The Daring Escape of Beatrice and Peabody (5 page)

The little dog and I both need a hot dog after that. It is nearly time for everyone to start waking up, so I get the grill started.

‘Do you have a name?’ The little dog looks at me, tilts his head, and then a worm floating in a little puddle catches his eye. He goes over for a closer look.

I think of all the boy names I know besides Arthur or Ellis or Fat Man Sam or Pete the Alligator Man.

‘Roy? Is that your name?’

The dog sniffs at the worm.

‘Hal? Jim?’

The dog pokes at the worm with his paw.

‘Dexter? Theodore? Dean?’

The dog sticks his mouth in the puddle and grabs the worm with his teeth. He shakes it in the air and drops it at my feet.

‘That is really disgusting.’ I go over and flip hot dogs. ‘All right. If you’re not going to help, I’ll call you Nobody. How would you like that? Here, Nobody, here, Nobody!’

The dog looks at me. He tilts his head again and sticks up both of his ears. Then he goes back to the worm.

‘Oh, forget it.’ I take the hot dogs off the grill. The little dog forgets all about the worm and hurries over to me. He wags his stumpy tail.

I put a hot dog on a plate and put it on the ground. He gulps it down and looks up at the Peabody Frankfurter box. ‘Woof!’

I look at him and back at the box. He wags his stumpy tail so fast he gets himself off balance. He looks at the box and whines.

‘Peabody? Is that the name you want?’ I cannot tell if he likes the name or if he wants another hot dog. But it is good enough for me. And that is how I give my dog a name.

That night Pauline goes off with Arthur and Fat Man Sam and all the others. She has been mad about Peabody all day. She thinks we will be in hot water when Ellis gets back from Poughkeepsie, where he is thinking of setting up a stay-put show.

I do not even ask her to take me with her. Instead, I bring Peabody into our truck. I turn on the big flashlight and show him my mattress, hard as our grill. I puff up my bedroll. I show him how we keep our clothes in old apple crates and how we keep the purple curtain closed. Already mosquitoes are getting in and I fix the curtain so there isn’t any space between the cloth and the sides of the truck.

I fluff up my pillow. I lie on my belly and watch Peabody. I tap the mattress and show him where he can lie down, right beside me. I tell him all about my life, how I came to be with the travelling show and with Ellis and with Pauline.

‘Pauline has been very good except now she is with Arthur.’ Peabody tilts his head so he looks as if he is interested in what I am saying. ‘Ellis does not like dogs
and he will get rid of you if he finds you.’

It turns out it doesn’t take long to love a dog. I pull Peabody close and smell the sweet warm smell of him. After a while, he licks my face. I ask him where did he come from and tell him I do not know what Pauline will do when she sees him in the truck with me, so I will think of something.

A trash can knocks over outside. I turn off the flashlight. ‘Travelling shows attract a lot of skunks,’ I whisper. Peabody is all interested in what is outside. He sits up and whines.

‘Shush.’ I scratch him behind the ears. He keeps watching the purple curtain with both of his ears raised up.

‘Do you know about the ha-ha game?’ I try to get his attention on other things. He tilts his head. ‘Well, it’s when you tell stories about when you were little. The ones that make you laugh. We do not tell the ones that make us sad.’ I think about Pauline for a minute and then make myself stop because it is not a good idea to think about things that make you tearful when you are all contented. It tends to cloud things up.

I pull Peabody closer. It is so hot. ‘Do you like swimming holes?’ Peabody wags his stumpy tail. I tell him all about how Pauline and I go swimming. ‘I don’t go swimming without Pauline, though.’

I rub his ear. ‘Sometimes when I am alone I go out and
watch the stars. Do you like the stars?’ Peabody tilts his head. ‘It’s a good star night tonight. There’s no moon.’ Peabody wags his stumpy tail and that is a good enough answer for me.

It is very dark. I wave my flashlight and Peabody and I go slow to make sure there are no skunks. I pull my bedroll out past the Little Pig Race. We have to stop so I can let Cordelia and the others out of their shed so I can scratch them for a while. Peabody sniffs at them and I lift Cordelia over the fence and bring her onto the bedroll with me and Peabody. She snuggles up against us so I will rub her backside. Pigs are awful loving when you give them half a chance.

‘That’s the Big Dipper.’ Peabody’s fur is soft on my cheek. Cordelia is nuzzling around my belly. ‘And that is the North Star. It is a very important star if you are trying to find your way home.’

A crow caws. Peabody lifts his head and looks up. Another crow caws. I shiver. Peabody jumps up, looking through the dark. It is awful late for crows to be cawing. I scan the shadows with my flashlight. Peabody whines. Another crow caws. I think maybe I should shut Cordelia and the others in the shed.

‘You wait here.’ I pat Peabody’s back so he knows he should stay put. My legs are wobbly from standing on them all day. ‘I need to lock you up in case,’ I say, lifting Cordelia into her pen.

Before I can say Jack Sprat those boys from before are coming up on us. Peabody raises the fur on his back and growls.

‘Well, look what we found!’ The tall boy and the round boy with watermelon cheeks stand grinning, as close to us as dug graves. They wait in the shadows of Cordelia’s pen, their baseball caps pulled low. Another boy stands a little off to the side. He is smaller, thinner. Like the others, he has no shoes.

‘What do we have here?’ says the taller boy. ‘Is it the ugly girl?’

The round boy laughs. Peabody barks.

‘And her ugly dog, too?’

I pick up Peabody. His fur is standing on end. I hold him close. I look for Cordelia, hoping the boys don’t notice her. I don’t know what they’d do to a baby pig. I try and pull my hair tight, but it is hard to do when I am holding a dog. I look back at our hauling truck, wondering how quick my legs could get us there.

The tall boy steps closer and kicks the pigpen. Cordelia and the others scramble. Peabody whimpers.

‘Knock it off.’ I try and make my voice a boulder in my chest. I hold my dog tight.

The boy laughs. ‘What’s the matter, ugly girl? You don’t like us?’ He grins. He looks at his friends. ‘She don’t like us.’

The round boy laughs. The little boy backs up. ‘I – I
– I think we should leave her alone. My mama says we should stay away from her.’

‘Naaaah,’ the tall boy says. ‘Why would we want to do that? She’s just a girl. An ugly old girl. We’re just getting started.’

Peabody growls. I pull him tighter.

‘I know what happened to you.’ The tall boy reaches for my diamond. Peabody growls again. I step back. My legs are Jell-O. He laughs. Then in a low voice, he says, ‘Grab her!’

My legs quiver as I hold Peabody and leap away and dash toward our truck. Pauline is all I can think of as I run. I want Pauline. I want her to give these boys a taste of their own medicine. And then I want her to hold me so tight I can smell the apple shampoo in her hair.

‘Catch her!’ the tall boy yells. Bare feet slap the dirt behind me. I try and push myself faster but I am on shaking legs. The footsteps behind me get closer. There is no voice in my chest. My legs wobble and then I am pushed from behind and I fall, hitting the ground with my arms around Peabody and the weight of the tall boy on top of me.

‘Don’t be a baby,’ he whispers in my ear.

‘Flip her over, flip her over!’ the round boy screams.

‘Careful or you’ll catch it,’ whimpers the little one. ‘Don’t touch her mark.’

I hold tight to Peabody. He is trying to wiggle out of
my arms. I hold on tighter.

The boy pulls me over and wipes my hair off my face. He touches my cheek, running his dirty fingers all over the edge where my diamond begins. Peabody howls and wiggles out of my grasp.

I shudder. I hold my breath, and then when the boy runs his fingers close enough, I grab his hand and send my teeth deep into the thin skin between his thumb and his finger. He screams that terrible high-pitched screech cats make at night. When I let go of him, he is already crying. He sucks at his hand.

‘She’s marked you!’ the youngest boy shrieks. Tears rush down his face.

Peabody barks and howls. He leaps between me and the boys. That’s when there is another sound, this time a bear growling.

Bobby grabs the tallest boy and flings him off me like a bag of potatoes. Then he picks up the little one and hurls him past the first.

The round boy runs over and drags the little one to his feet and then the tall one is running up the hill and away from our travelling show and the other two are chasing after.

Bobby helps me up and as soon as I am off the ground, I throw myself on him, sobbing, and you can tell he does not know much about children or what you are supposed to do when one is crying, because his arms are stiff as
barn boards as they wrap around me.

‘You run slower than Cordelia,’ he says after a while, patting my head in a way that feels more like a thumping, but I don’t really care because it is Bobby. ‘You’re going to have to run faster than that if you’re going to look after that little dog.’

It is more words than I have ever heard him put together, and for some reason it makes me cry awful hard.

The next morning before the sun is hardly up, Peabody and I are out by the Little Pig Race, with Bobby holding up his watch. ‘If I can teach pigs to run, I can teach a girl.’ I am not sure if I should take offence or not.

Training girls is different, though, because Bobby does not use corn. He uses his pocket watch, and the memory of those boys.

‘Tie those tight,’ he says, pointing at my work boots. I wind the laces around and around the top of each boot to keep them from dragging. I can’t do anything about the holes in the soles.

‘See those woods and that hill and that pine tree at the top?’

I put my hand up to block the sun, just rising. There is a field that heads straight into woods that climb steeply. I will have to climb over at least one stone wall before I reach the trees. My legs still shake from last night. Bobby looks to see if I am paying attention. ‘Running in the woods will build stamina. And it will make you fast. Now, the trick is to remember those boys with every step you take. Slow down if you have to, but do not stop. You 
will find your second wind.’

He’s talking way more than I have ever heard him before. I look at the pine tree at the top. It is straight up. Peabody is grinning, he is so excited about what is going to happen.

‘Ready?’

I want to shake my head, but I remember the boys. Bobby holds up his arm.

‘Get set, go!’ He drops his arm and I run out past him, my Jell-O legs trying to hold me up. Peabody is right beside me jumping and yipping and barking, he is so happy to be flying so fast over the parched grass.

My legs are sore from last night but they carry me out, out, out through the long grass toward the woods.

I spook a dozen mourning doves and they flap into the air. Peabody darts out after them, his stumpy tail waving in front of me. Already my legs are telling me to quit.

As soon as I enter the woods and start climbing, I am running through cement. My lungs are two sloshing buckets of water. When I reach the stone wall I inch myself up and over and then flop onto my side, I am so out of breath. Peabody lies down beside me and whines. I watch a beetle and a butterfly, and feel just like Cordelia.

I lie there a long time so my heart can get back to beating regular, and because my head feels awful dizzy. Peabody whines louder. I look up at the oak trees, so high overhead. ‘Oh, all right,’ I say finally, pulling myself up
because Bobby has his pocket watch and I am remembering the tall boy and how fast he can run.

It hardly takes a few steps uphill and the blood is pounding in my head again. I trip on a log hidden in old leaves. Peabody is already far ahead. He sits down and watches me run up the steep hill, my legs high-stepping boulders and logs like I am running through very deep snow. It is very hard to run in the woods and very hard to run uphill. I wonder what Bobby is thinking.

Finally, I reach the pine tree at the top and flop onto the ground, my chest heaving.

‘That’s it,’ I wheeze, ‘I am not a runner.’

After Peabody starts whining again like maybe it is time to get going, I pull myself to my feet and hobble back downhill to Bobby. Peabody yips all around my feet, like he is a sheepdog and I am an old ewe. I climb over the stone wall and then I limp all the way back to the Little Pig Race.

Bobby has stretched a string between the fence and an old fold-up chair and he wants me to run through, but I wilt on the ground before I get there.

‘That’s twenty-two minutes,’ he says, shaking his head, looking at me sprawled in the dirt, and tucking the watch back into his overalls. ‘We’ll try again tomorrow.’

He walks off toward the pigs. Peabody runs off after him.

It takes a few minutes for my head to stop pounding
and my pulse to quit racing. I pull off my work boots and peel down my socks. My feet are red and puffy and soft and slow and very sore. I am ashamed of them the way I am ashamed of my face.

A band of silver circles Pauline’s finger. It glitters in the sun. She waves it in front of me.

‘Look, Bee.’ She moves it slowly past my eyes, waving her hand so the light bounces off.

I know it is from Arthur. I do not mention I can see plain as day it is foil from a stick of gum. I bet even Peabody can tell. Nobody who’s serious about things gives a girl a gum-foil ring. Bobby would give her the real thing. Of that I am sure.

I take a hot dog off the grill and throw it to Peabody.

‘You can’t do that,’ says Pauline. ‘Ellis will kill us.’

‘He’s not here, remember?’ I pull three onions from the box and cut off their papery skins. While I am doing this I find reasons to give Pauline many disapproving looks. She is too busy frying up hot dogs to notice. Arthur comes by on his way to the john and tips his cowboy hat at Pauline. She giggles. I roll my eyes.

‘Isn’t it a beautiful day, Bee?’ she asks after he is past. ‘I just love days like this, with the sun all shining and everything so happy.’

I look at Peabody. He is lying beside me inside the hot
dog cart. I fold my arms across my chest. ‘I didn’t notice.’

She looks at me a minute, then sighs and turns back to the grill.

‘I haven’t had a boyfriend ever, Bee. Can’t you just be happy for me?’

Before I even have a chance to unfold my arms, Arthur is right beside us asking Pauline if she could help him with the merry-go-round. She looks at me and I keep my arms crossed and won’t take my eyes off the onions.

‘Oh, Bee,’ she says.

I look at Peabody. He is watching Pauline. Already she is untying her apron. I do not know what has gotten into her.