Earl is lazy. He always has to take down the entire tent every time, load it onto the train, put it up again… The Freaks do most of the hard work, but someone has to keep an eye on them, so that they do not sabotage the tent or run away or simply drop down dead.
They are a bit of a shabby bunch, to be honest, his troupe. The bearded lady is looking less and less like a lady. His Siamese twins have been insane for years now, his mermaid on the verge of death… She used to be his biggest attraction. But that has not been true for a long time.
She sometimes used to bite the occasional fairgoer. That clearly could not be allowed and so he would punish her by giving her no food for a week, but it always gave the public a proper fright. People would throng around the tank, and at the slightest movement from the mermaid they would all scream. She has not bitten anyone for months though, not even when people prodded her with sticks. A crying shame. His top attraction is nothing more than a waste of space now. No matter how many shimmering tails he paints by the tanks, and signs saying BEWARE! FEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!, none of it helps.
Boring, people say, and some of them demand their money back. Anyone can put a dead fish in a tank of water.
“She’s not dead,” he always replies. “She’s just resting, she’s pining for the open waves, that’s what mermaids are like.”
Excuses! the people say. Catch a new mermaid, a nice fresh one – that’s what we want to see!
Did they even know what they were asking for? His father, as tall as a tree and as strong as a bear, had told him the stories. About how he had fished this one up out of the bay, purely by chance. How she had fought and fought and never gave up. Gnawed through thick ropes. Smashed glass tanks with her tail. Catch a nice new fresh one? Not likely. But sadly monsters do not just come trundling into his tent for free, of course. At least, not until today.
“Hello, my little stroke of luck,” says Earl to the dangling boy.
Lampie screams. Fish screams. The Freaks chunter and hiss.
“I thought you were sneaking something in here in that cart of yours. Very cunning, my girl, but Uncle Earl is just that little bit more cunning. So, little fishie, go and join your mother in the brine, and I’ll have two for the price of one.” He holds Fish above the dirty water, as the boy twists and screams and desperately tries to bite the hand that is holding his legs.
“No!” screams Lampie. “Don’t do it! Please! Don’t do it! He can’t swim. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Let him go!” She kicks the fat man’s shins, but he does not even seem to notice.
“You can’t do this, Earl,” says the dwarf. “This is a free boy.”
“Free? A boy? This?” Earl holds the wriggling child in front of his face. “If I’ve ever seen a monster, it’s this one here. Ooh, lad, what an ugly head you have.” He turns to the dwarf, who is slowly climbing down from his ladder.
“What do you think, Oswald? A new tank? Or two in one? Reckon they’ll bite each other’s throats open?”
Lampie looks around desperately. More of the Freaks have left their alcoves now, the old Siamese twins are slowly shuffling closer on their wooden walking frame, moving it forward a few inches at a time. Their heads are looking curiously at the dangling boy. The Freaks are nudging one another and shaking their heads. But they do absolutely nothing, no one flies at the fat man, no one pulls the child from his hands.
He can’t stay here! screams a voice inside Lampie’s head. With people staring at him every day. That’s even worse than being under the bed all the time. Fish will either go mad or die.
“Help him! Why won’t you help him?” She tugs at the dwarf’s jacket. “You need to do something!”
He looks at her sadly. “Yes. I know,” he says quietly. “But what? Earl…” he tries again. “Please…”
Lampie looks around: the tall man is cowering shyly at the back of the little crowd, the bearded lady is holding her hands in front of her face, as if she does not want to look.
“Is it dinner time yet?” asks one of the Siamese twins.
“Yes, what are we having?” asks the other.
Head first, Lampie rushes at the big fat man. He is holding Fish above the water, about to drop him, and studying him, as if he has all the time in the world – and of course he does, doesn’t he? He has the troupe completely under his thumb. No one ever dares to try anything. They know what will be in store for them if they do: cages, chains, no food for a week, and he is sure he can come up with a few even nastier ideas.
The girl’s head thumps into Earl’s lower back. It hurts a teeny tiny little bit, but most of all it makes him laugh.
“What’s this, girlie? Have you changed your mind? Have you come for a kiss after all?”
Fish has wriggled his way up now and he bites the pale arm as hard as he can. His teeth sink in deeply. Earl lets out a scream and drops the boy into the aquarium with a splash.
“Taking a bite of the boss?” he shouts after him. “I’ll soon teach you, just you wait.” Blood slowly wells up out of the red dots on his arm.
Wide-eyed, Lampie stares at the aquarium. Fish sinks like a stone, his head banging against the bottom. She claws herself up the fat man’s body, scratching and biting, but he just grabs her by the scruff of her neck and holds her at arm’s length.
“And now get out of my tent, girlie. I’ve had enough of you.”
Lampie glares at him with her most poisonous look. She wants to cut off his head, she wants to shoot poison arrows straight into his… And then she notices someone slowly coming up behind him.
The mermaid is rising up from the dirty water. She is much taller than the fat man and she grabs his neck with her arms and pulls him against the glass. Earl gives a high-pitched scream, staggers backwards and drops Lampie, who tumbles head over heels. Oswald the dwarf reaches out his hand to help her back up.
“Fish!” she screams at him. “He has to, he can’t… He’s drowning!”
“Shh,” whispers Oswald. He puts his arm around her shoulders and points with his other hand. Look!
The mermaid is no longer a grey sponge, but a predator, just like in the paintings behind her. Even worse. Her teeth are flashing, her eyes are spitting fire. Black fire. Gold, orange fire. And she does not let go. Water splashes everywhere. Earl’s eyes are bulging out of his head. With limp arms, he flails around, trying to free himself, trying to signal to his troupe that they have to help him, please, hasn’t he always been such a good boss?
But the Phenomenal Freaks just watch, they watch as all the air is slowly squeezed out of his body.
Lampie attempts to peer around the fat man who is fighting to survive. She is trying to spot Fish, somewhere inside the aquarium, but the dirt in the water is billowing up and she cannot see a thing. I need that ladder, she thinks, I have to get into that tank, I have to get him out of there!
Earl is almost dead when he remembers what his father always used to say: “Nothing will help you against those monsters – they never give up. Don’t let them take you by surprise, always make sure that you…” With difficulty, he lifts one leg, and his hands search for his boot. If only he could reach it, but he can’t – he comes up just short. The mermaid’s steel arms stay in place around his neck, the world around him is getting darker and hazier. But his fingers keep grabbing and eventually he finds it – the knife in his boot.
He stabs, somewhere behind himself, and now it is the mermaid who screams. As he feels her grip loosening, he stabs a few more times. She struggles and writhes, her tail thrashing in the water and smashing against the glass of the aquarium. Cracks appear, an entire cobweb of cracks – and then it breaks with a bang. Everything comes pouring out: water, pieces of glass, a fat man gasping for breath, a mermaid who is bleeding, and finally a boy with a fish’s tail, who rolls across the floor and then lies there limply.
Lampie runs over to him, the water splashing around her feet. The whole tent stinks of filthy, stagnant seawater. She kneels down beside him.
“Fish? Are you?… Fish?”
His eyes are shut, but he is coughing and gagging. And if you are coughing and gagging, then you are not dead. She helps him to sit up a little and he vomits up some water, and then some more water, and the scraps of food that were inside his stomach. Lampie is so relieved that she starts to shake. She rests the boy’s head in her lap and she strokes his wet hair. When he needs to be sick again, she just lets him.
“That’s good, Fish,” she says quietly. “Well done, go on.”
It is only then that she looks up.
Half of the tent is flooded. Everyone is soaked. The bearded lady is wringing out her pinafore, the bird-woman is frantically splashing about and the old Siamese twins are standing in the corner, both heads sobbing. Lanky Lester and the dwarf are leaning over the two bodies that are lying in the middle of the big, deep puddle. The body on the bottom is panting and coughing. The body on top is not moving. When they lift the mermaid off Earl, Lampie sees that she is as grey as ash, her hair hanging in strings over her face and her arms and tail dangling limply.
Lampie puts her hand over Fish’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?” says the boy.
“Ssh,” Lampie replies. “Nothing. Just don’t look.”