Orphan Eleven Read online

  “She does the strong-woman act, then Elephantoff. Plus, the menagerie men report to her. Makes it all look easy.”

  “But she don’t suffer fools,” Rib said.

  “Must be why she doesn’t talk to you, Rib,” Bunk said.

  Again, they laughed.

  “Seriously, Lucy, Saachi’s is its own kind of special,” Bunk said. “A home for those of us don’t fit in anywhere else.”

  Lucy smiled.

  “What do you think, boys. Is she a keeper?”

  “You bet,” Rib said.

  Nevada nodded. “Gotta make sure Grace takes her on.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Bunk stood up. “Come on. Let’s go see Grace.”

  Lucy half skipped, half ran to the elephant barn with Bunk. When they arrived, morning light was streaming in the open back doors and the air smelled of hay and rotten fruit. The elephant was standing in the same place as the night before, but there was a second elephant, a much smaller one with the same wrinkly, saggy gray skin and huge flapping ears.

  The baby elephant was playing with an empty basket. Turning it upside down. Setting it right-side up. Taking a trunk full of sawdust and sprinkling it on her back. The baby’s trunk was as useful as an arm with a hand attached.

  “The little elephant is Baby. She’s a year old. The large one is Jenny. She’s not Baby’s mama, but she doesn’t seem to know that,” Bunk explained.

  Lucy wanted to touch the elephants, but she didn’t dare with Bunk standing next to her and Grace in the feed room.

  Bunk took off his hat and waited. Grace had a long-legged walk that made her seem to glide through space.

  Grace smiled at Bunk like he was the only person in the universe she wanted to see. “You again? How am I supposed to get my work done with you visiting all the time?”

  “Better figure it out. Otherwise, I’ll have to.” Bunk winked at Lucy.

  “Do my work? That I’d like to see,” Grace said.

  “Me too.” Bunk grinned.

  Grace looked over at Lucy. “And you are…?”

  “Lucy, meet Grace. She’s our new favorite OOFO, and she’s got her heart set on being a bull girl,” Bunk said.

  A bull girl? Lucy shook her head. She wanted to work with the elephants.

  “That’s what we call elephants around here,” Bunk whispered.

  Grace raised one eyebrow.

  “She’s a little green,” Bunk said, “but we got a good feeling about her.”

  Grace snorted. “I can’t help but notice you’re not taking her on.”

  “Don’t think she’s cut out for tenting work,” Bunk said.

  Grace nodded. “I’ll give her a try provided you stay with Baby during the performance.”

  “Rib okay?” Bunk asked.

  “What about the word you wasn’t clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it will be me.” Bunk nodded. “Go get ’em,” he whispered to Lucy, and hurried out.

  Grace walked out the back door. Lucy followed, taking stock of the small pond, the stack of hay bales that towered over her, and the brightly painted round, low tables. Grace pointed to the tables, handing her a bucket and a sponge. “Those stands need washing.”

  The stands were covered with a thick coat of dust, but they cleaned up nicely. While Lucy worked, she wondered what exactly Grace had meant by “give her a try”? Was the apprenticeship hers, so long as she did a good job?

  Lucy had washed two stands when Grace reappeared. “Jabo gave me an earful about how I need to give you OOFOs a chance,” she said, and sighed. “What makes you think you can handle an elephant?”

  Lucy reached into her pocket. But her dress was wet and so was the paper.

  “Speak up, girl. I don’t have all day,” Grace barked.

  Lucy opened her mouth to answer. But all she could hear was Miss Holland. “People judge you by the way you speak. Nobody wants to be around someone like you stumbling over every word. You will always be alone.”

  Lucy clamped her teeth together and began scrubbing the third stand. Mama used to say if you’re a hard worker, there will always be a job for you.

  Grace stood watching, towering over Lucy. Her voice was gentler now. “Lucy?”

  Lucy turned.

  “Do you speak English?” she asked.

  Lucy nodded.

  “But you don’t talk?”

  Lucy shook her head.

  Grace groaned. “Great balls of fire, Jabo.”

  Lucy began writing as fast as she could on her wet paper. This was her chance. She had to convince Grace, but before she could finish, a familiar voice called out, “We work together, ma’am.”

  Doris! Where had she come from?

  Grace looked Doris up and down. “You want to be a bull girl too, I take it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Doris curtseyed. “I’m Doris.”

  Grace angled her head toward Lucy. “She’s mute?”

  “She used to talk, but not anymore. She can still sing, though, when she wants to,” Doris said.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Grace muttered, fishing work gloves out of her pocket and slipping them on. “Why’d she stop talking?”

  “She got mad,” Doris said.

  “Mad?”

  Doris nodded. “Matron Mackinac liked her a real lot. She was always saying, ‘Girls, Lucy didn’t miss one single spelling word. Girls, you would do well to follow Lucy’s example,’ ” Doris sniped, imitating Mackinac. “Then Lucy started to have these lessons with a lady from the university. After that, Mackinac only had mean things to say about her, and Lucy stopped talking.”

  Lucy’s face got hot. She stared at Doris. It was unnerving to hear what happened from her point of view.

  “What kind of lessons?” Grace asked.

  “We thought they were singing lessons, but—” Doris shook her head.

  Grace’s face tightened. “I have seventeen animals and six menagerie workers. I can’t have a bull girl that doesn’t speak.”

  “Everybody always wants Lucy on their chore crew. She does more than her share. I got a voice you can hear a mile away. We’re a good team, ma’am,” Doris said.

  Grace gave Doris an appraising look.

  “Did everybody want you on their chore crew, Doris?”

  “Oh yes, ma’am,” Doris said.

  Grace wiped her ear with her shoulder. “Doris, you got the morning to prove yourself. I’m only giving you this chance because I owe Jabo. Lucy, I can’t have you around my animals. It isn’t safe. Do you understand?”

  Give me a chance. You won’t be disappointed, Lucy wrote.

  By the time she’d finished, Grace had disappeared. Lucy found her in the feed room packing ropes, brushes, and liniment into a wooden crate.

  Lucy thrust the page at her.

  Grace didn’t take it. “I made my decision, Lucy,” she snapped.

  Lucy walked toward the elephants. They were all she’d thought about since last night.

  Why did it matter that she didn’t talk?

  She was a good listener. And by writing her answers, she was forced to think harder about what she wanted to say.

  Lucy tried to get Jenny’s attention, but she was busy eating. Baby moved her trunk toward Lucy.

  “Lucy, did you hear what I said?” Grace glared at her.

  Lucy slunk out of the elephant barn. How come Bald Doris got to work with the elephants? Doris got clown noses, not elephant hairs.

  Lucy wanted to be mad at Doris. But Doris had tried to get Grace to take them both on. Working as a team had been a good idea.

  On her own, Bald Doris wouldn’t last a week with Grace. But they were leaving on Sunday. Doris might last until then.

  Lucy would need to find another apprenticeship.

  The sewi
ng shop, maybe.

  Mama had taught her to hem and baste. She wasn’t a seamstress, but maybe she could be an apprentice.

  When you were sewing you were supposed to keep your mouth shut and do your work. That’s what Mama had said. There was no real danger in a sewing shop. No reason to have to shout “John Robinson.”

  The costume shop was on the other side of Winter Quarters. She headed past the prop shop, past the cook tent, where a waiter was wiping down empty tables, past the fortune-telling booth with its shimmering curtains.

  The costume shop had bolts of fabric, a dressmaker’s bust, and three sewing machines. Standing on a pedestal by a large mirror, Diavolo stood peering at himself. He was wearing a white shirt, a red silk vest, and gray trousers.

  A pregnant lady in a yellow polka-dotted dress watched him, measuring tape in hand.

  “It inhibits the motion of my left arm! How many stitches did you use?” Diavolo barked.

  “Forty-five, same as the right,” the seamstress said.

  “You are not careful.”

  “I’m very careful,” she said.

  Lucy backed away. She didn’t want anything to do with Diavolo. But he caught sight of her in the mirror. “Diavolo doesn’t know you,” he announced.

  “Can I help you?” the seamstress asked.

  Lucy took out the soggy page and wrote as best she could. But before she could hand her paper to the seamstress, Diavolo snatched it out of her hands and read out loud, “ ‘I’m Lucy. I’m an OOFO and I can sew a little.’ ”

  “Hello, Lucy.” The seamstress smiled warmly. “I’m Betts, and this is Diavolo.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Diavolo demanded.

  Lucy’s head dipped to write her answer.

  “ ‘Don’t talk. Listen very well,’ ” Diavolo read, a smile blooming on his lips. He bowed and made a grand gesture offering Lucy his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Lucy.”

  Lucy smiled. She wasn’t expecting this.

  “How tall are you?” he murmured, leaping gracefully off the alterations pedestal. He moved as if every step was a dance. “A little over four feet, I’d say,” he answered for her.

  “Nooooo,” Betts whispered.

  “She’s an OOFO. She has to find an apprenticeship,” Diavolo said.

  “She wants to work for me,” Betts said, “don’t you?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “You need a real seamstress, not an apprentice. She’s Diavolo’s,” he said.

  Betts crossed her arms, resting them on her big belly. She glared at him.

  “Need I remind you how important it is for us to make money this season?” Diavolo asked.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Danger, Betts. Danger is what they come for. You know that as well as I do. Wait here, Lucy.” He disappeared behind a curtain.

  Lucy took out her paper and wrote Danger? but before she could show Betts, Diavolo swept out of the dressing room wearing a leotard and tight-fitting pants. He handed the white shirt and the red silk vest to Betts. “I need these by noon.”

  Then he bowed to Lucy. “Lucy, my sweet girl, you have yourself an apprenticeship with the great, the one and only Diavolo. I’ll let Jabo know. Now let’s go.”

  Betts stared at Lucy, a hollow look in her eyes.

  This was only temporary, Lucy told herself. Just until she could convince Grace to take her on.

  Diavolo was a short, slender man, but he walked in big angry strides, his hand firmly wrapped around Lucy’s. She had to run to keep up.

  A roustabout jumped out of their way, tipping his hat to Diavolo. A juggler caught his pins and bowed. The acrobats tracked Diavolo’s progress under hooded lids as they rubbed white chalk on their hands.

  Lucy tried to calm herself, but a thousand questions chased around her head. Did he know she wasn’t an acrobat? Did he know she’d never been on a high wire? Did he know she couldn’t walk on her hands while juggling with her feet?

  Still, it was good to have powerful people on your side. That was why Nico wanted to work for Jabo, and Diavolo was Jabo’s boss.

  The cook tent flag was down, but when Nitty-Bitty saw Diavolo, she dashed out with a quart bottle of cold water.

  “Half-filled with ice?” Diavolo asked.

  “Yes, sir.” Nitty-Bitty nodded, her voice stiff, nothing like the raspy, teasing way she spoke to Jabo.

  Diavolo led Lucy behind the big top to a large tent. Outside the tent stood two large men with shoulders that nearly busted out of their shirts and necks bigger around than a lady’s waist.

  “Diavolo doesn’t need anything this morning. Report to Bunk,” Diavolo told them as he led Lucy inside the tent, which had mirrors all around and sparkly costumes hanging from a bar. Diavolo flipped through the clothes, considering shimmery gold pants before settling on a sparkly burgundy dress. He eyeballed her feet, then dug through a basket of shoes and handed her a pair of black flats.

  “Give yourself a sponge bath and comb that hair. Put on your costume. In the dressing room.” He nodded to a piece of canvas stretched along a rope on one side of the tent.

  “Quickly, please.” He handed her a bucket of water. “Diavolo does not like to wait.”

  On the other side of the canvas curtain, Lucy yanked off her shoes and slipped on the new ones. Even with the blisters and her purple-bruised toes, the new shoes felt good.

  The water in the bucket was cold. She shivered as she wiped the dirt and grime off her arms and face.

  “Don’t make Diavolo wait!” Diavolo barked on the other side of the curtain.

  Lucy slipped on the dress, which was thick with sequins, sparkles, and dangling jewels. She tied the belt twice around her waist to make it fit, but she could do nothing about the straps that slid off her arms. She blushed. A young lady should not be seen in a dress like this.

  In the mirror she was shocked to see her sunken cheeks and the dark gray under her eyes. There were no mirrors at the orphanage. The girls caught their reflections in the window of the dining hall at night.

  Her hair needed combing, but that was nothing new. Her kind of hair needed combing the minute she stopped combing it.

  The dress had no pockets, so she left the vocabulary words and her baby tooth in the pocket of the orphanage dress. She shoved her pencil and paper in her drawers and tucked Dilly’s button and the silk purse with the elephant hair under the arch of her foot. She would have liked to keep the button in her hand, but she didn’t think she could swing from a bar and hold on to it at the same time. Even with her stuff inside, these shoes were like walking on soft grass. She felt grateful for every step.

  When she came out, Diavolo shook his head. “All wrong for you, but I like the idea of a child. So vulnerable.” His fingers stroked his chin. “A pinafore, maybe, with a big bow and a lollipop. I’ll get Betts working on it.” He smiled.

  “The last girl was a screamer. Gave me migraines. A mute is brilliant.”

  Lucy smiled. Finally someone who appreciated this part of her!

  “Now let’s get to work. Stand up straight and hold still.” He walked around her, nodding. “What is this?” He patted the hip where her pencil and paper were hidden.

  Lucy’s cheeks flushed.

  “Get rid of it.”

  She ducked behind the curtain, pulled out her pencil and paper, and set them with her orphanage dress. She pushed the silk purse deeper into her shoes and came back out.

  “Stand still.” Diavolo’s nostrils flared. “You’re holding your breath. Breathe evenly. E-ven-ly. Each breath the same. The tick of a clock is not one long, one short. Each tick. Is. The. Same.”

  Why did it matter how she breathed?

  Lucy sucked in air with her mouth open and then closed. Diavolo pounded a tambourine, commanding her to
breathe to its rhythm.

  “Say the alphabet. Count in your head. Breathe to the letter. Breathe to the count.” Diavolo had so many suggestions and he made her try every one. He acted as if she’d never taken a single breath in her entire life and it was his job to teach her how.

  Lucy focused on the numbers. She breathed to the count.

  “Too fast,” he shouted.

  He had her close her eyes. Place her fingers on her chest. Do short hops breathing in rhythm. She breathed in with one number, out with the other. She opened her nostrils and tried to breathe like a machine.

  They spent most of the morning with Diavolo pounding the tambourine, until finally he nodded. “That’ll do. Now, that hair.” He moved to his dressing table, uncorked a small bottle, and shook drops onto Lucy’s hand.

  “Smooth it down. No stray hairs. None!”

  Lucy went to work slathering greasy pomade on her head, but it was tough to tame the thick corkscrew strands. Would he yell at her for using too much? Not enough?

  When she was done, Diavolo shook his head and poured more drops on her hand. Lucy went through her hair again, until it was shiny with grease and slicked back like she’d just gotten out of a bath.

  He picked up another glass bottle marked GINGER. “Do you get motion sick?”

  Lucy shook her head.

  He smiled at her. “I’m liking you more and more all the time.”

  He dabbed oil on her wrists. This one smelled like oranges. “Put a little under your nose. Scent is calming,” he said.

  Calming?

  “Okay. We’re ready to go. We’ll start slowly. I like a long warm-up.”

  Why hadn’t Diavolo tested to see how strong she was? Or asked if she was afraid of heights? Wouldn’t you want to know this about an acrobat apprentice?

  They stopped by a small stage with ropes hanging from a wooden platform three stories high. A man in a leotard swooped through the air on a high trapeze.

  Lucy’s stomach twisted.

  The aerialist swung from bar to rope to bar while Diavolo fussed around her. He had her stand with her back against a large, flat plywood circle. He adjusted the risers so she could reach the handles on either side and buckled straps over her ankles.