“So, you’re blackmailing me now?” I say to him. “If I don’t do it, you’ll take away your protection. You’ll turn us in, that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“No. No, I’m not saying that, of course I’m not. I’m just pointing out that I thought we were friends. Friends look after each other; friends help each other. I’ve helped you, now it’s your turn to help me.”
I look back at Greta. She’s quietly helped herself to another piece of cake and is feeding little bits to Bojo. I don’t think she’s even listening.
I look at Laura Minton. Why am I so wary of her? I must be mad.
She wants Dreg equality, she says. She wants to build houses. She wants to build schools. She wants to do all of the things I’ve never even really let myself dream of.
The alternative to Laura Minton is Vivian Baines. Vivian Baines, who I can’t believe, even now, is related to Ben. Cruel, vile Vivian Baines who sees us as vermin, who wants to finish us all off for good.
“Do you know what?” I say. “We’ll do it. We’ll do it because we hate Vivian Baines and we hate the government and we hate the Cirque and because it’s about time people know what it’s really like in there.”
“You’re doing the right thing,” Laura says. She turns to Kadir. “I’ll make the necessary arrangements.” Throwing the hood over her head, she stands up and, flanked by her guards, she sweeps out of the room.
BEN
Apparently, Silvio has important places to be, so he doesn’t get to exercise any of his horrid little fantasies on me, for now at least.
“I’ll put my thinking cap on.” He smiles at me. “Think of something really special for you.”
For the rest of the day, the guards throw me into the dormitory cells. There’s no one else in there: everybody’s rehearsing for the show.
All I can think about is Sean, lying there motionless on the floor. I don’t even know whether he’s still alive.
I tread the corridors so many times that I’m surprised my feet don’t wear a path out on the floor, and I keep trying the door, even though I already know it’s locked from the outside.
Lifting my arm up, I push my hand through the flap the meat for the wolves came through, feeling for a bolt on the other side, but there’s nothing. The rough metal scratches at my wrist and, when I pull it back through, it’s grazed and bloody. I look at the blood suspiciously. It’s very dark – it doesn’t look fresh. I don’t think it’s all mine; it must come from that meat they pushed through.
What kind of meat is it? I remember what I saw that night, in the Cirque butchery, I remember what Hoshi said about the Recycling Room – that Silvio told her they don’t like to waste anything – and I shudder.
There are two buckets in the corner. I choose the cleaner-looking one of the pair and slosh the murky liquid over my arms, scrubbing and scrubbing at them until the dark smears are gone.
I feel weak with hunger.
If no one comes soon, I think I may actually go crazy.
Eventually, the door opens.
It’s the performers. They all look solemn. I scan their faces, hurriedly, looking for Sean’s.
It’s not there.
Leah and the other clowns are at the back of the group. I push through the others to get to them.
“Where’s Sean?” I say. “He’s not—?”
Leah shakes her head. “He’s OK.”
I lean against the wall. “Thank goodness.”
There are smears on her face where the make-up hasn’t been removed properly and her eyes are pitted and dark.
“Thank goodness? You really think so? It been like that every day for weeks. First the motorbike, then the electric shocks. He’s not dead, but I expect he wishes he was. What’s there to look forward to, for Sean, for any of us? It’ll be worse when we open. Way worse.”
“Where is he?”
“He’ll be here soon. They’re treating him. It’s lucky Silvio wants him kept alive, I guess.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to stop him. I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s not your fault,” she answers. “You were brave today.” She smiles, forlornly. “Brave and stupid.”
The rest of the boys from the clown show nod their agreement.
“You tried,” says the boy who was dressed as Pierrot. “Didn’t do us any good, but you still tried. We know that.”
He thrusts out his hand.
“I’m Ravi.” He gestures to the others. “Sorry we weren’t exactly welcoming before.”
“It’s fine,” I answer. “I’d hate me if I was you.”
Emmanuel comes forward. He hands me a crust of dry bread, and several of the others pass me small items of food too: an oatcake, a slither of cheese, even an apple.
“We figured they hadn’t fed you.” He smiles. “We smuggled out what we could.”
I look down at the food. They’ve been in this circus for weeks, for years, some of them. They’ve never been fed properly in their whole lives. They watched me, just this morning, eating a cooked breakfast with Silvio while they were given pigs’ swill, and yet they’ve brought me food. Me, Benedict Baines.
“Thank you,” I say. “It was really good of you to think of me, but I’m not hungry.”
“Nonsense. We have had our fill. We’ll be offended if you refuse it.” I search Emmanuel’s face. “I mean it. They fed us well tonight. They want us strong for the shows. You’d better eat it quickly though: if the wolves smell it, they’ll go crazy.”
My blood runs cold. I’d actually forgotten about the wolves. Unbelievable, I know, but I’d been too busy thinking about what happened in the rehearsal and all the stuff with my family and worrying about Hoshi, Greta and Jack to spare them any thought.
Not again. Not another night like last night, trembling alone in the corner.
The second the alarm sounds, everyone quickly scurries away to their tiny cells. I run to mine, shut the door, shoot the bolt across.
I start to think about the nature of wolves.
I’ve watched TV programmes on them and read a lot about them online. I got a book once too, out of the school library, full of glossy pictures and interesting facts. Something about them has always fascinated me. I think it’s their contradictory nature: the way they seem so wild and unrestrained but actually depend for their survival on an accepted social hierarchy.
Wolves are pack animals. They rarely fight amongst each other, not to the death, anyway. They share food. They don’t attack humans, not unless they’re desperate or provoked, or unless the human is alone and vulnerable: young or visibly weak.
They don’t attack humans unless they’re desperate or provoked.
These wolves aren’t desperate. They’re fed well every morning, far better than we are, if last night is anything to go by.
An idea comes to me, a very risky, very stupid idea.
I stand up, walk to the door, pull the bolt back.
I slam the bolt back across. What am I thinking of? I lean my head against the bars, staring out into the corridor.
I remember reading some stuff on an American website about how to avoid a wolf attack. Stand your ground. Don’t run away. Don’t scream. That’s what it said.
What would happen if I stood my ground? Would they attack me? Would they kill me? Would they leave me alone? I’m not visibly weak, even after all this time on the run. Not yet.
I hate the thought of spending another night hunched up in a corner, listening to them prowling outside. I’ve always been claustrophobic but the last year or so it’s got worse. When Amina and Jack hid me in a prop box at the circus, my heart hammered in my chest so hard that I thought it would burst.
They were big, though, those wolves, all of them were big, especially that alpha, with its shaggy black coat and staring yellow eyes.
Who am I kidding?
I’m not the kind of boy who stands up to wolves. What would be the point, anyway? I’d just get myself killed for no reason. I tried to
stand up to Silvio before, and look where that got me.
I check the bolts are tightly pulled across and slink back to my corner.
After a few minutes, the door to the cells opens.
There’s a pounding above and the wolves all rush down the stairs to hurl themselves at the iron gate. Even though I’m waiting for it, it still makes me jump, still makes the hairs on my arms stand on end.
The gate lifts up and they tumble through and stream down the corridor just like they did yesterday.
I don’t look. I crouch down, cover my head with my arms, put my hands over my ears.
It doesn’t work though.
I can still hear them, yapping and snarling, still hear Maggie’s cries as they start up again. Still smell them. Still feel them as they rush past, sniffing for blood.
HOSHIKO
Once Laura’s gone, Kadir steps towards me, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“You’ve made the right choice,” he says. “She’s an amazing woman, Laura Minton. She’s going to do amazing things.”
“I hope you’re right.” I look at him. “You’ll still do what you said, won’t you? You’ll still see if you can find out about Ben?”
He smacks his palm into his forehead. “Silly old me! I almost forgot about that! I have found out where he is!”
I clutch hold of the table to steady myself. How could he forget something like that?
“Is he OK?”
Kadir winces and tilts his hand back and forth in front of him. “Hmm, yes and no, I suppose. He’s having quite a difficult time of it from what I understand.”
“What do you mean, a difficult time? Where is he?”
“There’s no easy way of saying this … he’s in the circus.”
My heard jerks up.
“He’s what? What do you mean?”
“His mother had him put in there to teach him a lesson, show him how bad life as a Dreg can get. She’s desperate for him to show public repentance, apparently. She needs the PR. Like Laura said, her campaign’s in trouble and the Cirque’s at the heart of it.”
This can’t be real. This must be a joke. I have the strangest desire to laugh. Of all the news I’d been steeling myself to hear, this wasn’t it.
“What are they making him do?” I cry. “They’re not making him perform, are they?”
He’s silent for a second, and then he answers. “I believe they intend to, on opening night. I believe Vivian Baines has told Silvio Sabatini they can.”
My heart stops beating.
“Silvio Sabatini? Silvio Sabatini’s dead. I killed him.”
He shakes his head.
“I’m afraid not. He survived, apparently, against the odds. He’s making his first public appearance on opening night.”
I feel like I’m under water; everything around me is whooshing away from me.
All this time, I thought he was dead.
We were running from the police, running from Ben’s mother, but I still felt safer than before, just from knowing that he couldn’t hurt us any more.
I spent years in that circus, living under Silvio’s all-seeing eye. Years, keeping my head down, desperately hoping the next one on his hit list wouldn’t be me, wouldn’t be any of us.
Silvio or the Cirque: what was the bigger evil? It’s interchangeable: Silvio Sabatini was the Cirque and the Cirque was Silvio Sabatini. Both had the same swagger, the same strange charisma – something within them that made you draw your breath, that fascinated you, despite yourself. Both were just veils of glitter and sparkle and lights thinly draped over a dark, cavernous black hole of inexhaustible evil and cruelty.
There’s no one on this planet who loved to hurt people as much as Silvio Sabatini did. And now this man’s standing in front of me and he’s telling me he’s alive.
He’s alive and he’s in the Cirque and he’s got Ben.
“You have to get Ben out of there!” My voice is high and hysterical. “Silvio will kill him! You have to save him!” I grab hold of Kadir and shake him.
Greta rushes over. She’s been playing some kind of tag game around the room with Bojo.
“What’s going on?” she demands.
“Ben’s in the Cirque,” I wail, “and Silvio’s in there, too. He’s alive!” Her jaw drops open and she bursts straight into tears, clutching at me.
“Please,” I beg Kadir. “Please get Ben out! Before the show starts, before tonight!”
He casts his hands up helplessly. “How can I? The place is a fortress!”
“You must be able to. You said it yourself: you know things, you know people. There must be something you can do!”
“You’re right. There are things I can do. Plans to deal with the circus are already in place. The best thing you can do is concentrate on making the film.”
I stare at him, incredulously. “You’ve just told me that Ben’s in the circus. You’ve just told me that the devil is still alive and he’s in there with him and you want me to make a film? You know what? Go to hell. Until you get Ben out of that circus, I’m not saying a word to any camera and that, friend, is a promise.”
Grabbing hold of Greta, I run from the room.
Once we’re outside, I keep running through the tiny streets, pulling her along next to me.
“Hoshi?” she says, tugging at me. “Hoshi, stop!”
But I can’t stop. Chemicals rush through my body, a surge of rage and fear. The adrenaline sweeps me along. Where to, I don’t know.
“Stop, Hoshi!” Greta screams. “I’m frightened!”
This halts me in my tracks. I crouch down low and I grab hold of her and I squeeze her tight.
“I’m frightened too,” I tell her. “I’m more frightened than I’ve ever been in my life.”
BEN
I don’t know how much time passes. Half an hour, maybe, three hours, eight: it’s impossible to tell.
Then, something that didn’t happen yesterday. A beeping sound from the far end of the corridor. Cautiously, I peep out. The food hatch at the far end opens. The wolves rush towards it, crushing each other and leaping up with frenzied yelps. No food appears though.
Instead, the furthest gate slams down suddenly, trapping the wolves in the space at the end.
They turn, as one, and hurl themselves at the gate. The sound is unbearable as they bark frantically. They’re so strong that I think the gate will fall as they pound against it, but it holds fast.
At the other end, behind the opposite gate, a figure emerges from the darkness.
It edges down the stairs, sweeping the area with a gun, then calls up behind it.
“All clear.”
Another figure appears. The light above it flicks on. Silvio stands there, a ghastly white spectre at the top of the stairs. He claps his hand and a guard behind him moves forward, dragging a third person with him.
It’s Sean. His face is bruised, but he’s standing upright and he’s conscious.
Silvio starts talking, but I can’t hear him over the frenzied wolves.
He turns around, steps back to grab something, then steps forward again. He’s holding a megaphone, one of those really old-fashioned ones – a circus prop, I guess. He puts it up to his mouth and his voice, tinny and echoing, just about carries over the wolves’ howls.
“Can you all hear me? I do hope so. I’d hate you to miss out on the details. This boy here, I have been advised, will not be fit to perform tomorrow night. He is evidently not made of as strong a mettle as is required to succeed in the Cirque. He is weak. He is, quite frankly, pathetic! He’s only been electrocuted a few times, only been injured on a handful of occasions, and yet his body is, apparently, unfit for purpose and he will not be able to adequately fulfil his duties. My dear ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you will agree, this simply will not do! We cannot have folk like this weakening our little circus family! If I cannot rely on this boy on opening night, of all times, what use is he to me? Luckily for me, this is not a problem I need to lose sleep over. F
ate has given me a contingency plan; a convenient replacement for this useless piece of junk.”
He kicks at Sean, whose head slumps forward.
“Baines! Baines! Where are you?”
He lowers the megaphone and leans forward, scanning the cells. I pull my head back.
“Very well, you wish to remain hidden. I can’t say I blame you. Being the focus of my attention rarely does anybody in here much good! Well, Baines, wherever you are, the good news is that you will take this boy’s place tomorrow night. You’re very fortunate, he has several starring roles on the cards. The fact that you are untrained and unskilled will only serve to make things more interesting!”
He grabs hold of Sean with one hand, thrusting him forward towards the edge of the steps.
“This boy has failed us! He has let us all down! We no longer have use of him. I hope the wolves are hungry!”
There’s a scream, and the sound of crying and begging rises above the wolves’ yelps.
Silvio lifts the megaphone away so that we can all see the leering grin on his plastic face, before raising it back.
“Ah, come on now! Where’s your sense of charity? Surely you would not begrudge your lupine guards a treat?”
He pushes Sean forward and he tumbles down the stairs, landing in the space between the first gate and the stairwell.
At the other end of the corridor, the wolves hurl themselves against the gate even more ferociously. The last time I saw animals this desperate it was the lions, back in the old Cirque.
They were being tormented by human bait, too.
At the top of the stairs, Silvio raises the megaphone once more. His loud, booming ringmaster voice rises above the prisoners’ screams and tears, above the wolves’ yelps and howls, rises above everything.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s feeding time!”
HOSHIKO
Dragging Greta along, I run back to the shack and, muddled and hysterical, we tell Jack and Rosie what we’ve just heard. Both their eyes widen in shock as we talk.
“I knew I should haven’t let Ben give himself up like that!” says Jack, angrily. “I should have known his mother would want retribution!”
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