Pilo Traveling Show (Pilo Family Circus #2)

7. ABOVE

The trains roaring across the little bridge, spitting distance from the tent closest to the riverbank, fast became a familiar and welcome sound, helping cover with their clatter and rumble something which did not want to be heard or seen. Jamie marveled at the way the faces aboard those trains gazed out without so much as a second look down at the array of tents and stalls, all of them a bustle of activity as the carnies and clowns prepared for their first show. The camping spot seemed to be fast losing its popularity, given the number of drivers who pulled in, looked around and left almost immediately, as if sensing something amiss. Rare now were any who stayed longer than a few minutes to use the brick toilet block, and always they were in a greater hurry to leave than they'd arrived.

Dean/Deeby, when he wasn't doing push-ups or giving annoying lectures to others about what comedy was really all about, spent time showing off exaggerated clown biceps to any female in sight, most certainly including Jodi/Emerald, the shirt inflating like a balloon to absurd degrees. Experimentally, Doopy snuck up behind him on one such occasion with a pin, but rather than popping the inflated bicep a thin jet of blood squirted out. Deeby informed the world it hadn't hurt at all then stomped Doopy pretty badly before rolling him down the riverbank, provoking a Goshy attack soon after, despite Jamie's attempts to calm things down. Goshy got up on the train bridge, waited til Deeby passed below, then landed on him like an anvil. Something went crunch, but Deeby ended up bench pressing his confused attacker for the next half hour or so, which Goshy seemed not to mind at all, judging by the satisfied chirping and whistling he made. Doopy danced around this display nervously, promising to tattle to Gonko and maybe even to Mr. Bigbad.

Deeby then went fishing with a spear he'd made, pulling from the river all manner of exotic things, none of which actually existed in the river before. In Jamie's day it didn't yield much more than occasional catfish, but Deeby's haul included a shark and an octopus, which the gypsy women gladly cooked. Soon Deeby was their favorite clown, and Jamie hardly had to tell him anymore to play along. Dean was clearly having the time of his life, and it did just a little to swing Jamie's opinion back from the sinister conclusions he'd been drawing about this circus and its people.

And okay, yes, it was weird here, ugly at times too . . . and these were weird people, if they could even be called people. Did that make it necessarily sinister or evil? Usually evil disguised itself as normal, even seemed pleasing to the eye and blended in. These beings and their ways hid from sight mainly because the world would not fathom them, even if they were good beneath the visible ugliness.

Emerald/Jodi too seemed right at home. She loved being fussed over, groomed, dressed by the gypsies, and adorned with their strange jewelry. She paid Jamie no mind when he went to check on her well-being, in fact disdainfully dismissed him with a regal flick of her fingernails, prompting the gypsy women to chase him off with knives bared. He just once got a peek under her veil when she adjusted it and could hardly believe his eyes. He'd thought of her as merely "cute" before—still a level of attractiveness for which Jamie would traditionally have undergone all manner of insane male questing, should he have a chance with such a girl. Now though, she was something else altogether, a drop dead knockout in some odd unearthly way, and it wasn't even clear what exactly had changed—the same face, same not-quite hourglass body and auburn hair. The eye was just drawn to her and did not want to look away. It was a good thing (for her sake) she wore that veil; he, and maybe everyone else, would otherwise spend most of the day staring at her, and some of these clowns seemed not so great at impulse control.

He was still no closer to answers about what happened "last time," other than what peculiar (even miraculous) things he'd seen with his own eyes. The only info he got was from a dwarf named Knuckles on his cigar break. It was not the dwarf who'd tried to kill him yesterday (that dwarf still glowered when he came near.) A stout bearded thing fresh from Tolkien's pages, Knuckles pulled from his pocket some paper and hesitantly read a prepared answer: "What we do at the shom—I mean show—is to extract the bad luck and stick—sickness? What man if fests? In the form of this crystal stuff what falls to the grond. Ground. Like what were in that bag you have. We then collect the bad stuff and so it can be destroyed and . . ." The answer (or the effort reading it) was enough to put the dwarf to sleep, until the cigar burned down to his fingers.

A prepared answer to a question rather different than the one Jamie had asked? Suspect, yes, but hardly the strangest thing that had happened lately. Maybe the dwarf was none too bright and needed to keep a written reminder of his own life's purpose. Or of course that pesky other possibility, like an itch that wouldn't quite go away: they were all pulling his leg, maybe pulling the rest of him too, down into places where he did not want to go.

And as always when that itch arose, he soothed it by thinking of the family who no longer trusted him, of phone calls calling him a murderer, and of workmates who felt he was suspect. Not to mention the more usual pains in the ass of everyday life: traffic fines and phone bills, a culture yearly more depraved and perverse (morning music video shows alone a good indicator of the sickness), waking early to play the role of a slave, caught in traffic, ageing, dying, all for no real point unless you could become emotionally invested in the outcome of a football game. If he was going somewhere bad, how much worse could it be than where he'd come from?

•

When Gonko finally returned—preceded by the arrival of several new dwarfs, for whom an extra tent had to be raised—the clown boss had with him a large being draped in a nun's habit. The rest of them got a glimpse of knees and ankles like huge marshmallows of milky flesh, and feet whose skin jiggled liquidly with each step. "Say, I'm going to be able to perform here soon, right?" said a frightened voice before Gonko ushered him into the one tent Jamie (and the other new recruits) had been forbidden to enter.

That done, Gonko gathered the other clowns together (excluding Deeby and Jamie) for a whispered conversation that involved much pointing and staring in Jamie's direction. He saw shrugs, baffled expressions, and was given the distinct impression he'd done something wrong. When the huddle parted, however, nothing was said to him about it.

Gonko approached. "Rest up. Show day tomorrow. We'll knock 'em dead."

Jamie said, "Cool. So aren't you going to put signs up to draw a crowd? How you plan to get people in here? We're kind of hidden away."

"Fret not, my sweet." Gonko pointed to the train now clattering over the bridge loaded with commuters. "Every one of those tricks is going to be here tomorrow. Ticket collectors will set up the gates between seven and eight, over at the train station."

This meant little to Jamie. "Not very selective, then, the process of who needs their bad luck and illness removed?"

"Eh? What the f—oh, right. Selective as all get out, my young caperer. Each one of them tricks has been thoroughly vetted by the research department. Now, we ain't had time to rehearse an act, so we're doing old material, unless you can think up some new gags by tomorrow. If not, your mission will be to keep Deeby the hell off my stage. He messes up my act, I mess up his physical structure. Got it?"

"Sure. But yeah I have a couple of skit ideas, like this one where—"

"Later, later. Gonko has had a busy few days and is gonna kick back a little with Marilyn. Oh, and what the hell is Goshy doing with all those flower pots?"

"Looks like he's just collecting them." Now a dozen of the red clay flowerpots sat in neat rows of four beside the clown tent. "Seems harmless enough, unless I'm missing something?"

"Yeah, well. He's got a history with that kind of deal. Advice: stay away from the pots." Gonko stomped over to the clown tent, kicked out Doopy and Rufshod, and then hung a do not disturb sign on the front. Some minutes later they heard him say, "I'll make you a star all right, toots. But it's gonna cost you."

Doopy, adjusting his hat, said, "Did you hear, guys? The boss found JJ! Gonko done gone and went and found himself JJ! And he's gonna bring him back, just like us was bringed back."

"Shh!" said Rufshod, wincing.

"Oops. Oh gosh, it's a secret, ain't it?

Jamie looked from one to the other. "Who or what is this JJ?"

"It's nothing," said Rufshod.

"Yeah, there's no such thing as no JJ," said Doopy. "Besides, JJ is dead. Just like we was, hey, Ruf? JJ's all dead."

•

Jamie's sleep was not deep that night, with the face paint's stimulating effect, the odd train's racket, and his own subconscious

murmuring unsettling things. The other clowns snored on air mattresses beside him. It was still dark when Doopy's hour-long fart woke him and forced him to bite a knuckle to keep from waking the others with his laughter at the variety of sound, some of it in fact rather melodic, but the rancid stench that soon filled the tent sent him staggering out into the night. Thick clouds veiled a nearly full moon, and it was graveyard quiet in the carny camp. Muffled giggling and Deeby's voice from a tent across the way indicated he and Emerald were still an item, albeit a quieter one than before. Again, their obvious comfort here took the edge off some of his doubts.

He'd noticed without noticing that Goshy hadn't been on his mattress with the rest of them. A rustling sound came from the other side of the tent, where the flowerpots were. He crept round behind it and went still at what he saw.

Goshy's pants were down; his back was turned to Jamie. Two bulbous wrinkled flesh pads glowed white as twin moons. He stood among the flowerpots, each filled with lush black soil. Now and then Goshy's hips gyrated, causing ripples and shudders through the flabby whiteness of thigh and backside. His arms as always were locked stiff at his sides, fists bunched in white gloves. Slowly, with apparent difficulty, he bent at the waist, opening with horrible inevitability the golf ball sized chasm between the buttocks as he lowered himself down upon the flowerpot at his feet.

The movements had been so slow and careful til now that Jamie was nauseated by the sudden speed with which Goshy jerked his pelvis back and forth, pressing waves of exposed flesh together like kneaded dough. Faintly his whining breath squeezed out with interjections of surprise wedged in: "Nggh, nggh, oo! Ngh . . . oo!"

Jamie was transfixed, hardly able to guess what he watched. It may have been some odd form of masturbation, or it may have been defecation into the pot, but it seemed too removed from such normal earthly behaviors. Maybe the clown enjoyed the feel of dark moist soil on that one region of his skin, and for some reason did not think to apply it by hand.

Suddenly Goshy stood. In the motion of standing Jamie had the briefest glimpse—it was less than a second, so he could not be sure—of a thin tube-like appendage, not genitalia but something more like an aardvark's snout, sliding up from the dirt to vanish into the flabby wrinkled mass. Pants still down, the clown turned. Its flat teeth were bared, the flesh about its face pulled tight in pink rings, its eyes wide, moist, and insane. They locked onto Jamie's.

He couldn't move. In that moment all the half-hearted explanations fell away like the nonsense it all was, revealing this thing, shameless and insane and evil. This was his family now, said a gleeful cackling demon dancing victorious inside him, mocking him and rubbing in his loss. This is what stole your life and is now to use you, for a while, as its plaything.

Goshy's teeth clattered together, loud as typewriter keys. His eyes bored in, unreachable and foreign. A train rumbled across the bridge, its cars loaded with cattle. Jamie screamed and ran.

Crouching by the river til the sun came up, it was some while before he could rationalize what he'd seen, but more to the point what he'd felt in those seconds. Soon—not convincingly, but well enough—he found again the comfort of the lies, and managed in a small, half-hearted way to believe in them.

•

It was show day. The rage Gonko flew into was minor by his measure when he saw no stage had been built yet (Doopy had been ordered to see to it) nor any seating arranged. The dwarfs hurriedly got busy stealing wood from the campsite's fence and barbecue tables, then wandered across the river to the other park for more. Seats were pulled or sawed off their concrete bases and stacked in rows in the largest tent, the result being a tight squeeze for maybe fifty or sixty spectators, and standing room at the back for half as many again. Over the following hours, with much yelling, hammering, sawing, and weeping, a platform was built. It was only a meter and a half high since wood and time were scarce, with nowhere near enough stage room for Gonko's liking.

Done with his latest outburst, he grabbed Jamie by the collar and snarled, "Skits! You said you had ideas. Lay 'em on me."

"Well, okay, so Goshy gets up in a high place, maybe on a stepladder? And the crowd is told he's going to dive into a glass of water below. And they're maybe expecting some magic trick or stunt, since it's obviously impossible. But he dives and lands flat on it, crushing the glass of water with a big noise and all that. Just a kind of slapstick thing, only you'd want to use a plastic cup so as not to cut—"

"It ain't slapstick without actual blood," Gonko said. "Meh, we'll use it. Real glass, though. What else you got?"

Jamie was halfway through telling an idea about a restaurant sketch involving food that caught fire when something akin to a baby's cry turned both their heads toward Goshy's flowerpot collection.

Throughout the day Jamie had forced himself to hang around with the other clowns and put last night into the neat and tidy overreaction/misunderstanding he now almost believed it was. He'd gone out of his way to be polite to Goshy, examining the clown's strange face for any sign of malice or anger at his having witnessed . . . whatever exactly it was. There was no clue given—the boggling eyes peered at him, ever bewildered, now and then the left eye narrowing to a slit, the only indication of any displeasure. But that same look was given to Dean/Deeby, and to the gypsy women who shooed the clowns away from Emerald.

Goshy now stood among the flower pots, a smile pulling his face taut and bunching skin in flabby rings about his neck, forehead, and up under his hat. Goshy peered, bulging eyes glowing with proud delight as Gonko, Jamie, and Rufshod came over. Doopy, already there, was too worked up for words—he could only hop from foot to foot making excited attempts at speech. "Oh, gee, guh, mmbh."

In one of the pots—in fact, in three of them—were tiny clowns. Doopy reverently picked up one pot with a trembling hand and showed them. A miniature Goshy—the exact image of him, even down to its clothes—stood and swayed in the pot, knee deep in soil. Its mouth opened and made tiny wailing sounds, baby cries.

Jamie bent over and retched up the stolen Woolworths chocolate he'd had for breakfast.

"Ain't it super?" Doopy managed at last to say. Gonko poked the tiny Goshy with his finger; it attempted to suckle the end of it. Doopy promised, "I'm gonna feed 'em milk, and, and learn 'em to talk real swell. Can't we keep 'em, Gonko? You just gotta say yes—you just gotta!"

Gonko himself was struggling for words. "Freak show," he said. "Keep 'em there. Maybe we'll use one in the act."

"He's gonna make more, Gonko. Ain't it super?"

Goshy emitted a proud noise, "Gahhh." His mouth hung loose.

"How big they gonna get?" said Gonko, eyes roaming to the river more than once.

"Well, gee, we dunno Gonko, cause this ain't never, it's the first time we, we didn't never have to—"

"All right, goddammit, keep them. Don't make too many more. I don't even wanna know how or why. It's that MM, I'll bet, that scumfuck. But both of you owe me a bang-up show tonight; I wanna see some first rate clowning. You got that?"

"Sure, boss, you name it!" Doopy pawed Jamie's shirt, pushed his face so close the beads of sweat on his nose touched Jamie's skin and dripped down. "Ain't it the bestest thing in the whole wide world?" he whispered.

"They're . . . they're cute. Real, really cute," Jamie said. Doopy's wide white eyes were suddenly bigger than the whole world to him, his fingers still pawing and paddling Jamie's shirt. God alone knew what he may have done with a different kind of answer.

"Help, help!" one of the baby Goshys on the ground cried. "Help!" The other two joined in. "Help, help!"

"What the fuck?" Gonko screamed, jumping away from the flowerpots.

"It's the first word I learned 'em," said Doopy. "Ain't they clever? They can talk so neat."

Gonko staggered away and frantically looked for something else to think about. Jamie did likewise.

•

Night came. Gonko studied his pocket watch very carefully, waiting, waiting . . . at last he gave word to Curls and the other ticket collectors, who seemed to realize by now that all of this was far beyond anything George had ordered despite what Curls had told them, and that by now they were just as doomed as Gonko, should word get back below. They were very nervous as they trudged at last over to the train station, a short walk made longer by the gate pieces they carried. Their location was supposed to be a country fair halfway across the planet, but they set up the gates almost entirely unnoticed even as trains pulled in and spewed out hundreds of commuters. When these tricks got below, after Gonko's circus had milked them, it may be noticed: very few children and babies, rather more suits, briefcases, and newspapers folded under arms than the usual crowd. And of course, much less soul dust.

Emerald was unveiled. The gypsy women made no secret of the knives tucked into their belts. They had a busy time shooing

clowns and others away from her wooden booth, where kissing booth was painted across the front with no mention of a price. Emerald stood radiating her unearthly beauty and regular earthly boredom as she, with the rest of them, waited for the tricks to come through the lattice gates.

"Music!" Gonko screamed. The dwarf assigned the task began to spin the music box's handle. A calliope moaned, xylophone notes tinkled down like rain, brass wind wheezed good cheer, and cymbals crashed.

"You ready, Goshy?" Doopy said into the ear of his statue-still brother. "We gots to make the people laugh soon. We gotta make 'em laugh for reals."

And the freak show tent was opened just as the tricks began to come through, with only a few seconds of confusion at the sudden change in their surroundings from train station car park to here. By then the music was in them, as was the scent of cotton candy, filling them with giddy good cheer. A small carnival, but a happy one. A dwarf with a dice game, his velvet case filled with glittering rubies and sapphires for prizes; another who made a coin vanish under paper cups, with more pirate treasure on offer if you could guess the right one. And, further around in between the two small "streets" of tents, a woman of exceeding beauty, smiling, waiting for the gypsy lady to bring forth, one by one, her customers. Nervously they were led to her; and now there was no such thing as a girlfriend, wife, fiancée, or even a woman. Emerald was the first they'd ever seen; the first to plant cool, long fingers on each cheek and for three, four sweet seconds of bliss, the first explore their mouths with hers, leaving them in a giddy happy daze. Emerald was a hit, even with some female customers, though not one person was allowed back in line for a second kiss. None guessed as to the reason why she crouched down in her booth, after each customer—as the gypsies had coached her—and spat into a bucket little glittering shards like crushed precious gems. The buckets filled fast. The gypsy women smiled secretly at each other and carried filled buckets away.

In less impressive amounts, the powder littered the floors of the small makeshift Sideshow Alley. In the freak show tent, one of the baby Goshies thrashed about in its flowerpot, frightened of all the people who stepped in to stare. Nearby, the head in a case grumbled, "Preposterous! Blocks the view . . . never seen such rot. Medical science. Pish posh!"

Fatso ripped huge chunks from his other side, letting yesterday's wounds heal, and was a sheen of blood which he could hardly wait to lick clean, or scoop to drink with a desert spoon. His one-liners were delivered with cheer: "I make sure to get plenty of the three major food groups—me, myself, and I!" and "They say putting your foot in your mouth is a bad thing. Not me! Watch!" and out came a bite sized morsel from the marshmallow flesh. The Matter Manipulator's living chair watched on sadly, and it watched the powder raining across the floor. "Anyone want a taste?" said Fatso, pointing to those parts of himself he couldn't reach, but there were no takers.

Of course the freak show was not everyone's cup of tea, but few wanted to pass on the clown show. Their tent was packed, with Jamie backstage watching from close quarters, as he'd be performing on the next show day, or so he'd been told. Deeby was nowhere to be seen—Gonko had made it murderously clear to all that Deeby was allowed to meet and greet the tricks, and twist a few balloons into shapes, but no more than that.

Doopy and Goshy had been told they owed some bang-up clowning, and they delivered. Laughter filled the tent as the pair of them played husband and wife in the delivery room with Gonko in the role of the clumsy doctor. Goshy, the expectant mother, staring about in bewilderment as Gonko produced a hatchet and made all manner of chopping, sawing noises beneath the sheet between Goshy's legs. Rufshod the nurse played a relatively straight role, though he set the sheet on fire right before Gonko emerged with a flowerpot. The baby Goshy thrashed around in actual fright, squealing "Help, help!" Though he was the father, Doopy breastfed it from his bicep which somehow squirted milk all over the place.

Following that, Gonko did some corny hat-falls-off-and can't-be-put-back-on gags (with all manner of objects falling from the hat) while he pretended to run for president, miming a speech to the others, his constituents. Each of them responded to misinterpreted commands in Gonko's wild gestures. The eventual result was a riot among the clowns, with Rufshod trampled half to death . . . to be revived by Gonko the clumsy surgeon, who whipped back on his white coat and stethoscope but (comically) could not bring himself to do mouth-to-mouth. Doopy did it instead, and there followed a parody of a movie romance scene: the lights dimming, sexy saxophone music playing, lunging and thrusting under a sheet, and the same baby Goshy was pushed shyly out, crying again "Help, help!"

The crowd loved it. They loved the Goshy-diving-into-a-glass grand finale, the realistic way he plummeted down from a three foot step ladder to crack the glass with his sternum, the way the blood gushed out, and the clown's kettle noises of distress. "Hmmm! Mmmm!" beseeching the front row for help.

And Gonko the clumsy surgeon reappeared, ready to operate . . . but he froze, growled, anger standing the cords out in his neck. To his, and Jamie's consternation, Deeby picked that moment to make his way through the crowd and up onto the stage.

"Get out," Gonko hissed at him.

The other clowns peered, perplexed as Deeby cleared his throat. "Your attention please. We're all enjoying tonight's antics. But there's one thing no one should laugh at: pollution."

"Oh my God," Gonko said. He went to Rufshod, whispered an order, and Rufshod dashed out of the tent.

"Did you know that discarded cigarette butts end up in our waterways and are mistaken by fish and even dolphins as food?" Deeby went on earnestly. "Did you know that plastic six-pack rings can choke turtles and inhibit their growth? While these clowns may recycle their jokes, you can bet they also recycle their plastic. You do the same! And please, please don't litter."

The timing of this worked out pretty well, in the end. Rufshod came back with a large aluminium garbage can from just outside, handed it to Gonko, who now tipped the lot over Deeby's head, spilling uncounted weeks' worth of filth, food wrappers, old fish bones, and reeking garbage water. He jammed the can down in one brutal motion, splitting the bottom so Deeby's head burst through it. The crowd—who'd not known at all what to make of the pollution speech—laughed like it was all a planned gag, and some of the murder went out of Gonko's eyes.

Some, but not all. He rolled the garbage can off the stage and outside, gesturing for the other clowns to clear the tricks out of the show tent to make way for the next batch; judging by the thick carpet of sparkling dust over the floor, this crowd had been harvested for all they were worth. He rolled Deeby towards the river. Jamie ran out after them.

"I don't appreciate this," Deeby said. "Just because we have different ideas about the true purpose of comedy. Emerald is totally going to hate this garbage smell."

"If that's the worst thing happens to you today, you be grateful, chumbo," said Gonko as they reached the riverbank.

"Real comedy makes people think," Deeby said. "Your act was superficial and needed some social commentary. I gave it much needed depth."

"Uh huh, you just keep right on talking, pal."

"When my hands get free, bro, it's on. You and me."

"Oh, it's on all right," said Gonko. The garbage can rolled into the river. Gonko stood on its side, balancing like a surfer as Deeby thrashed beneath the surface. "What say now, professor?" said Gonko. "Glug glug glug?"

"Gonko, come on, get off him," Jamie said nervously.

"Sure, pal, just give me a quarter hour, and I'll be right off."

"I mean it, Gonko, you're going to kill him."

"That's the plan."

"Come on, maybe he shouldn't have gone onstage but they laughed when you threw the trash on him. It worked out all right."

"You liked that improv, eh? Watch and learn, young Jamie. This gag is called Drowning Some Fucker."

"Gonko, get off him."

Air bubbles popped on the water's surface. Deeby thrashed hard for a little while then went still. Jamie ran forward and threw himself at Gonko, knocking him deeper into the river. The bin tilted. Deeby's head broke the surface, and he gasped hard. The face paint had begun to run off his face.

Gonko burst through the water's surface with an axe in hand. "There are some things you need to learn vis-à-vis the whole interfering-with-clown-chain-of-command thing," he said, raising the axe.

"Hey, boss," Rufshod called from the riverbank. "Jamie's okay. Don't you remember?" He mouthed the words, good guys.

Gonko paused, considered. "I dunno, Ruf. That's getting to be a bit of a hassle, that whole deal. Frankly, this Jamie ain't exactly clowning the house down neither."

"You need to give me a chance," Jamie said, backing away. "You didn't even let me on stage tonight."

Gonko dropped the axe over his shoulder. "Well, now's your chance. Get up there and caper some, sport. This pile of puke is never again wearing the clown uniform. You got that?" He pointed to Dean, who had, in rubbing mud from the river from his face, cleared away most of the face paint by now. He coughed up river water then sat bewildered like someone who has woken up in an expected place.

"Anything you say boss," Jamie said quickly. "Just give me one minute with Dean?" Gonko wasn't listening. He strode out of the water, back toward the stage tent.

"Dean! You okay?" Jamie said. Rufshod watched them for a moment more then followed Gonko up the riverbank as a train thundered across the bridge overhead.

"Jamie," Dean said, coughing. "What the hell is going on?"

"You pissed him off, that's what. He was going to kill you. Why the hell . . . man, I told you not to go onstage! Why the hell did you get onstage? I just saved your life, do you realize that?"

"I . . ." Dean tried to think. "I wasn't myself. Something changed."

"What do you mean? Are you drunk? High?"

"I'm getting out of here, Jamie. I haven't been me these last couple of days. It's like someone else took over, and he's not afraid of these people at all. He thinks he can take any one of them on. Why? What the hell changed me?"

"I don't know. The clothes? The face paint? They make me feel a little different too, but not like what you're saying. There's magic here, Dean, some kind of magic. I don't understand it . . . but look, you can't run away. They'll find you, just like they found me. And maybe kill you. You know about them now, you see? They won't like that."

"So we're in deep shit, huh?"

"Maybe. . . I mean, they told me they're the good guys, but they don't act like it. There's something weird going on, weirder even than the crazy stuff we can see. Stay cool, okay? The clowns aren't dangerous if you don't make them angry. Stay cool, lay low, play along. At least until we know what we're really dealing with."

Dean looked at him—his face showed fear, but not only fear. Jamie also saw that he was thoroughly, righteously pissed off. He said, "And when we know what we're dealing with?"

"I don't know, Dean."

"Well, I do know. We take them out, Jamie."

•

So Jamie the clown got onstage and had his moment. He capered and clowned like his life depended on it, with a potent mix of adrenaline, fear, and face paint magic coursing through him. He shrieked like a hysterical woman when chased by Rufshod the Romantic, armed with roses and a heart-shaped chocolate box. He copped a cream pie followed by a brick pie to the face and hardly felt it. He threw, when prompted, a rolling pin at Goshy's belly, which bounced back at him and knocked him stupid. The crowd of tricks hooted, jeered, laughed. The sounds were like an ocean far away. When they cleared out, he still lay flat on his back breathing hard. The other clowns' faces popped into his field of vision above.

"He's . . . why, he's a clown, Gonko," Doopy said breathlessly. It was high praise.

Gonko's lip curled. "Then he's very lucky. You did okay, I guess." The four heads withdrew. Jamie heard in Gonko's words the unsaid: Forgiven, for now. You live to fight another day. And in Jamie's mind, it was said reluctantly.

•

When Gonko's pocket watch alarm went off, he sent word out to the ticket collectors, who'd brought their gate pieces back from the train station. "Send 'em down," Gonko told them. "Show time below."

Curls and his friends had set other gate pieces up further down the way, beneath the train bridge. Gonko and the others herded the tricks like border collies herding sheep, with just as much barking and growling. Jamie watched them go through the gate and vanish to God knew where. When the last of them was through, the dwarfs disassembled the gates.

"What's eating you, Curls?" said Gonko.

"The lice on my nuts," Curls snapped.

"You'll cheer up real pretty when we see the pay packet coming your way tonight."

In fact Curls cheered up right then and there, but was still troubled. "It's this thing with train stations," he said. "You got people in car parks, waiting to see their friend tricks come through after a train pulls in. But their friend trick is late. And he don't show up at all. And there's heaps of friend tricks maybe still there waiting and getting scared."

"So?"

"So they report 'em missing to their cop tricks, and then their friend tricks show up in the car park, few hours later, when the two shows get done with 'em. They'll know somethin' happened."

"Don't worry your curly little head. The cop tricks will look for 'em and not find squat. They'll be home late is all, and have to explain it to wife and husband tricks. Which ain't my problem nor yours. Any of these tricks notice you?"

"Didn't look like it. We know how to hide."

Jamie left them to it and observed the feverish new activity all through the tents and the grass around them. On their hands and knees, carnies crawled over every inch, picking up little glimmering shards with pinching fingers and tweezers, digging around at times for particles that had been stepped on. It was the look in their eye he found troubling . . . this stuff, according to Gonko, was a manifestation of illness, bad luck, bad karma, and whatever other problems infest a person. Those who collected it, their faces shone with hunger and greed. Buckets were filling up with the stuff. They were carried to the clown tent, each bucket's passage followed by eager eyes. In the clown tent, Rufshod scooped the stuff with a soup ladle into velvet bags, just like the one Jamie had found in his pocket "that night."

This alone didn't strike him as any more suspicious than, say, Gonko's eagerness to use violence or Goshy's creepiness. But later, when the exhausted carnies slept—and while Jamie naturally couldn't—he crept among the tents, watching, listening.

Gonko had distributed the velvet bags—three for each carny, more for certain favored individuals like Curls. All of it received with simpering gratitude, many bows of thanks. It was like a boss delivering pay—exactly like that, in fact, only more so. So why would the bad luck, bad karma, et cetera of "tricks" be the carnies' pay?

Curls himself helped answer some of this, though everyone had clearly been told not to answer any of Jamie's questions. The dwarf took a bag and a little glass beaker with him and snuck off into the park, til he was over by the gazebo, now robbed of most of its wood. There was a swing set there attached to a slide. Curls climbed to the top of the slide, looking over his shoulder many times, but seemed unable to see Jamie the clown, with the night's darkness pulled about him.

Curls tipped the powder—it wasn't clear just how much—into the beaker, lit a match with trembling hands and held the flame to the glass. The firelight lit up his twitching face, the lips smacking and licking. "I wish," he said, and mumbled the rest.

Half a minute passed and nothing seemed to happen. Then Curls seemed to see someone Jamie could not see. The dwarf stared at the empty space beside him on the platform, reached out a hand and seemed to touch someone invisible. "No, taller," Curls said. "And fatter. So fat she'd break this slide." He spread his arms wide as he could. "And she's got to have a shock of black hair on half her head. And a little red dress."

The strangest thing then happened. Curls's face lit up in a moonlit leer. Down came his pants. He threw himself horizontal and began thrusting over something invisible. What made it strange was that Curls seemed to be hovering just above the surface of the platform. Jamie squinted, going closer. For just a second—and then another—he glimpsed the outline of an obese woman with her red dress rucked up around her belly, looking down the length of her torso at the vigorously moving dwarf, whose head was level with her sternum. She patted his head, then vanished, reappeared . . .

Jamie backed away from there, replaying all of it in his mind. "Superhero clowns," he whispered. "Superhero circus. Circus magic."

"Help, help!" a thin cry came from the direction of the freak show tent. "Help help help help help!"

A chill shuddered through Jamie. Something about the baby Goshy's cry was different from the way the things normally parroted the only word Doopy had taught them. Slowly and heavily his feet carried him to the freak show door.

The head in the case watched, scowling, now and then with a mutter of "Pish posh . . . nonsense. Medical science." Fatso lay on the ground inside his makeshift cage of monkey bar parts and wood, hands over his head, face to the floor. Sobs shook his jiggling flesh. The "living chair" watched on in horror as Goshy sat on a little stool. Blood covered his face. An empty flowerpot lay strewn at his feet, the soil spilled out, as were two tiny clown shoes with glistening stumps of mangled gristle poking through.

"Help, help, help . . ." wailed the little Goshy on the small round table. Goshy's eyes were unblinking. His small square teeth looked now larger than normal as he leaned slowly closer. Clackity-clackity-clack the teeth beat together. His shoulders shuddered. "Help, help . . ." Crotch first, he bit, bit, ate. "help help!" Goshy chewed, made a contented gurgle. A gaping bleeding mess was left in the thing's crotch. Goshy began on its thrashing arms, small fast bites. Tiny bones popped and broke in his teeth. The head he ate next, ending at last the horrible pleas, then worked through the torso til all was gone but two knobs of gristle above the soil.

Goshy stayed still, shivering. The solid slab of his head dripped sweat through the blood. A confused little whistle seeped out of him, asking a question of nobody and getting no answer. With a sudden jerk of his arm he knocked the flowerpot off the table, made a whining sound as clown tears fell through the blood caking his cheeks. Then he reached to his left, picked up the last flowerpot with the last baby Goshy inside it, placed it with stiff arms on the table, leaned back and battered his teeth together.

"Help!" it began, and Jamie had to leave. He knew all he could ever have wanted now about this circus of benevolent clowns. He'd stood frozen in horror and fear, a small part of him raging and screaming to stop the obscenity, but he couldn't, couldn't set a foot closer, couldn't even look for one second more, just couldn't. He therefore could not fathom why or how he ran in there, grabbed the flowerpot from the table and sprinted away. "Help. Help?" the tiny clown said.

From back in the tent came a blistering fire alarm scream: "eeeeee! eeeeee! eeeeeee!"

Tent doors opened, shouts rang out, feet scuffed across the turf. Someone somehow mollified Goshy, guided him out of the freak show and back to his bed—Jamie heard it all from down by the river's edge, holding the flowerpot to his chest like a newborn's mother. "Help," it said, though its tone had changed—no fear now, and a smile on its little face. Help now meant thanks, Jamie supposed, and it said it over and over.

Off by the swing set and slide, Curls's little body kept on moving; his wish was not yet complete and the noise hadn't fazed him. Jamie eyed the gate pieces, now in parts, to be reassembled by Curls and his crew in a couple of hours, back at the train station. When finally the commotion died down, Jamie hid the flowerpot among some tall weeds by the river, crept silently to the gate pieces and, wincing at every chime of metal on metal, assembled the parts just as the dwarfs had done. At any moment, Gonko's hand would grab his shoulder, spin him around and lay down some "slapstick" . . . but that didn't happen. Not sure whether the task was done properly or not, or whether it mattered, he stepped through the arch . . .

And was no longer in Wiley Park.

•

Curls, sweating and somewhat worn out, but most assuredly satisfied, jumped down from the slippery slide's platform, marking the end of his "rest break." A dwarf just has to take the edge off sometimes. His pocket watch told him it was time to amble back to the train station with the gate pieces, and he felt so good he wouldn't even rouse the crew to come help him. They needed their rest; he'd had them chewing his ears off all day about the danger they were in. If George below worked out something was wrong with this batch of tricks, and put the word on the ticket collectors, they had a useful though not bulletproof excuse: Gonko forced 'em. If all remained roses up here, the extra pay was worth a little danger. The crew would come around, he knew—they sure didn't complain so loud when the velvet bags came their way.

The plan: set up station gates, get below, set up exit gates, herd out tricks, sneak back up here. Except now he saw someone else had set up the gate pieces here in the campsite. Nervously he checked the formation—if it were off by much, whoever had passed through could have ended up in the Funhouse basement, or even further afield. Hell, if they went down there, wound up in the big boss's laps, the truth would be out in quick time and they were all screwed. The settings looked okay enough—the knobs and dials were on the same setting as before.

Still, Gonko probably ought to know about this . . .

Nervously he went into the clown tent and shook Gonko's shoulder.

Gonko listened to Curls without a word. His fists shook, veins throbbed, skin reddened. He tore through the campsite to work out who was missing. Only Jamie. The bastard had gone to the showgrounds. If Jamie's gums didn't remain stapled shut while he was down there, if he blurted out so much as a hint about the secret show in the wrong company, the shit was neck deep and rising.

Sheer curiosity on Gonko's part had helped keep Jamie alive till now. Where the hell was JJ? Why was JJ's corpse buried in the showgrounds? Why did Jamie not remember them and why did the face paint not change his personality to something else? Also now in Jamie's favor was his more than decent performance onstage tonight . . . but the guy didn't quite fit in with the crew like JJ had, what with his whole Please don't kill Deeby nonsense, and Gonko scented possible trouble there. If Jamie went below and made a mess for him, it was axe time. Keep his yap shut, and maybe a loyalty test was passed. Time to find out.

Gonko rushed through the gates and back into George's show.

***