Orphan Eleven Page 5

  In his hand were two red balls, each the size of a wrist pincushion. They were flat on one side, round on the other. The flat side had a triangular hollow.

  Eugene took one of the red balls and pressed it against his nose. His hand dropped. The ball stayed on.

  Everybody laughed.

  Doris put the other nose on and grinned. Eugene handed Nico a nose to try.

  “But how come Lucy got three and I only got two?” Doris asked.

  “A shrewd observation, Mademoiselle Doris,” Jabo said.

  “Does that mean she only gets two chances?” Nico chimed in.

  “Very good, Nico. Yes, I’m afraid Doris has used one of her chances already.”

  “That’s not possible. I only just met you. It’s because of my hair, isn’t it?”

  Jabo’s head waggled. “I believe you’ve made an error in judgment of the aspirational variety. In other words, I’m guessing the hair situation is tangentially related.”

  Bald Doris frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  One of Jabo’s short fingers popped into the air. “I feel a tooth riddle coming on….”

  Lucy pulled the baby tooth from her pocket and held it out so Jabo could see.

  “A kindred spirit!” Jabo winked at her. “Now my riddle. What has many teeth and sings its own song?”

  “A singer,” Doris said.

  “Good answer, but incorrect,” Jabo said.

  “Bernadette?” Eugene suggested.

  “You are getting warmer, in a manner of speaking, sir.”

  Who was close to Bernadette? The baby in her tummy? The neighbor lady, Mrs. Potts? But Lucy didn’t know what either of them looked like. And she certainly had no idea about their teeth.

  Lucy took out her page and wrote aspirational. The root word was aspire, which meant something you wanted. What did Bald Doris want?

  Hair, of course, but hair didn’t have teeth and it didn’t sing. Wait…what about a comb? A comb had teeth and it could make music. A girl at the orphanage had played “Jingle Bells” on her comb. Comb? Lucy wrote.

  “Excellent!” Jabo thundered.

  Lucy grinned. But what did this have to do with why Bald Doris had only two chances?

  Jabo fixed Doris with a penetrating look. “That is correct…is it not, Mademoiselle Doris?”

  How would Doris know if the answer was correct?

  Doris’s eye twitched. She scratched at her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “I believe you’ve made a one-chance mistake. I would not allow it to increase in size—mushroom, if you will—to a two-chance mistake,” Jabo said softly.

  Bald Doris wheeled around and stuck her hand deep in her dress. When she turned back, she had a silver comb in her palm.

  Jabo took the comb and ran a finger over the engraved B. “Common courtesy is a somewhat uncommon commodity, I’m afraid. I will make certain Bernadette gets her comb back.”

  Doris scowled. “Now do I get my third chance?”

  “I imagine you know the answer to that question,” Jabo said under his breath.

  “No, I don’t,” Bald Doris insisted, spit flying out of her mouth.

  “That would be correct.” Jabo nodded.

  Doris crossed her arms. “I meant no, I don’t know the answer.”

  “And now you do.” Jabo bowed with a great flourish. “Now Eugene…” Jabo began the drumroll again. Out of the box he pulled three playing cards: an ace of hearts, an ace of diamonds, and an ace of clubs. On the back of each was an elaborate picture of a monkey playing a violin.

  “An ace is a powerful card,” Jabo explained. “You may have heard the expression ‘an ace in the hole,’ which means something hidden that can provide a sure victory. That is how we see you, my steadfast friend.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Eugene’s eyes were on the ground, but his smile had an intensity Lucy hadn’t seen before.

  “You’re welcome.” Jabo nodded. “And last but not least, Nico.”

  After the drumroll, Jabo poked around in the box until he pulled out what looked like three black caterpillars: one bushy, one curly, one sleek. Nico inspected them for a long time; then he took one of the black furry shapes and placed it above his upper lip. It stuck.

  “Correct!” Jabo cried.

  Soon they were all trying them on. Doris looked hilarious in the curly mustache. Eugene took on the air of a middle-aged man in the bushy one. Nico looked the best in the sleek mustache.

  “Thank you.” Nico imitated Jabo’s showman’s bow, then asked, “So, how do you know Bernadette?”

  Good question, Lucy thought.

  “We are both members of O-O-F-O, pronounced ‘oooof-oh.’ The Order of Fine Orphans. OOFOs look out for other orphans.”

  “You were an orphan?” Eugene asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Jabo said.

  Nico nodded. “So…we have a week to get an apprenticeship, and we can each make three mistakes, except Doris only gets two because she already made one.”

  “Precisely and concisely,” Jabo said.

  “But exactly what kind of apprenticeships are available?” Eugene asked.

  “ ‘Available’ ”—Jabo rubbed his neck, then pulled up his jacket sleeve to check one of three wristwatches—“may be a somewhat misleading characterization of the apprenticeship experience. But let’s not concern ourselves with the details just yet. We’re behind schedule here. Your chariot awaits.” He waved to the back of the truck.

  “Where are we going?” Doris asked.

  “Winter Quarters.”

  Nico eyed the dummy head and said, “Headless Headquarters?”

  “You are a clever one, Nico, but no. Headquarters of the great, the one and only Saachi’s Circus Spectacular. An encyclopedia of the incredible, if you will.”

  Jabo sank back on his heels.

  “Now one last question…do you know why Mrs. Mackinac and Mrs. Grundy of the home—I use the term with all due irony—have such an uncommon interest in you?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Of course, they don’t like runaways. But once the infraction has occurred, they aren’t likely to pursue perpetrators beyond the boundaries of Riverport. And yet Bernadette reported today they were combing Dinton and Blaneville with unusual fervor.”

  He searched their eyes, settling on Bald Doris.

  “Mademoiselle Doris?”

  Doris poked her chin out. “How should I know?” she muttered.

  Jabo nodded thoughtfully, then pivoted on his small feet.

  “When Bernadette left the orphanage, did she go to your circus?” Eugene wanted to know.

  “Yes, my fine sir. But alas, Bernadette does not have sawdust in her shoes.”

  “Sir?” Nico asked.

  “It means she isn’t cut out for circus life. Our loss, I’m afraid. All righty, then, we must be going.” He nodded toward the back of the truck and they piled in. “In the circus, timing is everything. It pounds through the place like a blood flow. Arriving after the cook tent flag has gone down is a tragedy indeed. I’ve seen grown men ford across snake-infested rivers for Nitty-Bitty’s fried chicken and corn fritters.”

  Lucy smiled. She liked Jabo so much, she would go anywhere he went. She just hoped Winter Quarters wasn’t too far from Chicago.

  Though she did wonder why the circus hadn’t been right for Bernadette and what Jabo would consider a mistake. Stealing, clearly. But what else?

  Jabo hadn’t asked about her silence. He had accepted this part of her. She would not lose a chance for this.

  Lucy brought her knees up and held them tightly against her chest as the truck rolled forward. She picked at the worn threads of her stockings until she’d made a hole, and then she tried to w
eave the threads back together so no one would see.

  Jabo drove slower than Bernadette and pushed the accelerator, then the brakes, in fits and starts. It was because he couldn’t reach the gas pedal. He drove by operating poles with empty shoes attached to the bottom.

  Lucy ran her fingers along the ribbon drawstring that closed the striped silk pouch. The pouch was the best part of the gift. It gave her a fourth special thing. No one else had four.

  The pouch reminded her of how Dilly had made a tiny purse for Mrs. Three Eyes and sewn it to the doll’s hand so Lucy wouldn’t lose it.

  Lucy had been so upset when Mrs. Three Eyes had been stolen. She’d searched the dorms and confronted the most notorious orphan thieves. When she still couldn’t find Mrs. Three Eyes, she’d asked Mackinac for help. Mackinac had given her a kind smile and patted her head. “It’s all for the best. Girls who let go of their old lives and fully commit to their new circumstances thrive here at the home….”

  Lucy dug in her pocket for the button. She had kept it safe, just as she would keep Jabo’s gift safe.

  But why had Jabo chosen to give Lucy elephant-tail hairs? She understood the ace in the hole for Eugene. He was a helpful guy. And the mustaches for Nico seemed right. Nico had the manners of a grown man. But Lucy had never seen an elephant, and she didn’t understand the clown noses for Doris.

  “Why’d you pinch a comb anyway?” Nico shouted to Doris over the roar of a passing truck. “You don’t even have hair.”

  Doris frowned. “I will soon enough.”

  “If you live that long,” Nico said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Doris shouted.

  Nico shrugged.

  “At least I wasn’t replaced by a six-year-old,” Doris said.

  Nico turned away. “I wasn’t replaced,” he mumbled as they rolled by a large barn and silo.

  Doris snorted. “Yeah, you were.”

  Doris was mad about getting only two chances. She was looking for somebody to take it out on.

  “Stop it.” Eugene jabbed Doris’s arm. “You sound like Mama.”

  “He started it,” Doris grumbled as the farmland flew by. Small green plants in straight rows, one after another after another.

  Eugene whispered something to Doris that Lucy couldn’t hear.

  “Did you see that comb? It was worth a lot. I was going to sell it,” Doris replied.

  “But why would you want to steal from her?” Eugene asked. “Bernadette was nice.”

  “She was the one who had it,” Doris said.

  Nico rolled his eyes.

  The truck shimmied as it picked up speed. Lucy took out her pencil, rested the page on her knee, and wrote, Apprenticeship?

  Dilly had been learning to be a dressmaker from Mama. That was an apprenticeship, wasn’t it?

  Mama had worked her way up from finisher. Dressmakers made more money and were difficult to replace. When Lucy was little, Mama had said she would teach her dressmaking, too. But Lucy didn’t think she’d ever sew as well as Dilly.

  Lucy handed her page to Nico, who shrugged.

  Jabo? Lucy wrote.

  Doris peeked over to see what Lucy was writing. She jabbed her finger at Lucy’s page. “I don’t like him.”

  “I do,” Eugene said.

  Nico stroked his mustaches. “Me too.”

  “I didn’t believe that goof-oh stuff,” Doris said. “Who would tell another person you’re an orphan?”

  Doris had a point there. Being an orphan was something to hide.

  It was growing dark, how far had they come?

  Headlights flashed as cars drove by. Rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat, the tires sounded as they rolled over the metal bridge slats. Lucy inched her way to the truck bed’s wood side to get a better view of where they were headed.

  The truck lights flashed on signs by the side of the road.

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  SEE AMERICA’S STRONGEST WOMAN SERVE TEA WHILE CARRYING THREE ADULTS ON HER BACK

  MEET ELEPHANTOFF, THE WORLD’S ONLY PARISIAN PACHYDERM HAIRDRESSER

  In the orphanage classroom there was an old dictionary missing a chunk of the Rs and all of the Ss. Lucy wished she had it. Even when she understood the words, she liked to look them up. The definitions carved a clearer meaning in her head.

  The truck swayed as it crested a small hill.

  Below was a city of glittering lights. As the truck sped down to the valley, all the orphans craned their necks to see. Soon they passed a row of flags snapping from tall poles and a banner that said SAACHI’S CIRCUS SPECTACULAR.

  Jabo turned in to a parking lot, tires crunching gravel. He pulled up next to an elaborately painted wagon with a piano keyboard and a giant horn.

  The truck shuddered as it turned off. Thrunk, the stairs came down. In the distance a trumpet and a saxophone played.

  Lucy’s leg cramped as she climbed over the tailgate. Nico and Eugene leapt over. Bald Doris waited until Eugene opened it for her.

  “Due to the short notice,” Jabo said, “I haven’t yet received permission for your visit. This necessitates a clandestine entrance. Please be respectful. Do not stare at the Zebra Lady’s stripes. Yes, they are permanent. Do not ask the Chicken Man why he never takes off his chicken suit. That is his choice. Do not say ‘How’s the weather up there?’ to the tall person. Or ‘I could put you in my pocket’ to a person of short stature.”

  Jabo walked fast, but his steps seemed to pain him. A thick carpet of pink wood shavings covered the ground, muffling their footsteps.

  Lucy couldn’t take her eyes off the large posters on the tents. There were gorillas playing baseball, fortune-telling ponies, a carriage drawn by zebras, and a man walking a tightrope between two church steeples.

  The air smelled of grain, newly cut wood, and hot fry grease. From somewhere in the distance came the familiar whir of sewing machines.

  In a clearing between tents, a bright light shone on two jugglers spinning balls through the air and a barely dressed blond girl doing backflips.

  Through the flap door of another tent, Lucy saw people eating at picnic tables with red-and-white-checkered tablecloths. The smell of garlic and butter made her stomach grumble.

  Jabo hurried them past the tents to the horse corrals, where the sawdust turned to rutted ground. The horses trotted back and forth along the corral line as they walked past. A small blacksmith shop came next, followed by three unattached railroad cars. The center car had an awning and the name J. JABO on a brass sign. Jabo climbed the mini stairs easily, but Eugene had trouble finding room for his big feet.

  A pony-size dog with a black-and-white-spotted head appeared in the entrance, his long thin tail whapping the door. Jabo reached up to pet him.

  “Good evening, Tiny,” he said, nodding to Lucy. “The world’s smallest man meets the world’s largest dog. One of my best ideas, I don’t mind saying. Diavolo has a million-dollar insurance policy against me growing.”

  Growing? He was a grown-up!

  Jabo used a long stick with a carved handle to reach the light, which washed the train car in a yellow glow.

  The shelves were hung low and packed with clocks and what looked like clock repair tools covered a workbench. A sign read J. JABO: WATCH REPAIR. In the back were a bed and a shelf that sagged with the weight of books.

  Jabo fished in his pocket for his change and dropped it and his keys on the table. “Welcome to my humble abode. Make yourselves at home while I run down to the cook tent to sweet-talk Nitty-Bitty and procure your supper. If you see Grace, tell her you’re OOFOs,” he called over his shoulder as he went out.

  “Who’s Grace?” Nico asked, but Jabo was already gone.

  Tiny circled in the same spot a few times before lying down. It shook the whole train car.


  Lucy discovered Tiny liked to be scratched behind his ears. He kicked over on his back, groaning happily, his gigantic rib cage in the air, his pie-size paws flapping, his big sloppy pink-and-black-speckled jowls hanging upside down.

  Doris kept her distance from the dog as she inspected Jabo’s things. She picked up a gold pocket watch and examined it closely.

  Uh-oh.

  “I can look, can’t I?” Doris snapped when she saw Lucy staring.

  Nico set a tall black top hat on his head and squatted to observe himself in a mirror, hung low, the way everything was in Jabo’s home.

  Lucy ran her fingers along the book spines. The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Paradise Lost. Then she spotted an elaborately decorated map: Saachi’s Circus Spectacular WINTER QUARTERS, Karaboo 1939.

  On the map were roaring tigers, women with snakes wrapped around their necks like scarves, men in red coats playing trumpets, acrobats hanging by their hair, and buildings with names like Ring Stock Barn, Menagerie, Costume Shop. She spotted the elephant house and was trying to locate Jabo’s train car when she heard someone on the stairs. Tiny jumped up, shaking the car, and an enormous woman wearing a plaid flannel shirt appeared. Her head and shoulders filled the doorway, though her feet stood on the ground outside.

  She was wearing men’s dungarees, but there was something elegant about her. Her eyes were the green of new spring leaves. She had long, dark, shiny hair and skin as perfect as a bar of soap. She was dainty and large at the same time.

  “Are you Mrs. Grace?” Nico asked.

  Grace nodded. She pointed to Tiny’s leash, which hung from a hook on the wall. Tiny trotted over, took the leash in his mouth and pulled it down. Then he sat waiting for his next command.

  “And you are…?” Grace asked.

  “OOFOs, ma’am,” Nico said.

  “Four OOFOs! Jabo, Jabo, Jabo…” Grace sighed. “I don’t suppose he told you we get ten first-of-Mays every week.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Nico said, “but it’s not possible to have ten first-of-Mays.”

  Grace smiled. “It’s what we call the new fellas. They show up beginning of tent season: the first day in May. Most of us would take a first-of-May over an OOFO any day.”