Ghost Boy (22 page)

He was sure she would come with his breakfast. She would carry a tray covered with plates, and they would have the picnic they'd missed before. But the bales of straw vanished into the elephant's mouths and she still didn't come. He wondered if she was angry at him, and then if she even knew he wasn't supposed to leave the elephants. He wondered if she was waiting for him, looking around the tent, thinking—maybe—that
he
was mad at
her.

Harold got up and paced back and forth. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure Flip was waiting for him. He decided he'd better go for his breakfast, and paced a bit that way. But then he looked at Conrad and thought of Mr. Hunter. And he sat down again and waited.

The children came in groups. They stood and stared at the elephants. They stood and stared at Harold.

He pretended not to see them. He turned his back toward them but blushed at every laugh and shout, not sure if they were talking about him or the roses. So he got up and sat in the tent instead. He picked at straws, chewing stems, poking them into his mouth. Once, out of boredom, he poked one into his ear. And there he sat, with a straw sticking out of his head, when Flip finally came.

He heard her laugh and twirled around.

“What are you
doing?
” she asked. “You look like a monkey sitting in here. And Conrad's still got his harness on. Harold, why are you
sitting
here?”

“I was waiting for you,” he said.

“Why?” she asked again, frowning.

Because I love you,
he wanted to say. But he only blushed and said, “I don't know,” and thought he sounded very stupid.

“You should be practicing,” she said. “Do you know how close we are to Salem? Didn't you see the mountains?”

“No,” he said.

She took him out and showed him. The two of them stood at the tent's front door, looking across the field. The sun was nearly overhead already.

“Look,” she said, and pointed.

He put his hands up to his glasses. He held them like binoculars, squinting through the little cracks between his fingers. And he saw the mountains in the distance, a smudge of blue against the sky. They were small, pale, blurry mountains, but they seemed magnificent to Harold. Just looking at them made him feel tiny and huge, sad and happy all at once. It was something like the way he'd felt the first time he saw a Christmas tree, or the day a Flying Fortress thundered over the prairie, right above him, so low he might have touched it. He wanted to shout out loud, and he wanted to whisper too; he'd never seen a thing so wonderful.

“Is that Oregon there?” he asked.

“On the other side it is.”

He sighed. “Gosh, they're beautiful mountains.”

“Oh, never
mind
the mountains.” She pulled his hands down from his eyes. “Can't you see how close we are to Salem? Aren't you worried that the roses won't be ready?”

“They will,” he said. “You bet they will.”

“I don't see how, if you're sitting here stuffing your head full of straw.”

“Why are you angry?” he asked.

“Because you're not
listening
. And I don't think the roses are going to be ready.”

“S-sure they will,” he said, stammering.

“Then you'd better get to work,” she said. “You'd better get your bat and ball and work and work and work.”

“But I never had breakfast.” His eyes were starting to jiggle. The mountains shimmered like blue fire, and he had to turn his head to see her. “And I'm not supposed to leave the elephants. Not even for a minute. That's what Mr. Hunter said.”

“Oh, Harold, that's not what he
meant,
not every single second. You take everything so word for word.”

He looked down at his boots.

“Well, go ahead,” she said. “Get something to eat, and I'll take the harness off. But then you'd better get to work, 'cause you've let half the day go by.”

“Gosh, I'm doing my best,” he said.

“I know that, Harold.”

Then he bit his lip and added softly, “And I don't think you should be telling me what to do.”

“Then think for yourself,” she said. “You're not a kid anymore, you know.”

He sure felt like a kid. He felt like a stupid little kid as he walked by himself to the cook tent. Just two days ago he'd been so happy. He could remember it exactly, how Flip had danced him around in the river when Conrad learned to pitch. But then everything had fallen apart, and he couldn't get it back together. He didn't know
how
to put it back like that.

And then the mountains. He glared at them for a moment. He'd looked forward so much to seeing them, but Flip had hardly let him look. He had to
work,
she'd said. He had to
work, work, work
. If he didn't know better, he thought, he might imagine she cared more about that than she did about him.

His boot dislodged a stone. He stumbled on it, then stopped to kick it away. It skittered ahead across the field.

He felt cheated about the mountains.
There's nothing better than seeing the mountains when all you've seen is prairie,
Tina had told him. And he remembered driving along with her and Samuel, thinking that the first hills he'd seen were mountains.
When you see the mountains you'll know it,
she'd said.
And, say, you know what we'll do? We'll stop and have a party. We'll stop in the middle of the road if we have to, and—jeepers, creepers!—we'll have ourselves a party.

Yeah, he was having a party all right. Going all by himself to the cook tent.

He booted the stone again, and it bounced along on his path. He almost hoped Tina would be at the tent. But then so would Samuel, and he wasn't sure he could talk to Samuel anymore. And that made him sad; he would have liked a geezer-squeezer. He would have loved a geezer-squeezer, but he couldn't see it ever happening again. Those days when Samuel would fold him in his huge arms seemed as distant as Liberty.

He caught up to the stone and gave it another kick. He kicked it all the way to the big tent with its open door and the wisp of smoke at its roof. And he went in and ate his breakfast, though it was only him and Wicks in there.

Harold sat in his usual seat, and the cook hollered at him from the counter. “There was someone asking after you.”

“Flip?” said Harold.

“No.” Wicks barked his mean laugh. “The Cannibal King.”

Harold looked up. He hadn't thought the King even knew he existed.

“He asked if you were coming for breakfast. I told him you don't sit with the freaks anymore.” Wicks came around the counter. He was eating bacon from a bunch of rashers that he held like flowers in his fist. “He got mad.”

“He did?”

“He said, ‘I'm not a freak, I'm the Cannibal King.' I thought he'd tear up the joint, that's how angry he was. The way I see it, and no offense, anyone who'd eat with Samuel and Wallo has got to be a freak.” Wicks took another bite of bacon. “So, anyway, he wants to see you.”

“Why?” asked Harold.

Wicks shrugged. “He's seen you walking around; he wants to meet you.”

“When?”

“Anytime,” said Wicks.

Harold pushed his breakfast away. He stood and stepped over the bench.

“You going now?” asked Wicks.

“I guess so.”

The cook nodded. “Good idea. Get him when he's just finished eating.”

Chapter

43

T
he door was shut on the painted trailer, and Harold couldn't find it at first. He felt his way down the wall, his hands sweeping over the picture as though pushing aside the jungle trees. Finally he found the hinges, then the handle, and knocked in the space between them.

Nobody answered.

He knocked again. He shouted, “Hello?” Then he twisted the handle, and the door sprang open with a squeak that scared him.

There was no one there; he could see that right away. The trailer had only one room, with a tiny closet for a toilet, but its roundness was hidden by walls that made it square inside. At one end was a table with a single chair pushed against it. There was a small counter with a sink and a hot plate. And most of the rest was taken up by the bed—a big, circular bed heaped with little pillows.

The walls were covered with pictures. There was one of autumn leaves, and one of a red-coated man on a horse, but mostly they were pictures of snow: a village in the snow, a frozen stream, an icy lake ringed by white evergreens. They were huge pictures, but fuzzy, and no matter how fast Harold blinked, he couldn't make himself see them clearly.

Harold closed the door. He felt wrong just looking and didn't even think of going inside. He'd expected a palace and found only a living room. But he wasn't disappointed. It made the Cannibal King seem somehow kind and gentle.

He got his bat and ball from the Diamond T and hurried back to the elephants' tent. It pleased him to find that Flip was there. She lay faceup on the last bale of straw, sunbathing with her hands hanging over its sides, the tails of her shirt pulled up. He could see almost all of her stomach, though he was too embarrassed to look.

She brought her hand up very slowly and put it on top of her eyes. “Where were you?” she asked.

“Just eating.” He didn't want to tell her that he'd been in the Cannibal King's Airstream, but it was hard not to. He said, “Have you ever seen inside the Cannibal King's trailer?”

“Who'd want to?” she said.

He ignored that. “What do you think it's like?”

“Gee, I don't know,” she said. “Sorta scary, I guess. Sorta creepy.”

“Yeah. Full of bones,” said Harold.

She looked at him between her fingers. “Not like that. At night you hear him sometimes. He bangs on things. I don't know what, he just sits in there and bangs. Like he's got a great big drum. That's what I bet you'd see, a great big drum.”

Harold thought of the huge, round bed. Was it really a drum?

“But who cares?” She sat up, her legs swinging sideways. Harold saw the flash of skin before her shirt fell into place. Its whiteness surprised him. “So let's play baseball,” she said.

“You and me?” asked Harold.

“And the elephants, silly.”

“But
you
and me?” said Harold. “You'll stay and practice too?”

“Sure.”

She smiled at him, and Harold felt the little shiver, the squirly feeling that he'd been frightened that he'd lost.

“I was thinking,” she said. “I haven't been around you much. So let's keep going right until the matinee.”

He practiced harder with Flip there. He practiced longer, too, without the breaks he took alone. They fielded and batted; they brought buckets of water for pitching practice. Then they set up a little game, and the disappointment started.

Conrad wouldn't pitch to the batter, but only to Harold. Then the fielder wouldn't bring in the ball. He'd only carry it around and around the bases.

“I thought they learned all this,” said Flip.

“They did,” said Harold. “But not together. They can bat and field and pitch, but it's all been separate games.”

“Oh, great.” She looked toward the mountains. Now, in early afternoon, they seemed bigger and closer.

“The roses'll learn,” said Harold.

“Oh, they've just got to.”

She was still gazing at the mountains when Harold walked behind her. His hands trembled as he touched her arms—both at once—above her elbows. Then Flip shook too, as though his hands had made her tingle.

“It means so much to me,” she said.

Chapter

44

T
he matinee was over, and Harold practiced in the empty big top. He marked bases in the sawdust, the smallest diamond he'd ever made. Squeezed within the wooden blocks of the ring bank, it measured barely thirty feet from second base to home. The elephants seemed to crowd the space, but they looked enormous pressed together. It would make the game exciting.

He was practicing fielding when Flip came into the tent with a cardboard box that she put beside him on the ring bank.

“I brought you a present,” she said. “Take a look at this.”

Harold opened the flaps. He reached in and pulled out a mass of cloth and string and cardboard.

“I had the costume ladies make it,” said Flip. “They're working on the others.”

It was a baseball cap, elephant-sized, made of strips of red and white so that it looked a little like a circus tent with a big
P
on its front. Harold held the brim, and the cap draped down nearly to his knees.

“It's sort of extra extra extra extra large,” said Flip, smiling. “Do you like it?”

“It's wonderful,” said Harold. He got Conrad to kneel before him and stood on the wooden blocks of the bank to put the cap in place. It was eight times the size of a normal cap, but it seemed clownishly small on the elephant's head. And Conrad, with the strings tied under his chin, looked like a fat and clumsy child, more like Dumbo than a real elephant.

“What does the
P
stand for?” Harold asked.

Flip's head was turned away. “What do you think?”

“Pachyderms?”

“Sure. That's right. The Pachyderms.”

She stepped up on the ring bank and started walking around it. “The roses look good in here,” she said. “Let's try a game tonight, okay? A whole game, with Conrad pitching.”

“He has to work,” said Harold.

“Not tonight. We're staying until tomorrow. A two-day show.”

Harold scratched his head. “I don't think they're ready for a game.”

“But it's their last chance,” she said. “Tomorrow night we move to this place that Mr. Hunter knows. It's called Elysium, and it's a big field full of grass and trees. There's a river and lots of space for the horses to run. We spread out the big top and scrub every inch of it. We clean the trucks and everything, 'cause Salem's the next stop. We have to look good in Salem.”

“It's too soon,” said Harold.

“There's nothing you can do about it.” She looked down at him from the ring bank. “The Cannibal King's already gone. It takes him a whole day to mark the trail to Elysium.”

Harold sighed. “Then we'd better get to work.”

They practiced until the evening show, the wind blowing warm from the mountains. The elephants were learning, but not very quickly.

And the wind kept rising. At night, with the darkness split only by spotlights, the tent seemed haunted to Harold. The rigging hummed with weird whistles and whispers. The whole tent shook, and the elephants were nervous. They fumbled the ball; they rolled their eyes white when the canvas flogged in ripples, like thunder over their heads. The practice was disastrous.

Flip sat and cried. She sobbed so softly that Harold didn't know at first she was crying. He saw her slumped at the edge of the ring bank, glowing in a spotlight's circle, and thought she was only thinking.

“I wish we had another day,” he said.

Then she looked up, and her face was ragged with the tears she had shed. “Well, we
don't!
” she shouted. “And I was
crazy
to think this would ever work. Just crazy.” She banged her hands on the wooden blocks. “You don't know how to teach elephants. You didn't know what an elephant
was
just a little while ago.”

Harold blinked at her.

“I shoulda listened to Roman,” she said. “He told me you couldn't do it.”

Harold sagged on his feet.

She was nearly snarling at him. “‘I'm pretty good with animals,'” she said, shooting his own words back at him like arrows. “ ‘Maybe I could be a lion tamer.'” Then she laughed. It was an awful laugh. “How could I be so
stupid?
”

Harold sniffed. He pushed at his glasses with his fingertip. But he didn't say a word. He didn't say a single word as she got up and ran from the tent.

Conrad came over and nuzzled against him. The trunk breathed and sniffed across his chest, and he held on to it as tightly as he could.

“Can't you learn?” He tipped back his head to look at Conrad's eye. “Can't you try a little harder?”

He went back to work, just him and the elephants and the whispers of the wind. It was midnight when he took the roses to their tent, and the circus lot looked dead and empty. The wind swept dust along and rattled the tent poles. The spotlights in the big top seemed to swing across the canvas, and there was one other glow in all the dark world that Harold could see. A campfire burned at the edge of the field where Thunder Wakes Him must have bedded down. But Harold stayed with the elephants and settled among them in the straw. He slept cuddled up to Conrad, like a tiny white doll held in the elephant's trunk.

And that night the roses disappeared.

It wasn't yet dawn when Harold woke to find an empty tent. In the darkness he groped stupidly through the straw, as though he might somehow have merely overlooked seventeen tons of elephant. Then he stumbled out in his pants, pulling on a shirt, not bothering with his glasses. He shot from the tent into a pale gray glow of fading stars. The mountains were a jagged line of black.

It was easy to follow the trail of the elephants. They had smashed their way into the cook tent and emptied a sack of potatoes. They had trampled through a concession stand and drained the huge pot of water that had boiled cobs of yellow corn. From another stand they'd carried away a lemonade cooler; the whole thing had been torn from its spigot. And then they had wandered off to a corner of the field, where Harold found them as the sun came up—playing baseball by themselves.

Against the craggy, stony shadows, the elephants were big, black shapes standing in the field. They played slowly at first, almost lazily. Conrad dipped his trunk in the lemonade cooler, took the ball and pitched it out. Max Graf swung the bat and hit the ball, and Canary Bird went lumbering off to get it.

Harold watched and felt the sunlight on his back; he saw the mountains turn to red. With each pitch, Conrad shook his head and sneezed. Harold smiled to think the lemonade was tickling him. Then the pace increased, and the ball was pitched faster and batted harder, and the elephants, excited, began to trumpet.

Mr. Hunter came to watch. So did Wicks and Flip and Mr. Happy. So did the Frizzles, with their gray hair woolly from sleeping. They all stood in a row with the sun behind them, watching the enormous elephants playing a game for boys.

More people came, clowns and acrobats. The whole circus came to watch the roses, everyone but the freaks. Even the old Indian came, and he said—with tears in his eyes—that the elephants had looked like buffalo from a distance.

“Splendid,” said Mr. Hunter. “You've done it, boy. Congratulations and felicitations. A hundred—a thousand!—felicitations.”

Harold grinned. He felt hands thump him on the back. Wicks thumped him twice, then left to make breakfast, and the crowd slowly dwindled. Soon only Harold was left, but he didn't mind at all. He sat on the grass; he didn't have to practice. He sat watching and laughing as the elephants played baseball.

He didn't get up until the second bell sounded for breakfast. Then he found the tent so full of people, so busy, that he stood at the door looking in.

For some reason, no one was sitting. They stood in a huge bunch, like Canada geese on an autumn field, all talking at once. Harold squinted, letting his eyes adjust to the shadows. A face turned toward him, then another, and the tent that had shook with voices fell silent almost instantly. There was a peal of laughter, then nothing. Everyone was staring at him.

“Come in,” shouted Mr. Hunter. “Harold, don't be shy!”

Then arms lifted, holding glasses. A cheer started and rang to the top of the tent. Wicks shouted, “Harold, you're first in the line.”

And Harold felt as though cold water was pouring on his head. He was living his dream, exactly as the Gypsy Magda had said he would.