Young Writers Society

One

There’s something magical about watching the sun set and all the fairground lights turn on, one ride at a time. When you’ve seen it happen every night since March, you can’t really look up at it all in the same kind of wonder as the wide-eyed little kids who are coming to see us for the first time. All the tinsel and the clowns and the jugglers in leotards are nothing new for us. But on nights like this, when you’re watching the lights shimmer and glow, it feels like the stars are just a little lower down in the sky, just a bit easier to reach.

Fratelli’s Traveling Carnival been open since nine o’clock in the morning, and Dad’s shift ended when the rides stopped and the circus opened for the night. Right now, we’re sitting atop our trailer, watching the ferris wheel twinkle in the darkness like a gigantic star, and listening to the ambient noise: the trumpeting cries of elephants, yawning lions and tigers, and the sudden boom-claps of little pyrotechnics going off from the circus tent.

Soon, it’ll be my shift to hand out popcorn and cotton candy to the wonderstruck audience, but we have fifteen minutes to just unwind together.

Dad keeps a strong, protective arm around my shoulder while my legs - hairy and scraped as they are - dangle off the side of the trailer. The thought of being fifteen feet off the ground was unnerving to a lot of kids my age, but there’s no place for fear of heights in a place like this - you get over it, eventually, one way or another.

Dad tells me about the kid who threw up in line for the roller coaster, threw up on the coaster, and threw up after the coaster … insisting all the while that he wanted to be there, and - get this - go again.

You see, my dad is the handyman around here, and a ride operator too. (You could say he does a little of everything - he’s been here so long, he knows how to do it all, even if it’s way too much for one man to do in a day.) Every morning, before we open, he’s the one test-riding everything to make sure they’re in working order. Sometimes, I go with him, but Jud, the man in charge, has plenty of work for me too.

I hear the music from under the big top change its tune, and the low rumble of the ringmaster’s baritone voice as he announces the next act. I recognize what’s coming next - it means my shift is on. “I have to go,” I tell my dad, and I climb carefully down the trailer’s side.

“Have fun,” he calls absently, lighting a cigarette. He thinks I can’t see him do it. It’s true, I didn’t this time, but I heard the click of his lighter and the quiet whoosh of the flame. He doesn’t smoke while he’s on shift because the parents don’t like it, and he doesn’t smoke when he knows I’m around, because I don’t like it either. But I hear him most times. And I can smell it too, which isn’t great.

You’d think if we lived with a traveling circus, we’d go see it every night. Dad hasn’t taken me since I was six. He says he doesn’t have time anymore.

I walk past the various trailers and booths, dark and vacant now since most of their occupants are part of the show. The trailer where they pop the popcorn and make cotton candy is dimly lit, and I enter to get my supplies.

Marge, my supervisor, gruffly hands me my apron (where the name “Ryan” has been messily crossed out and replaced with “Molly”), changemaker, and a big bag of sugary, pink puffballs. She’s always frowning, at me, at her work, at everything. To the audience, everything’s fine and dandy and colorful, so they can just sit back and watch the show; but for the people who put all the work into their entertainment, night after night, it’s just another tiresome, stressful routine.

I enter the circus tent from an out-of-sight side door. Families cluster together in the packed benches - I’ve never met most of them, but I’ve seen so many others who look just like them. I do my best not to block their view or bump into them, and smile in hopes that they’ll shell out a bit more cash for their suddenly ravenous kids. The parents either smile tightly back at me, hoping that I’ll get out of the way, or avoid my gaze altogether. As for the kids….

“Mommy, I want one!”

Finally, a sale!

“No, sweetie, you already had a….”

“But I….”

Cotton candy melts in your mouth the second you eat it, leaving a sticky mess on your face and teeth most of the time. Honestly, I don’t blame the mommy for saying no, but Jed wants me to sell the entire sack before the hour’s up. Last week, it was shave ice, and that was a disaster. What didn’t sell melted … and what melted spilled all over a family of six because I wasn’t looking where I was going.

Someone taps my shoulder, quietly calls me over. A couple with two fidgety kids buys four bags, one for each of them (or two for each kid). Good luck getting them to sleep tonight, I think dryly.

Behind me, the band organ music swells, and the crowd lets out a collective sigh. I try to stay focused on not blocking or knocking into anybody, but I can’t resist looking up with them.

High above our heads, a slender woman in a shimmering blue leotard walks nimbly across the highwire, placing one poised foot after the other on a seemingly thin length of rope that spans the arena. This is my favorite part of the show, the part I remember most clearly from the first time Dad brought me, all those years ago. It was at that moment that I’d decided what I really want to be.

A narrow spotlight makes its way across the big top, until it finds its target: a slender acrobat, standing on the tightrope that’s suspended twenty feet off the ground.

I watch, awestruck, as she makes her way across the wire, graceful step by graceful step. Hands held out for balance, chin raised confidently, she barely wobbles - but in the event that she does, there’s plenty of safety netting below the tightrope.

It’s like she’s walking on the air itself….

“Miss?”

I’m forced to return my attention to my customers. I have another sale.

The same mother who’d been saying no has finally given in. She’s looking at me expectantly, her careworn, weary, and a little confused at my long, blank-faced silence.

I take her money quickly and give her kids their next dose of sugar.

Two

My shift ends, and I return to our trailer. Hopefully, Dad’s fixed the shower and I won’t have to wash my hair in the sink again.

When I come in, Jud is there, talking with my father. He’s sitting at the table like he lives here, and has helped himself to my special stash of ginger ale. Dad stands by the kitchen sink, arms crossed. They both smile big, fake smiles when they see me. They’re hiding something, the both of them.

Jud Junior is what everyone who knew his father - the original owner, the Jud Fratelli - calls him behind his back. Old Mr. Fratelli died when I was eight. Dad liked him, respected him a lot, always said he was a nice guy. Since I’m the only kid here, he would say it was easy to remember my birthday, and would always give me a new knickknack from the souvenir booth to add to my shelf. He treated us well.

Jud Junior, on the other hand, is kind of mean. He yells at everyone, and rarely has anything nice to say unless it’s to his advantage.

I head to the bathroom, where, sure enough, the showerhead is still disconnected. With a sigh, I grab my shampoo and soap and let the sink fill up.

That’s when I hear Dad shout. “No … way,” he exclaims. The dot-dot-dots refer to some extra words in between that I’m not supposed to write or say.

I shut off the faucet, wondering if I should come out and see what’s going on. I decide to listen instead, for now.

“Listen, Jonny, you can’t deny it’s in her blood,” Jud is saying in that too-calm, oily voice he uses when he’s trying to get his way. He took a this anger management correspondence course last summer, and thinks he’ll be more successful if he speaks like this. The problem is, we all know what he’s trying to do, so it doesn’t work.

“My answer is final,” Dad responds evenly. “Molly’s not interested. I’m not interested.”

I hear a loud belch and heavy breathing as Jud stands up. “Well, she’s no good at snack duty, and insurance won’t let her near the animals. Your daughter’s old enough to earn her keep by herself. I’m offering one last way for her to make herself useful.”

Dad remains silent.

“All right, then. Sleep on it and tell me what you think in the morning,” Jud says. I hear the door creak as he opens it, and the steps protest under his weight as he descends. “I already talked to Carla - she’s willing to show your daughter the ropes, if you know what I mean.” He chuckles at his own remark as he leaves, and I hear the clang of the soda can hitting the side of the trailer where he tosses it.

“But Daddy...!” I wail as he unties the thick rope I’ve tied between our trailer and a nearby telephone pole.

“Sweetheart, this is for your own good,” my father replies gently, coiling up the rope in his hands. “I don’t want you to fall--” his voice shakes slightly “--and get hurt.”

I’ve fallen before, while climbing trees, or at the playground we went to last week. Sometimes, I cut my knees and scrape my elbows, but they always get better. I’ve been practicing on my homemade tightrope since breakfast, and I only fell once. The rope’s barely a foot off the ground - the little fall won’t hurt me. I tell him all of this. I tell him that this is what I want to do when I grow up. I want to walk the tightrope, just like the lady we saw at the show the night before.

Daddy shakes his head and takes the rope inside. “Just don’t do that again,” he calls hoarsely over his shoulder. The trailer door rattles as he shuts it. That rarely happens, and never because of me.

For the longest time, I wondered what I’d done to make him so upset.

* * * *

I wake up the next morning to the sound of packing tape and the thud of heavy objects being moved around. My first thought is, What’s going on?

Dad’s packing our things into cardboard boxes, taping them shut, and stacking them by the door when I find him.

I ask him what I’m thinking, and he pauses uncertainly.

“Eat your breakfast, Molly,” he says. “We’re leaving in an hour.”

Leaving? To where? Why? The circus is supposed to be here for another week!

I pour myself a bowl of Froot Loops and watch him in silence, wondering if he’ll explain why.

On the counter, Dad’s walkie-talkie buzzes loudly as someone shouts his name through the static. That has to be Jud. He picks it up, muttering something I won’t repeat here. All I’ll say is that what he said accurately describes our boss as a person. He turns a few knobs to clear the signal, and gets an earful of more colorful words and phrases.

“I handed in my resignation this morning,” Dad says into the receiver curtly. “Don’t worry, I checked all the rides first. They’re safe. Goodbye.”

“You … quit?” I whisper when he cuts the connection, cutting Jud off mid-expletive as well.

Dad nods. “Uh-huh. I think it’s time to try something … different.”

I open my mouth to protest, but no words come out. In my brain, all my questions are being really polite to each other, telling themselves, After you, kind sir. No, after you! We’ve been with Fratelli’s Traveling Carnival all my life. Sure, Jud’s a mean old loudmouth, and most of the crew aren’t exactly my biggest fans, but we don’t have it bad here. Not that I can think of, anyway.

“Take what you need to the truck,” Dad instructs me, drawing me from my thoughts. “I’m putting these boxes in the back.”

“We’re leaving the trailer behind?” I ask, shocked.

Dad waves his hands around the room. “All this belongs to Jud. The truck’s ours.” He pats me on the head. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

I can’t bring myself to reply, “It’s okay, Dad,” because I can’t see how any of this is going to be remotely okay.