Wild Boy (2 page)

I
t had rained for two days straight and Greenwich Fair was a washout. The showmen had lined the path through the fairground with straw, but the mud seeped through, forming a squelchy bog underfoot. At least the weather had finally cleared. Steamboats jostled at Greenwich Pier, packed lifeboat-tight with boozy revelers looking to make up for lost time. Drunken crowds streamed through the park gates, whooping and cheering, leaping on shoulders, shrieking like monkeys.

All along the path, showmen laid tables and hung banners, frantic to catch the last of the day’s trade. There were peep shows, puppet shows, conjurers, and cardsharps. There were coconut games, merry-go-rounds, mesmerists, and magicians. Ventriloquists argued with evil-eyed dolls, and wine-nosed Punch squawked
“That’s the way to do it”
as he thrashed his wife with a policeman’s stick.

Between the drinking booths and the circus tent sat a dismal line of wooden caravans that were peeling with paint and propped up with poles. Garish banners hung across their sides, painted with fantastically impossible scenes — a mermaid combing her hair, a giant towering over a lighthouse, a sheep with six legs, smoking a pipe. One of the signs read
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
. Another said
EXHIBITION OF ODDITIES
. But most people called these vans freak shows. Top-hatted showmen leaned from their doors, speckling the air with spit as they called to the passing crowds.

“Have you seen Bradley Sirkis? He’s a man with three eyes and no nose.”

“She transforms from beauty to beast in front of your eyes.”

“She walks, she talks, she wiggles, she giggles.”

“He hops on the spot like a frog.”

“World’s largest!”

“World’s smallest!”

“The greatest curiosity in the world!”

Drunken eyes gazed at the banners. No one saw the small figure on top of one of the vans, or the wide green eyes that watched from above. . . .

Wild Boy lay still on the caravan roof, his heart hammering against the wooden boards. From up here he could see all the way along the path that cut through the fairground, from the park gates to the circus tent, and all the stalls and shows between. His eyes moved with incredible speed, picking out details from the bustling scene. He saw a lipstick smudge on a starched collar. He saw marks from prison irons on a wrist. A speck of paint on a stovepipe hat. A flare in a cardsharp’s nostrils that said the man was cheating. A bulge in a lady’s bonnet where something stolen was stashed. A girl playing leapfrog who —

Just then, the girl looked up and saw him.

Wild Boy flinched back, ready to dive through the hatch in the van roof if the girl screamed. But the girl
didn’t
scream. Instead, a smile rose across her spotty cheeks.

The hairs tingled all over Wild Boy’s body. Was she smiling at
him
? He shifted up and, very slowly, raised a hand in reply. But now the girl’s mouth curled into a malicious grin. She pointed at him and shrieked to her friends, “Look! Monster! Monster! I seen a hairy monster!”

Wild Boy dropped to the roof, cursing himself. Of course she wasn’t smiling at him!

In a puddle on the roof, he looked at his reflection. The girl was right; he
was
a monster. Only monsters looked like this — with dark, dirty hair all over his face, other than a thin line where it parted down the middle. The hair covered his hands too, and almost every part of his body. Thick clumps of it sprung from the sleeves of his coat, like a scarecrow bursting with straw.

“Wild Boy! Wild Boy!” a voice cried. “Hear what they say about Wild Boy! He’s the missing link between man and bear!”

Below, the showman Augustus Finch stood on the caravan steps. The scars across his face throbbed as he waggled a hand at the banner on the van — a lurid painting of a boy with glowing eyes and shredded clothes transforming into some sort of wild animal.

“Wild Boy! Wild Boy! Hear what they say about Wild Boy! He’s wild! He’s wonderful! He’s one of a kind! This way, ladies and gentlemen! You won’t see a more revolting freak at this fairground or any other, or your penny back — guaranteed!”

Wild Boy sighed. That was his cue.

As he turned to the hatch in the roof, he looked again down the path. The gang of girls had gone, laughing and leapfrogging toward the circus. Then, as he watched, the girl who had screamed at him tripped and fell face-forward into the mud.

A grin spread across Wild Boy’s hairy face, and the sparkle returned to his eyes. “Good,” he said.

He swung through the hatch and into the van. It was showtime.

T
he caravan air was thick with the stench of sweat and rotting wood.

Wild Boy hung by hairy fingertips from the hatch in the roof, his bare feet groping for the ladder on the wall. Not finding it, he let go and landed with a
thud
that shuddered the van and made the ceiling lamp sway on its hook.

“Caught you!” a voice said.

Wild Boy whirled around, fearing it was Finch. But it was just the showman’s assistant, Sir Oswald Farley.

“Master Wild,” Sir Oswald said. “Mr. Finch would not be pleased were he to catch you sneaking around outside.”

Wild Boy grinned. He’d lived with Sir Oswald for three years but still found it funny to hear his posh voice. “The old goat’s gotta catch me first,” he said.

Sir Oswald muttered something disapproving as he helped Wild Boy up with one hand, his other pressed hard against the floor. Sir Oswald had no legs. Instead he got about on his hands, which were as tough and leathery as his wrinkled old face. But, despite his disability, he always looked immaculate in his tailcoat, top hat, and tie. There wasn’t a speck of dirt on his face, a rare achievement in a place as filthy as a traveling fair.

“I wish you would not take such risks,” he fussed.

It
was
a risk, Wild Boy knew — Augustus Finch didn’t allow him to go outside between shows. But it was worth it. The less time he spent in this van, the better. He didn’t mind the smell or the constant cold, or even the rainwater that leaked through wormholes in the roof. It was the stage that he hated — the upturned crates, and the tatty red cloth for a curtain. Propped beside them against the wall was a rusty camp bed with a strip of cloth hung between its legs. Its painted slogan read
DEEP IN THE JUNGLE TERROR AWAITS!

Sir Oswald rushed to the stage, his strong upper body swinging between his hands as his coattails dragged behind him along the floor. He hoisted himself onto the crates and hid behind the curtain. “Quickly, Master Wild,” he said.

Wild Boy hesitated, glancing up at the hatch in the roof. He wished that he could climb back outside and hide there all day, watching the crowds. He wished he could do anything other than this; the sort of things that normal people did. It was the same dream he had before every show, but he knew it was just a cruel fantasy. He wasn’t normal, he was a freak. This was where he belonged.

“Just get on with it,” he whispered.

He rushed to the stage and joined Sir Oswald behind the curtain.

Getting ready didn’t take long. Apart from his breeches, Wild Boy wore only one item of clothing — a long, red drummer-boy’s coat with gold tassels, which he’d stolen from a marching band last year. For the show, he simply unbuttoned it so the audience could see more of the hair all over his body.

“Master Wild!” Sir Oswald said. “Look at this hair! Such a state. All this dirt and mud. . . . And is that horse dung? Don’t you ever wash?”

It
was
horse dung, Wild Boy knew, and he never washed. Partly because there wasn’t much opportunity — clean water was rare at most sites where the traveling fair pitched. But, more than that, he didn’t think there was much point.

“Why bother?” he said.

“Why bother? Manners for a start, young man.”

“Monsters don’t have manners,” Wild Boy said, with a grin.

“Monsters indeed,” Sir Oswald said, brushing the long, tangled hair on Wild Boy’s chest.

Wild Boy stepped suddenly back. A bolt of anger shot through him, and his hands curled into fists. “Don’t touch me!” he snapped.

Sir Oswald slid away, staring at the marks he’d seen on the pallid skin beneath Wild Boy’s hair — old scars from the workhouse master’s belt, and from all his fights there with the other boys.

Wild Boy messed his hair up again, hiding the marks. He hadn’t meant to shout at Sir Oswald. He just didn’t like being touched, and those scars were the reason. Dark memories came creeping from the place at the back of his mind where he kept them hidden. But he forced them back again and sniffed.

“They ain’t nothing,” he said.

Sir Oswald looked at him, the wrinkles on his face easing away. “Master Wild,” he said softly, “I apologize.”

“They ain’t nothing, Sir Oswald. Besides, I’m a monster, remember?”

Sir Oswald smiled although his eyes stayed sad. Wild Boy could tell that his friend wanted to ask more about the scars and his past life in the workhouse. But it wasn’t a subject that he wanted to speak about. He
couldn’t.

Eager to change the subject, he forced a smile of his own and stepped closer. “You say I ain’t a monster, eh? How about this, then . . . ?”

Alarm flashed across Sir Oswald’s face. “No, Master Wild! Don’t —”

Grabbing him under the armpits, Wild Boy lifted him into the air. “Raaaa!” he joked. “I’m a savage monster! I’m half boy, half bear, and half wolf an’ all! I already ate your legs and now I’ll have the rest of you!”

Sir Oswald wriggled in his grasp, trying to fight a grin. “Master Wild, if you do not unhand me this instant I shall be forced to clip your ear.”

Wild Boy set him carefully back on the stage. He knew that Sir Oswald wasn’t really angry. His friend understood what it was like to look different from other people. Years ago Sir Oswald had been the star of Finch’s freak show. Billed as “Little Lord Handyman,” he’d performed tricks on his hands as he told stories of how he’d lost his legs at the Battle of Waterloo. But since then people had lost their appetite for heroes. Now they had a taste for monsters.

Sir Oswald looked through a hole in the stage curtain. “Here they come,” he warned.

The caravan door opened and Augustus Finch led an audience inside. The showman moved among them, listening to their coins clink into his tin. Six clinks. Finch’s face cracked into a satisfied sneer. He slicked back his greasy black and white hair to show off his collection of scars.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began. “The tale I’m about to tell is truly shocking. . . .”

No, it ain’t,
Wild Boy thought. The only shocking thing was how long Finch had been telling it. The showman gave the same patter before every show, a tale about the “creature Wild Boy,” who was raised in a forest by bears. But Wild Boy didn’t mind the story — after all, it sounded like a nicer way to grow up than in his old workhouse. And besides, it gave him a few minutes to spy on the audience.

He peered through the curtain hole, his sharp eyes taking in every detail.

“See anything interesting?” Sir Oswald whispered.

“Don’t see nothing,” Wild Boy said.

“Poppycock! You see
everything,
Master Wild.”