Ten Thumb Sam (5 page)

“There you are,” said Harriet.

It was Saturday afternoon, and Sam was sitting at the picnic table outside the Stringbini bus, playing
Lightning Smash Blasters
on Martin's Pocket-Nitro.

The magpie on Harriet's shoulder flapped its wings as she sat down beside Sam. “The show's going to start in fifteen minutes,” Harriet said. “Want to watch with me?”

Sam remained focused on his game. “Why? It's always the same.”

“I've never seen your family perform before. And you've never seen mine, either,” Harriet pointed out. She lifted Loki from her shoulder and put him inside the birdcage tucked in the shade of the bus.

“I'm sick of circus acts, all of them,” said Sam.

“Suit yourself,” Harriet said with a shrug.

She was halfway to the big top when Sam caught up with her.

“Changed my mind,” he replied in response to his cousin's lifted eyebrow. “My batteries went dead. I've got nothing better to do while I wait for them to recharge.”

“Your ringmaster looks like he's about to have a heart attack,” Harriet said as she and Sam munched on caramel corn during intermission.

Mr. Pigatto did look a little more excited than usual. He was waving his hands in the air as he addressed Sam's father and some of the other performers. He paused to wipe his forehead with a red handkerchief, and then he pointed dramatically at his left wrist.

Sam checked his own watch. “Mr. Pigatto has this thing about keeping everybody on time. I guess he's not happy about how long the show is running with all the extra acts.”

“Look over there,” said Harriet. She pointed across the tent to the performers' entrance. “Mary Ann is throwing one of her hissy fits. That will be about having to cut back her time on the high wire. If Mary Ann had her way, she'd be the only act in the circus.”

Mr. Pigatto and Mary Ann weren't the only people unhappy with the new schedule. Sam found himself dodging grumpy performers wherever he went that afternoon. There were heated discussions everywhere. No one wanted to give up any time in the spotlight, and Mr. Pigatto was determined to keep the show from running too long.

Even Sam's father was visibly annoyed when he returned to the bus after the Triple Top's evening performance. “Your brother is something else,” Sam heard his father whisper to his mother on the other side of the curtain when everyone was in bed. “He stole fifteen minutes from me tonight!”

“He just got a little carried away, Max,” Irene soothed. “Besides, the crowd really did like his act. They gave him a standing ovation.”

“Sure they did,” Max muttered crossly. “Why wouldn't they? He was performing some of my best tricks. That one with the beach towel and the sandcastle? He stole that one from me years ago, when you and I were first dating.”

“Well, you know what they say. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“Humph,” Max grumbled. “And another thing; these benches are murder to sleep on. I want my bed back!”

Sam rolled over on his foamie, trying to find a more comfortable position. He sympathized with his father. Sam's narrow bunk wasn't luxurious, but it was ten times better than the floor. When was he going to get his own bed back?

Sam was awake the next morning before dawn. Something soft brushed against him as he sat up, but he couldn't see what it was in the dark. Someone above him was snoring loudly. It sounded like Herbie—or maybe Robbie. Trying not to make any noise, Sam felt his way past the curtain and out the back door of the bus.

His father's voice startled him. “Couldn't sleep either, eh, Sam? Well, pull up a chair.”

Sam felt for one of the folding chairs leaning against the bus and set it up beside his father.

“The silence is nice for a change, isn't it?” said Max.

Sam looked up at the stars twinkling peacefully in the sky above him and nodded. “When do we get the bus to ourselves again?”

“When your uncle and his family find somewhere else to stay, I guess.”

“But when is that going to be?”

“Patience,” said Sam's father. “Believe me, I know how you feel. It's crowded enough in there without Albert and his family on top of us.
Especially
Albert. Your uncle has an ego the size of a small country.”

“I really shouldn't have said that,” Max said a minute later. “Oh well. I'm sure we'll get through this somehow.”

The other occupants of the Stringbini bus got up a few hours later. As he listened to the commotion coming from the kitchen, Sam was grateful he'd snuck a peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich outside.

“Annabel, what's wrong with your face?” Sam heard his mother ask in alarm. “You're all red and puffy!”

Annabel gave a double sneeze in response. “I doh't dow,” she wheezed.

“You must be allergic to something,” said Irene. “Did someone let one of the animals onto the bus last night?”

“Oliver's still missing,” said Robbie.

“I doubt Annabel's allergic to your chameleon,”
said Irene. “Lizards don't have fur or feathers. What about the cats and the magpie? Where are they?”

“Loki's outside, sleeping in his cage,” said Harriet.

“The cats are in Mary Ann's bunk,” said Martin.

“Snitch!” Sam heard Mary Ann shriek. “I can't believe you just ratted me out!”

“Is that true, Mary Ann?” asked Sam's mother. “Did you smuggle the cats inside?”

“Well, I couldn't leave Cleo and Caesar outside,” Mary Ann whined. “They're not alley cats—they're purebred Siamese.”

Irene's reply was firm. “No animals on the bus-cats, lizards, birds or otherwise.”

A minute later, Mary Ann's precious cats were dumped out the back door of the bus.

“I know just how you feel,” Sam said as the two felines stared forlornly at the door. “They kicked me out of my bed too.”

“Have you seen my juggling plates?” Martin asked Sam half an hour before the show that afternoon. “Louise said she saw you fooling around with them after breakfast.”

“I was helping Robbie look for his chameleon,” Sam said without looking up from the video game he was playing. “I just moved them aside.”

“Well, where'd you put them when you were done?” Martin demanded.

“I didn't put them anywhere,” said Sam. “I just looked behind them.”

“C'mon, Sammy,” said Martin. “I need them for the show. Cough them up.”

“I told you. I don't have them, and I don't know where they are.”

Martin pulled Sam off the picnic table and put him
in a headlock. “C'mon, tell me where they are. I'm not letting you go until you do.”

“What would I want with a bunch of dishes?” Sam said angrily, squirming to break free. He was just about to stomp on Martin's foot when his mother poked her head out of the Stringbini bus.

“Enough already!” said Irene. “If Sam says he didn't take your plates, Martin, he didn't take them. Now let him go.”

“He stole them!” said Martin. “Louise saw him!”

“That's
not
what Louise said,” said Irene. “Your dishes will turn up somewhere, Martin. In the meantime, you'll just have to improvise.”

“Fine, but you aren't playing my
Smash Blasters
anymore,” Martin said as he released his brother and grabbed the Pocket-Nitro from Sam's hand. “I'm hiding this where you'll never find it!”

“But I didn't take your stupid plates!” Sam called after Martin's retreating back. “I didn't!”

Sam found his brother's dishes twenty minutes later, when he went back to the bus to get a pile of comics he'd stashed in the cupboard under his bunk. The missing plates were buried under a pile of his jeans and T-shirts.

It took him only a moment to guess who had put them there. It had to be Mary Ann. She'd been furious with Martin for telling his mother about the cats, furious enough to want revenge.

“You didn't have to stick them in
my
cupboard,” he muttered as he gathered up the plates and deposited them inside the bunk that temporarily belonged to Mary Ann.