Show Stopper

by Hayley Barker

  She’s looking at me again, but her eyes are angry now. Hostile, like I’ve offended her, not saved her. She performs a backflip. Her whole body tumbles, but the eyes remain in exactly the same place. They burn a hole in me. She hates me. This time, I can’t hold her gaze – I have to look away.

  HOSHIKO

  As soon as the show’s over, Amina rushes me through the overhead tunnels and into the san. “They should be OK,” she says, examining my hands, “if we treat them straight away.”

  She rubs cream into them and then roots around in her box for a bandage, pulling out a grey-looking rag.

  “This is the only one I’ve got left.” She peers at it, dubiously. “It doesn’t exactly look sterile.” She winds it around my hands anyway, frowning as she does so.

  “I nearly lost you tonight,” she says crossly, as if she’s telling me off. “What on earth happened out there?”

  She’s right to be worried; if that Pure boy hadn’t stepped in when he did and helped me back on the wire, I’d never have made it.

  “It was Silvio,” I tell her. “He was trying to make me fall. He shook the wire.”

  Her eyes widen.

  “Hoshi,” she says gravely. “If that’s true then you need to be really careful.”

  She stops winding the bandage around and just sits there, biting her lip and staring into space. When she looks at me, her face is deathly pale.

  “We need to think fast,” she says. “You must do something quickly to persuade him you’re worth hanging on to.”

  “I am worth hanging on to!” I tell her, a little hurt. “I’ve been the most popular act all season, even on my own.”

  “That doesn’t guarantee anything – you should know that by now! Look at all the acts he’s had cut off in their prime before!”

  She carries on bandaging my hands, pulling the thin material tight around them.

  “Make sure you toe the line from now on, do you hear me? No heroics, no defiance. You do exactly what he tells you, understand?”

  “Understood,” I sigh.

  BEN

  All the way home, all the way through the horrified lectures from Mother and Father, all I can do is think about the expression on her face when she looked at me.

  A poisoned arrow, right on target.

  “Everyone saw you!” Mother is livid. “Everyone in that damn arena saw you. With your arms round the waist of a Dreg girl. Treating her like she was a princess! I can’t even look at you. I’m horrified! Go and have a shower! Right now. Scrub yourself clean. And stay out of my sight! I can’t bear to talk to you!”

  I’ve never seen her lose her cool like this before.

  I suppose I should feel guilty, should feel contaminated, but I don’t. I feel oddly detached from her anger. I look at Francis, silent for once, smirking at me as Mother and Father rail and rant. He’s loving this.

  I let their words wash over me. I don’t argue back, but I don’t apologize either. As soon as I can, I get the hell out of the room and go upstairs, all the way up to the little attic room.

  Far below me, the lights of the Cirque are still twinkling.

  It’s not like I thought it would be; it’s not like any place I could ever have imagined. It’s beautiful and beguiling and intoxicating. It’s dark. It’s evil. People are killed there, murdered for entertainment. Surely that’s not right? It can’t be, can it?

  She’s down there, somewhere, under those billowing roofs. I wonder if she’s lonely; I wonder if she’s scared. She must be.

  I can’t stop thinking about her. It’s as if she’s inside me, somersaulting around in my head.

  HOSHIKO

  By the time we leave the san, most of the other girls are already in bed asleep. Greta’s sitting outside, biting her nails.

  “Look,” I tell her, “Amina’s fixed them; they’ll be fine.”

  She seems to accept what I’m saying for once, maybe because she’s so tired.

  The three of us creep in to the dorms as quietly as we can, past the long line of bunks to our own. The springs above me creak as Amina gets into bed. I don’t even bother having the usual conversation with Greta; I just scoot over to make room for her in my bed.

  She curls up next to me with her doll and closes her eyes.

  I can’t stop thinking about what just happened.

  I’ve never fallen before. I’ve always felt kind of invincible, even when others have died. The horror I’ve felt has been grief for them, not fear for myself. I’m lucky up there on the wire – I always have been. And I’m good too, although I’d never say it to anyone else.

  In another life, I’d have found the tightrope anyway. It’s a part of me. That’s why they call me the Cat: surefooted and nimble, I’m the best there is. I’ve made it through scrape after scrape, dancing through all of my nine lives and then some. It’s what makes the Pures flock to the show night after night; what makes them call so loudly for my death, and then cheer so wildly when I survive, yet again.

  But I don’t feel invincible any more. I wonder how much time I’ve got left; how many performances before I fall again, and nobody’s willing to save me.

  Silvio shook the wire. He must have decided to kill me off. Imagine the publicity it would bring: the Cirque would be notorious again. I’ve got to stop this. I try to concentrate on other things but the face of that boy staring at me creeps into my mind.

  The only people I hate more than Silvio are the Pures. I wish they would all die a painful death; wish they would all burn in Hell for eternity.

  What kind of a fool am I? That boy’s not some gallant hero. He’s a Pure.

  BEN

  I can’t sleep.

  I get my tablet out and look up the Cirque on the PureWeb.

  The Cat has been performing in the main shows since she was six – the longest surviving high-wire act in the Cirque’s history. That explains why the crowd went so crazy when they thought she was going to fall.

  There’s loads of details online about the dangers of the act. She’s had to deal with arrows being fired at her, electric shocks, cannons: loads of stuff. Other times there are lions – the ones we saw today, I suppose – waiting for her below, or a pit of crocodiles. There’s always a fantastically high drop. There’s never a safety net.

  Her real name, I discover, is Hoshiko.

  Hoshiko: it means “child of the star”. I look out of the window at the stars twinkling above me, jewels illuminating the night sky. I wonder if she’s looking at them, too. I think of her spinning up high, picture again those eyes when they fixed on mine. The name suits her.

  I pore through pages of images of her. Standing proudly on that wire; hanging suspended from a trapeze. Every time, that same defiant look in her eye as she glares at the camera. I think about her having to dice with death night after night.

  The more I read about her, the more I see, the more desperate the feeling I have inside becomes. It starts off as a gnawing ache, but grows and grows until it becomes unbearable.

  I understand now why Priya didn’t like it when I said I wanted to go to the Cirque. It becomes really important all of a sudden to tell her that.

  I creep downstairs. She’s not in the kitchen, so I search the huge, silent house, making sure I avoid any of the guards’ posts and alarm points.

  I find her eventually in the drawing room, polishing the silverware. She jumps when I walk in and gives a little shriek, her face breaking into an indulgent smile when she sees it’s me. She’s forgiven me then.

  “Ben,” she says. “You ought to be in bed. You seem to be making a habit of these nocturnal visits lately.”

  “I wanted to see you,” I say. “To talk to you about the Cirque.”

  She turns away from me and goes back to dusting the candlesticks, slamming each one roughly back into place.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” she says, bluntly. “You shouldn’t even be talking to me. It’s not appropriate.”

  I move to sit down at Mother’s piano.
“I need to tell you that I understand now why you were cross with me yesterday, when I said I wanted to go.”

  She shrugs. “It’s not my place to be cross about anything,” she says, coldly. “I’m no one. I’m nothing.”

  She’s not making this easy.

  “No,” I tell her. “You’re not no one, not to me. And I didn’t like it there. I didn’t know it would be like that. I hated it.”

  That’s not strictly true. I mean, I kind of hated it, but I’m sort of fascinated by it too. Fascinated by her, the girl, Hoshiko.

  Priya turns to me at last. She walks softly over to the doorway and peers through it, making sure no one else is around.

  “Ben,” she says. “There’s something you should hear. I could lose my job for saying it. I could lose my life, but it’s important.”

  It’s true: Mother and Father would be outraged if they knew she spoke to me like this.

  “What is it?”

  She comes over, and grips my arm. It’s the first time she’s ever touched me. Her hands look old and worn, but they feel soft.

  “Think,” she whispers. “Think for yourself. Judge for yourself. Make up your own mind.”

  What does she mean?

  I don’t want to tell her that I don’t know what she’s talking about, so I stay silent. I just look at her.

  She taps her head. “Use what’s in here,” she says and then puts her hand to her chest, “and what’s in here. Judge with your head and with your heart and you won’t go far wrong.” She looks at me, her dark eyes intent. “Promise me,” she says. “Decide for yourself. Heart and head.”

  “I will,” I tell her. “I promise.”

  “Good,” she says. She looks over my shoulder, her eyes landing on the piano. Its keys glisten in the moonlight. “I don’t like it in here,” she says and, for some reason, her words make me shiver. “Let’s go downstairs and I’ll make you a hot chocolate.”

  As we cross the hallway, I see something out of the corner of my eye, a shadow darting away and up the stairs. I step away from Priya and look up, but there’s nothing there. It must have been my imagination.

  HOSHIKO

  It feels like I’ve been lying here for hours and I still can’t sleep. Next to me, Greta tuts crossly. “Hoshi,” she admonishes. “Will you please settle down?”

  It makes me smile; so many nights she’s kept me awake with her fidgeting and now she’s here, in my bed, telling me off for having the audacity to move.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper back. “I can’t sleep.”

  She sits up suddenly, and I can make out her little face grinning in the darkness.

  “Did you hear about Silvio?” she says. “A really important Pure lady chucked a fizzy drink over his head!”

  “No way!”

  “Yes way! In the arena, in front of everyone. They caught it on camera!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before? This is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard! Why would a Pure chuck a drink over Silvio?”

  “Don’t know.” She giggles, infectiously. “I’m glad they did though!”

  I can’t help feeling shocked. “He must have been mortified!”

  All of a sudden, his attempted sabotage of my act starts to make sense.

  “When was this?”

  “Just before you went on, during the interval.”

  That explains his rage earlier; a high-ranking Pure humiliated him and so he took it out on me.

  “Hoshi,” Greta asks, “why would he be so upset that a Pure did that to him?”

  “You know why. You know he loves the Pures; you know he thinks he is one.”

  “But why does he?” she asks, her tone puzzled.

  I look at her in the darkness.

  She smiles at me, cocking her head to one side expertly. My heart sinks. She’s playing me again; she always looks at me like that when she wants something. I know what it is too – she wants me to tell her the Silvio story again. It’s her favourite one of all. She makes me repeat it all the time, like it’s some kind of fairy story, not the all-too-real account of our psychopathic dictator boss at all.

  “Greta, please, it’s been a really long night. Can’t we just go to sleep like everyone else?”

  “I was trying to. You woke me up.” She wraps her arms around me. “Please, Hoshi, please tell me why he does. You said you couldn’t sleep anyway.”

  There’s no point telling her no; she’ll only keep going on. I learnt that a long time ago. It’s much easier to give in and give her what she wants.

  “OK…” I sigh and I pull her closer, so that her head is nestled on my chest and I can whisper the words into her ear without disturbing any of the others.

  “Long ago, there lived a beautiful ballerina, famous across the world. She was not just beautiful and talented, she was wealthy too. Her family were very important Pures; her father was a millionaire financier and she had everything she could ever wish for, everything except love. She dreamed that one day she would find her true love.”

  Greta has stopped fidgeting now, her body is calm and still. I wonder if she’s asleep already. Maybe I can get away with not finishing the story. I stop talking and lie there quietly, holding my breath.

  Her head lifts up suddenly. “Carry on,” she yawns. “Tell me how she finds him, her one true love.”

  Damn; looks like I’ll have to finish.

  “One night, she found that she was missing her favourite ballet shoe and she went back to the empty theatre to find it. As she walked into the huge auditorium, she saw that a man was there, on the stage, singing. His voice was the purest sound she had ever heard. She watched as he sang, standing silently in the shadows, and was astonished to see that it wasn’t any of the singers she knew on the stage but a Dreg, the poor worker who swept the theatre every night.

  “When he saw the ballerina the singer was terribly afraid, for he knew the punishment would be death if she told anyone what she had seen. She didn’t call the guards though, or sound the alarms. Instead, she asked him to keep singing and she sat and listened to him as the tears rolled down her cheeks. Afterwards they spoke into the night, until the sunbeams crept through the windows and she dashed away, back to her chambers.

  “They met every night after that, in the empty theatre. Sometimes, he would sing for her, sometimes she would dance for him, sometimes they would just sit and talk. As the months passed, they fell more and more deeply in love.

  “Their passion could not be contained and, eventually, she discovered that she was pregnant. The pair were desperate. What could they do? The Dreg would be killed if their love was discovered, and the authorities would destroy her unborn baby.

  “The lovers had no choice but to run away together. For a while, they were safe, hiding in the Dreg slums where she gave birth to a baby boy.

  “The ballerina was happier than she had ever been, but she was also weaker than ever before. She was not used to the hard, deprived life of a Dreg and she became very, very sick after childbirth. The singer knew it would mean their secret would be discovered, but he could not bear to see her in pain. Picking her up in his arms, he carried her to the hospital, pleading with them to save her. When they realized who she was, he was immediately arrested and executed. Word of his death came to her hospital bed and the ballerina was overcome with grief. She threw herself from the window and her body shattered to pieces on the pavement below.

  “The ballerina’s parents were horrified at the shame brought upon their family, and shunned their new grandson. The baby boy was placed in a grim orphanage in the Dreg slums where he somehow stayed alive and grew to adulthood. His parents’ theatrical blood was in his veins and he joined the circus and grew up to become the world’s most famous ringmaster.

  “But that’s where the similarities to his parents end, for he had none of their softness, none of their goodness, none of their love inside his heart. He vowed that he would one day become a true Pure and take back his rightful heritage, and he’s been st
riving it for ever since.”

  I hate this story. I hate the way it makes out that Silvio is some kind of poor unfortunate lost soul. He’s been luckier than the rest of us, if the story is true. His mother’s family own the circus, and although they can never openly acknowledge him, they’ve protected him. It can’t be just coincidence that he’s the one who calls the shots in here, literally most of the time.

  Greta is asleep in my arms, lulled off by the story. It’s magical to her, but not to me.

  This story of his past doesn’t make Silvio any more human, nor does it does excuse what he’s done. It makes it worse, not better. His parents risked everything to be together and look where it got them. Both of them are dead, and their love child is a monster. They must be turning in their graves.

  BEN

  I’m still awake when the cold fingers of the morning creep around the curtains and another boring day claws its way in. I think about staying right here, pulling the duvet over my head and pretending I’m ill. I crawl out of bed eventually though. Put on my school uniform, eat breakfast, smile politely at the driver, get in the car, just as I always do. But my mind is still there, in the Cirque, with Hoshiko.

  Next to me Francis has his phone out, looking again at the footage he filmed last night. He thrusts it towards me.

  “Ben,” he says, laughing loudly, “have another look at the lion guy from last night. Look at his face! He’s absolutely bricking it! I’m so gutted we didn’t see him get mauled!”

  I can’t believe we’re related. I floated alongside him in Mother’s womb, shared oxygen, food, everything with him. How can that be?

  “You wanted to see him die?”

  “Err, yeah!” His face is puzzled. “Didn’t you?”

  “No! I thought it was terrible!”

  “Terrible? It’s just a bit of fun, Ben. They’re only Dreg kids: parasites, sucking the state dry.” He sniggers. “Be better for him too if he’d died, put him out of his misery, end his pointless little existence.” He looks at me, curiously. “You’ve got a thing about them, you have. It’s weird.”