refusing to come down. She hoped that the winged girl would be able to swoop in and rescue her when the time came, just as they’d planned.

  But there was no more time for her to dwell on that, for Madame was rushing over. She unlocked the cage and pulled Lily out, then she yanked Robert from behind the bars as well, handing him over to Joey and Auggie, who marched him away towards the back exit of the tent.

  “What are you doing? Where are you taking him?” Lily screamed at Madame.

  “Auggie and Joey will put your friend in the feeding chamber of the wild animal cage,” Madame explained. “And if you try anything in the ring, like pulling away from me or alerting anyone to the fact you’re a prisoner here, then he will be fed to them.”

  “You can’t do that!” Lily said.

  “We won’t, if you do as we say,” Madame replied.

  “Your machine’s dangerous,” Lily tried to tell her. “It’ll make me ill, shrivel me up, until I won’t be able to work for you any longer.”

  Madame shrugged. “Not in one go. Droz said it will take at least six months for that machine to snuff out your life, and in that time Slimwood and I will have made enough money to leave this circus behind for ever.”

  “I’m not afraid to die,” Lily told her. “I’ve died three times already – survived a steam-wagon crash, a near-fatal shooting and a drowning attempt in the Thames. I’m sure I can survive your feeble attempt on my life. And when I get free of all this, it’ll be you who regrets the choices you’ve made.”

  The words were like a shield to bounce the danger off, but she didn’t feel that way inside. Inside she felt small and tired, like a broken wingless bird, as if the last fight had already been pushed out of her, and she’d lost.

  In the ring the band began to play a new tune. It must’ve been her introductory music, for over it she could hear Slimwood speaking to the audience: “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOU ARE ABOUT TO EXPERIENCE A BRAND-NEW SHOWSTOPPER!”

  She remembered hearing almost the same words from the other side of the curtain when she’d first seen Angelique – and now here she was, trapped just like her friend. Not a winged girl forbidden to fly free, but a girl with an invincible heart in a heartless show.

  Madame guided her up to the curtains, and the Lunk joined them, boxing Lily in on the other side. Lily felt sick with nerves. She didn’t want to set foot in that machine. She didn’t want to face the danger of death alone, but she couldn’t turn back. How could she let them carry out their threat to throw Robert to the wild animals? She wondered idly why Papa hadn’t come. Or anyone, in fact. Was it because their telegram had gone astray? Did nobody in the audience realize what was really going on?

  Out front, Slimwood was still shouting. “The Skycircus’s most fantastic freak!” he announced. “A MAGNIFICENT MONSTER! A hybrid so stupendous! A MIRACLE of our modern clockwork age! A once-in-a-lifetime vision so HYPNOTIC, to ignore her would be HEARTLESS! A bewitching blend of humanity and clockwork! Witness her secrets revealed now beneath our brand-new X-ray cinematic device. Revel in the image of the TERRIBLE CLOCKWORK CREATION that lurks in her chest. You are about to see a FUSION OF BLOOD AND STEEL never before witnessed. I give you our very final spectacle, a heartless girl who yet still lives: MISS CORA VALENTINE!”

  The curtains opened and the spotlight swept towards them across the ring, blinding Lily to everything that lay ahead. Then Madame thrust Lily before her out onto the sparkling sawdust stage.

  Lily was led across the circus ring by Madame and the Lunk. The band played faster and faster, elongating each note. The fiddle swooped in anticipation and the drums beat as hard as Lily’s heart, while the accordion spat out jagged notes that mixed in with the chatter and whispers of the crowds filling the tent.

  Lily glanced around at them. The place was packed to the rafters; they had even brought in more seats and people were sitting in the aisles. She searched desperately for Papa among them, but the darkness and the mess of panic inside her made the faces blur.

  With shock she realized that Dr Droz was standing in the centre of the ring, fiddling with the levers and dials on the X-ray machine, which buzzed like a mechanical bee. A crackle of lightning flashed in a tube attached to its lid, spreading a toxic smell through the air and eliciting hushed groans and mutterings from the audience.

  Terror spread through Lily like rancid melting butter. Her scars itched on her chest, and the hairs on her arms stood on end.

  This machine was going to take a photograph of her insides, but more than that, she remembered with horror, the radiation it emitted would probably kill her.

  The audience shifted around uncomfortably in their seats and coughed restlessly, taking in Lily with wide, frightened eyes. Then the whispers started. Lily caught a few words in French that she couldn’t
understand, but the tone suggested fear and distress – as if they were unsure of what they were witnessing but understood enough to be horrified.

  The X-ray box made a terrible humming noise and the projector clacked and ticked as Madame and the Lunk escorted Lily closer to the machine.

  As the Lunk forced Lily into the machine, she heard the cogs in his head ticking oddly. Why hadn’t he malfunctioned yet? Shouldn’t that be happening right about…now?

  Nothing.

  Lily felt nauseous. This was it then. The plan had failed and they were going to use the machine on her…

  Robert was crammed into a narrow metal feeding chamber that opened into the bigger area of the cage. As soon as Lily disappeared for her part in the show, Auggie and Joey had come and taken him from the holding pen and brought him to the cargo bay, where the wild animals’ cage had just been returned after their act. The wild animals looked particularly angry, probably from their turn being poked and prodded by the Lunk in the ring.

  “What’s going on?” Robert squeaked, as Auggie and Joey shut the gate behind him with a clang. “You’re not supposed to be doing this! Only if Lily did something wrong!”

  “Never mind that,” Auggie said. “It’s teeding fime. We always feed them after they’ve performed, and tonight they’re going to fite your blesh and bind your grones!”

  “These beasts haven’t eaten since Brackenbridge or before,” Joey explained. “They’re starving and restless and they need something raw. You’re a bystander, Robert, not one of life’s winners. You’ve outlived your usefulness – except as their dinner.”

  Auggie pulled a lever and a metal door flew upwards in front of Robert. Then Joey reached through the bars and shoved him from behind so that he tumbled into the main cage. The two clowns didn’t wait to see the result of their actions, instead they turned and stalked away, Joey jingling the keys to the cage in his hand.

  As Robert got to his feet, he glimpsed the lions and tiger and bear in the far dark corner of the cage, their bodies stiffened into alert poses, and he realized with a fearful heart that they’d seen him too.