*This story is underneath my folder titled “Town of Richardson”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33”. Enjoy!*
1. Come along and let the circus light shine!
When you are going to let ME on the stage? I want to perform with you, too!
Gwyneth either said those words or something similar to those words. Every day, when Gabriel would leave for the circus, she would beg him to let her perform “on stage” with him, because even though it was only under a circus tent, she still called it a stage.
Gabriel blinked away the tears in his eyes. Mr. Ladouceur always put up strings of light in the circus tent as decoration, and the lights were always far too bright. The audience could see him, but he couldn’t see much of the audience.
However, he tried his best to get more details of the audience, to make out his family in the crowd.
Nobody…nobody…nobody…there!
Mom had her hand on Gwyneth’s shoulder, Dad was holding a stick of cotton candy, no doubt ordered by Gwyneth, and Gwyneth herself was cheering him along with the crowd. He hadn’t yet done anything and already, they were all clapping for him.
“You there! Little girl with the toothy grin!” Gabriel boomed, pointing at Gwyneth with a smile.
There was a hint of hope in her eyes, but still, she pointed to herself and asked tentatively:
“Me?”
She asked that question as though performing was a great gift, a dream that anyone would want to achieve.
“Who else?” Gabriel asked with a grin. His soft voice was raised three pitches higher from what Mr. Ladouceur told him in training and a tad nasally from the clown nose that pinched him. It sounded all strangled and messed-up, but people liked him better when he was Bubblegum the clown.
Gwyneth beamed from ear to ear as she joined him up under the circus lights.
Back at home, Gabriel would tell her all about the tricks he did, and she would grin and say excitedly: “I want to do that!”
But still, Gabriel whispered in her ear, just to be sure:
“Do you want to do the pie trick? The one where I put a pie on your face? Are you okay with that? Or do you want to pie face me?”
Gwyneth cupped her hand over her mouth and whispered right back, barely stifling a giggle:
“You!”
Gabriel nodded and smiled at the crowd, going off in the same nonsense clown-talk that he did every day, that the crowd ate up, that he himself didn’t understand. If he spent all of the time talking, then nobody would notice him leading Gwyneth to the blue-painted table where the pies were kept in white boxes in neat shelves. Nobody would care that he bent down to her level so that she would hear him tell her what was in the boxes, and when Gwyneth planted a lemon meringue pie on his face…
The crowd hollered with laughter, and he picked up Gwyneth and spun her around the air.
Mr. Ladouceur may not have been the best, but at least he had Gwyneth to cheer him on.
2. Why does Gabriel have hot pink eyes?
“Do you ever wonder why your eyes are hot pink?” William asked.
Gabriel and William were sitting on the front steps of Gabriel’s house, the afternoon sun warming them both up. William was looking in front of him, and Gabriel was looking down at his sneakers, fidgeting with a stick he found lying around.
The circus would open up at 3:30 AM, and then they would both be off, but there was still time to rest at 1:05 AM.
Gabriel scratched the back of his neck, unsure on how to answer William. He thought that they were going to have a simple, lazy afternoon together, but then William went and asked that question.
No, Gabriel didn’t know why his eyes were hot pink. People would look at him and point, as though his six foot, eight inch height and soft voice wasn’t enough to comment on.
“I don’t know. Why do you ask?” Gabriel asked, not looking away from his worn, dirtied purple high top sneakers.
“People don’t usually have hot pink eyes. Are you sure you’re not sick? Are you-“
“I tried asking my parents and they never tell me! I don’t know why my eyes look the way I do! I don’t know why I look the way I do, so please just don’t ask.” Gabriel said, hoping that his tears didn’t come out.
William didn’t need to see him cry.
“I didn’t mean to make you upset. I just wanted to ask and make sure that you’re okay. I shouldn’t have said anything, I know how you feel when people talk about your appearance. That was bad on my part.” William said.
Gabriel looked up at him, needing to see a human face after spending most of the time looking down at the ground.
William had a hint of guilt in his eyes, he chewed the bottom of his lip, a habit he did when he was nervous.
Gabriel’s lips quirked into a smile and then he said:
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure my parents will tell me one day, when they’re ready. I don’t think it’s that bad, though. I think I’m just different. You want to get some cookies? I think there’s still some left in the pantry.”
William nodded, and with that, the two of them opened the front door to get the cookies from the pantry, Gabriel pushing down his frantic second thoughts about may or may not have happened to him.
If he was poisoned, then he would have died already. Gabriel was okay…
3. Gabriel and the accordion
Gabriel stretched out the accordion, then stretched it back in. In and out. In and out. In and out.
He placed the accordion next to him on the bed and lay down, closing his eyes and sighing deeply.
His parents got him the toy accordion at Christmas when he was six years old. He still kept it, the painted blue toy accordion that brought him so much, so much happiness…
Mr. Ladouceur didn’t give him an accordion. He told Gabriel to ride on a unicycle and do a few tricks. The jaunty music came from a nearby calliope, and sometimes, the woman who was hired to play it wouldn’t come.
He didn’t get to play a careless tune, he had to work like a machine to make everyone smile…
4. Gabriel’s voice
Gabriel tried pulling off the stitches that sealed his lips. As it happened every day and night, the stitches did not come loose. They were firmly etched onto his lips, his grin always in.
He stood alone in his circus tent. No audience. No Gwyneth. The ghosts were outside, but he didn’t feel like coming out yet. Gabriel could have the tent to himself, could think his thoughts by himself.
Everyone except those who loved him had to point out his voice being “girlish”. It didn’t quite bother him as much as the insults towards his height and “stupidity” (he was just trying to be kind) did, but it still scratched at his heart, haunted the corners of his mind.
Gabriel couldn’t talk anymore with the stitches sewed on. His “annoying girl voice” couldn’t be heard anymore with the stitches.
Would they like him better with the stitches on? Without a doubt, they would.
But even though Gabriel couldn’t get the stitches off, he wouldn’t stop digging in his mind for memories, never forget how they all treated him.
He was more than just the blurred clown ghost in the torn-up circus tent.
5. First meet, second greet
1988-The local park-William is eight and Gabriel is nine.
William ran in circles around in a single spot on the grass. Mom and Dad were lying on a picnic blanket, staring up at the sun.
There were other kids at the park, and his parents only wanted to take William for a “nice Saturday off” but how on Earth was he going to talk to a bunch of strange kids? Everybody liked going to the park, but did everybody like talking to each other? Why couldn’t his parents just drive him out to the arcades at the next town over like in the commercials?
So he ran in a circle, trying to pass the time, attempting to have fun, and then-
William stopped. He saw a boy somewhere around his age drawing on the cement part of the park with bright-colored chalk sticks. The boy looked like he was around his age, but he was just so tall that William couldn’t really tell.
I haven’t seen anybody bring chalk to the park before. Maybe he’ll let me join! William thought as he walked up to him.
Why was he walking up to the boy? What if the boy didn’t want to talk to him? What if the boy was bothered by him? What if-
“Can I draw with you?” William found himself asking after he got close enough to the boy, a boy that he could see very clearly was close to his age, no matter whatever his height may have been.
The boy nodded and nudged his head towards the other chalk sticks.
William grabbed one of the chalk sticks and began to color. For a few minutes, neither one of the boys talked, and then, suddenly, the tall boy asked:
“Do you think I look weird?”
William looked up at the boy’s face. Sure, he looked very very tall, and sure, the boy’s eyes were hot pink, but he didn’t look weird. He just looked like a person.
“No. I think you look fine. Why did you ask?” William asked, ever so curious.
“Just wanted to make sure.” The boy said in a way that sounded like he was scared. William didn’t ask anything about it, though. Mom always said to “never pry emotions out of people, they’ll tell you when you are ready”.
“Do you want to be friends?” The boy asked.
William blinked. Why did the boy suddenly ask that? Why did he want to be friends with William? Did he think that William could be a good friend?
“I don’t know your name.” William said.
He would have loved to accept the boy’s offer, since William never really had any friends with the son of the “circus man” as everyone called Dad, but how would he be able to be friends with a boy he just met?
“Oh, of course! I’m Gabriel and you’re William, right? William Ladouceur? Your Dad is Mr. Ladouceur, is that right?” Gabriel asked.
William nodded. He hoped that Gabriel wouldn’t talk about the circus that Dad was trying to create, the circus that everyone laughed at and hated.
“Coool. I want to be a clown someday! I want to wear makeup and make everybody laugh! Do you want to join the circus?” Gabriel asked, his eyes brightening up, a smile spreading on his face.
William had never really thought about it, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to work at a circus.
“I guess. I don’t really care about the circus, though.” William said with a shrug.
“That’s okay! We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Gabriel said, a smile still on his face.
“It’s nice to meet you.” William said. Gabriel didn’t seem upset, but William wanted to be careful to not bother Gabriel too much. He wanted Gabriel to know that he was grateful to have him as a friend.
“Nice to meet you too!” Gabriel beamed.
With that, the two of them colored together silently, creating a world of fantasy and magic right on the solid-gray cement ground. Though their chalk would get washed away by rain, it didn’t matter to them then, because they were letting all of their hopes, all of their dreams, flow out in simple rainbow colors, without anyone to judge, without anyone to care.
……………………………………………………
1993-At the Ladouceur family circus-William is thirteen and Gabriel is fourteen.
“I can’t believe it’s here! Your circus has been built! All of this hard work, and it paid off!” Gabriel said excitedly, opening up the curtain to watch the people come in and out, in and out.
After many years of starting the circus back when William was one, his father managed to get enough money to complete it when William was thirteen. He had told William to ask around school if anybody wanted to join. Knowing how everybody in his school acted over the flyers that Dad printed out about the circus, William made sure to only inform Gabriel, since Gabriel was the only one who really cared.
Sure enough, Gabriel was the only performer. He was “Bubblegum Hopscotch Fiddlesticks the clown” and William was the second ringmaster, the “ringmaster’s son”.
The both of them were in the main circus tent. The both of them had finished getting ready. But only one of them cared about the circus with a deep-rooted passion.
William walked up to Gabriel, taking note of how he was smiling more, of how he sounded more joyful than he ever did. For the first time in his life, Gabriel wasn’t thinking about what other people said. He only cared about the moment, and as a friend, all William could ever ask for was for Gabriel’s glee.
But people saw kindness as weakness. After seeing how the other kids treated him, he didn’t want Gabriel to be crushed if others treated him like dirt.
“It’s not really my circus. It’s more like my Dad’s circus. Gabriel, listen: This is a circus. This is all a performance. If anyone ever picks on you-“
“They won’t! Maybe-“
“Maybe what? Going to a circus isn’t going to change them.”
“I know, but people come to the circus for good times, do they not?”
“They do, but their idea of a good time may be different. You see how they all treat you at school. How they treat me. By all means, be happy, but don’t let any cruel words get to you. They’re not worth it.” William said.
Maybe it was wrong of William to say any of that, but peeking through the open flap of the circus, he couldn’t tell whether the audience’s smiles were meant to be warm or mocking.
Gabriel beamed and wrapped William up in a hug, picking him up from the ground in the process. William couldn’t hug Gabriel back, and Gabriel couldn’t see William’s grin, all because Gabriel was hugging him tight and William’s face was pressed into Gabriel’s chest.
William thought that Gabriel was tall at nine, but at fourteen, he was a whopping six foot eight.
Not that it mattered to him. William would always love Gabriel no matter what happened.
“It’s nice that you’re looking out for me, but I’m fine. I’ll just ignore anyone who is rude, and if anything bad happens, which is unlikely, considering that we’re all just here for fun, then I’ll know how to handle it. Don’t worry about me, okay?” Gabriel asked.
William couldn’t speak, his face was still muffled by Gabriel’s chest. Gabriel realized that after a few seconds and let William down, awaiting his response.
“Alright. But be careful, okay?” William asked.
Why did he even care? It was just a circus. Gabriel was just performing. Gabriel said that he would handle it himself.
Yet still, looking up at Gabriel’s painted clown face that somehow made his pink eyes seem brighter, William couldn’t help but think: He looks too sweet to be hurt.
“Of course! I’ll be all good. Don’t be a Mom now, okay?” Gabriel joked.
William was about to go on about how he was just trying to be a good friend, but then-
“Make your way to the main tent to see the big show!” Dad’s voice rang out through the megaphone, inappropriately and insanely optimistic.
As the crowd began to pursue towards the main tent, as Gabriel went into a life-sized red box with gold stars on it to hide until his clown name was called upon by Dad, William hoped so badly that the audience only came with good intentions.
Gabriel didn’t deserve to cry.
Points: 5154
Reviews: 59
Donate