The Daring Escape of Beatrice and Peabody (4 page)

The heat soars and we head to Vermont – Barre and Montpelier and then Burlington. We find swimming holes everywhere we go.

One morning a new man is standing next to Ellis before we even open. His eyes are flying over Pauline. Pauline takes one look and grabs my shoulder and pulls me toward the hot dog cart. She starts the grill and throws hot dogs on. I peel an onion.

Before I get it chopped, there is Ellis bringing the new man over. He is tall and dark and looks like Cary Grant in a cowboy hat. I pull my hair tight.

They walk up to the cart and watch us for a minute. Ellis keeps his hat pulled low. I feel like a sausage getting looked over. I am pulling my hair so tight over my diamond my head hurts. This is not an easy thing to do when you are chopping onions. It means you chop with one hand. It also means you are slow. Ellis notices things like this, so I hold my hair down with my chin and chop faster.

‘This is Arthur,’ he tells Pauline. ‘He needs to learn the ropes. I want you to show him around.’

The new man tips his cowboy hat at Pauline. She
smiles and Ellis points to me. ‘You can run things.’

I stop chopping. ‘But I can’t do all this by myself – not all the onions and all the hot dogs and all the sauerkraut and all the popcorn and pink lemonade, not without Pauline.’

Ellis raises the brim of his hat and I imagine the snakes under there. I think they are black as oil. ‘Did you hear me? I said get to work. Or does that thing on your face affect your hearing, too?’ He looks at Pauline. ‘You know, I think it’s about time she stood in the look-see booth and started earning her keep.’

Pauline shudders from the terrible things Ellis says. Already the trembling in my legs has begun. Pauline puts down her spatula and steps closer to me.

‘Bee’s too little to have folks gawking like that.’ I feel Pauline shiver through her apron. ‘She wouldn’t earn you any money if she cried all the time she was standing in your look-see booth.’

Ellis chews on this for a moment and then grins at Pauline. ‘Okay, but I won’t wait forever.’ He reaches out to touch my diamond, drooling over when I am grown, but I turn away and wrap myself like a vine all around Pauline and bury my face in her apple-blossom hair.

‘I didn’t say you could show Arthur around tomorrow,’ he growls. ‘I want you to show him around
NOW
.’ He points at me. ‘And stop holding your hair like that. Folks like to look. For such a little girl, you sure can draw a
crowd.’ This time he laughs. Pauline sucks in her breath.

Arthur sweeps his eyes over my face and stops at my diamond. An overstuffed lady with two girls in pink headbands walks up wanting something to eat. I step toward Pauline, but already Ellis is pulling off her apron and throwing it on the counter. Then he is leading her away.

All day I have to fry hot dogs while Pauline shows Arthur around. I burn my fingers over and over because I am not paying attention to hot dogs. I am holding my hair over my cheek and watching what Pauline is doing.

She stops at each game – the Hoop-La and the Penny Pitch and the Museum of Mystery, where Eldora does her divining. Then Pauline shows Arthur the
merry-go-round
. I see them meeting up with Silas Meany the Man Without a Stomach who sucks his breath in so far it looks like he was born without a belly and Theodore the Cripple whose leg is twisted and thin as a pencil from polio and Fat Man Sam who tells everybody he is twice the size he was when he finished school. He can’t squish himself into the Ferris wheel seats any more. I see Pauline showing Arthur all about how Ellis wants everyone to keep their eyes on the ground at all times because wallets go flying and he wants them scooped up before anybody notices they are gone. I watch Pauline explaining how to start and stop all the rides and how to hook the safety belts on. Arthur is nodding and asking
her questions. I notice she is smiling a lot.

For a moment I think maybe I see the lady in the orange flappy hat limping toward me. But the sun is beating hard and I rub at my eyes and when I look back, there is nothing there but a boy who is dragging a little girl up to the hot dog cart.

He points at me. I know what they are up to. I pull my hair over my face like a curtain and turn away. I give them nothing to look at.

At noon I have an awful crick in my neck and my fingers are sticky from selling so many honey buns.

I do everything with one hand so I can keep my hair tight over my cheek. Finally I smear some of the honey from a honey bun on my face and press my hair in it. When it dries I feel like spikes of glass are stuck on my skin.

At about three, I look over and see Pauline pull the ponytail out of her hair so her curls fly down her shoulders, and Arthur is watching the whole thing.

When I turn off the grill at nine, Pauline comes over and tells me Arthur wants to take her to the all-night diner and do I think that would be all right?

‘Oh good, I’m starving.’ I rip off my apron.

‘No, Bee. You sweep up, then go to bed. We have to get up early because Ellis wants to open by ten. The radio says we’re going to get rain for the rest of the weekend.’

‘But I do not want to be alone. I can’t fall asleep without you.’

‘Oh, Bee. Yes, you can.’

‘No, I can’t. You know I can’t.’

Pauline turns to Arthur, standing right beside her. ‘Wait a minute, okay?’ She puts her arm around my shoulders and walks me about five steps so Arthur cannot hear. She bends down and whispers in my ear, ‘Bee, I haven’t ever had a boyfriend. Not here working for Ellis. I really want to go. I won’t be late. You’ll be okay. All right?’

She waits for me to answer.

I don’t. I stare at my work boots. I look at the
Beech-Nut
foils and the dirty popcorn all over the ground. By the time I look up, Pauline is already walking away.

When I finish sweeping around the hot dog cart and go into the hauling truck, I sit on my mattress for a long time. I think long and hard on why Pauline did not want me to go with her. I hear Fat Man Sam and Eldora and everyone climb into Ellis’s truck and go out. They are singing ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’ and they will be yelling it when they get back and Eldora will make Fat Man Sam put his bedroll outside.

I am afraid to fall asleep until Pauline comes back. I listen to the Ferris wheel creaking as it rocks in the wind and to dogs barking in the distance. Finally, around midnight, I hear Pauline outside the truck giggling. Arthur says, ‘Good night, Lady Light.’ I roll my eyes in the dark.

Pauline climbs the ladder and then comes over by me. I pretend I am asleep, and I sigh a lot so she knows I am very unhappy.

‘Bee?’

I make a few soft snores.

‘Bee, don’t be mad. I haven’t had a boyfriend before.’

I want to tell her how she does not need a boyfriend, how all she needs is me, how all we need is a place to live far away from Ellis and now Arthur. But if I say anything, she will know I am awake.

Pretty soon Pauline climbs onto her own mattress and rolls over and then she is sleeping for real and it is very hot and I am awake for a long, long time. Finally, when I can’t make myself fall asleep, I take my bedroll outside and lie down under the stars. I try and play the ha-ha game by myself, but it does not work. I look up at the Big Dipper and think about things for a long time. I tell it how Pauline and I need a home right away.

Then I wait for the old lady in the orange flappy hat.

The next morning I am being licked on my face. I think for sure I am being kissed by an angel. I am not.

‘Stop that,’ I say, wiping goo off my diamond, getting up off the wet ground and looking in the soft eyes of the little matted dog. He tilts his head and watches me. His fur is caked with mud.

‘I don’t have any more hot dogs. I left them all for you last night. Did you eat them all?’

He tilts his head to the other side. One of his ears sticks straight up. The other bends like it is doing a front flip.

‘Well, whose fault is that, anyway?’ I fold up my bedroll. I look him in the face.

‘Woof!’

‘Shush up,’ I say, standing. ‘You’ll wake everybody up.’

But the dog does not shush. He flops on the ground and rolls over, wiggling his paws in the air, wagging the place where a tail ought to be, if only he had one. He wiggles all over like he is happy to see me. I know it is because of the hot dogs.

‘I do not have any more. I gave them to you. Remember?’

He rolls all the way over and back up on his feet and when he is doing this he is kicking up dirt all over me. ‘Stop that!’ I say, trying to get the dirt off, and when I do he runs around me in a circle and then comes right back to sit down.

‘Ellis is going to hear you. He doesn’t let any dogs in our travelling show. You do not want to be in hot water with Ellis, believe me.’

The little dog rolls over, wiggles his paws in the air, jumps up, wags his stump of a tail, and while he is doing all this he kicks up even more dirt in my face.

‘Get out of here. I do not have any more hot dogs. I am sorry I gave you any in the first place. Now get.’

The little dog sits and tips his head to one side and then the other. He keeps trying to wag his tail, but since he doesn’t have one, he wiggles most of his body instead.

You can’t help but giggle. No one is up yet, not even Pauline. The dog lies down and watches me. I scrunch my nose. ‘You sure do smell awful.’ This only makes him wag his tail harder.

‘Don’t you know this is no place for a dog?’ He sits up and watches me. I look at his belly. It is very thin.

‘Roll over.’

He gets down on his belly, and then rolls over like he knows all about behaving. He sits up and then we both just look at each other. He tilts his head again like he is trying to figure me out. I pull my hair across my cheek.
He notices a stick a few feet away. He looks at it and then back at me, at the stick and then back at me. I know he is trying to decide.

Then he leaps for the stick. He is so small and the stick is so big he cannot get his mouth around it. He goes at it over and over, wrestling with it, until finally he sinks his teeth in and drags it over to me. He sits right in front of me, his head tilted again like he doesn’t understand why I am not throwing the stick.

‘It’s all wet. I’m not touching that.’

The dog raises his flopped ear. Now they are muddy flags sticking straight up. He wags his stumpy tail. His whole body is wiggling faster, faster, faster. ‘Woof!’ he says, like I am slow or something, like I do not know what he wants and he has to explain the whole thing very carefully to me.

‘Oh, all right, but just once.’ I throw the stick out past our hauling truck and wipe my hands on my overalls. The little dog jumps after it and I head for the hot dog cart.

A minute later, there he is, dragging the stick and dropping it at my feet.

That’s when the warning light inside me goes on and off, on and off, and the hairs on my arms rise.

I look all around me. The carnival grounds are quiet. Everyone is sleeping from their late night out. I haven’t even seen anybody make their way to the john.

I take many deep breaths. The merry-go-round is empty and there is no one by the Penny Pitch or the Hoop-La. All is quiet out by the Little Pig Race. Bobby keeps the four piglets locked up tight in their shed overnight with plenty of fresh straw because, just like everyone else, pigs like a nice clean bed at night. ‘The idea that pigs like to be dirty is hogwash,’ Bobby says. The trucks where everybody sleeps are still. The little dog and I are alone.

I drop a raw hot dog on a plate and put it on the ground. The little dog eats it in one gobble. I give him another hot dog and then another.

I pull the bucket I use to wash my hair over to the hose and fill it with water. The little dog is watching me very carefully. He comes over to the water and gives it a sniff. I know it is very cold, but I can’t do anything about that now. I reach over and pat him on the head and then I
scratch between his ears. Already my fingers are covered with mud. I pick him up and he licks my cheek.

I lower him into the water and very slowly I rub his fur with apple shampoo. ‘Don’t tell Pauline,’ I whisper. I lather first his back and then the top of his head and then down around his belly, where I can feel his thin stomach and his slim ribs. I scratch around his ears and all down his bony chest and his legs. He closes his eyes. If he were a cat, he would purr.

There are many stickle burrs stuck in his fur, and when I pull at them he whines, so I let them be. I swish him all over and pour more and more of Pauline’s shampoo over him, squeezing the last of the suds out of the bottle. I look hard at his stump of a tail. ‘What happened to you?’ I whisper, and then I wash his funny ears. Finally I lift him out and wrap him in my towel. He shivers, and when I put him down he shakes puddles all over me.

‘Stop that,’ I say, wiping the water off my face, but I can hardly believe what I see. ‘Well, look at you,’ I say, all admiring, because the little matted dog is now the colour of sweet butterscotch.

And then he growls. At the same time, my warning light goes on and off, on and off.

They have no shirts under their overalls and no shoes. How they got up to us so fast without me knowing, I do not know, and I have to cuss at myself. I scoop the little dog into my arms and pull my hair over my cheek.

‘She’s the one,’ the rounder one is saying.

‘Show it to us.’ The taller boy steps closer.

I step back against the hot dog cart.

‘You get burned or something? You one of the retards they hire for folks to look at?’

The little dog whines. I feel the metal counter pushing into my backside. I shake my head. I am not that girl.

‘Well, we mean to have ourselves a look. Isn’t that right?’ He looks back at the rounder boy, who is nodding.

The tall boy laughs. He takes another step closer. I would back up if there was anywhere to go. The little dog yips a few times, then whines, then backs into my armpit.

‘Maybe you got the Evil Eye on you. Show it to us.’ His spit flies. He reaches for my hair. I push his hand away.

The rounder boy grins wide. He has watermelon cheeks. ‘Seems she don’t want you touching her.’

The little dog pulls himself out of my armpit and
barks and then backs up like a turtle into my armpit again. It is awful hard to keep him still while I am trying to keep the side of my face hidden. I am sorry the honey has worn off my cheek.

The taller boy licks his lips. He is so close I smell orange pop on his breath. He reaches for my hair again.

That is too much. The little dog howls and then barks, sounding much bigger than he is. I have to struggle to keep him in my arms and I let go of my hair and it bounces away and suddenly my diamond is shining for everyone to see.

‘Wow,’ says the round boy, ‘will you look at that.’ He takes a step back.

What they aren’t expecting is Bobby right behind them. ‘We’re closed,’ Bobby growls. He is not wearing a shirt, just his overalls and work boots.

‘We weren’t doing nothing,’ the round boy says, backing up more, and then the taller one is saying, ‘We don’t want no trouble,’ and then they are turning and running away. The tall one outruns the rounder boy and the little dog is trying to leap out of my arms so he can chase them out of our travelling show.

Bobby puts his hand on my shoulder and looks into my eyes. I try and hold back the tears.

Bobby nods at the dog. The dog wags his stumpy tail. The edges of Bobby’s mouth lift.

‘I’ll keep my eye out for those boys. You keep that dog away from Ellis.’ Then he turns and walks away.