High Wire (3 page)

The rope I'd tied him up with was still attached to his collar. It trailed behind him as he ran.

He hadn't escaped by chewing through the rope, or wriggling out of it.

So, how had he gotten free?

I dropped the clubs into my gym bag. Then I hoisted Pooch under my arm, grabbed my gym bag and marched out of the ring.

In the wings, the next performers up laughed. “You got a partner for your act, Zack,” someone said.

Whitney said, “Pooch is so cute!”

“He is so going to the pound,” I muttered back.

The ringmaster stomped out of his office. His face was boiling red, the same color as his jacket. “Zachary!”

Chapter Five

Sorelli ordered me outside. There he let loose a volley of yells that could be heard clear across the city. “First you ramp up your juggling act without permission. Then you set that animal on a
rampage!
”

He made it sound like Pooch was a dangerous beast of prey. At any other moment, this would have been funny.

“I'm sorry, sir. I had him tied up.” I glanced at Pooch, who was sniffing the flaps of the mess tent.

I thought of Thelma, shepherding hens back into the coop or barking her lungs out when she scented a coyote. Unlike Pooch, Thelma had been useful.

I told Sorelli, “Sir, I never even
wanted
this dog.”

Sorelli opened his mouth for a fresh blast. Or so I assumed. Instead, the ringmaster let out a huge sigh. He glanced from Pooch to me. For a second, I thought—ninth wonder of the world—he might smile.

Sorelli said gruffly, “Well, you may not like him, but he likes
you
. Get rid of him, Zachary. The dog goes, or you go.”

He raised his voice to its regular multi-decibel pitch. “And no more funny stuff in the ring. I don't like funny.”

He stomped back into the tent.

“You're hungry,” I told Pooch shortly. “C'mon, we'll get you some grub.”

I led him out of the circus, planning to stroll up to Fourth Avenue to find a corner store.

“Hey, Zack.”

Cubby walked up to me, his red, two-foot-long clown shoes flopping. “Man, it's brutal getting bawled out by Sorelli.”

Under his painted-on smile, Cubby had a broad grin. He was enjoying himself.

Then it hit me.

“You untied Pooch,” I said.

Cubby's grin widened. “He looked so unhappy. I couldn't resist.”

Couldn't resist sabotaging my act, he meant. I was cold with rage. I felt like grabbing him by the collar and hoisting him again. Only this time, I'd break his neck.

I squelched the impulse. Just. I said, “I'm taking Pooch to the pound tomorrow.”

Cubby leaned his white-painted face with the huge, red-painted mouth close to Pooch. “So you're gonna be driving someone else crazy, huh?” He reached out a hand to pet him.

Pooch growled. He hadn't lost his dislike for Cubby.

Cubby drew back. Then he smirked at me. “Sorelli yelled at you, but he didn't kick you out. You're the teacher's pet. Everyone can tell.”

I didn't think this was worth replying to, so I started to move away.

“Wait. I got something for you.” Cubby fished in one of the deep pockets of his clown suit. He pulled out a pink leather leash with a matching collar. A large round metal medallion hung from the collar. One side of the medallion was speckled with tiny round holes.

He said, “I found this in the storage trailer. Circus Sorelli used to have a poodle act. I thought you could use it for Pooch.”

He threw the leash to me. No,
at
me. I barely grabbed the collar before the medallion clipped me in the eye.

Cubby stalked toward the trailers, his big shoes flip-flopping.

Pooch and I stared after him. What a weird guy. Giving me the leash and collar should have been a friendly gesture.

But it hadn't come off that way.

Being a Vancouver girl, Whitney knew where the SPCA was. She, Pooch and I took the bus the next morning.

Pooch stuck his head out the window, a big, panting smile on his ugly face. I was sure he thought we were heading to a park for a nice walk.

We'd got permission from Sorelli to miss the 9:00
AM
postmortem. That was where he played the
DVD
of the previous night's show and yelled at everyone.

I was still smarting from the reaming-out I'd received the night before. And this morning he'd topped it off with, “If I see that dog again, I will serve him up with mustard and relish.”

I kept hold of Pooch, who was straining to jut his head farther out the window. Dumb dog. Any farther, and he'd fall out.

I remarked to Whitney, “Sorelli rarely finds fault with you, I've noticed. That's
something
to be said for the guy.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She pulled Pooch's ears back and wagged his head for him. He panted louder and smiled wider.

Whitney shrugged. “I come from a circus family. It's in my blood. I'm used to the beam, to practicing nonstop, that's all. I've been at it for years.”

The bus ground to a stop at the crest of a big hill. The SPCA, a one-story building decorated with a mural of animals, was down the slope.

We got off, and Pooch trotted along happily. He wouldn't be so happy soon.

I didn't want to think about that, so I asked Whitney about her family.

She replied, “The circus goes way back with us. In the 1930s, my great-granddad was a farmer in Saskatchewan. The Depression wiped him out. So he joined a traveling circus. He did odd jobs: cleaning stables, taking tickets, whatever needed doing. Circuses were thriving then. No matter how bad the economy, people always grubbed pennies together to see the big show. After all, everybody loves a circus.”

There was something in her tone, a flatness that puzzled me. “And how about you?” I asked.

Whitney hesitated. “Don't get me wrong. I like the circus. But what I'd really like is to try out for the Olympic gymnasts' team.”

For a moment her face was hopeful. “I couldn't work for Sorelli anymore though. I'd have to concentrate on training.”

I thought of Sorelli, expecting his performers to practice and work out seven hours a day. That was not only during circus season, but in the months leading up to it as well.

That didn't leave room for Olympic training. It didn't leave room for anything.

Halfway down the hill, Pooch stopped and sat down. Maybe all the cars rushing by were scaring him. I carried him the rest of the way.

I said to Whitney, “Why don't you quit then?”

Whitney grimaced. “Mom doesn't want me to. She's really into her society stuff: clubs, lunches, charity benefits, parties. If I were in Olympic training, she'd have to give a lot of that up. She'd have to travel around the country with me to meets and competitions.

“Dad says if I went for the Olympic team, he'd split the travel with Mom. But…” Whitney shrugged. “Mom shuts him down. She's the boss.”

Pooch was whimpering. Now I got it. He recognized the SPCA building. It was the place Aunt Ellie had got him, the place he'd been kept in a cage.

Whitney scratched Pooch behind the ears. “What about you, Zack? You interested in a circus career?”

The image of Philippe Petit flashed into my mind. Petit wasn't much for circus performing. He liked to do things his own way. “The circus is okay for now,” I said lightly. “It beats my other option for a summer job—standing in front of my aunt's grocery store with a Buy Fresh Oranges sign.”

Whitney laughed. She was pretty when she laughed. “You're a natural on the wire, Zack. And Sorelli likes you. That says a lot.”

She was the second person to remark that the ringmaster liked me. Cubby had said it too.

But I knew Sorelli wasn't kidding about Pooch.
The dog goes, or you go
.

I thought of my chewed slippers and my ruined juggling act.

We walked inside the SPCA. At the sight of Pooch, a little girl jumped up and down like an out-of-control jack-inthe-box. “Wheee! Can I have that dog, Mommy? Can I?”

Her mom turned and smiled. It was a nice smile.

“You see, fella?” I murmured in Pooch's ear. “Everything's going to work out just fine.”

Chapter Six

“I thought you were getting rid of that dog!”

The ringmaster loomed over me. Behind him, on the other side of the big top, was the massive cartoon of him on a billboard. The effect was scary. Kind of 3-D plus.

“Uhhh.” I cleared my throat. I glanced down at Pooch. Unbothered by Sorelli, he was chewing the pink leash Cubby had given us.

“Well? Speak up, Zachary. What are you waiting for? Your old-age pension?”

“Uhhh. I tried to get rid of him, sir. Honest.”

I couldn't explain what had happened, because I didn't really understand it myself. Maybe it was the jumpy kid. She made me nervous, and she might have made Pooch nervous.

Maybe I couldn't dump Pooch off the way orphaned kids got dumped off on relatives.

Sorelli narrowed his eyes. “You
tried
to? When I give an order, you don't
try
, Zachary. You
do
.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You think Philippe Petit thought about dogs when he walked the wire between the Twin Towers?”

How did Sorelli know I idolized Petit? I had never told him. The guy was uncanny.

I gulped. “No, sir. I'm sure dogs were not on Philippe Petit's mind.”

“Exactly! And that's how it has to be in the circus. Your performance is everything.
You can have nothing else
on your mind
.”

By now the whole of the Circus Sorelli company was gathered around, watching in wide-eyed terror. The ringmaster had a track record of reducing people to tears.

“Do you understand, Zachary?”

There was a silence. I could hear the Circus Sorelli flag flapping. Everyone held their breath the way the audience did when I was on the wire. In a way, I was on a high wire right now. If I made one wrong move, I'd be out of the circus.

I looked Sorelli in the eye. I said calmly, politely, “No, sir, I don't.”

Sorelli's eyes bulged out of their sockets. He grabbed me by the elbow and marched me to his trailer.

Pooch trotted after us, still holding the pink leash in his mouth. The collar dragged behind him, bumping on the ground.

Sorelli's slam of the trailer door behind us echoed around the circus grounds.

“According to our permit, no animals.”

“But doesn't that mean
performing
animals, sir? Pooch isn't a performer. He's a pet.”

I noticed that Pooch had dropped the pink leash and collar. Now, in a corner of the trailer, he was fastening his jaw around one of Sorelli's shiny black boots. I picked him up.

“I've texted my aunt about Pooch. She'll take him when she gets back. It's just a few days, sir.”

Sorelli plunged his big hairy hand into a box of tissues. Wrenching out half of them, he wiped the sweat off his face. “Last night Pooch wriggled out of his collar and ran to you, right in the middle of your juggling act. The city inspectors hear about that, they figure he's a performer. They revoke our permit and shut us down.”

My shoulders sagged. I thought,
Sorry
,
Pooch
.
I tried
.

Sorelli pulled the remaining tissues out of the box. He mopped at a fresh outbreak of sweat on his forehead. “Besides, if I let you have a dog, every other performer and crew member will want a pet. Soon we'll be overrun with dogs, cats, lizards, birds, fish—”

“Okay, Mr. Sorelli,” I interrupted, before he could go through the entire animal kingdom. “I'll find a home for Pooch.”

“You have twenty-four hours. If the mongrel is still around, I replace you. Savvy? There's somebody else who's dying for the high-wire job.”

Cubby
, I thought. “Yes, sir.”

The ringmaster gave me a phony smile that was scarier than any of his scowls. “Do you know why I'm giving you one more chance?”

“No, sir.”

“Because I happen to like you. And Zachary?”

“Yes, sir?”

He glared at Pooch. “Get that mongrel out of my trailer!”

Whitney was waiting for Pooch and me outside. She lifted Pooch up and kissed his flabby face.

For such an ugly guy, he had all the luck.

We walked to the mess tent. We got a couple of Cokes for ourselves and filled a plastic cup with water for Pooch. Over his loud gulping, I related my conversation with Sorelli.

Whitney said, “Don't worry, Zack. If nothing else works out, he can stay with my parents till your aunt gets back.”

I wondered how keen Whitney's mom would be to have a pup dumped on her. The Boothroyds sounded well off. They probably had a pretty nice place. Pooch might chew on their Ming vases or something.

“That'd be great,” I said, not too hopefully.

“Mom will be at the show tonight. I got her a seat front row center.” Whitney laughed. “You'll probably notice her. You can't miss Mom. No matter where she goes, she's always draped in bling! She says, what's the point in owning diamonds if you don't enjoy them?”

Whitney's gaze dropped to the pink leash and collar that I'd put on the table. She turned the collar over in her hands, studying the medallion.

I glanced around. Cubby was sitting with the other clowns, two tables away. They were wolfing down burgers.

He had his back to us, but I played it safe. I lowered my voice. “Clunky collar, huh? It's a gift from Cubby. He said it was once used in a poodle act.”

Whitney cracked open the medallion to show me a couple of springs inside. “I've seen those poodle acts. You put a battery in here. Lights flash out the holes while the poodles parade around.”

“Sounds hokey to me,” I said.

“Welcome to the circus. Nothing is too hokey.” She lowered her voice too. “Strange gift though.”