Sidekick

by Auralee Wallace

  Suddenly everyone in the room froze. The cheesy music became deafening. All life stopped.

  Then the low rumble started again in Mr. Raj’s belly. It grew louder and louder until it roared throughout the room. Then he stopped and looked me dead in the eye.

  “If such a thing were to happen, then I would be embarrassed. I am not a nice man when I am embarrassed. Shall we leave it at that?”

  “Sure,” I mumbled slowly.

  “Then we will see you at ten!” The room came back to life.

  Well, mission accomplished. I was now gainfully employed as a champagne-wiping gopher-slash-beaver to a psychopath who might indeed be even more frightening than the other psychopath in my life.

  And I owed him money.

  Job well done, Bremy. Job well done.

  ***

  Stumbling back onto the street felt a little like falling through the looking glass. Suddenly the sky was clear, the sun was shining, and the birds were singing. Everything felt a little more okay, and it was a good thing too because I had been hurtling at breakneck speed towards my crazy place. I thought my life had reached the pinnacle of madness just over a month ago, but in the last week or so, things had just kept getting curiouser and curiouser. Life had not prepared me for this, but sunshine helped.

  And maybe things weren’t that bad. Granted, cleaning urinals was never ideal, especially in a strip club, but now that Mr. Raj’s muhhaha laugh was fading, life suddenly felt more…doable.

  I probably should have knocked on some wood.

  Instead, I turned a corner and tripped over the foot of a construction horse blocking the road.

  A cloud of balloons floated past me, and that’s when I noticed my insides were suddenly feeling unpleasantly squishy. Balloons shouldn’t fill a person with dread. Balloons were happy. Nonetheless, I felt dready, very dready. The stench of popcorn wafted over me while carnival music and children’s laughter grated against my ears. Ribbons and colorful banners stretched like spider webs from building to building and a weird hot air balloon hovered menacingly in the distance. I kept thinking It can’t be, but the glaring red and white stripes of the Big Top looming in the distance confirmed it.

  The circus was in town.

  I walked like a nervous cat through the throngs of happy people, my eyes darting side to side. I should have probably turned around and found another way home, but I couldn’t, not yet. I wasn’t going to chase anyone down or anything—the pure rage I had felt at the bank had long gone—but I could absolutely call the police if I saw one of the robbers. The city’s finest were probably already exploring any possible link between the circus and the bank robbery, but an anonymous tip from an eyewitness couldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t get me my money back because I still couldn’t come forward, but it would give me a certain sense of satisfaction. I had been done a grievous wrong, and at the very least, I wanted to cast a serious Shame! Shame! look at my perpetrators.

  A few minutes of skulking passed, and I started to lose hope of finding any of the robbers. A mix of tired-looking teenagers and bored career carnies were working the midway and the rides, and there wasn’t a single curiosity exhibit in sight, just stalls selling cheap jewelry and clothing.

  I almost gave up when I heard a voice at my back.

  “I think perhaps you should prepare yourself to duck.”

  I twirled around.

  “You!” I shouted. The bald man from the bank stood before me wearing the same outfit and the same aggravating smile.

  “I’m not listening to anything you say. You nearly got me killed.”

  “Please, consider this advice as my apology,” he said, eyes twinkling.

  “What advice?”

  “Duck.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He pointed behind me.

  Holy crap! How had I missed it? The hot air balloon that had been in the distance moments ago was heading towards us like a freight train. Now I could see why it had looked so strange before. Instead of a small wicker cab, this balloon had a wooden ship as its base, making it some sort of balloon-pirate ship hybrid.

  The mammoth craft turned in the air to angle the ship’s body into the street and, as it rotated, I saw the design quilted into the silks of the balloon in full. Actually, it wasn’t a design—it was a face, an enormous demented clown face.

  And it was coming down fast…headed straight for me.

  Chapter Five

  The clown’s eyes, the size of kiddie pools, barrelled towards me.

  My brain fractured into two halves.

  The first half was in a crazy, chicken with its head cut off, what the hell is happening? kind of place.

  The second half was shaking its head. Of course, the universe wasn’t done with me. This made perfect sense.

  The result of this split left me standing open-mouthed in the middle of the street, frozen, waiting for the horrific hell balloon to knock me over.

  I only snapped out of it when a body slammed into my shoulder, sending me spinning.

  I looked around. The bald guy was gone.

  “Run!” somebody shouted.

  Seemed liked a good idea to me.

  I turned to run away in the opposite direction of the flying nightmare, but a crush of people blocked me, bottlenecked in the street.

  As the monstrosity dropped inch after inch, mothers and fathers desperately clutched at their children as stalls crumbled under the pressure of the screeching wooden body. I dashed about looking for any place to hide, but all I could do was flatten myself against the back wall of a pretzel stand.

  The bottom of the ship skidded across the pavement. The sound of splintering wood deafened even the loudest of screams. It was slowing down, but not soon enough. It was going to hit me. This was it. I had thought I was going to die at the bank when the Sultana shoved the gun in my face, and then again, when the feral vampire strippers came at me all spiked-heeled and fangs-bared, but I had been wrong. This was really truly it. I was going to die, squashed between a hot air balloon and a pretzel stand. I really didn’t see that one coming.

  I threw my hands to my ears. The noise alone felt like it was going to crush my skull. I squeezed my eyes shut, but I could still feel the pressure of the advancing wooden monster on my cheeks. There was nothing left to do. I fell to my knees and waited to become a skid mark.

  Then…it stopped.

  I peeked through my fingers. A thick plank of wood stared back at me, an inch away from my face.

  Cool relief rushed through my body, but I only allowed myself a second to enjoy it.

  This isn’t over.

  As soon as I thought those three little words, I heard a loud voice boom out.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! You’re in for a treat today!”

  Oh for freak’s sake.

  I moved along the wall of the pretzel stand on my hands and knees and made for open space. I needed to rally. Maybe it wasn’t that the universe was screwing with me. Maybe this was a do-over. This was my shot to be smarter. To keep my head down. To keep my mouth shut. I was getting out of here this time. Obviously, the police did not need me to help tip them off to the whereabouts of the robbers. It was time for me to go. I was going to behave like a responsible adult without a death wish.

  I scuttled over to the sidewalk through the throngs of people. Most had stopped screaming now. They were mainly just looking confused about what they were seeing. I could see their brains working. Maybe there’s some sort of explanation? Maybe it’s an accident? Part of a show? Yeah, well, they didn’t know about the psycho bitch at the wheel. They could stick around and find out. But me? I was outta here.

  A microphone suddenly screeched.

  “Freaks! Attack!”

  That got me to look over my shoulder. I suppose it could have sounded like a cutsie name, Freak Attack! But I knew better. It was a command. The circus performers from the bank suddenly tumbled out of hatches in the sides of the boat. Innocent bystanders watched,
still looking confused. They didn’t know they were about to be robbed. Too bad for them. I hurried my steps, resolved. I was not looking back again.

  Confused murmurs turned to shouts and then to screams. I heard someone yell, “She’s got a gun!”

  That almost got me. I was tempted to shout, Don’t worry! It’s a fake!—but I was sticking to my goal. Just walk away. Bad things happened when I didn’t.

  I elbowed my way through the panicked crowd, ignoring the crashing noises behind me.

  Keep walking, I reminded myself just before smashing my shin on the corner of a shopping cart.

  “Hey! Watch it!” a homeless woman cried. “Or Dark Ryder will get you too!”

  I held my hands up in a placating gesture. Yeah, right. Dark Ryder. I was starting to think that this so-called Dark Ryder was about as real as the Tooth Fairy. I nodded and angled past the woman. I had almost made it to the edge of the crowd when a new voice called out, “She’s got my son!”

  I stopped walking.

  I cursed a little under my breath.

  And then I turned around.

  I could see the Sultana, this time dressed in flowing black veils, caught at her waist and ankles with gold bands, walking across the top of the roof of a fast food truck making her way towards a ladder attached to the front of the ship. The aircraft had landed in such a way that it was sandwiched by buildings on either side, but the bow pointed into the open-street with the clown’s gigantic face staring down on the crowd below. The ladder led up to a landing positioned right at the nose of the ship. While pretty darn shocking, none of this would have been particularly scary were it not for the fact that the Sultana had another fake automatic weapon strapped over her shoulder, and a little boy, a toddler, by the ankle, dangling upside down. The kid’s panicked mother followed underneath her child, screaming.

  Lots of people had gathered to gape and stare, but no one was making a move to help the boy. Probably because they didn’t know, like I did, that the guns were fake.

  I let out a very frustrated sigh that probably sounded more like a growl.

  I mean, seriously?

  Did the universe really expect me to take this one on too?

  I turned on my heel.

  Nope, I wasn’t going to do it. Again…not my problem. Besides, I doubted the boy was truly in that much danger. If the Sultana and her crew carried fake weapons, what were the odds that she would drop a little boy a few storeys on his head?

  My conscience, which had gone to hide in my stomach, was not sitting well, but I could ignore it.

  The crowd had quieted down and gathered to take in the horrific spectacle. That meant once I got past the bottleneck, I would be home in no time.

  “Mama!”

  Oh for God’s sake.

  I turned back.

  The kid, who probably wasn’t even two, was screaming now and reaching for his mother beneath him, and everyone was just watching—all over some stupid fake guns.

  “Someone should do something.”

  I closed my eyes in frustration, and when I opened them, the bald man was once again at my side.

  “Lead the way,” I muttered.

  “Mama!”

  My eyes shot back to the little boy. When I glanced back to my side, the man was gone again.

  My shoulders slumped. I took a breath. Then I hiked my hands up to a quasi-Heisman position and pushed my way back through the crowd towards the boy, grumbling the entire time.

  “Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, now that we have your attention the show can begin! May I present the most exotic, the most mysterious, the most beautiful of the Ottoman beauties! Delilah the Circassian Sultana!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled under my breath.

  The clown cartwheeled away from the deck, and the Sultana appeared with the boy.

  “Greetings my beautiful patrons. You are probably wondering why I have come to you today,” her low voice echoed out over some sort of sound system. “Well, I come with a gift. I am here to spread the truth!”

  I made my way to the fast food truck the Sultana had used.

  Huh. It was a little high.

  I looked around for something to step up on. Suddenly my eyes landed on the bearded lady.

  “You!” he shouted.

  “Me?” I yelled, pointing an accusatory finger. “You!”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he said stomping towards me.

  “Helping a little boy.” I planted my hands on my hips. “Wanna give me a boost?”

  “Oh ho ho,” he said shaking his head. “Using the little person as a footstool. Classy.”

  “Pfft,” I said back, but I did secretly feel a little bad.

  “And why do you keep thinking I’m going to help you?” he shouted. “I’m with them.” He jerked a thumb towards the boat.

  It was a good question. “I don’t know exactly.”

  “It’s because you think I’m cute. Isn’t it?”

  Uh oh. I suddenly felt very guilty.

  “I can see it on your face. Oh he’s so cute,” he said in a mocking girl voice that I guessed was supposed to be me. “He can’t be with the bad guys.”

  “Maybe,” I mumbled.

  “Oh, that’s it!”

  Then he charged me. Head down. Legs and arms pumping.

  I did the only thing I could. When he got close, I jumped into the air, feet landing on his back and hurled myself up to the truck’s roof.

  I scrambled over the edge and then spun to look back over the side. The little bearded lady lay flattened, spread-eagled, like a bug.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, not just to him, but to all those standing around him giving me looks of horror.

  Time to get going.

  I stood up. My heels skidded across the metal roof. I really needed better footwear for the action scenes in my life. I took them off and placed them neatly together before I jumped for the first rung of the ladder on the boat. I probably should have been afraid, but she only had the clown up there with her, and I had a least an inch or two on Her Cir-craziness. Besides the police had to be on the way. They could break up our girl fight when they arrived. It would all be fine.

  “I am here to tell you that you have been living under a horrible fantasy! Would you like to know what that fantasy is?”

  Her voice had the same hypnotic quality as before. Maybe that was why nobody answered. Or maybe it was because the boy was now dangling over the edge of the podium, easily a five-storey drop. Everyone was afraid to move. Nobody wanted to be the trigger. Everyone, that is, but me. Steam was hissing from my pores. Enough was enough. This psycho bitch was using a toddler to spread her Looney Tune philosophy. I really didn’t believe she would drop the child, but nobody here knew that. So it was up to me to spread a little truth of the kick ass variety. It didn’t matter that I had never been in a fight that went beyond drunken hair-pulling. I was going to spontaneously combust a whole world of hurt on this chick.

  “The lie is that you’re safe! You tuck your little boys and girls into bed at night and tell them that there are no monsters! Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, that just isn’t true! Here I am!”

  I wrapped my arm around a rung to catch my breath and give my aching feet a break. I passed the time indulging in violent fantasies. It was probably wrong to think about beating up the mentally ill, but I was starting to feel a little crazy myself, perched barefoot on the side of a ship, so that put us on equal ground.

  “I sense your doubt! But fear not! I shall teach you the truth!”

  Screams sounded from below. I craned my neck to look up. The boy swayed back and forth above the crowd. I needed to get a move on.

  I clambered up the last few rungs ignoring the pain in my feet. I knew I had reached the top when my head smacked against something hard.

  I looked up. I had hit the edge of a platform at the bottom of a set of stairs that led to the ship’s upper deck. A wooden railing with horizontal rungs surrounded the small landing. All I had to
do now was reach up and over, grab the railing and hoist myself up onto the platform. No problem really…except my arms felt like wet, jiggley noodles. How on earth had the Sultana managed this carrying a kid? Maybe I was underestimating my opponent by a smidge. This was probably a bad idea. I should go back. But then again, I had already climbed all this way.

  I grabbed the lip of the floor with my left hand and made a blind grasp for the railing with the right. Sickeningly, the movement forced me to lean away from the ladder, my back facing nothingness, and the railing was further than I thought. I stepped up onto the last rung of the ladder and made a full body reach. I was still a half an inch short. Seriously, did the Sultana have the wingspan of a pterodactyl? And who designed this ship? I had a sudden urge to beat up an architect.

  “Hey! Look at that girl!” someone shouted from below.

  Great, now I was performance art. I stretched even further, wiggling my fingertips towards the railing.

  Then it happened.

  I don’t know if I heard it, or if I felt the barest of shifts in my jacket—or maybe I was just getting used to the feeling that the universe was about to kick me in the metaphorical nuts—but whatever it was, something made me look down. There, half in and half out, of my jacket pocket was the wad of money Mr. Raj had given me.

  It teetered…teetered…and then spilled out into the air.

  Instinctively, I grabbed for it with the hand that had been holding the floor. My precarious balance shattered. My right arm pin-wheeled through the empty air. I used the last pressure I had from my tiptoes to launch myself towards the railing. My hand whacked a rung. I squeezed my fingers shut as my body dangled and swung in the empty air.

  “Money!” voices shouted from below.

  I spared a stomach-turning glance down. Hungry hands were shooting up into the air to snatch my helpless little bills from their flight.

  I looked back and quickly swung my other hand to the rung. Missed. The pressure on my fingers was unbearable. I didn’t want to die. I really didn’t. But the laws of physics were in charge now. I couldn’t hold on for much longer.