The Radical Element: 12 Stories of Daredevils, Debutantes, and Other Dauntless Girls

I step onto the ridge of the roof of the First Presbyterian and open my parasol.

Well, it isn’t exactly my parasol; I thieved it from my sister, Pearl. She carries a painted blue silk parasol all summer long so the sun won’t darken her skin — which is dumb as bricks, if you ask me, ’cause Tulsa is Indian Territory, half Creek and half Cherokee. Most of our neighbors got Indian blood and brown skin; it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But Pearl’s a priss. Always worried people might talk. That’s only one of the ways we’re different, Pearl and me.

Right now, down there on the southeast corner of Fourth and Boston, there’s a whole crowd hollering up at me. They started gathering when I pushed open the shutters on the bell tower, and the crowd kept on growing as I stepped onto the ledge, flung myself onto the sharply pitched roof, and climbed up to the ridge.

Fred’s got no imagination at all. What does he think I’m doing? I’m certainly not about to jump to my death. I swear, I don’t know what Louise sees in him.

I can hear her down there, too. Louise Whitehill and I have been best friends since we were little, and I can just picture her, her dark eyes squinched up, hiding her face against Fred’s chest, scared to watch for fear I’m going to fall and break my fool neck.

I take a tentative step forward. The church isn’t that tall. Not compared to the fancy Opera House or that new high school they’re building. But it’s tall enough that walking it makes my heart race and my head spin a little. It’s taller than our porch roof and a sight taller than the rail fence behind the schoolhouse. It will be the tallest thing I’ve ever walked.

I take a deep breath. Miss Etta wouldn’t be scared. She’d be flashing that pretty red-lipped smile of hers. Last summer when Archer Brothers was in town, she crossed the high wire and didn’t wobble once. Did a perfect pirouette in the middle. I remember how the whole crowd watched, hushed, and held their breath, and then exploded in furious applause when she finished.

I take another step. Then another. Below me, my crowd hushes. By now somebody’s probably run to get Momma. And Uncle Jack. My skin shivers at that thought, but I daren’t look down. I’ve got to keep my eyes locked on the other end of the ridge. Above it, the sky is a stormy blue-gray just the color of Miss Etta’s eyes. To the east, storm clouds are gathering.

A breeze flutters the hem of my second-best blue dress and tugs at the parasol. It’s probably making my hair go all askew, even after I sat so patient and let Pearl do those pretty braids around the crown of my head. She smiled all secretive and proud while she did it, and I know she thought I was finally taking an interest in some boy. But no boy can make me feel like this.

I take another step. I hear the rattle of wagon wheels, the clip-clop of hooves, the thud of my own heartbeat. The crowd’s quiet, but I can feel their eyes on me. All those eyes. It feels magnificent.

I am almost there. Just a few more steps. I imagine the applause when I reach the end. I imagine how tomorrow morning I’ll go down and meet the circus train at the depot and tell Miss Etta. She’ll be so proud. Proud enough to agree to my proposition, maybe.

The wind blows a little harder. Too hard. It catches the parasol and lifts it, and, distracted, I hold on when I should let go. I lean too far and lose my balance. My right foot slips off the ridge, and I fall.

I let go of the parasol and grab for the ridge with both hands, but I miss and start sliding down the roof, feetfirst, on my belly. Flailing, my fingernails clawing against the shingles, boots scrambling for purchase, I bump and skid down toward the drainpipe.

The crowd is shouting, panicked. Louise screams. The sliding seems to last forever, scraping up my palms and snagging my skirt. Finally, toward the bottom of the roof, I catch myself. I hang there, my breath coming fast. My shoulder throbs.

After a minute, I scuttle sideways like a crab, inching back toward the bell tower. When I get there, I rise to my feet, unsteady, both arms out for balance. I climb back to the window ledge and crawl inside, bloody and defeated. Not so untouchable after all, I guess.

In the privacy of the bell tower, I take a slow inventory. My shoulder hurts like heck from how I caught myself, and my palms are all scratched up and bleeding. My skirt’s got two big jagged tears, and there’s another one in my right sleeve. My straight-as-a-pin hair has fallen out of Pearl’s pretty braids and hangs in clumps around my face. I’m pretty sure there’s a bruise already rising on my hip and a brush burn on my forearm. At least my petticoats stayed down; I don’t think I could bear the indignity of having shown everybody my knickers, too.

Still, no point hiding in here. Louise is sure to come find me sooner or later. And accidents are part of the business, Miss Etta says. Long as you get back up, there’s no shame in it.

There’s a smattering of applause when I walk out. Not nearly so much as there would’ve been if I hadn’t fallen, but enough that I smile and drop a curtsy for the crowd.

Louise rushes up and hugs me fierce. She’s wearing her new pink hat with the flowers on it, but beneath it her brown cheeks are wet with tears and her full pink lips are trembling. Lord, she’s pretty. The prettiest girl in town if you ask me, with her glossy black hair and high cheekbones and big brown eyes.

“Well, I didn’t. I’m right here,” I say, a little bit thrilled at the reminder she still cares. She’s been awful preoccupied with Fred ever since he gave her that ring.

I turn away. Louise used to cling to me almost like that. She’d look up at me with a smile like I hung the stars in the sky, and I’d daydream about leaning down and kissing her. Then she took up with Fred, and I realized she only wanted to kiss boys.

While they canoodle, my eyes dart nervously through the crowd. There he is. Uncle Jack, storming toward me just like a big angry bull. Momma trails behind him, her shoulders hunched, making herself as small as possible.

Louise extracts herself from Fred and grabs my hand. “You all right?” she asks. “That looked like it hurt.”

She shakes her head, the flowers in her ridiculous hat bobbing, as she examines me with gentle fingers. “You’re a mess. Lord, look at your palms. You’re bleeding!”

“What were you thinking, making a spectacle of yourself like that?” He grabs my arm roughly, and I try to pull away but can’t. “Ruby Porter, are you wearing rouge? What do you think you are, an actress? A prostitute?”

“A performer,” I correct him. Maybe the rouge was too much. I ordered it from a catalog because I couldn’t exactly buy some from Uncle Jack’s store. But I know Miss Etta wears it when she performs. Lipstick, too. It makes her lips look as red as fall apples.

“You see all these people gawping at you? At your momma and me?” Uncle Jack roars, and Louise and Fred beat a hasty retreat. Louise has bandaged me up often enough to know what his temper’s like.

“You’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself, Ruby! You could have broken your neck.” Momma jumps between us, patting my arms, her brown eyes full of worry. Like she hasn’t seen me broken before. Like most of my bruises haven’t come from the man at her side. Like all her tears and sorrys are worth a damn.

Pearl sashays up behind them, torn blue silk and splintered steel ribs in her hands. “You stole my parasol! Ruby, someone could have thought that was me up there!”

I look at her — not a molasses-colored curl out of place, not a speck of dust on her — and let out an unladylike snort. “Not likely.”

“Oh, you think this is funny?” Uncle Jack’s big hands fist at his sides, and Pearl shrinks back. “What about you, Pearl? You think this is funny? We got us a pair of comedians here?”

Pearl fidgets with her skirt, avoiding my eyes. “I think it’s scandalous, is what it is,” she says primly.

My shoulders slump. Fact is, nobody in this town is going to stick up for me anymore. It was one thing when I was five, or eight, or eleven, or maybe even thirteen. But I’m seventeen now, and even Louise thinks it’s time for me to find a nice boy and settle down.

That’s why I’ve got to get away. Soon, before I stop wanting things altogether. If I ever get that hangdog, faded look Momma’s got, like every bit of spark in her has gone out — well, then Uncle Jack will have won, and I just cannot bear that.

Back home, he backhands me so hard, it sends me tumbling clear across my bedroom. My head knocks into the armoire, hard, and I see stars. Blood trickles down my forehead, warm and wet, but I wipe it away and scramble up. Long as you get back up, there’s no shame in it. Miss Etta was talking about falling, not being knocked down, but it’s sort of become my personal motto.

He hits me again, with a closed fist this time, right in the stomach. It knocks me breathless, and I fall to my knees.

Stupid, I think, wiping away the tears pooling in my eyes, determined that he won’t see them. It is stupid, not brave, to keep getting up. To keep defying him. I should be an obedient, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth little priss like Pearl — or I should at least do a better job of pretending. I think of Momma’s words on the walk home. You’re seventeen now, Ruby, and you need to consider your reputation. What will people think?

Folks thought I was marvelous, up there on the church roof. I know they did. For a minute, they forgot I was scrappy little Ruby Porter, and I was a star.

Do you see Louise acting like that? Men don’t want a girl who sasses them and tries to walk fences. They want a girl who’s pretty and sweet and doesn’t make any trouble. They want a girl who acts like a girl.

But Momma’s never seen Miss Etta. She’s more than just pretty. She’s the most beautiful woman in the world, and the bravest. She doesn’t bow down to anybody.

Uncle Jack stands in the doorway, his breath coming fast, his face flushed beneath his reddish-brown whiskers. “You have a roof over your head and food to eat because of me, Ruby Porter. Because of my charity. I could’ve tossed you and your momma and your sister out on your ears when Ma died, but I didn’t. And this is how you repay me? Embarrassing me like that in front of the whole town?” Spittle flies from his mouth. “You might not care about our good name, but the rest of us do. If you can’t act respectable, then you won’t leave this house.”

“What are you going to do, lock me up?” I heave myself onto the bed and brace myself for another hit.

He doesn’t hit me. He just smiles, real slow, and it is downright creepy how pleased he looks with himself. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. You won’t leave this house. You won’t leave this room. Long as I see fit. Long as it takes for you to get it through your thick skull how to behave like a lady.”

I sit there, blood dripping down my cheek, my head and arm throbbing. He locked me in. He’s never locked me in before.

“But — but Archer Brothers comes tomorrow,” I say softly, sure he can’t hear.

He knows. He knows it’s the day of the year I love more than anything — more than Christmas or my birthday. That’s why he’s doing this.

The Archer Brothers Circus has been coming to Tulsa every July since I was five and Pearl was three. That first time, Daddy took Pearl and me to town to see them. We drank lemonade and ate roasted peanuts and laughed at the clowns and watched, wide-eyed at the elephants and the lions and the human pretzel and the albino girl and the armless lady and the snake charmer and the acrobats and the bareback riders and the jugglers and most especially the wire-walker. Pearl loved the bareback riders best, but for me, it’s always been the wire-walkers. That afternoon, Daddy taught me how to walk our rail fence out at the ranch.

That’s when Momma sold all our cattle to the Gillespies and moved us into town. A woman with two little girls can’t manage a ranch by herself — or at least Momma can’t. And all her folks were back east in Baltimore. That’s how we came to live in town with Uncle Jack, Daddy’s half-brother. It wasn’t so bad before Granny died, but after that — it’s like I turned into a lightning rod, and Uncle Jack’s the lightning. I used to think, least he’s hitting me and not Pearl. But lately — well. Lately, I want to hit back, only I’m a good foot shorter and about a hundred pounds lighter, and I don’t think that’d go so well for me.

Granny said our daddy was a dreamer, that he had a restless spirit and a wandering heart. Uncle Jack says any man who runs off and leaves his family like that ain’t worth remembering. But lately, I’ve been worrying maybe I have my daddy’s heart, ’cause all I can think about is running away.

Next morning, just as I’m getting so antsy I can’t stand it, there’s a soft knock at my door. “Ruby?”

“He and Momma went to the store. Took the key with him. I’m sorry.” Uncle Jack runs Porter’s Grocery, and today it’ll be hopping. Town’ll be swarmed with oilmen and cattlemen and their families come in to see the circus. The store will close for the parade, but before and after, Momma and Uncle Jack will be there.

It hits me like a punch: I’m going to miss the parade. I never miss the parade. Most years I’m down at the depot to watch the circus train arrive, too. They’ll be wondering where I was. What good is Pearl’s “sorry” now?

“Four elephants, same as last year. Talked to Harvey and Miss Jo. They send their regards. Said they’ll keep an eye out for you at the parade.”

I crawl off the bed and gawp at the closed door. Pearl went down to the depot? Prissy Pearl? Usually I’ve got to drag her with me to the matinee.

“Saw Miss Lula, too. She asked after her little chickadee. I reckon that’s you.”

Miss Lula is the snake charmer, really Mrs. Lula Antonelli. Her husband, Alberto, is one of the Flying Antonellis.

“She’s gone,” Pearl says, and my heart drops. Stella May is — was, I guess — Archer Brothers’ albino girl. At first I was real shy of her and the other sideshow freaks. I’m ashamed to say it, but the first time we met, I was afraid of her pale skin and white hair and nearsighted pink eyes. But I was only six, that first year I went without Daddy. After the matinee crowd cleared out, I snuck into the backyard, where the circus performers played cards and sewed up rips in their costumes and practiced their acts. They weren’t supposed to talk to towners — it “ruins the mystique,” Miss Jo says, and it’s dangerous for kids to be running around back there besides — but they couldn’t resist little me: blond-braided, fierce-eyed, looking for my daddy. I’d convinced myself he’d run off with the circus and was there somewhere, as a roustabout, maybe, or behind a clown’s greasepaint.

Daddy wasn’t there, but they let Pearl and me stay anyhow. And we’ve gone back every year since.

Pearl hears me sniffle. “Wait — no! She’s not dead! She got picked up by Cole Brothers.”

“Oh.” I’m glad Stella May is still alive and well, but . . . “I can’t believe she left. She’s been there forever.” A dozen years at least.

That’s one of the things I love about the circus. It welcomes all kinds. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, young or old, fat or thin, black or white or Indian, long as you have a talent of some sort. Long as you can make people stare and clap, you’re family. I guess they have their squabbles and spats, but mostly they stick up for one another.

“Did you — did you see Miss Etta?” I practically hold my breath while I wait for Pearl’s answer. The Bible says we mustn’t worship false idols, but Miss Etta makes that real hard. I want to be just like her someday: brave and magnificent and kind, too. Last year she let me walk the low wire she claimed she strung up for practice — but she doesn’t need practice on a low wire; I know it was just for me — and she taught me how to do a pirouette.

“Yep. She says hello and she’ll see you after the matinee. I didn’t say anything about you being locked up. Didn’t think you’d want her to know,” Pearl whispers. “I told them you were feeling poorly. Had a headache.”

I groan. Like a headache would keep me away! They’ll know better. Know something’s wrong.

Won’t they? Or will they think I’m growing up and turning respectable on them?

Still, it took guts for Pearl to go down to the depot by herself. “Thank you,” I say through the door.

Pearl clears her throat and then slides something beneath the door. It’s a small, brightly colored rectangle of paper.

My ticket. The advance team came through town a few weeks ago with dozens of posters, and I asked for a particular one for Porter’s Grocery: a big colored illustration of Miss Etta up on the high wire with her parasol. Giant letters advertise her “death-defying feat of balance.” We got two free tickets for displaying it in the front window.

“How am I supposed to use this?” I ask. “I can’t break the door down.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you ain’t scared of heights, then.” I can hear a smile in Pearl’s voice. “Go look out the window.”

I scowl. “I ain’t scared of heights, but I can’t fly, Pearl.” Uncle Jack’s a bully, but he isn’t stupid. There’s no trellis, no drainpipes, no tree near enough my bedroom window. The porch roof is clear on the opposite side of the house. I can’t see any way out, not unless I want to jump down two stories onto the hard, sunbaked summer ground. It never did rain last night, despite those storm clouds.

I walk to the window and look out and, somehow, there’s a ladder. A real tall wooden one, like somebody would use to paint houses or do work on a roof. In fact, this ladder looks sort of familiar. Like maybe — like maybe it’s one from the construction site over at the new high school. How on earth did it get through town and beneath my bedroom window?

“Pearl!” I press myself back against the door. “Did you steal that ladder?”

“How did it get here, then?” I ask. “’Cause it ain’t Christmas and it sure wasn’t Santa.”

“Well . . . I maybe encouraged Frankie Kneeland, and Louise maybe encouraged Fred to borrow it. There’s no construction going on today anyhow on account of everybody going to the circus. That’s a waste of a good ladder, if you ask me.”

“Just — be careful, all right? The boys are downstairs. I’ll send them out to hold it in a minute. And, Ruby?”

I’m already whirling around the room, hastily rebraiding my hair so it doesn’t show the cut on my forehead, fastening the buttons on my boots, shoving Momma’s pearl ear bobs through my ears. “Yes?”

“Uncle Jack’ll be watching the parade in front of the store. Steer clear of him, all right? Try not to draw attention to yourself for once. He hears you’re out and he’ll come looking for you and . . .” Her voice wavers. We both know what’ll happen if he catches me. He’ll beat me within an inch of my life.

“Maybe you should be,” she suggests. “Please be careful, Roo. Just this once. For me.”

“All right,” I say, and she promises to send the boys out to hold the ladder.

I finish braiding my hair and buttoning my boots, and I put the ticket in my pocket. I add the old photograph of Daddy and Momma and Pearl and me from the summer he left. I stole it from Momma years ago, and she’s never asked for it back.

I gaze at myself in the looking glass over our armoire. I’ve got Momma’s dark-blond hair, but Daddy’s dark eyes and high cheekbones and lean figure. Momma says I take after him in other ways, too. You can be real charming when you want, Ruby Leigh. Just like your daddy. I’m not exactly pretty, but I don’t need pretty where I’m going. I just need brave. I just need to get back up when I fall.

I watch the parade from down in front of Farmer’s National Bank with Louise and Fred. It’s down the block from Porter’s Grocery, so if I lean around Fred and stand on my tiptoes, I can keep an eye on Uncle Jack. He and Momma and Pearl — and Frankie Kneeland — got a prime spot right out in front of the store. They’re playing like they’re a happy little family. Must be easier without me, since I don’t give a lick what the neighbors think. But Uncle Jack has aspirations. Wants to be more than a shopkeeper someday, he says.

I watch their act from afar: Momma in her high-necked navy day dress and Uncle Jack in his second-best suit, smirking and glad-handing anybody who gets close enough. Pearl wears a pink pin-striped dress, her hair in two dark braids, squealing in pretend fright as the dancing bears pass by. Her playing scared gives Frankie an excuse to squeeze her, even in front of Momma.

To the other folks lining the street, the parade’s a spectacle. Miss Jo taught me that spectacle’s real important in the circus. The whole point is to put on a good show, after all, and give the towners a holiday. We’re supposed to watch the parade of beautiful girls and human miracles and terrifying animals and be amazed, so we’ll spend our hard-earned money on tickets — and then we’ll spend a little extra to get into the sideshow, or get some treats from the candy butchers, or buy a souvenir picture of one of the freaks. We’re supposed to see them as wondrous figures, larger than life.

To me, it feels like a reunion with old friends. And a reminder of what can be, if I’ve got the grit to make it happen.

Uncle Jack and Momma, Pearl, the girls at school and at church — they’ve called me a lot of things, but a coward ain’t one.

The beautiful painted wagons are passing by. Some of them are cages with menagerie animals inside. Pearl throws herself at Frankie when the lions go by, and I roll my eyes. We both know that the zebras and camels are meaner.

Miss Jo’s girls come next, riding high-stepping, shining white horses. For all that Uncle Jack goes on about the immorality of the circus, I bet he’s eyeing the girls’ legs, exposed to the knees in their short flared skirts.

I spot Harvey in his white greasepaint and high-collared costume. He spots me, too, and does a pratfall, landing right on his rump, to the laughter of the crowd. He sits there for a minute, pouting, till another clown pretends to kick him. Then he jumps up and does a somersault. When he lands, he grins and salutes me. I wave at him till people start to look in my direction, and then I duck back down into the crowd. I promised Pearl that I wouldn’t draw attention, but it’s harder than I thought.

So I don’t wave when I see Miss Lula in her wagon, holding her big boa constrictor up for the crowd to see. Louise clings to Fred, and I crane around them and see Pearl clinging to Frankie. Truth be told, I don’t love Edgar, either. He winds around Miss Lula’s waist, his yellow a stark contrast against her ruffled, low-cut violet dress. Miss Lula has the kind of curves I’ll never have, the kind men will pay a pretty penny to see. I joked once with Fred that I’d have to rely on my legs, seeing as how I don’t have a nice bosom like Louise, and he blushed bright red all the way to his ears and Louise had to remind me I shouldn’t talk about bosoms with him.

Miss Lula spots me even though I’m not waving and winks at me, her dark eyes winged with kohl. Circus performers are meant to look exotic, like they’re braver and more mysterious than regular folks. That’s part of the illusion.

The Antonellis come next, turning cartwheels and somersaults and climbing on one another’s shoulders till they’ve built a human pyramid. The children around us ooh and aah. Some of the boys jump into the street and turn cartwheels of their own, ignoring the dust and dirt that cake their hands and faces, and I wish for a second I were a boy. I can turn a better cartwheel than any of them.

But wishing I were a boy doesn’t last long because here come the elephants, and riding them are the biggest stars of the Archer Brothers Circus. Miss Jo waves like a queen from the howdah on Junior’s back. And after her comes Miss Etta, pretty as can be in her ruffled pink dress and brown curls. She’s carrying her pink parasol like a fine lady, like Pearl afraid of damaging her skin in the hot Tulsa sun. But it’s the same parasol she uses as she dances and pirouettes across the high wire.

I want to be like her. I want it so badly, it’s become a permanent dull ache, somewhere behind my ribs, gnawing at me night and day.

I look back at my family, and for a minute I think Momma sees me. Will she tell Uncle Jack? I crouch down behind Fred and Louise, my heart hammering, and I know I can’t keep on like this.

Between the parade and the matinee, I go with Louise to her house. She’s got seven little brothers and sisters, and with all the kids running around and hollering, her momma hardly takes any notice of us. There’s leftover roast pork and fresh-baked bread with thick slabs of butter and icy glasses of milk. Mrs. Whitehill jokes about needing to fatten me up ’cause I’m so skinny and boys like girls with some meat on them. I laugh and then almost cry, thinking of how many times I’ve eaten here to escape Uncle Jack’s temper and Momma’s thin-lipped disapproval and Pearl’s silence.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you,” Louise says later, the two of us alone in the room she shares with her sisters.

“If they’ll have me. If I stay, I think he’ll kill me.” I push my braid out of the way to show her the cut on my head.

Louise grabs my chin with pinching fingers and stares at me, her dark eyes real solemn. I remember how she was the first one to clap the first time I walked the rail fence behind the school. We shared a desk every day after that. She always stuck up for me when the other girls were mean.

I’ll miss her, too. More than she knows. But it’s a big world and there are other girls out there, and maybe I’ll find one who might want to kiss me back.

After lunch I head down to the big field where the circus is set up. I get there before the menagerie tent is even open, so I wait for Pearl outside the big top. There are a couple hundred people milling around already, everybody in their finery, exchanging news. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad ran an excursion train from nearby towns this morning, and today’s Indian Republic newspaper blared headlines about the circus coming. It’s better than a church picnic for gossip about who’s courting and who’s feuding and whose farm is losing money.

Part of me is scared Uncle Jack will show up instead of Pearl. He could have gone home for lunch and found my room empty. Momma could have told him she saw me at the parade. If I wasn’t where he left me, it wouldn’t take him two seconds to figure out where I’d be.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I see Pearl. She wouldn’t have come unless she thought it was safe, unless Uncle Jack was still at the store. Pearl puts herself first, always. I figure it’s time for me to do the same.

I pull her into the long shadow of the big top. “I need to tell you something.”

This is the hardest part. I’ll miss Louise, but I know she’ll be all right, and I’m tired of pining while she’s happy with Fred. Pearl — well. What if Uncle Jack turns his fists on her once I’m gone? She stood up for me today. She schemed and stole for me, and if Uncle Jack had caught her — well, it means something that she risked that for me. How do I tell her that I’m running off, just like our daddy did?

“You’re not coming back home.” Pearl smiles her big, buck-toothed smile. “I knew before I went and stole that ladder. Once you got free, you couldn’t go back.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. I remember how Bobby Billington made fun of her teeth and called her a rabbit, and how I punched him and got sent home from school for it. How many times I’ve sassed Uncle Jack when he was in a mood to make sure he’d hit me and not Pearl. How can I leave my little sister behind?

She shrugs. “You looked after me the whole time we were growing up. It’s time for me to look after myself now. Least till Frankie and I can get married.”

“Get married!” I echo, surprised that she’s thinking of that already, and she giggles.

“We all got our own plans, Roo. Marrying Frankie might not be as grand as running off to join the circus, but he makes me laugh. Once he finishes school, he’ll have a job working in his daddy’s drugstore. He’ll take good care of me. And he’s a real good kisser.”

We dart inside the sideshow tent the moment it opens and hurry to Miss Lula’s stage. She winks and holds Edgar up in my direction. “You want to hold him, missy? Don’t be scared — step right up!”

Much as I want to prove her wrong, I shudder back like she knew I would, and she wheezes with laughter. If there’s anything at the circus I’m still afraid of, it’s Edgar. I know he’s already well fed and sleepy, so he won’t actually squeeze her to death, but I never have liked snakes.

Next we pop into the menagerie tent, where Pearl wrinkles her nose at the rank smell of manure. We steer well clear of the black-and-white-striped zebras, swishing their tails lazily to keep the flies off. Harvey told us that they bite, and the tawny camels from the Arabian Desert will spit at people if they get mad. The bears and lions are all off getting ready for the show, but people crowd around the elephants’ pen to watch them shuffle and stomp, clouds of dust rising with every step. They are real majestic, but their eyes always look sort of sad.

Then the ringmaster, Cal, in his black suit and black top hat, starts calling people in with his big deep voice. “Step right up!” he hollers from the entrance of the big top, and people throng toward the opening. “Step right up!”

I watch, rapt, clapping till my hands hurt. Part of me is sad, knowing this might be the last time I ever watch the circus with Pearl. After today — if it all goes well — I’ll never be a spectator again. But for today, part of me still feels like that little wide-eyed five-year-old girl, bouncing in her seat, hooting with laughter as the clowns perform between acts, chewing salty roasted peanuts and washing them down with sweet, tart pink lemonade from the candy butchers, surrounded by the smells of grass and sawdust and sweat.

The audience giggles at the dogs that leap through rings and do other funny tricks, then roars with laughter at the bears that walk on two legs and play catch. We all gasp as Evangeline stands in a cage surrounded by sleek powerful lions, a whip in her hand. It’s not as dangerous as people think — I happen to know that whip’s just for effect — but it’s not easy, either. Beneath her lacy yellow dress, her arms and legs are covered with thick white scars.

After the animal acts comes the aerial ballet. The Antonellis fly from one trapeze to another, leaping through the air so graceful, I half believe they’d keep soaring even without the bars.

Pearl leans forward when the equestrians ride in on their high-stepping white horses. They’re still her favorite after all these years. When Miss Jo stands on her horse’s back, then does a somersault, I can’t help but grip my skirt nervously in my fist. She looks as dainty as Pearl. One time her horse shied and threw her, and she got trampled by its hooves and broke her ribs. Another time she busted her arm. But she always gets back up.

We watch the jugglers and the acrobats on their rings, but I’m eager for the lights to dim on the two side rings and Miss Etta to take the center stage. Even the parade of elephants, walking on their hind legs, can’t hold a candle to Miss Etta.

She’s last, like the star she is. I hold my breath while she climbs up to the high wire. She looks impossibly tiny up there. If she falls —

Well, that doesn’t bear thinking about. The circus is dangerous. The artists are always trying to better their acts, do something more impossible and wondrous, something to make our jaws drop and our hands sore from clapping.

The crowd hushes as Miss Etta begins a pirouette, then releases a noisy breath when she’s facing front again. She keeps moving, always, and when she’s only got a third of the way to go, she does a few dance steps, as though she’s waltzing with an imaginary partner. The crowd roars and I flush, their approval and excitement coursing through me like it was me up there.

After — after Miss Etta has climbed back down to earth, after the Roman chariot races on the hippodrome track — we wait for the crowd to disperse some.

“The bareback riders are still my favorites,” Pearl admits, as if I don’t know.

“They were good this year.” There was a new rider — a tall, graceful girl with dark curls and long, shapely legs beneath her short red skirt. She didn’t look much older than me.

Pearl and I climb over the ropes and get waved past the NO ADMITTANCE signs into the yard.

“Ruby, honey!” Miss Jo cries, catching me by the shoulders and hugging me tight. She smells faintly of lavender water. “There you are. We missed you this morning. Pearl here said you weren’t feeling well?”

“You were amazing,” I say, evading the question as she hugs Pearl. Miss Jo just laughs and pulls off the long black Cleopatra wig she wore for the chariot races.

“Isn’t she, though?” Harvey already scrubbed off his greasepaint and took off his high-collared, ruffled clown costume. Now he’s just a bald man in his shirtsleeves and suspenders and trousers.

“That our Ruby?” Miss Lula smothers me in another hug. “You look so pretty, sugar. How come you ain’t married yet?”

“What’s that I hear? My protégée’s not getting married?” Miss Etta strolls out of the dressing tent. She’s shed her ruffled pink gown for a simple ivory dress, but she’s still wearing her red lipstick.

“Oh, sugar, don’t say never. You never know when you might meet an Italian acrobat who’ll sweep you right off your feet,” Miss Lula says, and sure enough, Alberto scoops her up into his arms. She’s taller and broader than him, but he dances a few light steps before he puts her down, leaves a loud kiss on her cheek, and wanders off.

“I’ll leave the marrying to Pearl,” I say, and they cluck over her like a bunch of mother hens, asking about her beau while she giggles and tosses her hair.

I don’t get stage fright, never have, but I’m nervous now. I’ve never been good at asking permission for things, but I need their help. If I go to the manager with the support of the circus’s best performers behind me, he might just take a chance on me.

“What’s wrong, sugar? You look like you’re about to faint, and you’re not the fainting type,” Miss Lula says finally, squinting at me.

“Tonight —” The words strangle in my throat, and I cough. “Tonight, when the circus train leaves, I want to be on it. I want to join Archer Brothers.”

I don’t know what kind of reaction I expected, but it’s not this — a terrible silence, and then an explosion of questions.

“You want to run away from home?” Harvey asks, thumbs hooked under his suspenders. There’s a stray swipe of white greasepaint by one of his ears. “What about your family?”

Miss Etta gives a tiny shake of her head, chestnut curls bobbing. “You’re not ready for the high wire yet.”

“I can learn.” My voice comes out high, desperate. It doesn’t sound like me. “I just need a chance.”

“What about your family?” Harvey asks again. “What about your sister, here?”

“She’s got to go.” Pearl’s voice is firm. “Uncle Jack — he and Ruby are like oil and water. They don’t mix. He hits her.”

They’re silent again. They’ve never seen the bruises. Those usually come after the circus leaves town.

“No.” My voice is stronger now, even as I’m searching for the right words. I need to say this right. “I’m not just running away from Uncle Jack. It never has been about running away. It’s about running toward. This —” I throw my arms wide, encompassing the backyard and the big top and the menagerie tent and the sideshow tent. “It’s some kind of magic. That feeling, when they all watch and hold their breath and then clap” — I turn to Harvey — “or laugh — or, Miss Lula, when you and Edgar make ’em squirm — there’s nothing else like it. And I just feel like — like my whole life here would be wasted. If I got married and had babies and never walked the church roof again, maybe I could go on living, but it’d be some pale ghost version of me.”

I feel the sudden, horrible urge to cry. My throat knots and my eyes fill with tears. Pearl takes my hand. For a moment, there’s just silence.

“First Presbyterian. But the wind caught my parasol and I fell. I was almost across, though.”

“I’d better keep teaching you,” she says. “Or you’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Really?” I launch myself at her, hugging her so tight she makes a little choking noise.

“We’ll have to find something else for you to do in the meantime. A low-wire act, maybe. You ever ride a bicycle?” Miss Jo asks, and I nod.

“I can teach her how to do some tricks,” Harvey says. I’ve seen him ride a bicycle in his act, swerving all over the place, being chased by a yappy little terrier.

“You’ll have to work hard. Alberto and his brothers, they’ve been training since they were children,” Miss Lula says.

Miss Lula smirks and pets Edgar, who’s lying like a mink stole around her shoulders. “Only snakes, huh?”

There is a commotion back by the ropes and the NO ADMITTANCE sign. Some drunk trying to get in and look at the elephants, maybe. We all turn to look.

It’s not a drunk; it’s Uncle Jack shoving his way past two clowns. The town sheriff is following him.

I can’t be. This is my family. This strange group of people of all shapes and sizes and abilities, this is the family I chose for myself when I was just a little girl.

I glance toward Pearl, but she’s done some magic of her own and melted into the crowd. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the flap of the mess tent swinging shut.

“Ruby Leigh Porter, what in blazes are you doing here?” Uncle Jack lunges for me, but Harvey steps between us. “Get out of my way. That girl is a thief and a runaway. I’ve brought the sheriff here to arrest her.”

“She stole those pearl earrings she’s got on,” Sheriff Moore says. “They belong to her momma.”

“Well, there. That’s settled now. You her father?” Harvey asks Uncle Jack. He knows better; he’s making a point. “This your father, Ruby?”

“I’m her uncle. My brother — half-brother — ran off. Always had his head in the clouds, that one, always thought he was better’n everybody else, and she takes after him. I been raising this girl since she was five years old, so I think I got as much authority as any father. I’m taking her home. Come with me now, Ruby. Don’t make a fuss.”

“I will make a fuss,” I say. “I will make the biggest fuss you ever saw. You’ll have to drag me back through town, kicking and screaming. You know I’ll do it.”

“She’s my niece. My property,” Uncle Jack says, turning to the sheriff. “Arrest her!”

“For what?” Sheriff Moore says. “She ain’t broken any laws. She gave the earrings back, and Marianne didn’t want her arrested for that in the first place. This seems like a family matter, not a law matter.”

“Maybe you should let us take her off your hands,” Harvey says. “Seeing as how she’s so much trouble for you.”

“I will be,” I vow. “I’ll be so much trouble, you’ll never get to be mayor.”

I can tell that hits him hard. His chances are far better without me around. “You’ll regret this, Ruby. Leaving your family? What kind of girl does a thing like that?”

“Our girl,” Miss Etta says, flashing him a smile. Alberto saunters over, flanked by his brothers. They’re short but stocky, and real strong. “And we take care of our own here, so don’t you even think about coming back tonight to bother her.”

Like most bullies, Uncle Jack backs down when confronted by somebody his own size.

Miss Jo wraps an arm around me. “You won this round, honey,” she whispers. “Best be quiet now.”

“Let’s go, Jack,” Sheriff Moore says, and they walk back toward the big top, the Flying Antonellis shadowing them as far as the rope.

“Step right up! Step right up! See the amazing Ruby Leigh Porter, modern woman, riding a bicycle!” Harvey calls, grinning. “We’ll have to get you some of them bloomers.”

“Harvey! Don’t talk to the girl about her undergarments on her first day,” Miss Jo says.

I laugh. Bloomers. Next year when Pearl comes to see me, she’ll have a conniption.

I have always been fascinated by families — both those we are born into and those we create. As a teen, I found a second family in theater, which — like the circus — tends to accept those who are outsiders and outcasts in need of refuge.

The circus is problematic. It has been exploitative to some of its performers, particularly those in the sideshows, and its animal practices have not been without cruelty. But as I read about the golden age of the American circus, particularly the women who became famous worldwide for their feats of daring, I was fascinated by the microcosm of circus life, so separate from the traditional mores of the day. And I was curious about exactly what kind of girl might run away to join the circus.

For further reading, I recommend Wild, Weird, and Wonderful: The American Circus 1901 – 1927: As Seen by F. W. Glasier, Photographer, by Mark Sloan, and The Circus, 1870s – 1950s, edited by Noel Daniel.

Special thanks to Gwenda Bond for her notes on the circus, and to Lindsay Smith for her notes on early Tulsa.