Circus Summer (Circus of Curiosities Book 1) (3 page)

            Thomas is. He surfaces beside me in the water, smiling. He looks so wonderful when he smiles. He has copper colored hair that’s currently darker thanks to the water, and deep blue eyes that almost match it. He has dimples and a kind of easy going handsomeness that’s great to be around. He might be one of the best students in the school when it comes to sport, but there isn’t that competitive feeling when it comes to just being there with him.

            There’s a serious edge to it though. We aren’t just swimming for fun, but free diving for oysters. That means holding our breath as we plunge down into the beds near the cliffs, lifting oysters that Frank will buy for the restaurant later. He always gives us a good price for them too, because he says that knowing where the food was caught is worth it. It’s one of the ways we both supplement the little our families have, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.

            “That’s half a dozen for me,” Thomas announces, lifting the one in his hand. “You’re falling behind, Leela.”

            “What can I say? You’re a better swimmer than me these days, Thomas Tattenbaum.”

            “Like you didn’t teach me how to dive in the first place. Now come on, let’s head for the beach, unless you want to stay here until something comes out of the depths?”

            That’s the unspoken danger every time we go into the sea. There are all the old potential threats, like sharks or jellyfish, but since the war started, and since
things
started to break free of the broken genetic labs the Invaders experimented in, there’s far more than that out there. Some of the people who come into the bar sometimes claim to have seen some of it, though the ones back from the war don’t talk so much.

            I strike out for shore, and sure enough I do leave Thomas behind. He only catches me once we’re into the breakers, where his stronger legs make it easier for him to wade up onto the beach with his string bag of caught oysters. We head for our clothes and I sit beside mine, drying off in the sun to the point where I can put them on.

            “So,” Thomas says, “what’s really wrong?”

            “How do you know that something’s wrong?” I counter.

            “I know you, that’s how. Is your mom sick again?”

            “Mom’s always sick. This…” I hesitate. “I’m thinking of entering the circus.”

            “What?” Thomas sounds slightly shocked. “Why would you need to do that?”

            I shrug, half waving towards the oysters we’ve caught. “Isn’t it obvious? We need the money for medicine. Besides, they say that anyone who gets through to the later rounds of their competition will go to finals in the Center.”

            The Center is somewhere we’ve only half heard about. It’s almost like another world, compared to small towns with barely any technology left.

            “Why would you want to go there?” Thomas asks. “Why would you risk taking part in the circus?”

            “Mom’s getting sicker every day,” I say. “The doctors around here… well, most of them aren’t even real doctors anymore. Those are all out at the war, patching up soldiers. Old Doc Mitchell said he couldn’t do anything. That it would take something more advanced than we had to cure her, and all he could do was slow things down. Maybe in the Center they have a cure.”

            “And maybe they don’t,” Thomas argues, getting dressed.  “Even if they do, there will be lots of people there wanting their help.”

            “If I win, that won’t matter,” I point out. I get dressed too. Suddenly, the day feels cooler than it was. “I’ll have the money to skip the system. Mom won’t have to wait around for months. It’s the only way, Thomas.”

            “Not the only way.” He shakes his head. “You’re doing well enough, Leela. I know it’s hard for you and your family, but it’s hard for everyone. If you go looking for some kind of instant solution, it could just make things worse.”

            “Or it could make things right,” I shook back. “It could make it so that I’m not the only one there for Mason, and that we have enough to eat.”

            Thomas takes my hands in his. “I’ve heard rumors about the Circus of Curiosities, Leela. There are things that go on there that… just trust me, you don’t want to be part of it. It’s dangerous. I heard that there have been people killed. Do you want to leave your family without anyone?”

            I shake my head, even though I know it isn’t that simple. “But everything is dangerous now,” I say. “Everything. There’s the war, the Invaders. Drafters could come to town tomorrow and take you away if they wanted. A year from now, they could take me. Raiders could show up looking for food or women. Anything.”

            “Maybe,” Thomas says, but he doesn’t sound convinced. Instead he stands and lifts the bag with his oysters. “Let’s count up the oysters and get done.”

            “Why count them?” I ask. “I saw you bringing them up.”

            “But did you count your own right?”

            Just to humor him, I check. I think I have just five oysters, but it’s quickly obvious I have more than that. Seven or eight. I must have grabbed two at once a couple of times and not even noticed it.

            He hugs me then. “You see, you won. You’re wonderful, you know, Leela. You can do so much more than you think. I’ve never understood why you don’t join the swim team.”

            “I’m too busy trying to fit in work and school without adding that,” I say.

            “But you’ll have time for the Circus of Curiosities?”

            I take his bag along with mine, starting to head towards the path that leads back to the village. “You’re the one who just said I could do more than I thought. Does that include doing well enough in the circus to make it to the Center?”

            He doesn’t answer for a little while. When he does speak again, he looks at me in a way that’s worried, but also feels like there’s something he isn’t saying. “You’re really set on doing this, aren’t you?”

            “I wasn’t yesterday, when they came to town,” I say.

            “So what changed?”

            How do I answer that? Yesterday, I saw all the kids signing up in a rush, and it didn’t matter to me. I had my job, my schoolwork. My life. I went home to Mom and Mason the same as usual. I read until it got dark, and helped Mom to mend a few things by candlelight. With the war, the days when it was easier to just replace things went a long time ago.

            Maybe that’s when I realized it. That this would be the rest of my life. That this would be as good as things got for the rest of my life. If I was lucky, then I’d have a life where I looked after my little brother until he was grown up, tried to keep my mother from getting any sicker, and kept working hard so that we all had food to eat and a place to live.

            That’s if I turned out to be lucky. Maybe that’s what changed. I realized just how precarious things were for us. What if Mom died? What then? Could I look after Mason alone? Could I look after myself? What would we do? What if the drafters came and took me like they took Caleb? In a war like the one with the Invaders, they don’t care whether you’re a boy or a girl, just if you can hold a weapon and do what you’re told. What if Frank fired me, or the Invaders came, or a hundred and one other things?

            What ifs. So many what ifs, and most of them are bad. There are so many ways my life can go wrong from here, and not very many it can work out well. Maybe the Circus of Curiosities is one of those. How do I explain all that to Thomas? How do I say it all and not have him look at me like I’m mad. I’m not sure I can, so I don’t.

            “I guess
I
changed,” I say.

            He puts his hands on my shoulders then, looking at me closely. I can almost see all the things he wants to say in his eyes. In those little flickers of his expression that I know almost better than my own face by now. That’s what happens when you’ve been as close to someone as I’ve been to Thomas for years. He doesn’t like this. He wants to talk me out of it. To tell me no. Yet some part of him knows it won’t work.

            “I wish I could persuade you not to do this,” Thomas says, “but I also know that you have your reasons. I even kind of understand them. I think this is far too dangerous, but if you’re set on doing it, I’m not going to try to stop you, Leela. Just remember, whatever you need, I’m here.”

            Hearing that from him feels surprisingly good.

            “I know,” I say. “You’re a good friend, Thomas.”

            He looks like I’ve said something wrong, but I’m not sure what. Thomas is a good friend to me. He has been for as long as I can remember. He’s someone I can rely on, whatever happens.

            “Will you just promise me one thing?” Thomas asks.

            “What?”

            “You’re meant to say ‘yes, anything’.”

            I shake my head. “That isn’t the way the world works. Anyway, there are things I won’t do even for you, Thomas Tattenbaum.”

            Thomas raises an eyebrow. “Really. I’m not sure there’s much I wouldn’t do for you.” He stares at me for a while until I look away.

            I think I believe him. “What do you want me to promise, Thomas?”

            “Just promise me that before you get yourself into all this, you’ll at least talk to your mother about it.”

            “She’s sick,” I say. “She doesn’t need bothering with all this.”

            “She’s still your mother,” Thomas counters. “I’m serious, Leela. I might not be able to stop you, but if you don’t promise me that you’ll talk to her first, then I’m going straight to your mother to tell her what you plan to do.”

            “You think that would stop me?” I ask.

            Thomas shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t want to find out. Promise me, Leela.”

            I sigh, and then nod. “All right. I’ll talk to her, but it won’t change anything.”

Chapter
3

I
put off signing up for the rest of the day, heading home after school to see my mom and Mason. Our house is a little way from the center of town, and it’s a big place, with five bedrooms, plenty of rooms downstairs, and a big garden out back. It’s old, too, built maybe a hundred years ago, maybe more, back when Sea Cliff was at its height. Back before the Invaders came.

            It would have been one of the nicer houses in town back then, with its big, whitewashed façade and its large windows that let in the light in summer. Now though, it needs repairs we can’t afford, and the windows let in the cold in winter. I don’t know how the people before the Invaders could afford the fuel to heat a place like this. We can’t.

            It’s home though, and we’ve tried to make it comfortable. There are rugs covering the floor, most of which my mom made, in a collection of bright colors I remember from when I was a kid. Most of the furniture is stuff that has lasted practically forever, or stuff that we’ve made. Mom says that my father used to make things like the high backed wooden chairs in the living room, but I don’t remember.

            I don’t remember much beyond trying to care for Mom. She’s been sick for a couple of years now, since my brother was five, and now she’s sicker than ever. There are days she doesn’t even get out of the large bed on the second floor. Even when she’s well enough to do things, she often has to pause, sitting in the rocking chair in the kitchen and looking like an old woman even though she isn’t forty yet.

            She’s there today, looking out over the garden. That’s more of a vegetable patch now, where we grow herbs and enough food to make things easier. I’ve been trying to teach Mason which plants are which and how to look after them, just in case. He’s doing well, but I know that they need me.

            Mom looks so fragile these days. We have the same coloring, the same hair, the same eyes. Everyone says I look so much like her, but now that’s harder to see. Her skin is pale and almost stretched-looking, drawn tight over her bones. She’s thin, even though I make her soup and help her to eat it when she isn’t strong enough to do it for herself. I bring home bones from the restaurant to thicken up broth for her when I can. Anything I can think of to make her a little stronger.

            “Hi, Mom,” I say, and move over to the simple stove straight away to start cooking. I’m going to need to hurry if I’m going to get everything done before I’m needed at the
Cliff View
. Or maybe it’s just that I find it hard to look at her these days. She isn’t the mother I remember, and I feel like every time I look at her when she’s sick, more and more of my memories of her when she was well are fading away. I’m worried that one day, I won’t be able to remember what she was like before she got sick at all.

            “Hi, sweetheart,” Mom says. She seems slightly stronger than usual today.  She waits until I come over to her with a bowl of hot soup. She manages to take it without my help. “Did anything interesting happen at school?”

            “Something happened before it,” I say. I know I have to tell her. I promised Thomas. “There’s a circus coming to town.”