High Wire

by Melanie Jackson

  I stared at Cubby with his toothy smile.

  So Cubby had been on the wire before me. I guessed they hadn’t printed new placards yet.

  I recalled the ringmaster saying that the previous wire walker, Jacob, seemed too tense on the wire. Sorelli told me you couldn’t enjoy watching him.

  Sorelli always called kids by their formal names. Jacob…Cubby.

  I hadn’t clued in, but now I got why Cubby was so hostile. Why he kept razzing me.

  He resented me for getting his job.

  The two boys were watching me curiously. I gave a mock bow. “I’m your friendly wire walker. Zack Freedman.”

  The boys rolled their eyes. One scoffed, “Yeah, right. Dream on, buddy.”

  At first I was annoyed. Then it struck me as funny. I laughed.

  The boys looked nervous. They probably thought I was a nutter. They walked away, muttering.

  Pooch and I walked around some more. We got a few disapproving glances. The No Animals Allowed sign greeted people at the gate.

  I told Pooch, “Too bad you’re such a squirt. Otherwise you could pass for a seeing-eye dog. What’s the point of small dogs, anyway? Huh?”

  Pooch just looked up at me, tongue hanging out. He was happy.

  Dumb dog.

  We would have got more looks if I’d been wearing a clown outfit, or a bodysuit like the acrobats and trapeze artists. People would stop and gape at someone they thought was a performer.

  But I wasn’t into costumes. Even for my act, I wore only lightweight painter pants and a Circus Sorelli T-shirt.

  I explained to Pooch, “When Philippe Petit walked between the towers, he wore street clothes. I’m with him. You don’t need a costume to live out a dream. You need what’s inside you. Determination. Self-control.”

  Pooch was busy sniffing a half-eaten cotton candy. Some idiot had dropped it on the ground.

  I didn’t want Pooch to eat it—that molten sugar would wreck his teeth.

  Without thinking, I whistled for him: Hooo-eee. It was the way I’d whistled for Thelma.

  It must be universal dog language. Pooch pricked up his ears. He left the cotton candy and trotted after me.

  In the back of the big top, I tied Pooch to a tent pole. I used the skipping rope I kept in my gym bag.

  I was up next with my juggling act. Sorelli was out in the ring, warming the audience up for the second half of the show. We could hear his groaners.

  “How hot is it today? I’ll tell ya. I was up on Cypress Mountain, and the caps were melting.” Pause. “The caps on my teeth! Now that’s hot!”

  Whitney walked into the waiting area. She was done for the night, but performers often hung around to chat. She bent down to pet Pooch and coo over him.

  I left my spot at the head of the line and joined her. In a low voice I said, “Tell me about Cubby—how he lost the wire job.”

  She straightened, her dark eyes somber. She glanced around to make sure the others weren’t listening. “I can’t talk about it, Zack. If I do, I’ll be cursed!”

  Chapter Four

  I stared at Whitney. Then I remembered circus superstitions. It was bad luck to talk about another performer’s mistakes. It was also bad luck to bring peacock feathers to a circus or fall asleep inside the big top.

  This last superstition actually made sense at one time. In the early 1900s, before bleacher-type seats, crews piled dirt to make a raised ring. They wanted to be sure everyone could see. When performers jumped around, the dirt sometimes collapsed, burying front-row audience members alive. So, at the start of a circus performance, the ringmaster would warn the audience not to fall asleep.

  “I’ll protect you from any curses,” I promised Whitney. “I just want to know why Cubby has been hassling me since I got here.”

  We could hear Sorelli still cracking jokes. After that, he’d get into warnings about shutting off cell phones and not using cameras. We had a couple of minutes.

  Whitney sighed and nodded. “Okay. Well, this is Cubby’s third year with the circus. In his first year he was part of the clown act. Last year he got the wire job. He thought the wire was so cool—not goofy, like the clown act.

  “But after the summer was over, Sorelli said Cub didn’t have the flair to be a professional wire walker. He put Cubby back to being a clown.”

  Whispering now, Whitney added, “Cubby was furious. He vowed to make Sorelli suffer.”

  “Does Sorelli know about this?”

  She shook her head. “I guess he assumed Cubby would accept losing the job. But he hasn’t accepted it, Zack. That’s what’s so disturbing.”

  “And now for our first act, Zachary ‘Zen’ Freedman!” announced Sorelli.

  Even with my cue, I didn’t like to leave Whitney. She was pale, and her dark eyes were round and frightened, like she’d said too much. I felt bad. She seemed to be taking the superstition seriously.

  On an impulse I said, “Stick around for my act. I’ll work up a new bit, just for you.”

  As I ran out into the ring, I wondered what this new part of the act would be. I’d come up with something. I had to cheer Whitney up.

  I also wondered if she was scared by the idea of a curse, or if she was scared of Cubby.

  I started with a simple juggling pattern, a cascade. I tossed three clubs. They are the same shape as bowling pins, but in juggling, the term is clubs. Go figure.

  Whenever I had a club in each hand, the third club in the air above them was at its highest point. In that instant, the clubs formed the three points of a triangle. People think of juggled objects as moving in circles, but it’s a triangle shape.

  I was focused on precision. I was in my own space again, in the world, but somehow away from it. It was just me and the clubs, flowing on and on.

  As ours was a youth circus, the ringmaster kept the acts fairly simple. There was no flame-throwing on the trapeze swings, no sword-swallowing on the high wire. The dangerous tricks were for adult performers in the professional circuses. Sorelli said our concern was getting things right, not getting fancy.

  The problem was, I was bored with tossing only three clubs. I could handle more.

  I wanted to show off. Whitney was watching in the shadows, and I’d promised her something extra.

  I called, “Hey, star gymnast. Bring my bag. I need more than three clubs. This is kid stuff.”

  The audience laughed and applauded. This was totally unscripted. After the show, Sorelli would be on my case big-time. But I didn’t care.

  Whitney carried my gym bag into the spotlight. I asked her to take two clubs out and put them under my chin.

  I kept tossing the first three clubs. I caught the next one coming down in my right hand, as usual. Then, after passing it into my left hand, I dropped the two new clubs from under my chin into my right hand. I did this in the nanosecond before catching the next of the original three clubs.

  I introduced a fourth club into the throws. I waited till I worked the four clubs into a smooth flow. Then I introducedthe fifth.

  The audience roared. They stood up to clap. Another standing O!

  I was thrilled, but I didn’t let it distract me. I kept the five clubs going, catching with the right as they fell and transferring to the left.

  I was interrupted by loud frantic barking.

  Pooch ran into the ring.

  The audience screamed with laughter. I let the clubs complete their arcs. One by one, they plunked into my right hand.

  I glared at Pooch. He’d ruined my act.

  The dog ran in a circle around me, barking. He was pleased with himself for tracking me down.

  The rope I’d tied him up with was still attached to his collar. It trailed behind him as he ran.

  He hadn’t escaped by chewing through the rope, or wriggling out of it.

  So, how had he gotten free?

  I dropped the clubs into my gym bag. Then I hoisted Pooch under my arm, grabbed my gym bag and marched out of the ring.

  In the wi
ngs, the next performers up laughed. “You got a partner for your act, Zack,” someone said.

  Whitney said, “Pooch is so cute!”

  “He is so going to the pound,” I muttered back.

  The ringmaster stomped out of his office. His face was boiling red, the same color as his jacket. “Zachary!”

  Chapter Five

  Sorelli ordered me outside. There he let loose a volley of yells that could be heard clear across the city. “First you ramp up your juggling act without permission. Then you set that animal on a rampage!”

  He made it sound like Pooch was a dangerous beast of prey. At any other moment, this would have been funny.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I had him tied up.” I glanced at Pooch, who was sniffing the flaps of the mess tent.

  I thought of Thelma, shepherding hens back into the coop or barking her lungs out when she scented a coyote. Unlike Pooch, Thelma had been useful.

  I told Sorelli, “Sir, I never even wanted this dog.”

  Sorelli opened his mouth for a fresh blast. Or so I assumed. Instead, the ringmaster let out a huge sigh. He glanced from Pooch to me. For a second, I thought—ninth wonder of the world—he might smile.

  Sorelli said gruffly, “Well, you may not like him, but he likes you. Get rid of him, Zachary. The dog goes, or you go.”

  He raised his voice to its regular multi-decibel pitch. “And no more funny stuff in the ring. I don’t like funny.”

  He stomped back into the tent.

  “You’re hungry,” I told Pooch shortly. “C’mon, we’ll get you some grub.”

  I led him out of the circus, planning to stroll up to Fourth Avenue to find a corner store.

  “Hey, Zack.”

  Cubby walked up to me, his red, two-foot-long clown shoes flopping. “Man, it’s brutal getting bawled out by Sorelli.”

  Under his painted-on smile, Cubby had a broad grin. He was enjoying himself.

  Then it hit me.

  “You untied Pooch,” I said.

  Cubby’s grin widened. “He looked so unhappy. I couldn’t resist.”

  Couldn’t resist sabotaging my act, he meant. I was cold with rage. I felt like grabbing him by the collar and hoisting him again. Only this time, I’d break his neck.

  I squelched the impulse. Just. I said, “I’m taking Pooch to the pound tomorrow.”

  Cubby leaned his white-painted face with the huge, red-painted mouth close to Pooch. “So you’re gonna be driving someone else crazy, huh?” He reached out a hand to pet him.

  Pooch growled. He hadn’t lost his dislike for Cubby.

  Cubby drew back. Then he smirked at me. “Sorelli yelled at you, but he didn’t kick you out. You’re the teacher’s pet. Everyone can tell.”

  I didn’t think this was worth replying to, so I started to move away.

  “Wait. I got something for you.” Cubby fished in one of the deep pockets of his clown suit. He pulled out a pink leather leash with a matching collar. A large round metal medallion hung from the collar. One side of the medallion was speckled with tiny round holes.

  He said, “I found this in the storage trailer. Circus Sorelli used to have a poodle act. I thought you could use it for Pooch.”

  He threw the leash to me. No, at me. I barely grabbed the collar before the medallion clipped me in the eye.

  Cubby stalked toward the trailers, his big shoes flip-flopping.

  Pooch and I stared after him. What a weird guy. Giving me the leash and collar should have been a friendly gesture.

  But it hadn’t come off that way.

  Being a Vancouver girl, Whitney knew where the SPCA was. She, Pooch and I took the bus the next morning.

  Pooch stuck his head out the window, a big, panting smile on his ugly face. I was sure he thought we were heading to a park for a nice walk.

  We’d got permission from Sorelli to miss the 9:00 AM postmortem. That was where he played the DVD of the previous night’s show and yelled at everyone.

  I was still smarting from the reaming-out I’d received the night before. And this morning he’d topped it off with, “If I see that dog again, I will serve him up with mustard and relish.”

  I kept hold of Pooch, who was straining to jut his head farther out the window. Dumb dog. Any farther, and he’d fall out.

  I remarked to Whitney, “Sorelli rarely finds fault with you, I’ve noticed. That’s something to be said for the guy.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She pulled Pooch’s ears back and wagged his head for him. He panted louder and smiled wider.

  Whitney shrugged. “I come from a circus family. It’s in my blood. I’m used to the beam, to practicing nonstop, that’s all. I’ve been at it for years.”

  The bus ground to a stop at the crest of a big hill. The SPCA, a one-story building decorated with a mural of animals, was down the slope.

  We got off, and Pooch trotted along happily. He wouldn’t be so happy soon.

  I didn’t want to think about that, so I asked Whitney about her family.

  She replied, “The circus goes way back with us. In the 1930s, my great-granddad was a farmer in Saskatchewan. The Depression wiped him out. So he joined a traveling circus. He did odd jobs: cleaning stables, taking tickets, whatever needed doing. Circuses were thriving then. No matter how bad the economy, people always grubbed pennies together to see the big show. After all, everybody loves a circus.”

  There was something in her tone, a flatness that puzzled me. “And how about you?” I asked.

  Whitney hesitated. “Don’t get me wrong. I like the circus. But what I’d really like is to try out for the Olympic gymnasts’ team.”

  For a moment her face was hopeful. “I couldn’t work for Sorelli anymore though. I’d have to concentrate on training.”

  I thought of Sorelli, expecting his performers to practice and work out seven hours a day. That was not only during circus season, but in the months leading up to it as well.

  That didn’t leave room for Olympic training. It didn’t leave room for anything.

  Halfway down the hill, Pooch stopped and sat down. Maybe all the cars rushing by were scaring him. I carried him the rest of the way.

  I said to Whitney, “Why don’t you quit then?”

  Whitney grimaced. “Mom doesn’t want me to. She’s really into her society stuff: clubs, lunches, charity benefits, parties. If I were in Olympic training, she’d have to give a lot of that up. She’d have to travel around the country with me to meets and competitions.

  “Dad says if I went for the Olympic team, he’d split the travel with Mom. But…” Whitney shrugged. “Mom shuts him down. She’s the boss.”

  Pooch was whimpering. Now I got it. He recognized the SPCA building. It was the place Aunt Ellie had got him, the place he’d been kept in a cage.

  Whitney scratched Pooch behind the ears. “What about you, Zack? You interested in a circus career?”

  The image of Philippe Petit flashed into my mind. Petit wasn’t much for circus performing. He liked to do things his own way. “The circus is okay for now,” I said lightly. “It beats my other option for a summer job—standing in front of my aunt’s grocery store with a Buy Fresh Oranges sign.”

  Whitney laughed. She was pretty when she laughed. “You’re a natural on the wire, Zack. And Sorelli likes you. That says a lot.”

  She was the second person to remark that the ringmaster liked me. Cubby had said it too.

  But I knew Sorelli wasn’t kidding about Pooch. The dog goes, or you go.

  I thought of my chewed slippers and my ruined juggling act.

  We walked inside the SPCA. At the sight of Pooch, a little girl jumped up and down like an out-of-control jack-inthe-box. “Wheee! Can I have that dog, Mommy? Can I?”

  Her mom turned and smiled. It was a nice smile.

  “You see, fella?” I murmured in Pooch’s ear. “Everything’s going to work out just fine.”

  Chapter Six

  “I thought you were getting rid of that dog!”

 
The ringmaster loomed over me. Behind him, on the other side of the big top, was the massive cartoon of him on a billboard. The effect was scary. Kind of 3-D plus.

  “Uhhh.” I cleared my throat. I glanced down at Pooch. Unbothered by Sorelli, he was chewing the pink leash Cubby had given us.

  “Well? Speak up, Zachary. What are you waiting for? Your old-age pension?”

  “Uhhh. I tried to get rid of him, sir. Honest.”

  I couldn’t explain what had happened, because I didn’t really understand it myself. Maybe it was the jumpy kid. She made me nervous, and she might have made Pooch nervous.

  Maybe I couldn’t dump Pooch off the way orphaned kids got dumped off on relatives.

  Sorelli narrowed his eyes. “You tried to? When I give an order, you don’t try, Zachary. You do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You think Philippe Petit thought about dogs when he walked the wire between the Twin Towers?”

  How did Sorelli know I idolized Petit? I had never told him. The guy was uncanny.

  I gulped. “No, sir. I’m sure dogs were not on Philippe Petit’s mind.”

  “Exactly! And that’s how it has to be in the circus. Your performance is everything. You can have nothing else on your mind.”

  By now the whole of the Circus Sorelli company was gathered around, watching in wide-eyed terror. The ringmaster had a track record of reducing people to tears.

  “Do you understand, Zachary?”

  There was a silence. I could hear the Circus Sorelli flag flapping. Everyone held their breath the way the audience did when I was on the wire. In a way, I was on a high wire right now. If I made one wrong move, I’d be out of the circus.

  I looked Sorelli in the eye. I said calmly, politely, “No, sir, I don’t.”

  Sorelli’s eyes bulged out of their sockets. He grabbed me by the elbow and marched me to his trailer.

  Pooch trotted after us, still holding the pink leash in his mouth. The collar dragged behind him, bumping on the ground.

  Sorelli’s slam of the trailer door behind us echoed around the circus grounds.

  “According to our permit, no animals.”

  “But doesn’t that mean performing animals, sir? Pooch isn’t a performer. He’s a pet.”