The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin (5 page)

“What about Great-Aunt Beauregard?”

Colonel Joe cocked an eyebrow and chuckled. “Oh, I wouldn't worry 'bout her much. She'll be awfully tied down for the next couple of months.”

“So we're safe?” John asked.

Colonel Joe pondered the word.

“Depends on what you mean by safe,” he mused. “Despite what you might be thinking, I ain't got much control over the decisions of the Wayfarers. Like me, they all have their reasons for avoiding official interference. Risk their livelihoods, or cross them the wrong way, and they'll feed you to the wolves.” He grinned. “Something to bear in mind next time anyone gets to arguing about pigs.”

“Huzzah!” cried Boz as Colonel Joe limped off into the big top. “Once more we sail upon the seas of humanity!”

“Would any of them really feed us to the wolves?” John asked.

“Melodramatic twaddle,” Boz passed John the handle of the sledgehammer. “The Colonel fancies himself the lead troubadour in the magical mystery tour of life. Pay him no heed.”

With every fiber in his muscles protesting, John managed to heave the sledgehammer onto his shoulder.

“What do you think he did to Great-Aunt Beauregard?” panted John.

“I have found through a process of trial and punishment that it is best not to question the ways of Colonel Joe. But enough of the past.” Boz blew a raspberry at the rising sun. “Sound the trumpets and strike the drums, look out world, here we come!”

“L
ADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
boys and girls, kings and worms, welcome to the Wandering Wayfarers! Tonight you will be flabbergasted, gobsmacked, gin-cracked, and stupefied by the sights we are about to show. So sit straight, lean back, or lie flat and put your hands together for the one, the only, the Mimsy Twins!”

A burst of spattered applause and a hiccup greeted this announcement.

“You ready, Mabel?”

“Go, go, go!”

John pulled Page against him as the Mimsy Twins rushed past them backstage. The moth-eaten curtain billowed in the sisters' wake.

“John?” whispered Page.

“What?”

“This is even better than stories!”

It certainly was up there, John admitted to himself. How many people got to watch the circus before going to bed?

Not many. Nor were there many, he guessed, whose fortnight had been so jam-packed with activity. While the batons twirled and Priscilla sang, John went over the surprising events of the past two weeks.

To begin with, the Coggins now lived in a caravan. Sure, it was a sway-backed specimen with a creaky floor, a flight of shallow stairs, and dust to kingdom come, but it was
their very own
. There were a couple of bunks for sleeping and a couple of workbenches for props. Page was particularly fond of the ceiling, which was decorated with fading stars and planets, each one encrusted with gold paint.

“It used to belong to a diseased fortune-teller,” Boz explained to John. “It's rumored she expired with her last respire in your bunk.”

Secondly, John was building something other than coffins. Every morning he sat himself down at a workbench covered in Boz's half-sucked lollipops and waited for the onslaught:

“Dung Boy, we need a new lid on the long drop.” This from Mister Missus Hank, who refused to explain where the old one had gone.

“Dung Boy, I'd like you to make me a box where I can
hack myself in two.” This from Tiger Lil, who was practicing a new routine.

“Dung Boy, I appear to have ripped a hole in my bottom—could you mend it?” This from Gentle Giant Georgie, who was holding a pair of voluminous striped pants.

John would mend and tend and stitch until his fingers bled. His efforts weren't always a success—Alligator Dan getting wedged in a faulty trapdoor had been an unfortunate episode—but it was excitement beyond belief compared to caskets. All the pent-up streams of his imagination were busting through the dams. John's brain was being flooded with new ideas.

Thirdly, and for the first time in his life, he had a friend. Granted, this friend was about as useful as a fungus-infected cucumber when it came to work, but you can't have everything.

“Here's my theory on manual labor,” Boz told John not long after their arrival. He had sprawled himself out on a bunk and was cracking peanuts in his mouth. “It's the one truly noble profession left to mankind. What could be purer of heart than a man raising a roof above his squalling babes? A woman tilling the earth to put a hunk of buggy cabbage on the table? Or a bairn bent over double while he fashions a marionette from a collection of scraps and twigs?”

John, who was attempting to string together a puppet
for Tiger Lil, looked up through sweating eyelids and grimaced. “Then why don't you do it?”

Boz smiled and tossed a peanut at John.

“For the simple reason that I am not worthy. Since you have come, I have learned I am but a hock-fisted hack, a scrap, man's offcut, not fit to touch the tools so hallowed by sacrifice.”

To be fair to the speaker, there was some truth in these words. Even Frank was aware that whatever Boz touched turned into an immediate catastrophe. And since John found it easy enough to make mistakes on his own, it was simpler to work when Boz was nowhere to be found.

Which was quite often. Like a demented hummingbird, Boz flitted in and out of camp at every hour of the day, occasionally stumbling in at dawn singing nonsense limericks. If he wasn't doing ecstatic dance moves in his sleep, he might be painting his toenails, stealing cheese sandwiches, or monitoring thunderstorms from the apex of the big top.

He was, in a word, unpredictable.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you will direct your feet to the side of the enclosure, we have a special surprise for you!”

John was jerked out of his reverie by Page's tug on his arm. Gentle Giant Georgie was back onstage and pointing to the open flap in the tent.

“Quick, John! They're going to do Betsy!” Page whispered.

For days, Colonel Joe had been promising the Coggins they would see Boz and his partner in action. John could hardly believe it was finally going to happen.

Dashing out through the back of the big top, John and Page joined the meager crowd in the field. A U-shaped barrier had been constructed with fence posts and twine. And an ancient cannon lay dormant in the middle of the enclosure.

There was a murmur, a prodding, a flare. Into the center of the U stepped Colonel Joe, a blazing torch in his hand.

“Stand back, now, stand back! Give Betsy some room.”

The crowd shuffled closer to the barrier. John got an elbow in his appendix. Page stood on her tiptoes to see. Colonel Joe brushed the tip of the cannon with his torch and—

BOOM!

The firework exploded at the exact same time as Boz began a soaring parabola over the clover. A flaming jet trail pursued him, his hair blown back by the speed of flight. As John watched, Boz overshot the landing net with mathematical precision and disappeared behind a patch of reeds.

“Boz!” John shouted.

“Where'd he go?” asked Page.

A couple of people in the audience clapped. Four of them booed. One man got a broadside for attempting to touch the cannon.

“Nobody lays a finger on Betsy!” barked Colonel Joe.

“C'mon!” John grabbed his sister's hand. “We've got to find Boz.”

The siblings took off across the field. In John's head, he was going through all the possible fatal injuries. Broken leg. Fractured skull. Shattered ribs. By the time they'd clambered over a rickety fence, he was bracing himself to build a coffin.

Only to discover Boz emerging from a duck pond, a large frog perched contentedly on his head.

“Are you okay?” John demanded.

“Oh, right as the rain in Coltrane.” Boz shooed the frog onto a tree branch. “Merely a miscalculation on my weight-to-height ratio. I shall indulge in pâté de fois gras for a few days, and all will be right with the world.”

“What does that mean?” inquired Page.

Boz chuckled.

“It means I get to eat more. Shall we join the others?”

Together, the trio jogged back toward the tent. Colonel Joe was herding the last members of the audience back through the flaps. Some of them appeared to be trying to escape from watching the second half of the show.

“So how come the cannon didn't kill you?” asked Page.

“Kill me?” Boz laughed. “Why, there's no gunpowder left in good old Betsy.” He patted the barrel. “The Colonel had her rigged up with coiled springs when he
brought her back from the war. The incendiaries and associated works are just for show.”

Intrigued, John crouched down to examine the interior. It looked like the springs were hidden behind a metal plate. If he could just get a look at the setup, he might be able to adjust the tension and prevent Boz from overshooting . . .

“Which p-p-part of ‘don't touch' did you miss?”

John stood up. At times like this, it was very tempting to tell Alligator Dan exactly where to stick his scales.

“It's coming on ten. You two should b-b-be in b-b-bed.”

“But I want to hear Mister Missus Hank's stories about allergic chipmunks,” Page protested. “And watch Priscilla dancing the polka and see Tiger Lil make the tent pole disappear—”

“And I want to talk to Pierre about the hip bath,” John added.

“Now!”

When it comes to self-determination, there's only so much an eleven-year-old can accomplish. The Coggins went to bed.

I
T WAS WELL
they did, for the next day the circus was off again.

And the next day.

And the next.

Just as Boz had promised, the Wayfarers headed west with the summer sun. They performed on the outskirts of mill towns and in the middle of cornfields. They squatted near slag heaps from coal mines and at the feet of mountains with snow still icing the peaks. They never stopped.

Which meant that John never stopped. When he wasn't working on props, he was helping Page tear down tents or hitch up horses. Life became a constant round of coming and going.

“Idle hands make for empty bellies,” Colonel Joe noted.

For the first month, all this activity was kind of fun. If you didn't like the place you were in, you headed for another. If you couldn't tolerate the snarks of Alligator Dan or Porcine Pierre, you spent the next day learning to read palms with Mabel and Minny. Every hour was a surprise.

Yet as the days wore on, John began to notice the same things on the way out of town. The boys playing baseball. The old dogs on the stoops. The families on Sunday carriage drives. However much Boz babbled about the joys of the open road, John couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to stay still.

Then there was the little matter of Great-Aunt Beauregard. However many times Colonel Joe reassured him that she was long gone, John remained edgy. He knew that no woman born of her ilk would give up on the family legacy that easily.

In his paranoia, John skulked behind trees to scan the faces of the crowds. He asked Gentle Giant Georgie to watch out for women with dead birds in their hats. He checked over and over that Page was tucked up safe in her bunk.

But three weeks passed, four, and there was still no sign of an avenging aunt. Without meaning to, John began to think that he might have a future with the Wayfarers.

“Johnny, did you hear? I get to take care of
all
the animals now!”

It was a hot afternoon in July, and John was painting roses on a baby carriage for Frank. They were a nauseating shade of pink.

“I'm supposed to brush down the horses every morning.” Page was wheezing from her run to the caravan. “And Gentle Giant Georgie says he'll teach me how to ride one. And Mabel and Minny are going to give me some of their dresses, even though they don't have the right number of sleeves, but Mister Missus Hank said that she'd try and make them into something that would fit me.

“Oh, but I haven't told you the best thing! Look what Tiger Lil gave me!”

She dashed to her bunk and returned a minute later holding up a raggedy bear.

“What's that?” John said sarcastically.

“It's a bear, Johnny,” Page explained, missing the sneer. “It used to be Tiger Lil's. She said she was keeping it for somebody very special.” Without waiting for his reply, Page put the bear down next to him. “I'll be back. I have to go feed Priscilla.”

After Page was gone, John wondered why he had snapped at his sister. After all, it was only an old bear. He stared at the black bead of an eye for a minute.

And then he remembered.

It looked like his teddy.

The one his mother used to tuck into his bed at night. The one with the torn ear and the ribbon sewn round its
neck. Like most five-year-old boys, John couldn't sleep without his teddy. Wherever it might be—in the garden, under a bureau, hanging from a tree—he needed to have it by his side.

He had been holding his teddy the morning his parents died. He remembered clutching its paw as Great-Aunt Beauregard came barreling down the stairs. A reek of wet wool and turpentine accompanied her.

“Well, they're definitely dead,” she said. “Checked twice.”

John refused to reply. He was concentrating on the snowflakes scurrying past the window.

“Good thing you're quiet. Don't approve of chatty Cathies. Or Cathcarts.”

Still John said nothing.

“Got your sister locked and loaded. You'd better be a deft hand at diapers, young man.”

John squeezed his teddy. A fatal mistake.

“Ah. Can't have that endangering the family line,” Great-Aunt Beauregard carped, yanking the bear from John's arms. “Germs.”

And with a casual flip of her hand, she'd tossed his teddy into the living-room fire.

John put down the pink paintbrush and sighed. Over the years, he'd somehow managed to bury that particular memory. But it was only a bear, he told himself. Only a stupid old bear.

Shutting up shop for the day, John plodded down the steps. The sun was sitting low, tickling the leaves of the trees with a warm yellow. Against the white of the tent, he spotted the silhouettes of a few Wayfarers seated on a couple of benches. Moving closer, he could see Page playing patty-cake with a mother and her baby in the grass.

“Sitcha yourself down, Dung Boy,” Colonel Joe called out as John approached. Gentle Giant Georgie was counting the day's take while Alligator Dan retuned his ukulele. “You look like you've got your thinking cap on too tight. What's on your mind?”

Instead of sitting, John kicked at a tent peg. It wouldn't budge. “How come we don't play in bigger towns? There must be lots more people; we could have longer runs. At least they'd pay for their seats.”

Gentle Giant Georgie tapped his pipe thoughtfully against his knee. “That's true enough, Colonel. We don't play the big towns.”

“Then why not?” John insisted. “We could even find an old place in a city and fix it up as a theater of sorts. Then we wouldn't have to keep moving all the time.”

“What's the matter?” Alligator Dan plucked at a string. “Scared of g-g-getting b-b-blisters on your heels?”

“No,” John retorted with vigor. “It's just that I don't see the point of working this hard to entertain people if you're always going to be moving on.”

A shriek of laughter, that laughter that sounded so much like his father's, rang out. The beautiful bouncing baby had spat up green goo all over Page's shirt.

“Fail your induction, b-b-boyo, and you won't have to worry about moving at all.”

The induction! John had completely forgotten about the Wayfarers' test of his moneymaking skills.

“We've just been talking about it.” Colonel Joe plucked a wad of beeswax from his false ear and rolled it thoughtfully between his fingers. “I'm looking at the end of September for your public presentation.”

John felt the sweat spring to his forehead. September was awfully close. “Can't I keep making props?”

“Like the amazing trapdoor?”

John chewed his bottom lip. Apparently Alligator Dan was still sore about the slippery hinges.

“I can find prop boys in any town.” Colonel Joe popped the wax into his mouth. “To be a true Wayfarer, you have to make the most of your talents. Come up with something we've never seen before.”

“Like what?” John protested.

“That's for you to figure out.”

John didn't know how to respond to this. He was truly doing his best—learning new skills, fixing what was broken. Why wasn't that good enough for Colonel Joe?

“You don't have to do it,” said Alligator Dan. “You can p-p-pick up and leave anytime.”

“Though we'd hate to lose you,” Gentle Giant Georgie soothed.

“Especially,” said Colonel Joe, “when we've got a full schedule coming up.” He spread his fingers and began to count off. “There's Barnstable and the plow festival. Sissiwhack Junction and the Strawberry Girl parade. The wife and bog races at Chalkton Falls. Guntherville's election for the town cow—”

“And that's only up to the end of July,” Alligator Dan noted, yanking at one of his scales and flicking it into the dirt. “So no p-p-pressure on that induction idea.” He stood and stretched. “Time for chow. Can't decide whether I want hot dogs or b-b-beef. Tell you what.” He grinned, punching John lightly in the arm. “I'll save you some spleen.”

And with a jaunty hopping stride, Dan headed for the food wagon.

“You might want to take him up on that offer.” Colonel Joe spat out his wax and rose to follow Alligator Dan. “I've got a small job for you after dinner.”

John scowled at the retreating backs. “I bet there are lots of better ukulele players in the world.”

Gentle Giant Georgie smiled and locked up the takings box. “Never mind Dan—he finds it hard to make friends.”

“I can't understand why.”

“Well,” Georgie said, ignoring John's sarcasm, “I'll tell
you a little secret about Alligator Dan.” He dropped his voice into a theatrical whisper. “He'd give his right arm to have what you've got.”

By now the sun had sashayed below the horizon, streaking the sky with crimson and gold. As John watched, the mother picked up her burping baby and gave it a kiss on the forehead. Then she helped it wave bye-bye to Page.

“One of these days,” John said, “I'm going to make something that lasts. Not something that you have to tear down the moment you put it up. I'm going to build an induction invention that blows the scales off Alligator Dan, and you, and every single kid in Chalkton Falls.” He turned to Gentle Giant Georgie. “You think I can do it, don't you?”

But Gentle Giant Georgie had fallen asleep.