CHAPTER
THE DREGS OF Colonel Joe’s coffee made a sizzling hiss as they landed on the edge of the fire. From behind the flames the old soldier limped, his left leg playing catch-up with his right. He still bore the ramrod posture and handlebar mustache of military service, but his blue uniform had long since faded, and his hair was snowy white. He smiled at Page and frowned at Boz.
“You’ve got more nerve than a lock-jawed mongoose coming back here, Boz.”
Boz clambered down off John’s back and bowed.
“Profuse apologies, Colonel, but I was unavoidably detained.”
“Where did you dig up the sprouts?” he asked, sniffing suspiciously. At that precise moment, John became aware he had trod in a large patty of horse poo.
“I’ve brought them to be acrobats,” Boz said, pushing the Coggins forward. “Names of John and Page. They’re blithe and lithe and full of vim.”
With careful deliberation, Colonel Joe rammed his fingers into his ear and pulled out a wad of beeswax. Using a jackknife, he neatly sliced off a section, popped the wax into his mouth, and stuffed the remainder back in its storage space. Then he slowly began to chew.
It took about the same amount of time for him to complete this procedure as it did for John to realize that the Colonel’s ear was completely fake.
“Nope, sorry, can’t help you,” he said finally, pinging a tiny BB of wax at the tip of John’s shoe.
Page grabbed John’s hand in panic.
“But they’re so eager to please,” Boz protested. “And think of the appeal to the eight-to-twelve demographic!”
“Nothing doing,” Colonel Joe retorted. “Already got a full complement of acts, and I won’t need more until next summer. Sorry, kids, but you’ll have to go back to your ma and pa, or whoever you’ve run away from.”
He turned back to the fire.
“We can’t!” John exclaimed, and a puzzled look appeared in the lee of Colonel Joe’s bushy eyebrows.
“What’s that?”
“We can’t go back.” John rummaged desperately in his head for a reason that might convince the Colonel. “If we do, we’ll end up like the living dead.”
Colonel Joe paused.
“The living dead?” he asked, leaning over the fire to stare long and hard at John. John looked back at him without blinking.
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Joe straightened up and glanced at Boz.
“You prompt him?”
Boz shook his head.
“Explain,” Colonel Joe demanded.
John swallowed.
“I guess, it’s just . . .” He dug deep and unexpectedly found a memory of his father: I left Pludgett to follow my dreams. I knew if I stayed, I’d never be able to tell my own stories or explore the world beyond. Trust your heart, John my lad—it’s the only compass you have.
“Well?”
“If we go back to where we came from, we’ll be trapped,” John told Colonel Joe. “We’ll be alive on the outside but dead on the inside.”
“So why the circus?”
John thought of the spinning twirls of light.
“Because here you’re always free.”
“Well, now.” Colonel Joe grinned and drummed his fingers on his bum leg. “I don’t know if you know it, but you’ve done gone and saved your rawhide. In the book of Joe, there ain’t nothing more important than a life lived free.”
“JOHN PEREGRINE COGGIN! Present yourself immediately!”
John blanched. Page blanched. Boz may have blanched, but it was impossible for anyone to tell. He had plunged under a blanket.
“Lie down flat on the ground,” Colonel Joe commanded. “Keep your pates cocked sideways.”
John and Page obeyed without question.
“Rufus, Rudolphus—to your beds.”
John felt a hot, rancid breath on his neck. One of the German shepherds had stretched itself over his entire body and laid its head on his own.
“Johnny,” he heard Page whisper.
“Shhh,” he answered.
Squelch, squelch, squelch. Though John could see nothing through the suffocating fur of Rudolphus, he knew the sound of Great-Aunt Beauregard’s footsteps all too well. She was coming for him. And she was mad.
“Where is he?”
Colonel Joe yawned. “Who are you?”
Great-Aunt Beauregard sniffed. “My name is Beauregard Pickett Coggin and I am looking for my great-nephew and -niece. They were kidnapped from Peddington’s Practical Hotel by a rogue operative driving a stolen fire engine.”
A juicy wad of spit hit the ground near John’s eyeball.
“And why do you think they’re here?”
Great-Aunt Beauregard erupted. “Because there’s a ruddy big fire engine parked outside your two-bit establishment, that’s why!”
A hairsbreadth of a moment, then . . .
“Arrived with no one in it.”
It was a bad lie extremely well told. On his back, John could feel Rudolphus’s massive heart thumping in time with his own. Would Great-Aunt Beauregard believe it?
She would.
To a point.
“That may well be, but the hotel detective suggested that this operative—a ferrety fellow with ginger hair—was also connected with your establishment.”
Colonel Joe spat again, to cover Boz’s squeak of protest.
“If you’re speaking about Boz, he’s a huckster and a half. Discovered that last year when he blew up our big top. Came to me yesterday asking for work and I tossed him out on his backside. Just like him to play a practical joke in revenge.
“But I’ll have you know, Miss Coggin”—and here Colonel Joe spoke very, very slowly—“when it comes to protecting my troupe from those who want to harm them, I ain’t fooling with blanks.”
There was a pause.
“Listen.” Great-Aunt Beauregard’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “I don’t want to be an inconvenience. You and I are men of the world. If you should happen to run across a golden-haired girl and a chinless boy, you’ll let me know, won’t you? I’ll make it worth your while.”
“They that important?”
“Important?” She regained her timpani. “I have trained that boy up in the manner befitting the family business since the day his parents died! I have clothed him, fed him, and imparted to him the secrets of the grave. His destiny is to be the best craftsman of death in Pludgett, and no one”—here John knew she must be priming her lungs for detonation—“I mean no one says no to the family business!”
In the warm sauna of Rudolphus’s fur, John’s skin went cold. Colonel Joe merely chuckled.
“You got an odd idea of family,” he said.
“Oh, what would you know about it, you, you . . . Gypsy!”
Squelch, squelch, squelch. Away went the sound of Beauregard’s footsteps, back across the field.
“Don’t move,” Colonel Joe muttered. For a long while John lay under the dog, trying to get the heat back into his body. The murmurs from the big top rose and peaked and faded. Soon there were none.
“Okeydokey, out you come.”
From out under Rufus came the frightened face of his sister. From out under the blanket came the bony butt of Boz.
“Look, about Great-Aunt Beauregard—” John began as Page seized hold of his hand.
Colonel Joe lobbed the remainder of his wax into the fire.
“Think I got the gist. You and your sister are more than welcome to join us for a spell.”
John’s hopes soared.
“But we can’t have your names on playbills and such. Not with a poleax like that on the lookout for you. You’ll have to earn your keep in other ways than performing. Boz.”
Boz snapped to attention.
“You game to work with Betsy again?”
Boz flinched, but only slightly. “I am yours to command.”
“Then take our new recruits away and find ’em someplace to sleep.” Colonel Joe paused and patted Rufus on the head. “I’ll see to it that your great-aunt finds the right road back.”
And with a hint of a satisfied smile curling his mustache, he turned and limped off into the night.
“C’mon.” Boz tugged at their sleeves. “We’ll ensconce you in a nearby barn. Then, when dawn breaks, we shall martial our metabolisms for a new plan of attack.”
The two siblings followed Boz away from the fire and toward a tall building under the shadow of a pine tree.
“Boz, who’s Betsy?” asked Page.
“Oh, merely my partner in a display of unparalleled skill. Mind the bats,” he added, pushing open the barn door.
A symphony of whapping wings greeted them. When John looked up, he glimpsed a swarm of black. The animals appeared to be in a feeding frenzy.
“Don’t worry,” Boz said, “they’re simply dyspeptic. You two can rest over here on these hay bales, and I’ll come and retrieve you in the morning.” Throwing a jaunty wave, he vanished into the dark.
Petrified, John lay down on a hay bale and listened to the bats circling above him. Page did the same. She had yet to release his hand.
“Johnny,” she whispered.
“What is it?”
“I’m scared.”
“Me too,” John whispered back. “But it will be morning soon, and then we’ll be okay. I promise.”
“Okay,” Page said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
John closed his eyes and tried to forget where he was. Page squeezed his hand.
“Johnny,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Are we really going to join the circus?”
What other choice did they have? thought John. “Yes.”
“What are we going to do if we can’t be acrobats?”
John attempted to make his voice sound confident.
“I’m not sure. I bet I can work on fixing the caravans or building the stage. Colonel Joe will give me something. Don’t worry—Great-Aunt Beauregard won’t be able to find us.”
“Will we be here forever?”
“Maybe.” John was having trouble thinking any further than breakfast. “I guess it depends if we fit in.”
“Tell me one of Dad’s stories.”
“No, it’s past midnight. Go to sleep.”
There was a fraction of a pause, then . . .
“Johnny?”
“What?”
“I can’t sleep.”
John took a deep breath. “Try to think of something that makes you happy.”
“Like lilies of the valley?”
“Sure, like lilies of the valley.”
Page was silent, and John settled back into the prickly hay. He was teetering on the verge of drifting off into his dreams when—
“Johnny?”
“What is it?”
“You stink.”
Heaving the biggest sigh known to man, John pried his hand from Page’s and stomped over to the door, bumping into hay bales all the way. Then, with an enormous heave, he hurled his shoes into the night.