There was a momentary pause.

“Cowards die a thousand deaths,” Smalls quoted somberly, removing his hat and placing it to his heart. “The valiant taste of death but once.”

“Oh, will you just shut up?” Quinn burst out. “For goodness’ sake. They’re just fleas.”

Max had turned to the windows to watch General Farnum stomping angrily down the street, his coat flapping behind him, like the leathery wings of a bat in flight. “Don’t tell Farnum that,” she said.

While the other residents of the museum dispersed, Sam volunteered to help Kestrel relocate the flea circus, since it now provided an unsavory picture to anyone who might choose to enter the lobby: all those pathetic little black dots strewn motionless across the sand, in front of miniature balance beams and sawhorses.

“One, two, three, heave,” Kestrel instructed. But no sooner had Sam laid a hand on the glass than a pane cracked under the pressure of his fingers. He drew back quickly, horrified, as a spiderweb of fissures appeared across the glass.

“Sorry,” he said, blushing so hard he could feel it all the way to the very tips of the pimples on his forehead. “I’m—clumsy—I didn’t mean to—” He still didn’t know whether Gil Kestrel, the newest addition to the museum, understood what made Sam, Pippa, Thomas, and Max so different.

Who had made them so different.

“S’all right,” Kestrel grunted, as if he hadn’t noticed. “Move aside. I’ll get it myself.”

When Kestrel braced to get a firmer grip on the large glass terrarium, a rolled-up magazine fell from his back pocket. Eager to help, Sam bent to retrieve it. Modern Aeronautics was written in large font across the cover, and, in slightly smaller type: The Joy and Beauty of Flying.

“Wow.” Sam squinted at the cover photograph, which featured a man, arms wide, standing on the wing of a small aircraft in flight. “Funny he doesn’t get blown clear off the—”

“Gimme that.” Kestrel snatched the magazine back from Sam with such force that Sam took a startled step backward. “Keep your eyes where they belong and mind your own business.”

With a final glare, Kestrel turned, heaved the glass terrarium into his arms, and teetered off into the darkness of the galleries, leaving a bewildered Sam staring after him. Sam was positive that Kestrel was upset because Sam had seen the magazine. But what was so embarrassing about an interest in airplanes? A few years ago, Thomas had gone through a flight phase. Read about a hundred and fifty books about the physics of flying and went around annoying everyone using words like propulsion and aerodynamic.

“Don’t worry about him, Sam-O.”

Sam jumped when Lash laid a weathered hand on his shoulder. When he turned, he saw that Lash’s face was grim.

Lash shook his head. “That man’s got blood in his veins sour as a lemon and cold as a Rocky Mountain snowdrift.”

“What’s the matter with him, anyway?” Sam said. “What’s he so upset about?”

Lash sighed. He shoved his cowboy hat back on his head, revealing a long red forehead, grown even longer as his fine blond hair had begun to retreat. “I’ve known Kestrel a long time,” he said, and then stopped, chewing on his lower lip.

Sam was now desperately curious. Lash was many things—but he was never, ever at a loss for words. In fact, it was nearly always impossible to get him to stop talking. Even after all the other residents of the museum had gone to bed, Lash was often still chuckling over some past performance or hilarious incident featuring people no one else knew: Sally the human seal, who preferred to eat raw fish and could balance a beach ball on her nose; Jolly Jimbo McCrae, the Minnesota fat man, who consumed 14,000 calories a day to maintain his physique and had to be moved from place to place in a specially designed wheelbarrow; Droopy Dan, the clown who never smiled, and dozens more.

“And?” Sam prompted. “You’ve known Kestrel a long time and?”

“Well, I guess there ain’t no harm in telling. Kestrel and me used to work the same circuit, along with Mr. D,” Lash began. Sam wondered again what Mr. Dumfrey’s act could possibly have been. But now wasn’t the time to press for information. “Me and ol’ Kestrel were friends, you would say. Good friends.”

Sam held his breath. There was something so strange about the way Lash was speaking, about the way he looked—lips tight, face drained of all color, eyes focused on somewhere in the far distance. Sam was gripped by a sudden sense of cold, as if a winter wind had sprung up from nowhere. “So what happened?” he asked.

Lash started slightly, as if he’d forgotten Sam was in the room. “Kestrel was a pilot,” Lash said. “Best stunt pilot there was.”

So that explained the magazine Kestrel had been reading: Kestrel must miss flying. Sam wondered how Kestrel had ended up here, sweeping up candy wrappers and popcorn kernels, plucking chewing gum from beneath the seats of the Odditorium. He stayed quiet, waiting for Lash to go on.

“We were working the traveling route then. Carny style, set up just south of Indianapolis for a week and a half. One of the tightrope walkers was a girl named Claudette.” His voice caught and he cleared his throat. “Prettiest girl south, east, or north of the Mississippi, with a heart of solid gold. She wanted to go up in Kestrel’s plane. Wouldn’t quit bugging him about it, morning, noon, and night. Finally he said okay.” A muscle worked in Lash’s jaw, like a miniature heartbeat. In and out. “I’ll never forget that day. May twenty-second, bright as bluebells, all clear sky. The kind of day that makes you think nothing bad could ever happen.”

Once again, Lash paused. Sam’s heart had begun to speed up. He could hardly control his impatience. “So what did happen?”

“He took her up, all right. Higher and higher, until the plane was just a little white bird in the sky.” Lash’s voice had grown very quiet. “Then he started pulling his usual tricks. We were all watching, you know. Free show, and wasn’t anybody in the circus who didn’t like to watch Gil Kestrel fly. Only . . . only . . .” Once again, his voice broke.

“What?” Sam said.

Lash’s face was the color of curdled milk. “Only it turned out poor Claudette wasn’t strapped in right,” he said. “When Kestrel went into an upside-downer . . .”

Sam’s breath got tangled up somewhere behind his tonsils. He could picture it so vividly: the shrill cry of terror, the small dark figure of a girl tumbling through the sky.

Before speaking again, Lash fished a dented silver flask from his front pocket and took a long swig. He drew the back of his hand across his mouth to wipe it. “After that,” he said, “Kestrel swore off flying forever.”

Now Sam wished he hadn’t judged Kestrel so harshly. He tried to imagine what he would do if anything ever happened to Max. But even thinking about it made a space the size of a bowling ball open up inside his chest. And Max barely even spoke to him, except to snap at him for breaking things. “I don’t blame him,” he said heatedly. “It must be awful, losing your girlfriend like that.”

For the first time since starting in on his story, Lash looked at Sam. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he’d gone days without sleeping. “Claudette wasn’t Kestrel’s girlfriend,” he said quietly. “She was mine.”