Ghost Boy (13 page)

Chapter

27

E
lephants chased Harold through his sleep on the Airstream's narrow sofa. Feet trampled around him, and he jolted awake, slamming his hand on the trailer's wall. He heard a far-off bugling that frightened him for a moment, then the rasping rumble of Samuel's snores.

He closed his eyes and felt as though he was back in Liberty. Almost every night he'd been lulled to sleep after troubling dreams by the sound of his father snoring. Then he put his hand on the metal wall and felt it shake very slightly as Samuel breathed, and he wriggled down into the cushions feeling safe and happy.

But it wasn't Samuel that he thought of, nor his father, as he drifted back to sleep. He thought of Flip, of how she'd hugged him and danced him in a circle. He could still feel her arms around him, the sparks her fingers made. And Harold the Ghost, for the first time in years, fell asleep smiling.

In the morning they went back to work, the two of them together. Flip showed him how to feed and groom the horses, how to clean the stables. But all the time it was the elephants she talked about.

“They're hard to teach, but once you've taught them something they remember it forever. They
like
to learn. Sometimes I've seen them dancing by themselves.” She laughed. “Or sorta dancing.”

She talked to him across the stables, leaning her head now and then past General Sherman to catch his eye as he worked.

“They cry, you know that? Elephants cry,” she said. “And tricky? Oh, you gotta watch them all the time, 'cause they're always up to something.”

Flip showed him how to comb the horses' manes, standing beside him as they worked on General Boggs. “Like this,” she said, and put her hand on his to show him how, her tanned fingers holding his, whiter than the horse's mane. He grinned a stupid grin, feeling giddy and sort of sick.

He loved her more than ever now. She hadn't said another word about the way he really looked, and he felt as though they shared a secret. He watched their hands moving together and thought he could spend the rest of his life combing horses with Flip. But then she said, “It's just like brushing your dog,” and that made him sad to think of Honey. His clear, pale eyes filled with tears, and he thought he had to wipe his nose but didn't want to take his hand away. And he stood there crying, thinking of Honey and then his mother, seeing them both staring out the big front window of his house.

Flip stopped brushing. “What's the matter?” she asked.

“I don't know.” He sniffed. “I feel sort of squirly inside.”

She frowned, then giggled, and that made him smile. “You know, you're kinda cute,” she said.

They combed all six horses, going from stall to stall. They brought in hay and water, and the chores were nearly done when Tina came by to tell him that breakfast was ready.

Flip was pitching hay through the open gate to General Jackson's stall. “We're not quite finished,” she said.

“But he's got to eat,” said Tina. “The kid's done a day's work already.”

“He'll eat,” said Flip. “Don't worry.”

“When?”

“With me.” Flip closed the gate. “He works with me, I guess he'll eat with me.”

“Well, okay,” said Tina. But she sounded doubtful, even sad. “And you'll make sure he gets two eggs?”

Flip laughed. “Geez, you're not his mom.”

“I wish I was,” she said.

Harold felt a twinge inside as the little princess wandered off. But it didn't last very long. He shook it off and went back to work, until the second bell rang for breakfast. Then he walked with Flip toward the cook tent and was surprised to see Mr. Hunter lining up for his breakfast like everyone else, waiting for the freaks to finish theirs. He looked so thin in his waistcoat, the watch chain looping down, that he might have been a nail that had snagged a bit of thread.

“He's the stingiest man in the world,” said Flip. She chewed on a stem of hay as she matched her steps to Harold's. “And he doesn't like to argue, so whatever he tells you, just nod and say, ‘Yes, sir.'”

Harold nodded and bumbled along beside her. And Mr. Hunter smiled to see them. He shook Harold's hand with fingers that felt like pipe cleaners. “Ah, we meet again,” he said. “I'm hearing a prodigious lot about you, son.”

Harold nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“I understand that you're practicing with the pachyderms, are you not? Batting baseballs, I believe?”

“Yes, sir,” said Harold.

“I should like to observe that. After breakfast, perhaps.” The thin fingers touched the waistcoat buttons. “Ah, the prodigies have done.”

From the tent came the bearded lady, carrying poor Wallo in her arms. Behind them walked Samuel, then Princess Minikin, then the Gypsy Magda. They passed through the door in a silent line, watched by everyone there. Harold squinted and thought—as though for the first time—that his friends were very strange, the first so huge and the second so tiny and the third so odd in her scarves and flowing shawls. He had never seen them like that, as a group from a distance, and felt a terrible happiness that he wasn't among them, that he wasn't a freak himself. Then his thought embarrassed him, and he tried to hide behind Mr. Hunter's pencil legs. But the Gypsy Magda turned her head, and her gaze went burning through the knots of people, as though it hunted for him. Her hand went up to shield her eyes from the sun, and her scarves fell in darkened folds to show the numbers on her arm. And the eyes came around and found him in the sun.

She didn't call to him; she didn't slow in her steady, jingling walk. But she watched him, and Harold was ashamed.

“Come on,” said Flip, and pulled him into the tent.

Harold got his tray and started down the counter. But the cook, too, was staring at him. He held stringy bits of bacon in a pair of metal tongs, shreds as dark as the eyebrows that made a straight line across his brow.

Harold blushed; he couldn't help it. He wondered if the cook had recognized him, if he wondered why his hair had gone from black to white.

Wicks let Mr. Hunter pass, then glared at Harold. “What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you?”

“Tell him what?” asked Mr. Hunter, turning back.

Wicks seemed suddenly startled. “Yesterday he came in with the freaks. I mean, I thought he—”

“The boy's with me,” said Mr. Hunter. “Is there a reason that he shouldn't be here?”

“No, sir,” said Wicks.

“Serve him, then.”

The cook did, but grudgingly. He picked the hardest bits of bacon and the blackest slices of toast, and plopped a mound of pale eggs on top. Then he pushed the plate across the counter.

Harold took it up. “Thank you,” he said. “It looks very good.”

He sat at the closest corner of the nearest bench, with Flip beside him and Mr. Hunter straight across.

“Tell me about this baseball scheme,” said Mr. Hunter.

Harold swallowed. He started to talk, but Flip interrupted.

“It's great,” she said. “I wasn't sure it would work at first, with only three elephants. But it only has to
look
like a game, after all, and the roses are catching on like lightning. Picture this, Mr. Hunter.” She leaned forward, her arms spreading out to make grand designs in the air. “The band is playing ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.' The spotlights swing to the entrance, and the elephants come trotting into the ring. They're wearing baseball caps and little socks. Little red socks, see. A clown carries the bats.”

Harold chewed his eggs and listened as she described the game as he had imagined it. He could almost see it, she made it so exciting. He was glad she'd spoken for him.

“But can they
play
?” said Mr. Hunter.

Harold nodded. “Yes, sir. They—”

“Well, they're not the Dodgers,” said Flip. “But I saw Max hit a ball right across the lot.” She laughed. “It put a dent in the freaks' trailer.”

“Gracious!” Mr. Hunter touched his fingers to his mouth. “Do you think it's safe? I mean, what if he were to put a dent in a child? Or in a lawyer, say?” The fingers dabbed at his lips, down to his chin. “I don't know. There's a potential there for catastrophe and litigation, don't you think? A possible parcel of perils.”

Harold shook his head. “No, sir,” he said.

“No?” Mr. Hunter touched his throat. “No, you say?” He looked surprised, as though he'd never heard the word before.

“They could use a rubber ball,” said Harold. “It wouldn't be any harder than a sponge.”

Mr. Hunter's hand, so thin, was like a cricket perching on his Adam's apple.

“No one would mind being hit by a sponge,” said Harold. “Not if an elephant did it.”

“But then they'll go trampling madly about,” said Mr. Hunter. “The elephants, I mean. They'll be rushing around in wild abandon. And
that's
a dangerous game in a crowded circus tent. That's a harbinger of hazards, Harold.”

“I guess you're right,” said Flip. She looked down at her plate, poking at the eggs. “It would sure be crowded, all right. I bet a
thousand
people would come every night to see elephants playing baseball.”

Mr. Hunter's fingers twitched against his throat. “A thousand people? That many?”

“Or more,” said Flip. “They'd come from everywhere.”

“Hmmm.” Mr. Hunter leaned back, looking up at the roof of the tent. “Does Ringling have it?”

“No one does,” said Flip. “But Harold's thinking of taking it to Barnum and Bailey.”

Harold raised his head. He hadn't thought of that at all. He looked at Flip and felt her hand, beneath the table, briefly squeeze his knee.

She smiled at him. “Harold doesn't really care where he goes. He just wants to teach elephants how to play baseball.”

“Then better it should be here,” said Mr. Hunter. He stood up and pulled his watch from his pocket. He opened the case and closed it again. “Find someone else to clean the stables, Flip. I want this boy to work with the elephants every chance he has. I want them playing baseball before we get to Salem.”

“Massachusetts?” asked Harold.

“Oregon!” said Mr. Hunter. “Son, we're going to Oregon.” Then he stepped over the bench and left the tent, swinging his watch by the chain.

Flip winked at Harold.

“You lied to him,” he said.

“Just a little bit.” She smiled coquettishly. “You have to know how to handle Mr. Hunter. The only sense of the circus he's got is
dollars
and cents.”

Chapter

28

H
arold went straight to work when breakfast was done. He laid out lines in the drying grass and carried stones from the riverbank, one at a time, to act as bases. Conrad lumbered back and forth behind him, as far as the chain would let him. But on the last trip, the elephant nudged Harold with his trunk, then took the stone that Harold lugged along and carried it himself.

Harold and Flip laid the bases just twenty feet apart and got the roses running around the circle. The ground shook from the thunder of elephants' feet, and their trumpeting brought people to watch. The band came, carrying bugles and drums. The calliope player lit a corncob pipe. The juggling clown rolled his wheel of rings across the grass and sat cross-legged, stony-faced and grim. Someone shouted at him: “Hey, Mr. Happy.” But he answered with only a sour smile.

All afternoon the people came and went. They cheered when the elephants fielded the ball, and they laughed when Canary Bird ran the bases counterclockwise by mistake. But no one laughed at Harold, no one shouted “Whitey” or “Maggot,” and as the hours passed, Harold almost forgot they were there. He watched for Samuel and Tina and the Gypsy Magda; he wished they would come, but they didn't. It seemed sad to him. They were a part of the circus, but
apart
from it too.

Harold stood on the pitcher's mound with the ball in his hand, watching the elephants practice. He heard them trumpet and saw them crash together at home plate. A roar of laughter rose from the circus people, and as it died away the clang of Wicks' dinner bell echoed from the tents.

Nobody moved. The roustabouts lounged on the slope to his left, propped on beefy arms. Mr. Happy lay flat on his back, scowling at the sky.

Harold squeezed the ball in his hand. He wondered if no one else had heard the bell, then realized they probably had.
The freaks eat first.
There wasn't any hurry.

“Throw the ball,” said Flip. She waited at home plate, holding the bat in Conrad's trunk. The huge gray mass above her jiggled in Harold's glasses, but it seemed the elephant was watching him. Everyone was.

He heard the bell again and imagined Wicks ringing it, his big belly shaking as he bashed at the rusted triangle. Somewhere among the tents Samuel and Tina were heading off to dinner; the Gypsy Magda was jingling beside them. And Harold could join them, or not.

“What's the matter?” shouted Flip.

He shrugged. He bounced the ball in his palm, the big red-and-yellow ball. Then Flip came toward him. She looked like Yogi Berra marching across the grass, her head down and her arms swinging. And everyone watched her. The little corner of the circus lot buzzed with voices.

“What's wrong with you?” she asked, coming up beside him.

She shimmered in his glasses. Conrad seemed to sway behind her as he shifted his weight on his feet.

“Huh?” she said. “You look kinda dumb just standing here, you know.”

He smiled his ghostly smile. “The dinner bell,” he said. “It's time for dinner.”

“For the
freaks,
” she said. “We've got another half an hour. Maybe more, 'cause Wicks has to scrub the table first.”

“I have to eat,” he said.

“But not with
them
.”

“Yes, I do.” He blinked. “They're my friends,” he said.

She laughed. “You like them more than me?”

“Well, no,” he said. “But …” It wasn't fair that he had to choose.

“You've got work to do,” she said. “We'll be in Salem soon, and you know what this means to Mr. Hunter. Besides—” She slithered up against him. “I thought you
liked
to eat with me.”

He smelled the soap in her hair, the sunburn on her skin. It made him dizzy to be so close to her.

“They're not
natural,
” she said, and a little shiver shook him. “You don't belong with them.”

But he did, he thought. They had brought him to the circus. Samuel had been almost like a father, Tina like a mother. If they didn't look so
strange
…

“Please stay,” said Flip. She whispered in his ear. “I hate it when you're not around.”

It felt as though something was stuck in his throat; he had to swallow hard. Her arms squeezed him. Then an elephant bugled, and all the people laughed, and Flip pulled away.

At home plate, Conrad held the bat high in the air. He tickled its end on his spine, then swept it down and tapped his toes. Leaning left, then right, he swayed his enormous head, and he looked in every way like a batter waiting for a pitch.

“Come on,” said Flip. “Let's play.”

“I can't,” he said. “I'm sorry, but I can't.”

He turned and ran. He ran in his bumbly way, up the slope in his big boots, past the roustabouts with the sun glinting on his glasses. He didn't look down at their faces, he didn't listen to their voices. And he didn't stop running until he reached the tent.

Wicks filled a bowl with thick brown stew. Harold nodded as he passed Wallo and Esther, then took his seat beside Samuel.

“Hey, kiddo,” said Tina. “We were starting to think you weren't coming.”

The Gypsy Magda looked up at him and smiled. It didn't matter to Harold that she had no teeth; it was a lovely smile, he thought.

“I am proud of you,” she said. “It must have been hard.”

“What must have been hard?” said Tina. But Harold didn't answer; he knew the Gypsy Magda understood.

“Jolly jam,” said Samuel, his little eyes gleaming. “Come on, everyone. Squeeze the little geezer.”

They wrapped him up and rocked him on the bench. And he closed his eyes and knew by touch alone who held him closest. He felt the Gypsy Magda's bracelets, Tina's tiny hands and Samuel's hairy arms. Then benches creaked and others joined him; he felt Esther's beard against his neck, and the awful hands of Wallo pressing at his ribs. They all held him so closely that he couldn't hug them back. And Harold the Ghost, his arms pinned at his sides, tilted stiffly on his seat like a small white toy, a teddy bear.

He let them pull him to the left, then push him to the right; he was very close to tears. They made him feel warm and safe but mixed up inside, that squirly feeling coming back. It wasn't right, he thought, to think of Flip and wish
she
was holding him. It wasn't right that he was glad she wasn't there to see him.

Then they moved away and went back to their dinners. Samuel's huge hands squeezed his shoulders one more time; then only Tina was left, her arms around his neck.

“You make me so happy,” she said. “I don't think I've ever been this happy in my whole life.” She squeezed him as hard as she could. “You're such a swell guy, Harold.”

He didn't feel like a swell guy. He ate without tasting his food, so quickly that he was the first to finish.

But he was the last to leave the tent. He dreaded going out in the sunshine and shuffled along behind Esther, with Wallo's strange face looking at him over her shoulder.

Harold couldn't possibly walk any slower. He let his fingers drag along the tables, his feet scuff along the ground.

“I know how you feel,” said Wallo. “It's like going into a lions' den out there, isn't it?”

Harold sighed. It was bad enough, he thought, that Flip and all the rest would see him coming from the tent among the freaks. But now they would see him talking with Wallo, the strangest of them all. They might even think they were friends.

He wondered again if the Cannibal King ate with the freaks. He wished he did, and he wished he was there. The Cannibal King would keep him safe; it would be like walking with David again.

“Head up,” said Wallo. “Nothing to fear but fear itself.” Then he passed through the door as Esther carried him out.

Harold felt the heat on his shoulders; the light made him blind. He stumbled along behind Esther, his palms suddenly sweating. But no one laughed, and no one teased him. There might have been no one there at all, for the silence. Then he looked up and saw shadows of people, only three or four shadows, and Mr. Hunter's voice called his name.

He didn't know where to look; he stopped and gazed around.

“The pachyderms are catching on. They've got the spirit of the game,” said Mr. Hunter. “What a pity—what a palpable pity—that you weren't there yourself.”

“What happened?” asked Harold. He found Mr. Hunter's gaunt shape and tried to steady his eyes.

“They performed what I believe is called a double play.”

“Gosh,” said Harold.

“No one cared to come to dinner,” said Mr. Hunter. “If you hurry, son, you might see the sight repeated.”

Harold went off at a trot, squinting against the light. He met people coming the other way, ragged groups of circus folk who laughed and stepped aside. They said, “You missed it, Harold. You should have stayed.” And they clapped him on the back as he sprinted past, on toward the elephants.

Only Flip was left when he got there. She was holding Canary Bird, her arms around his trunk. “Oh, there you are,” she said, and grinned. “Harold, I wish you'd seen it.”

“They really made a double play?” he asked.

“Who told you that?” she said.

“Mr. Hunter.”

She laughed. “He
would
. It was just an accident, really. But I think they're learning, Harold. I think they know what they're
supposed
to do.”

“What happened?” He stood beside her, stroking the elephant's trunk. It twisted between them, the tip reaching up to his shoulder.

“Max hit the ball,” she said. “He did it by himself. It went shooting out like a rocket, and Canary Bird caught it.”

Harold looked up at the elephant's eyes. “Did you?” he asked. “Did you catch it?”

“He looked kinda shocked,” said Flip. “I'm sure he didn't
mean
to catch it. And then …” She giggled. “He went staggering back and crashed into Conrad.
He
was running around the bases; you can hardly stop him now. And they hit right there at second base. A great big thud and all this dust.” Her arms went up, drawing balloons of dust. “Oh, it was great. Just so great.”

Harold smiled. He felt as though he really
had
been there; he could see it better in his mind than he would have seen it in his eyes. “I bet he did try to catch it,” he said. “I just bet he did.”

He stroked Canary Bird's trunk, up and down the bulges and the wrinkles. His hands touched Flip's, and then she leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. He had to hold on to the trunk to keep from fainting, and he barely heard Conrad's high-pitched trumpet. Then Conrad barged up between them and pried him away.

Flip laughed. She shook her finger under the elephant's enormous head. “Now, you stop that, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. You jealous thing.”

They practiced until the sun went down, then walked the elephants to a high-roofed tent of plain brown canvas. The door was enormous, and the elephants strolled right through it, into a vast circle of straw-covered ground. The roses collapsed on top of it like gray blimps with their air let out.

“I'll walk you to your tent,” said Flip.

Harold frowned. “I don't have a tent.”

“Then where do you sleep?” asked Flip.

He nodded toward the door. “In the trailer. In the Airstream.”

“With the
freaks?
” She sounded shocked.

“I don't mind,” said Harold. He thought of the little room they'd made for him and wondered why he didn't want to tell Flip about it.

She said, “You don't have to sleep with the freaks.”

“I like them,” he told her.

“Oh, so do I,” she said quickly. “They're funny freaks. That Tina, she's like a great big bug. But you don't really want to sleep there, do you?”

Harold shrugged. He hadn't imagined sleeping anywhere else.

“Gosh, I'd be afraid to even go inside that trailer.” She shivered and held herself. “What if you catch something? What if you turn all hairy like Samuel?”

He hadn't thought of that. He looked at his hands. He rubbed one on the other, as smooth and white as china. He wondered: Had his fingers always curled like that? When he straightened them, then relaxed his muscles, the fingers curled right back. Were they already turning into claws?

“You could sleep in Roman's tent,” she said. “It's empty now.”

“Who's Roman?” he asked.

“Oh, just a rigger.” She tossed up her hand, as though riggers were nothing. “He's gone with the canvas boss to have the big top fixed. He won't be back tonight.”

She took him there, to an orange tent beyond the row of trucks, at the edge of a grove of leafy trees. There was a cot inside, and nothing else, and she left him by himself.

Harold lay on his side, staring out through the open flap at a spot of yellow in the darkness, the window of the Airstream. It surprised him that the light was still on, that Samuel and Princess Minikin were sitting up so late. He remembered promising to go and see them. He couldn't remember when that was, but they were going to talk about the Cannibal King.

He rolled onto his back. He could reach up and touch the tent's low roof. Then he sighed and spilled himself out of the cot. He crawled outside and walked toward the light.

The trailer seemed empty when he got there, just the one light burning to show his way in. His bed was made; a chocolate chip cookie had been left for him on the table. Then Tina called to him from her room in the back: “Is that you, Harold?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Have you got everything you need?”

“Yes,” he said again.

“We left a cookie for you.”

“I found it,” he said.

“I love you, Harold.” There was a long pause. “Harold?”