Mister Boots (12 page)

I didn't do one bad thing—not one single thing. I took care of the doves and the rabbits. I led Boots in just like he said to. Then I was just sitting there reading before getting into bed and at the same time rolling two bits along my fingers, exactly like I'm supposed to do.

I don't cry out. What's the use? I just squeak a little.

He's mad about all the other times when Mister Boots wouldn't let him whip me, though I think he's mainly mad about Boots.

He talks all through it. “Turn over a . . .”
Whip
. “. . . new leaf.”
Whip
. “Make a man.”
Whip.
“
Man
!”
Whip.
“And hand over that pistol the minute we get back.”

“It's back home.”

“I don't believe it.”

(I wish I could throw fire anytime I feel like it.)

But after a few minutes I start to float above everything, as if I'm watching us down here. It's as if I can see better than I really can: a skinny naked girl (I see that she's a girl just as clear as could be) and a fat man. At first I think I really have turned into a bird, like Jocelyn says I did, but I don't go flying off anywhere, and pretty soon I come back down to myself, which is a big disappointment.

I remember putting my clothes back on and then getting carried, and getting laid on my bed. Gently. I even think he kissed my forehead.

Later here's Jocelyn and Mister Boots sitting by my bed, Boots's arm across her shoulders and my sister's arm around his waist. They're not noticing me at all.

I see I'm in my boy's striped pajamas, but my sister must have undressed me because things seem to be the same. Jocelyn is saying, “Why don't you want to?” and Boots is saying, “Human beings don't do it like that. I'm trying to be one of the good ones.”

“Stay Moonlight Blue. I never met a man I liked . . . even a little bit.”

I ache all over, and I want somebody to know it. “Hey,” I yell, loud enough to make them jump.

Jocelyn gets me water, but when she tries to help me drink, I yell a big “Ouch!” I hurt some, but not as much as I'm pretending.

My sister leans her head next to mine and starts to cry. Mister Boots nibbles at her neck. She turns around to kiss him. I have to yell ouch again to get them to pay attention. Jocelyn raises me up and I drink, and then she goes to get me broth and crackers.

We're in a hotel. Our father said not a very good one. I don't know why he says that because, though the rooms are small, they're nicer than back home and the beds are not so lumpy and the bathroom is good.

I tell Mister Boots I was scared but I didn't change into anything. “I wanted to fly away, but I couldn't do it. I did float up a little bit, but just a few feet, and then I came right back down. I wanted to turn owl and fly off silently in the dark like they do.”

“Human being is better.”

(When it comes right down to it, if I'm going to change to anything else at all, it ought to be to a boy.)

 

 

The next day I'm really and truly sick—shaky and feverish and wobbly. I don't know why our father whipped me when he's supposed to only do things for the good of the show. But, just like he always complains about
me
, I don't think he was thinking at all.

Thank goodness our father is staying away from us. I get to sit with my sister and go on trying to learn to knit. By now I'm getting good at that, too, just like I'm good at everything else. The scarf for Boots is a little lumpy at the beginning but it's getting better all the time. It'll look good on him when he wears his red sweater. And Jocelyn is knitting a sweater for me the same color as this scarf. “Moonlight navy blue,” we call it.

Mostly we don't talk much, and I get to have her read to me. I'm hoping I stay sick a long time. I don't know where she got the money, but on her own, she buys
Anne of Green Gables
, which is a girl's book, and which we'd better not let our father see. He bought a couple of books for me about heroes: baseball heroes, football heroes, army heroes. . . . My sister doesn't want to read those to me. She thinks things have gone too far already.

Our father keeping away from us is a nice rest. He'd probably tell me not to slouch even in bed. He'd say, “Lie straight like a soldier, and keep your toes pointed up.”

He goes onstage by himself, but everybody's heard about me and they all want me. Jocelyn was there, and she said they yelled not only for me but for “the magic horse.” They think they're cheated unless they get everything that's on the poster. Our father had to get out his old posters, where there's only him. But some of those old posters have a woman on them with fuzzy red hair, and she's dressed in pink with puffed sleeves just like I am, except you can practically see her whole chest.

As soon as I'm a little better our father hires a wagon and a motorcar and takes us out to a tenting place. I slouch all the way, and he doesn't say a single word. I slouch so much I don't even like it myself because I can't see out the window. Not only that, I have to slouch sideways because my bottom still hurts.

This is a funny kind of place. It's full of people like us—all kinds of show people. I like it. I wouldn't mind living here forever. You can hear the creek from our tents. There are big cottonwoods, and you can hear the wind blowing through them. But Jocelyn doesn't like it. I admit it looks kind of ragged. Away from the trees, people have old blankets strung up so as to make more shade. The whole place looks like a bunch of laundry hanging out, and half of it
is
laundry.

Our father is still, mostly, staying away from us. Jocelyn says he told her what he wants me to do. Besides an orange every day, he wants me out in the sun every afternoon for my health, bare to the waist, half an hour front and half an hour back, no more and no less, and I have to have my eyes covered. But because of my whip marks, I'm supposed to do this between the big tent and the middle-sized one, toward the back, and Jocelyn is supposed to sit out in front and keep people away. There's bushes that hide me from the back.

Every now and then I catch a glimpse of our father. He's easy to spot because he wears his turban all the time. Out here he wears it even when he isn't onstage, though he never did that before. Lots of people go around in funny hats or parts of costumes. (There's a clown who wears his big red nose all the time, though the rest of his clothes are just regular.)

We'll have to be careful with Boots here because there's a little pasture with the animals that belong to the people of the camp. Of course horses, but goats and sheep . . . all sorts of things. We don't want Boots to let things go free. We'll get kicked out if that happens and people find out it was us. Besides, a lot of these are performing animals—there's a horse that can count. (That's a lie, like most things around here.) There's a lot of little dogs here that can do all sorts of tricks. When I'm not soaking up sunshine, I watch them get trained. Boots watches, too. At first he worried about them, but then he saw they were having fun.

Jocelyn is worried because some of these people are kind of dark and look to her like gypsies, but Mister Boots says, “I'm a flea-bit gray.”

Later Jocelyn asked me, What did I think he meant by that?

 

 

A brown person does come—a girl about my age. First she hides at the back, where the bushes are, and watches me when I'm roasting myself in the afternoon sun. First I hear her. I uncover my eyes, but I don't see anybody. Then she creeps out and I put my finger to my lips so she won't make a noise. Jocelyn might hear and make her go away.

“Can we whisper?”

“Come closer then.”

First thing she says is she got whipped, too.

“Everybody gets whipped.” I say that, though I never got whipped except when our father was around.

“It's always for my own good,” she says.

“I get whipped for things I didn't even do.”

“Not me. I do lots of bad things, and they don't always find out. Except mostly I didn't know they were bad till after. But sometimes, like if I drop something, I do them by mistake.”

“Grown-ups drop things all the time, and nobody whomps them even when they break something or spill things.”

“I know that.”

“I know you know that.”

“I
know
!”

She sits for a while looking at my back, and I go on soaking up sunshine like our father wants me to do.

Then she asks . . .
the
question, “Are you a boy or a girl?”

“Which do you think?”

“Sometimes I think one and sometimes I think the other.”

“Have you been watching me?”

“I could find out which you are right now—in half a minute.”

I grab myself with both hands so she can't.

“Just wait. I'll get a chance later.”

“You won't. I'm fast. Besides, I'm magic.”

“I could find out by your name.”

“It's Bobby. That's for both girls and boys.”

“I'm Rosie. You can't make that into a boy's name.”

“I'm a boy.”

“You're not.”

“I am, too.”

“Prove it.”

(I'll bet she'd jump if I threw fire. I'll bet she'd jump if I shot my pistol.)

“I'm ten.” She says it like she's proud of it.

“That's nothing; I am, too.”

Then I see that Jocelyn knows she's here, but she isn't doing anything about it. That's a relief. I should have known she'd be on my side.

I don't care at all that Rosie is one of the brownish people. Besides, they're not gypsies. She's from Mexico, and she says everybody's brown down there. I like her color better than mine. She says her father is a circus-horse trainer. She says Mexicans are the best. Only the Shoshone are better at it.

Rosie says they say if you can kiss your elbow you can turn into a boy. We both try. I tell her, “Just because I'm trying doesn't mean I'm a girl. What if I'm a boy that wants to be a girl? What if it would work that way, too?”

Even though one of my elbows is crooked, and even though I try really hard, I can't do it.

 

 

Lying here before Rosie came, I'd already done just about all the thinking I could think of to think, but then, after Rosie, I have a new thought. I think one of these days I'm going to go out as a girl. Rosie and I could go out together. Rosie is just about my size. She only has two dresses, and they're awfully dirty and ragged, but I never did mind dirt like Jocelyn does.

I don't ever want to leave this place. It's much better than a hotel, and the people are fun. Rosie and I see each other every day. We found a secret place where we made a whole village. We used sticks for people and we made houses out of stones and we made roads. The only real thing we have is one old lead soldier Rosie found. It's the hero. We take turns with it. Till now I hardly knew there was such a thing as this kind of playing.

The summer is beginning to be hot, but here by the creek and under these big trees it's cooler. I keep pretending I'm worse off than I really am. I yell ouch even when I'm not hurting. Jocelyn knows that, but she's pretending I'm worse off than I am, too. She likes it because our father keeps away a lot. I especially like it because I've found my first friend who's my own age.

 

 

Our father is thinking about a clown suit for Mister Boots. Jocelyn is supposed to sew it up, but she's not sure if she should or not. She thinks our father is doing it on purpose to humiliate Boots. She's upset that Boots isn't upset about it. He's supposed to lope onstage on a hobbyhorse.