Piper Morgan Joins the Circus

by Stephanie Faris

  “I do,” Lexie said. “I always do.”

  I knew she meant that I didn’t. I looked at the other Little Explorers. None of them was looking at me. They were all mad, I could tell. Davie even stuck his tongue out at me when Miss Sarah wasn’t looking.

  One by one, the Little Explorers left for lunch. I stayed at the back of the line, walking slowly. I didn’t want to be near the other Little Explorers.

  When we passed Big Top Bubba in the hallway, he stopped. He put a hand on each hip and looked down at me.

  “Why aren’t you walking with them?”

  “They don’t like me anymore,” I said.

  He made a frowny face. Then he followed the line of Little Explorers toward the eating room.

  I sped up my steps then. I had to catch up with everyone to see what Big Top Bubba would do.

  They weren’t even in the eating room. They were standing outside, all gathered in a group, with Big Top Bubba kneeling down in front of them.

  “She messes everything up,” Lexie said.

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” Big Top Bubba told all of them.

  “Can we go now?” Chase asked.

  “What if one of you makes a mistake tonight?” Big Top Bubba asked. “What if everyone gets mad at you and won’t forget about it? How would that make you feel?”

  Everyone got all squirmy. Even Lexie. She looked over at me.

  “I’m trying my best,” I said.

  “Maybe you can help,” Big Top Bubba said to Lexie. “You’re an expert. Why don’t you be Piper’s mentor?”

  “What’s that?” Chase asked, wrinkling up his nose.

  “A mentor is someone who teaches you things,” Big Top Bubba explained. “Lexie knows a lot about working in the circus, right?”

  All the Little Explorers nodded. Lexie didn’t.

  “Then, Lexie, it’s your job to help Piper,” he continued. “You’re her number one buddy. Her mentor. Be good to her.”

  Big Top Bubba stood up, and everyone else ran into the room where the food was. Lexie came over to where I was standing. “Come on,” she said. “We need to eat. We’re going to practice the dance until you’re the best circus performer ever.”

  I smiled, but only after Lexie turned her back. I didn’t want her to know I’d seen that she was excited to be helping me. Maybe Lexie wasn’t so mean after all.

  FAIRGROUND FACT #8

  Elephants are the biggest land animals in the world, with some as tall as nine feet high! They can live seventy years, almost as long as most humans. Without circuses and zoos, you’d have to go somewhere like Africa or Asia to see a real-life elephant.

  Most elephants you see in the circus are female, since male elephants can sometimes become aggressive. The most famous elephant ever was Jumbo, an elephant that was twelve feet high. People all over the world loved Jumbo. There’s even a statue of him in Canada. He was so popular, he gave us the word “jumbo,” which we still say today.

  CHAPTER

  9

  It was the best surprise ever.

  Miss Sarah put me in a pretty pink dress and put sparkles around my eyes. She even curled my hair. The dress had a puffy skirt so I had to keep pushing it down, but I loved it. I looked like a real-life circus performer.

  While she was fixing my hair, we talked about the other Little Explorers.

  “Lexie can be a little . . . princessy,” Miss Sarah said. “She’s been a Little Explorer since she was only three.”

  I gasped. Three years old! That was young. I wish I could have been in the circus when I was only three.

  “But you’re lucky to have her to help,” Miss Sarah said with a wink. “She’s really smart about this stuff.”

  Lexie came and got me once I was dressed. She wanted to do the dance one more time in our dresses. She thought that would make us better. We were on our third time through when Miss Sarah came and got us.

  “It’s showtime,” she said with a big smile.

  As we waited in line at the curtain, I expected Lexie to tell me not to mess this up. Instead, she turned around and said words that made me feel happy.

  “You can do this,” she declared. “Give me your hand.”

  I held up my hand, not sure what she was going to do. She grabbed it like a handshake, then pulled it back toward her. She then lifted her hand above mine like she wanted to do a low five. It was a secret handshake!

  I’d never been part of a secret handshake before. This was super cool. We went through the steps and smiled at each other.

  “For luck,” she said. Then she turned to face front again.

  I took a deep breath. This was it. I’d messed up the last time, but they’d let me try again. I had to show everyone that I could be a good circus performer. I could dance and smile and not forget my steps.

  We walked to our spot and stopped. We were supposed to wait until the announcer told everyone we were the Little Explorers. April didn’t wait.

  She just started dancing.

  I wanted to wait, but next thing I knew, everyone around me was dancing. So I started dancing too. Only we were all completely off this time on what we were supposed to do and we were all ruining the show. All of us together. Well, actually, not together at all.

  It was such a mess, there didn’t seem to be a way to fix it. I thought about yelling out that everyone should stop and start over. Miss Sarah was standing on the sidelines, a hand on each side of her face. She seemed to be frozen.

  I had to do something. I had to do something to save the show. Maybe I could do a trick. I knew how to do a cartwheel.

  The audience would see my cartwheel and cheer. I knew they would. So I waited until everyone was busy doing other things, chose a space, and did a cartwheel. When that went well, I did another and another. I was glad I had kept my shorts on under my dress.

  The end of my fifth cartwheel was when things got bad. That was when I stood up and realized I was right in the path of a clown balancing on a ball. His big smile changed to an O shape and he started trying to get his footing right. He went to the left—right into the animal trainer who was controlling a line of dogs.

  Dogs went in every direction, barking and yipping. Some ran toward where Miss Sarah was, others went toward the audience, and others went to the backstage area.

  All I could think was: I’d ruined the circus again.

  Nobody would ever forgive me this time.

  FAIRGROUND FACT #9

  Sometimes clowns do a trick called “clown car,” where a bunch of clowns squeeze into a car and come out, one by one. People think it has to be a trick, but it isn’t. They take out as much of the inside of the car as they can, even the seats. This makes lots of room so clowns can squeeze in.

  Usually fifteen to twenty clowns can squeeze into one of those small cars. But it isn’t just the clowns. If you go to a circus with a clown car, you’ll see they have suitcases, beach balls, and other items to make it funnier. All of that fits into one little car!

  I guess each clown holds his breath until it’s time to get out.

  CHAPTER

  10

  I could fix this. I would fix this.

  I had to fix this. If I didn’t, we’d be fired for sure. No more wearing fancy ballerina clothes. No more Ella the Elephant. And I’d never have any friends.

  Everyone would be mad at me now. Not just Lexie and the other Little Explorers. The whole audience, the performers, Big Top Bubba. . . . That made me very, very sad.

  Dogs were barking and people in the audience were being really, really noisy, but I paid no attention to that. I ran after the line of dogs and began trying to round them up.

  “Come on, guys,” I said. “This way!”

  At first I thought I might be making them mad by forcing them to go somewhere without knowing where they were going. But then I got one into the ring and went after another. Soon three were in the ring and I was all excited.

  Then one jumped back out.

  I chased after it, r
unning around in circles, shouting. I got one back in and found out the other two had escaped. Dogs were everywhere and soon monkeys were too. It was the worst circus ever!

  That was when I heard something weird.

  The audience was laughing.

  At me.

  I should stop now. I was only making it worse. My mom would be so disappointed that I’d gotten her fired, and they were laughing at me. For the rest of forever, people would talk about the girl who had ruined the circus not once, but twice.

  I came to a stop and looked for a way to escape. There were lots of exits, but none of them was close by. I could run, but everyone would be watching.

  Then something bad happened. Something worse than laughing.

  Silence.

  Silence was worse than laughing, I decided. Silence didn’t happen in the circus. Ever. As I looked for a place to exit, I saw my mom. She looked worried. She knew we would be fired now.

  I turned around and looked at the other performers. They were smiling, not laughing. Miss Sarah moved up in front of all of it and started clapping really high in the air. That was when something magical happened.

  The audience started clapping too.

  Someone whistled, and someone else yelled, “Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!”

  “Everyone, let’s hear it for Piper Morgan!” the guy with the microphone said.

  They weren’t laughing at me. They wanted me to fix this. The show must go on, as Miss Sarah said!

  I could do it. So I went. I kept chasing dogs even though I’d never ever catch them. I tried to be as funny as I could too. I hunched over a little and reached my arms straight out in front of me and ran, ran, ran.

  Dogs were really hard to catch. But I had an idea.

  “Lexie! Help me!” I yelled. At first she looked a little surprised that I was asking her to do something. Then she started laughing and running with me. Soon all the Little Explorers were running around, trying to catch the dogs.

  The audience exploded into applause. I stopped chasing dogs and looked up at them all. I didn’t know what to do.

  “Bow,” Miss Sarah whispered.

  So I bowed. And the audience clapped and cheered! Lexie ran over and bowed next to me. The other Little Explorers, all wanting to do their parts of the show, ran over to us.

  Miss Sarah took us all backstage. They were moving on to the trapeze artists until they could get the dogs all gathered up, Miss Sarah said. I’d done it! I’d saved the show—the show was going on, just as Miss Sarah had said it would.

  “Wasn’t that the most fun ever?” I asked Lexie.

  Lexie got a pouty face for a second, and I thought maybe she was mad. Instead, she changed her pouty face into a smile.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Ever, ever.”

  A couple of weeks later my mom gave me a big surprise. It wasn’t the good kind of surprise either.

  We were eating breakfast in our RV when she said it. Our RV had become so much like our real home had been. Mom decorated it with all our favorite things, including the big stuffed bear that had been my favorite when I was little.

  The other RVs were nice, but not like mine. I even had my own little room. It was the living room during the day, but at night it became my room with my favorite fluffy blanket and a night-light in case I got scared.

  “You’re going back to school,” she said while we were eating breakfast. She wanted to have breakfast in the RV, sitting on top of the bed when it was made up. We never did that.

  “I know!” I said. I smiled even bigger. “Miss Sarah said I get a tutor.”

  Mom got that look. You know the look. It’s the one grown-ups get when they have to tell you something you don’t want to hear.

  “I told you this job was just temporary,” she said in the nice voice she uses when she is telling me bad news. “This came up quicker than I expected.”

  “But you said it could become something longer,” I said. “I like the circus.”

  “This is going to be a new adventure,” Mom said. “You may even like it better.”

  I wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “I know you really liked being here—,” Mom started to say.

  “I have friends here,” I interrupted. I knew it was not nice to interrupt, but this was important. Life or death almost. “And the elephants like me.”

  “There will be new friends,” Mom said quietly.

  “Not like these,” I said. “And I’ve been doing a really good job. I’m getting along with Lexie and everything.”

  “I know, and I’m really proud of you,” Mom said. “I’m sure you’ll do a really good job helping me at the school, too.”

  I frowned. All my hard work and we were still leaving? It wasn’t fair.

  “There aren’t elephants in schools,” I told her, hoping that would help.

  “It’s a nice school, though,” Mom said. “I’m going to be helping out in the principal’s office.”

  I thought about that for a second. I didn’t like the principal’s office. It was a scary place. But if my mom worked there, I might get to sit behind the principal’s desk and play on the computers like I worked there.

  But there was something even better about going back to school.

  “We’re going home!” I said. I started jumping up and down. This was the bestest news ever.

  “No, Piper, we’re not. We’re still going to live with Nanna. But it’s a new adventure.”

  I did want to see Nanna.

  “Plus, we may be able to stay there,” Mom said. “We just have to do a really good job and impress them, and maybe that will be our new home. We could find our own apartment.”

  Permanent! Yay!

  Then I remembered something, and my smile turned into a frown.

  “But what about Ella?” I asked. “And Big Top Bubba? And Lexie? And . . . and . . . Miss Sarah!”

  The circus was going to a place called Missouri next. I’d never been to Missouri, but I’d seen it on the map in my classroom when I was in school. I wanted to go to Missouri so I could point to it on a map and say I’d been there.

  Mom wasn’t listening to me at all. She was putting our clothes in our suitcases. She just wanted to get out of there. I knew what I had to do.

  I ran as fast as my feet would carry me. I ran even though my mom was yelling for me. I ran even though people had to jump out of the way to keep me from knocking into them. I ran and ran and ran until I found Lexie.

  She was with Miss Sarah and the Little Explorers and a bunch of performers. They were watching the animal trainers as they loaded animals into trucks. I wanted to watch the elephant trainers. But we had to go.

  “We’re going to my nanna’s house,” I said. I was moving back and forth like I was doing a new Little Explorer’s dance.

  “You are?” Lexie asked. She sounded sad. “But I was going to invite you to a sleepover. Just us. It was going to be fun. And what about the performance? We had a lucky secret handshake and everything.”

  I’d been right all along. Lexie was my friend. And it was the best kind of best friend ever because she was going to be a real-life circus performer when she grew up.

  “I liked being your friend, Lexie,” I said. “You were a good friend. But we have to go.”

  “We’re going to miss you,” Miss Sarah said, kneeling down so she was at my level.

  “We don’t want you to go,” Chase said. “You made the circus fun.”

  “You did,” Miss Sarah said. She looked over at the Little Explorers. “But Piper will visit us sometime, right?”

  “Piper!” my mom yelled. “Come back here! We’re leaving soon!”

  I looked at Lexie. “Maybe we can keep in touch?” I asked.

  “Cool,” Lexie said. At least she’d said something besides “bye.”

  “You’ll be here forever,” I told Lexie.

  I put my hand over my heart just like my mom showed me the last time I said bye to my friend.

  Lexie looked weird for a second
, then smiled. “Have fun at your nanna’s,” she said. “Maybe when you grow up, you can come back and we can be performers together.”

  I liked the sound of that. Being in the circus had to be the best job ever. I’d never find one better, I was sure of it.

  A taxi was coming to take Mom and me to a place where we could rent a car. While we were waiting, we talked about what a best friend was.

  But you know what I was thinking? I was thinking that maybe sometimes it’s fun to meet new people. Maybe permanent wasn’t so good after all. I’d met a ballerina and an elephant and got to be a star because things weren’t permanent.

  I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my incredible editor, Alyson Heller; awesome illustrator, Lucy Fleming; and everyone on the editing, publicity, and design team at Simon & Schuster. You’re changing the world one book at a time. Also thank you to my supportive, talented, amazing agent, Natalie Lakosil. You all make me a better writer.

  I also need to mention the writers in my online community who support me in everything I do. Here they are in alphabetical order: Alex J. Cavanaugh, Beth Ellyn Summer, Beverly Stowe McClure, Cathrina Constantine, Elizabeth Seckman, Jessica Haight, Kelly Hashway, Kristin Smith, Leandra J. Wallace, Medeia Sharif, Meradeth Houston, Sandra Cox, S. K. Anthony, Stephanie Robinson, and T. B. Markinson. You guys are the best.

  And lastly, my family, who are always there for me, cheering me on. Neil and Cambryn, Valerie and Doug, Marquita and John, Jennifer and Seth, and Hollis and Rhett. Without you, Piper wouldn’t even exist because I wouldn’t have been able to create her.

  Stephanie Faris knew she wanted to be an author from a very young age. In fact, her mother often told her to stop reading so much and go outside and play with the other kids. After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University, she somehow found herself working in information technology. But she never stopped writing. When she isn’t crafting fiction, Stephanie is indulging her gadget geek side by writing for online technology sites. She lives in Nashville with her husband, Neil.