Will Sparrow's Road

by Karen Cushman

  Will returned at last to the wagon. "So, Sparrow, you have flown back to the nest. I should flog you away from here—it would be just as you deserve,” said Master Tidball, watching the boy come, but he did not raise a hand. Will stood and scratched his nose and waited.

  "I cannot rely on even one of you,” Tidball went on. "Why, fairgoers have been in and out of the booth with no one watching. Any of them could have walked off with my treasures.”

  Aye, anyone who wanted a one-eyed pig or a pickled lizard, thought Will. Not likely. "I was distracted by the fair,” he said, "and the hours passed. I pray your pardon.”

  Tidball grunted, which Will took to mean Well, do not do so again. "Lock the wild girl in the wagon,” he said.

  Grace wiped her hands on her skirt. "But I have had no supper.”

  "Nonetheless,” said Tidball, "I have not forgotten your defiance.” He nodded toward Will. "Sparrow, see to it.”

  Whistling, Will walked Grace to the wagon. As she climbed in, he whispered, "Be of good cheer, Grace Wyse. I have devised a plan that will please you and mightily displeasure Master Tidball. All will be well.” He was rewarded with her smile, all the more lovely for being so rare.

  Will heard someone call, "Ho, Baldhead! I know you be there!” and Master Tidball jumped to his feet. "I must be off,” he said, and hobbled away.

  Fitz appeared with cheese and bread and the leg of a roast goose. He unlocked the door to the wagon and handed Grace some supper. Will heard murmuring and even a bit of soft laughter before Fitz closed and barred the door again. He winked his bruised eye, and Will snickered. They sat to eat, leaning against the wagon. "How long have you been here with Tidball?” Will asked, his mouth full of goose.

  "Cecily and I had been fair to fair many a year. She sang, I tumbled. When Tidball appeared some years ago with a wee mite of a kitten that proved to be a girl, we joined with him for her sake.” Fitz frowned. "When Cecily left, I stayed, and you know the why of that.”

  "Tell me of your wife,” Will said. "Is she ... er, small, like you?”

  "She be a mite smaller,” said Fitz, and Will's eyes widened in wonderment. A poppet, she must be, a fairy woman. "Her voice be as sweet as an apple tart but she suffers no argument or disagreement. She makes the softest cakes, the sturdiest breads, and an eel stew that would charm the angels from the skies.” He sighed.

  "Now that your daughter has had her babe, Cecily can return here to be with you.”

  "Nay, she is now granny and will have no patience with oddities and prodigies. I pray I can go to her with time.” Fitz crumpled his face in such a comic pantomime of woe that Will did not know whether to mourn with the little man or laugh. Fitz stood, yawned, and bade Will good night.

  When Fitz was snoring loudly inside the oddities booth, Will crept to the wagon and unbarred the door. "Hist, Grace,” he whispered. "'Tis time. We shall see the mermaid baby befittingly buried.”

  She emerged, rubbing her eyes, and said, "I knew you would help me ... her ... us. I knew it.” And she rewarded Will with another smile.

  They crept into the booth, careful not to alarm Fitz, who muttered and thrashed but did not wake. Moonlight streamed into the roofless booth and shimmered on the mermaid's bottle. Grace and Will each took a handle and lifted the flask. It was heavy and slippery and cumbersome but the two managed to carry it out of the booth and into the deserted fair.

  "Have an eye to that stall, Grace!” Will muttered. "Look out!”

  "I am being right careful but 'tis so heavy. Ow! Ow! You are leaving it all to me!”

  "By my beard, you are—Why are you laughing?” "You have no beard!”

  "Well, did I have, I would swear by it that you are less help than a stewed prune. Now mark me, walk slowly and be still.”

  With grunts and groans, huffs and puffs, they carried the mermaid's flask through the fair to where the town turned to wildness. The flask glowed green in the leaf-filtered moonlight. Will shivered and his spine tingled. He looked about for fearsome things.

  "Do you seek someone?” Grace asked him.

  "'Tis just that I mislike the woods in darkness. Are you not afeared?”

  "Nay.”

  "Not even a bit?”

  "I like the darkness. I look like everyone else in the dark.”

  She was right, Will thought. She did look like everyone else, and he found he liked better her looking like Grace, odd though that might be. But he did not say so.

  They put the flask down on the ground, and Will heaped mud and twigs over it.

  "Nay,” said Grace, "she must have a grave.”

  "A grave? She is in a bottle.”

  "She must be taken from the bottle and buried in a proper grave.” Will was startled by the whoop, whoop, whoo of an owl, and his gut tilted and tumbled. "Grace, I am no gravedigger,” he said, his voice but a squeak. "Let us go from this place. She is safe where she lies.”

  The girl stamped her foot, which made no sound there in the soft earth, but Will gave in. There would be a grave, a small grave but a proper one, for the mermaid baby. Grumbling, he found a likely digging stick and began. Grace could be tyrant indeed, Will said to himself, and he was happy he had not said the pleasant thing he had thought a moment before.

  Grace squatted down beside him and dug with her hands. Finally they had a hole deep enough. Taking a stone, Will struck the bottle several times, and the glass shattered. The air grew rank with the smell of strong spirits and rot. Grace made a bed of moss in the hole, Will tipped the creature in, and they covered it with dirt and leaves, it being too late in the year for flowers.

  "We should have a prayer,” said Grace.

  "Know you any?”

  "Nay,” she said.

  So Will recited the Lord's Prayer, which he knew but did not know how he knew, for his father did not pray. They bowed their heads in silence for a moment. Then Grace said, "I have a prayer I just now made.” She bowed her head again. "Sir God, I pray you accept the mermaid baby into Heaven. Never did she do a bad thing but made many people happy to look upon her for only one penny. Amen.”

  Grace and Will looked down at the mound under which the little mermaid lay, and Grace whispered, "Godspeed to you, baby.”

  Will gathered the shards of glass and dropped them into a hollow stump, lest some person or animal step on them unawares. Then they turned to go, picking their way slowly through the darkness, back toward the fair.

  A sudden shaft of moonlight lit a lane where a deer stood, still as midnight. A young doe, by the look of her.

  "Oh, Will,” Grace whispered, "is she not beautiful?”

  Will considered the deer. Soft reddish coat, large ears that twitched and twisted, eyes deep and dark in the moonlight. Aye, she was beautiful. Tasty, belike, and beautiful. She turned and bounded away.

  "'Twould be wondrous, would it not, to live like a deer?” Grace said. "Eat berries and nuts, make a bed of soft grasses and moss, and sleep beneath the midnight sky.”

  "Nay, I be knowing something of that and 'tis not so wondrous. Moss makes you itchy, and the belly grows tired of berries.”

  Grace bent, picked up something from the path, and held it pinched between her fingers. A mushroom it was, pinkish, its cap spotted with white, tiny and perfect. "It looks like a wee fairy in a big hat.” She smiled.

  Will stared at Grace a moment. "You find such pleasure in small things. I am surprised, given your face and your fate and all.”

  Grace's lips closed in a pout, but then she said, "Pish, Sparrow, my face does not make deer less comely or my pleasures less sweet.”

  Grace knew how to juggle life, thought Will, near as well as Benjamin did. No matter her face, Grace would never be ordinary.

  They crept back to the wagon. Will closed Grace inside and then crawled underneath to sleep. He thought of Grace, whose mother had sold her; of the mermaid baby, taken from its mother somewhere far away; of his own self, left by his mother. His mother ... He felt the familiar grizzling in his liver.r />
  The night was silent but for the wind in the trees and the distant hoot of an owl. He rolled out from under the wagon and paced about. He had so often pushed thoughts of his mother away that now he had trouble calling her to mind. It was so long ago. She wore blue, he remembered, and soft leather shoes with buckles, and she carried the scent of lavender. She smiled at him, cupped his chin and tousled his hair, sang to him at night.

  A soft, moist breeze blew like a caress across his face. Will took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His mother—wherever she went, and why—must have loved him. He was not the reason she left, no matter what his father said. Will might be liar and thief, but he was not unlovable. And that was an entirely different pair of breeches, he thought. Entirely different. He crawled back under the wagon, clutched his few memories to him, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  "Awake, you sluggards, you knaves, you lazy curs!” Master Tidball shouted in the morning, long before the dew of dawn had dried on their backsides. "Tomorrow this fair will end. We will be on to Stourbridge!” Master Tidball clapped his hands. "Up now! Lure me some visitors! Astound the crowds! Earn pennies and more pennies!” He chirped and chuckled and twirled his walking stick.

  "What and where might this Stourbridge be?” Will asked Fitz, who was standing before the booth.

  Fitz yawned. "'Tis another fair, near to Cambridge.”

  "Phew, Fitz, turn your head aside lest your dragon breath burn my eyebrows off,” Will said, just as Master Tidball proclaimed, "Not just another fair, Lancelot, you mindless minnow. The finest fair in England but for Bartlemas, and rich with fine goods—Italian silks and velvets, wine from Spain, furs and amber from the Baltic, precious books and painted dishes, silver spoons and rings of gold.”

  "What matters that to us?” Will asked. "Since my promised wages have failed to appear, I cannot buy even last week's cabbage.”

  "Such a fine fair will countenance no ordinary oddities,” said Master Tidball, ignoring Will's grumble. "We must be peerless, incomparable, a truly transcendent troupe of prodigies and marvels. I have at last persuaded Benjamin to join us. A blind juggler. Imagine.” He did a careful little dance step. "Now if the creature would but pace and roar, if you, Lancelot, you gargoyle, you eyesore, would wear a hat with bells, tumble, and walk on your hands like a proper dwarf, we would be a true company of wonders. Our fortunes would be made, and then next, London and Bartlemas Fair—the most splendid fair of all!” He spun his walking stick once more and lifted it like a sword before him. "Aye, London, you oddities and prodigies! London!”

  The man removed his cap and scratched his bald head. "Perhaps you, Sparrow,” he said finally, "when we reach Stourbridge, could do something clever. Mayhap you can tumble? Twist your body into unnatural shapes? Walk on your hands? Eat fire or swallow swords? Make eggs disappear or coins appear?”

  Will shook his head no and no and no.

  "Bah,” said Tidball. He narrowed his eyes and examined the boy as if by close scrutiny he might yet determine some talent or deformity hitherto unknown even to Will himself.

  Master Tidball unlocked the wagon and let Grace out. "Before we go to Stourbridge, we must add to our little band of oddities. You, wild girl, take these eggs and shake them, hard, like this.”

  Grace took the basket he handed her. She looked at him and furrowed her brow. "Their insides become confused,” Master Tidball explained, "and with luck the chickens that emerge will be odd-looking indeed. Fine additions to my collection.” He shook one of the eggs violently. Grace took one and softly turned it over and back.

  "Nay, stupid girl, shake it hard, like this.” Master Tidball took the egg from her and gave it a ferocious shake. He grinned at Grace's look of disgust and dismay.

  As Tidball turned away, Grace winked at Will. She cradled two of the eggs and murmured, "Grow, little chicks, into fine fat fowl with sensible insides.”

  "Sparrow, give extra food to the chicken,” Tidball went on, "to plump her up. Then join Fitzgeoffrey, who will be seeing to the oddities inside. Some are looking a bit tattered and untidy. We cannot allow that at Stourbridge fair. They must be extraordinary, worth a penny to see.”

  After the chicken was fed, Will joined Fitz in the booth. "How,” Will asked him, "did Master Tidball come by these treasures?”

  Fitz snorted. "Treasures? What treasures?”

  Will gestured toward the unicorn skull. "Such as this.”

  Fitz snorted again. "The knave fastened a horn onto a goat skull. And look closely at the bits and pieces of fish and bird bones that he calls a sea monster. Treasures, indeed. The man is a rogue and a craven counterfeit.”

  Will looked closer at the unicorn skull. Was it in truth a goat and no unicorn at all? His mind reeled. Master Tidball passing off a goat as a unicorn and Grace Wyse as both wild girl and wild cat? Even Will had never thought to tell lies as big as that.

  "I cannot find the mermaid,” Fitz called to Tidball, and suddenly Will remembered the deeds of last night. His face grew clammy and his hands trembled.

  "Fitzgeoffrey, you beef-witted toad,” Tidball roared as he came into the booth, "you are useless as a hat full of holes. I would send you away this minute if it did not amuse me to abuse you.”

  Fitz glowered and his ears glowed red, but he looked again through the booth. Will felt a fluttering in his belly. He feared what was coming and, to forestall it, joined the fruitless search.

  "Why are you not helping, wild cat?” Tidball asked Grace, who had come in and was standing silently to the side. "Know you something?”

  She looked down at her feet.

  "Tell me!”

  She said nothing.

  "Since you will not speak, I shall lay a punishment upon this wretch—the worthless Lancelot Fitzgeoffrey—for I put him in charge of my marvels. 'Tis his fault she is missing, and he shall be thrashed for it.” He grasped Fitz's arm and pulled him close.

  "Nay,” Grace whispered. "You cannot punish Fitz for this.”

  "Say not cannot to me! I can do whatever I like, thrash whomever I choose!” Tidball twisted Fitz's arm, and the little man yelped.

  ”But 'twas my doing. My idea and my plan,” Grace said.

  Tidball loosed Fitz and swung to face Grace. "What have you done? Where is she?”

  "She is gone. I knew she did not like being in a bottle. She was in part a person, after all. So I dug a hole and buried her, as was right and—”

  "You simpleton!” Tidball swung his stick against a turtle shell, and the sound reverberated in the booth. "She was no part person, but made of cat skull and fish tail, sea grass and pretense. I can easily construct another.” He peered at her. Will could see him thinking. "How, pray, did you take her? Are you sure 'twas you? You were locked in the wagon. And the flask was too heavy for one to carry.”

  Master Tidball turned and loomed over Will. "You, Sparrow, was it you?” he growled. "Did you steal my mermaid? I shall have the watch on you, and you shall rot in prison until your nose falls off your face.”

  Will opened his mouth—to say what, he did not know—but Grace shook her head. "No,” she whispered to him. "No.” So he said nothing.

  Master Tidball grabbed Grace by the arm. "You, then,” he said to her as he pulled her from the booth and pushed her into the wagon. "Ungrateful brat.” Will heard a thud and a cry, and then another. "I will think of a suitable punishment for you, you ugly, unnatural creature, and you shall stay locked in here until I do!” Tidball burst from the wagon, slipped the bar across the door, and stormed off, brandishing his walking stick like a cudgel.

  Fitz moved to stop him. "Stay back, Fitzgeoffrey,” Tidball shouted as he stalked away, "lest I grind you into the mud.”

  Will pounded the wagon until his fist throbbed with pain. What an addlehead he was! All these weeks he had chosen to believe that the ugly, misshapen Fitz was a villain and that Tidball's guileless blue eyes and easy laugh betokened a good and generous nature. He pounded the wagon again. But that was not the way of it
. Fitz had told the truth. Tidball was the villain, the greedy one, the thief, the liar, the brute. As Fitz climbed into the wagon to see to Grace, Will shook his head. Certes, things are not what they seem.

  NINETEEN

  HOW WILL HATCHES AN ENTERTAINMENT,

  DELIVERANCE, AND TROUBLE

  IT WAS the last day of the fair. Grace stayed locked in the wagon. While Fitz collected pennies at the booth, Will called people to come to the wonder room one last time. Still furious—at Tidball and at himself—he spent his anger in mocking Tidball, mimicking his limp and his clumsy dancing, swinging a make-believe cudgel, and shouting, "Lancelot, you gargoyle, you insect, you beef-witted toad!” He found that fairgoers appreciated the foolishness and followed him, laughing, to the oddities booth.

  When evening came, Fitz was not to be found. Master Tidball told Will, "We leave for Stourbridge at dawn tomorrow. I have important business in town and will not return until morning. You and that trustless troll have us packed and ready to go.” Master Tidball looked at the wagon. "And do not free the wild girl, nor feed her, for she continues to defy me. Let her feel the pangs of hunger, the ugly, ungrateful wretch.” He left, twirling his walking stick and humming.

  Now that he knew what he knew of the odious Tidball, should Will quit him? he wondered. Go from here, even without his wages? But to leave Grace and Fitz behind ... What could be done? What would deliver all three of them?

  Despite, or mayhap because of, Tidball's harsh commands, Will let Grace out of the wagon. "You must ne'er tell Master Tidball about your part in burying the mermaid baby,” she told Will. "Aye, he will punish me, but if he learns of your part in the burial, he will beat you most severely and turn you out. Promise me you will not tell him. Promise.”