Chapter Two

By the time James finished rehearsing with his family for the big opening day, he had several more colorful bruises to accent his black eye. Lady Maera pulled him into her vardo to cover what she could with makeup.

"Try not to sweat all this off again while you're in the limelight, alright my little man?"

"What's the point?" James grumbled. "No one's going to come to our cruddy circus with Haly's here. I don't even want to go to our cruddy circus." He'd never known to be ashamed of his work before, but now that James had seen Haly's he was mortified to be a part of Hamill's.

Lady Maera shook her head, and it occurred to James that she'd probably felt the same way for a long time.

"You're a good boy James. I know life is rough for you right now, but it won't always be that way." She picked up a big poofy brush and started patting powder onto James' face. He scrunched up his nose and tried not to sneeze. "You're too talented for the Flying Jesses and much too clever to stay with your mother and father. I know someday you'll leave us all behind for the big time, and I only hope that when you do, you remember the old lady who used to give you potato pancakes when she was young and pretty."

James frowned, and she lowered the brush with a sad smile on her face. "But you're talented too. If I leave, why don't you just come with me?"

"I've made my home here Jamey. It's just not in the cards for me. But don't let that hold you back. You're really gonna be something someday kid. I've Seen it."

James left her vardo feeling conflicted (and still trying not to sneeze). Now that he'd seen a circus other than his own he did want to leave Hamill's, badly. But he'd also realized that Lady Maera was the only friend he'd ever had, and leaving her behind was a painful thought.

He didn't have long to brood on thoughts, painful or otherwise. As soon as he was in his tights his mother yanked him out to the big top. She kept fussing with him; combing his hair and wiping his cheek and complaining about the way Lady Maera had done his makeup. Consequently, James didn't have a moment of peace until he was leaving his mother to climb up the ladder to the platform where the high wire waited.

As usual, James felt a plunging sensation in the pit of his stomach when he looked down. His body vividly remembered Frank bouncing the line, trying a new trick on sudden inspiration without telling his son of the change, or just plain getting distracted and dropping him. James closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared himself for the act.

"Ladies and…hurkh-Ladies and gentlemen!" Lloyd broke off into a hacking cough, and it took him a moment to finish his speech. He rasped it out as quickly as possible, clearly afraid of being cut off by more coughing fits. James could hear his father complaining about the ringmaster's three packs a day from the platform on the other side of the tightrope.

"Hamill'ssproudtapresenth'wondersofth'airth'FlyingJesses. Urgh…"

One spotlight shone on James, the other on his father, and the music picked up. He fixed a gleaming smile on his face and waved at the crowd, surprised at its size. He couldn't really see them with the light in his eyes, but there might have been thirty people clapping.

James imagined it was the roar that had greeted the Flying Graysons and used it to energize himself.

He stepped out onto the wire and right into his performance persona. With an audience present, small though it was, his father had to keep his temper in check and consequently James could focus on his own footwork instead of the proximity of his father's hands. He played with the routine, pretending to lose balance and then easily righting himself with a playful smile and a wink.

Frank was about a foot away at that point. "Stick to the script you little brat," he ground out around his own toothy smile.

"The audience liked it Pop," James answered without moving his lips.

He leapt onto Frank's shoulders and stood upright with his feet flat either side of his father's head while Frank continued along the rope at a hectic pace. When James jumped down, Helen swooped in on a trapeze swing and pulled Frank into the air. With the way the lighting worked, it was an unexpected move, and would have been the highlight of their act if they ever pulled it off.

As usual, Frank's foot tugged the line, James lost his balance, and he fell, plummeting to the net with a shriek of terror.

James curled into a ball, pale and shaking. Hitting the net always hurt, but it was nothing to what would come that night. Even though it was his dad that messed up, James would be blamed and James would miss supper and James wouldn't be allowed his pillow and blanket and James would get all manner of new bruises.

"Hey, kid, get off the net before the lights get back this way!" Lloyd hissed. James dutifully heaved his aching body to the edge of the net, landed gracelessly on the ground, and shuffled off to the wings to wait for his parents.

"What the hell kind of performance was that you little beast?" Frank Jesse greeted his son with a roar and a backhand that sent him to the dirt. He followed it up with a kick to the ribs.

James screamed and turned on the waterworks. There were still some customers lingering on the grounds, and Papa Jesse beating Hamill's only child star wouldn't be good for business. If he was loud enough someone might actually make Frank stop.

"Frank, calm down! He still needs to perform for the rest of the week!" Helen snapped. It earned her a backhand, killing any motherly instincts to protect her child that may have arisen.

"He's just gonna fall the rest of the week like he always does! You no good useless little bastard! You're not half as cute as the Grayson brat! They're rolling in the dough and what do you bring us? Nothing. Just another mouth to feed!" Each angry sentence was punctuated with a hit.

James kept up a continuous wail, cowering and trying to protect his head with his skinny arms. It soon became clear that no one was coming to his aid, but by that point he couldn't have stopped yelling if he tried. He was already too worked up.

Frank yanked James to his knees by his wavy blond hair and leaned over so that they were eye to eye. "You fall again tomorrow, boy I'm going to kill you. Now get out of my sight."

James ran out of the tent as fast as his legs could manage. Frank had obviously never followed through on that oft-repeated threat, but it never stopped terrifying James with each new repetition.

No amount of makeup would cover James' bruises the next day. The freshest ones were only slightly swollen and purple, but the others were dark and ugly, and the one above his eye was a dark plum with sickening yellow in the center. Mr. Hamill himself inspected James, and ultimately declared him unfit to be seen. He was to remain locked in the vardo to rest with an icepack over his eye, with hopes that the swelling would go down soon enough for him to "earn his keep".

As soon as the cheerful music announced the start of the show, James picked the lock to the door and propped it open. He had no intentions of going anywhere, but it was sweltering in the vardo, and James had broken their only fan when his papa had clubbed him on the head with it.

He took out his comics, propped himself up in his parents' bed, and dutifully plopped the icepack over his eye.

To his great surprise, about a half hour into the show there was a rapping on the open door. James jumped, dropping his comic and sending the icepack skittering across the floorboards.

A pretty woman with shiny dark hair had stuck her head in the doorway. It only took James a second to place her. "Mrs. Grayson! What are you doing here?" A beautiful star like her didn't belong in James' dismal reality any more than he belonged in hers.

"Hey there sweetheart. You recognize me, huh?" She straightened up and smiled at him. Her smile was as beautiful as the rest of her, and it made his cheeks warm for some reason.

"You're only the best most beautiful acrobat I've ever seen. Course I recognize you. What are you doing at our circus?"

"You're one of the Flying Jesses, right?" she asked.

He nodded. "My name's James."

"It's very nice to meet you James. My name is Mary."

"Okay Mrs. Grayson."

Laughing, she held out her hand, and helped him jump down out of the vardo and into the open sunlight. Mr. Grayson was standing a few yards away with their son on his shoulders. It was weird to see them all in normal clothes when they'd worn their costumes like second skins.

"Goodness!" Mary Grayson clapped a hand over her mouth, startled by James' appearance now that he was out of the dimly lit vardo.

Mr. Grayson stepped forward, wearing a grim expression. "Are you alright son?"

"Course I am," James lied. "I had an accident last night. Mal the Magnificent was looking the other way and I wanted to see the elephants up close, because I'm so curious and all, so I hopped into their pen. Guess I got a bit too near. Elsie smacked me with her trunk." James rubbed at his eye and gave them a well-practiced embarrassed smile that usually made adults melt. "Mama and Papa gave me the day off to relax."

"I should hope so," Mrs. Grayson said, still looking worried. Mr. Grayson was the one troubling James. He didn't look like he'd bought the story at all.

"So how can I help you folks?"

Mrs. Grayson smiled at him, and James breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like she'd let him get away with changing the subject.

"We were hoping we could talk to your mom and dad, but I guess they're already working, huh? Our show doesn't start for another few hours."

"They'll probably get back around the time yours starts," James said with a nod. "I can tell them you were by though. What did you want to talk to them about?" He couldn't imagine what the Graysons wanted with the Jesses (unless they'd been grossly misinformed and believed that just because they were both circus acrobats that they had something in common) and was dying to know.

"Well, when we heard that there was another outfit in town with a family of acrobats, we wanted to meet you and see if you wanted a playdate with our son. With all the traveling we do, it's really hard to find friends for Dickie," Mary explained. "You look like you're a little old to play with a three year old, but would you like to come into the city with us sometime anyway? We've only got a night show tomorrow, so we're going to spend the day in the city and take Dickie to the children's museum."

James stared at her in wonder. He had no idea what a children's museum was, but he figured it must be marvelous if the Graysons were going to it. "Th-that sounds wonderful ma'am, but I don't know if my parents'll let me. We hafta work really hard on our act."

"It can't hurt to ask," Mrs. Grayson said brightly. "What's say we visit again tonight after we're done with our show? Your parents should be back by then, right? Maybe we could all have dinner together."

"I-I don't know," James mumbled. He sincerely doubted his parents would be pleased about a dinner invitation from their rivals. Then again, they hadn't exactly met the Flying Graysons, and they seemed really nice, so maybe they were nice enough to overpower Helen and Frank's meanness. "I'll ask them."

"Great!" Mrs. Grayson beamed at him, and he felt his cheeks get hot again.

John shifted the toddler down from his shoulders to his hip, and then settled him onto the ground. Dickie toddled over to his mother and hugged her knees, watching James shyly. "Sweetie, come on over and say hi to James."

Obediently, Dickie toddled over to James and James felt another stab of envy; the kid had really cool sneakers that lit up when he walked. The kid was coming across as way too shy for a performer. He had his chubby little fist stuck in his mouth, but he was watching James with big, curious blue eyes.

James felt his lip curl against his will. With conscious effort, he schooled his features into something more polite. "Hi."

"H-Hi Jamsh," Dickie chirped out, with a sweet little voice that would have perfectly suited a child actor. "You're a-a acrobat too?"

"Yup." 'With four years of experience on you, you little brat,' he thought.

"Well, we'd better get going. We'll see you later James." John took Dickie's hand, Mary fell into step beside them, and with one last wave the young family took their leave.

James jumped back onto the bed with his icepack, hopeful about his chances of getting a day out with a loving family. If he played his cards right, he'd be able to arrange it so that the Graysons took him along without his parents. That thought should have made him happy, but it didn't.

He couldn't shake a sense of injustice that would snowball into a true rage if he didn't keep a lid on it.

Just why in the world did Dickie get to have perfect parents while James was stuck with the Jesses? What had he done to deserve all the black eyes and turned ankles and stinging cuts? Why didn't he get to be chubby and healthy from regular meals? Why was he so intimately familiar with a belt on his skin and a boot to the ribs? Until recently, he'd never suspected that parents were any different from his own, but now he knew that there were mommies and daddies who called their kids sweetheart and carried them so they wouldn't get tired and even found them friends so they could take them out to something called a museum.

He'd never wanted anything more in his life, and it made him positively loathe Dickie Grayson.

Meanwhile, though Mary had hidden her emotions better than John, her misgivings about James Jesse were no less sincere than her husband's. Every step taken away from the lonely and bruised little boy broke her heart. "John, we have to go back to him."

"I know," John said heavily. "But I don't know how much we can help him."

"You're s'posed to help people who need it," Dickie chimed in.

John smiled. "I know Dickie, and we'll do our best."

"Why does Jamsh need help? Izzy hurt? Is that why his eye was all yellow and poofy?"

John traded a look with Mary. He'd been hoping to have this conversation away from Dickie's curious ears and vivid imagination.

But they had to do something. The hunger and longing in James' eyes had first caught Mary's notice when she'd seen him in the stands during their performance. She'd been surprised to find that same little boy sitting in the vardo, and sickened to find her suspicions about him confirmed when she'd counted the bruises on his tiny body.

It was a testament to James' spirit that he was still a precocious and happy little boy. There was still so much spirit in him. They had to save him somehow. The Graysons would never be able to live with themselves if they left James to the whims of his abusive parents.

"We don't know anything for sure sweetie," Mary said carefully, addressing her son. "But we think James is getting hurt pretty badly and we're going to help him if we can."

Dickie nodded approvingly. "If he's hurd then he's probably sad. We should get him ice cream. That would work."

Mary ruffled his hair. "That's a great idea! We'll get you both ice cream and then you can make friends."

Dickie seemed satisfied with their plan, but the adults felt it could use some work. They decided to talk it over after Dickie went to bed.

"M-Mama, P-papa? How was…um, how was the show?"

"What do you care? You're not the one who had to bust your hump out there," Frank snapped. He plopped down onto the bed and started scratching his stomach. Helen was sitting in front of the vanity taking pins out of her hair.

"Did you keep the ice on your eye while we were gone Giovanni? It still looks swollen," she said with a frown. "I don't know if we can let you have another day off to rest. Mr. Hamill wasn't happy about this you know."

"Oh…" James bit his lip and looked down at his feet. The next day's show was supposed to run when the Graysons wanted to go to the children's museum. If his parents needed him in the show then he wouldn't be allowed to go. He probably shouldn't bother bringing it up.

Such was his desire though, that James pressed on. "Um, um, while you guys were gone that family from the other circus came by. They wanted to talk to you."

"The Flying Graysons came here?" Frank bellowed. "What in the world were those no good pompous jerks doing in our vardo?"

"You let them in here Giovanni?" Helen asked.

James quickly took a few cautious steps back, putting as much space as possible between him and his parents. "We talked outside. Th-they thought I might, um, they didn't know I was older than Dickie and they thought we could, like play. They're coming back to talk to you guys. They're really nice."

Helen snorted and rolled her eyes. "Nice. Listen Gio, they're actors, just like us. We all perform. No one is as goody two shoes as they pretend to be, so don't get taken in like some rube."

"Well they seemed really nice. I don't think I'd mind playing with their kid sometime. I've never played with another circus kid before." In truth, James had never played with another kid period. They'd never stopped anywhere long enough for him to get the chance.

Helen started brushing out her hair, a sarcastic little smile on her face all the while, and Frank continued to lounge in bed scratching at himself. James decided to wait for the Graysons outside of the vardo. He jumped down the steps and ran over to a little patch of dirt amongst the grass of the field, picked up a stick, and started drawing with it.

By the time the Graysons came back he was lying on the grass watching the clouds turn colors with the setting sun. It was very peaceful, and as he watched them approach, he pretended that they were his real family coming to rescue him from Frank and Helen.

That would have been really neat.

"Hi James! Did you talk to your parents?" Mary called once she was close enough. Dickie was walking between his parents this time, and he waved excitedly as soon as he saw James.

James waved back, still envious of Dickie's parents (and his sneakers), but not as angry about it as before. "Kinda. I don't think I'm gonna be able to go. We've got a show tomorrow and if I'm all better then they're gonna need me."

Mary chewed her lip. "That is a problem. Hm."

"James, would you mind keeping an eye on Dickie while we go talk to them?" John asked.

"Sure."

The Graysons walked up to the vardo and knocked on the door. James remained sitting in the grass, Dickie standing nearby, but both boys watched the vardo with rapt attention.

"What, what is i-oh. Why you must be the Graysons. James mentioned you'd dropped by," Helen greeted. She was wearing her only nice house dress, and she'd changed her makeup and styled her hair in perfect imitation of a housewife. Normally she wore a silk nightdress, a pair of fuzzy slippers, and (if she was going to be in view of anyone but her husband and child) a bathrobe after a performance. It occurred to James that she probably was still performing. "Come on inside."

"Thank you very much," Mary returned, with a smile that was almost natural.

Dickie sat down next to James as soon as the door to the vardo closed behind his parents. He had his hand in his mouth again. For a few long minutes the two boys just stared at each other. They didn't have any toys (James thought it was a bad idea to play with the stick now that a three year old was present), and they had nothing in common. James didn't really know how to keep an eye on the kid, but he was determined to do his best.

Finally, Dickie stopped chewing on his finger, but he kept watching James with innocently wide eyes. "Does it hurt?"

"Does what hurt?" James asked.

"That." Dickie pointed to his own eye, and James got the message.

"Not right now. It hurt when I got it though, and it does if I touch it."

"Oh." Dickie frowned. "How'd you get it? And all the other ones?"

James crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't ask stupid questions. Stupid baby."

"I'm not stupid! And I'm not a baby. I'm this many." He held up four fingers. Rolling his eyes, James pushed his ring finger down.

"You're this many, you stupid baby. I'm this many," here James held up seven fingers, "And I know a lot more than you."

"I'll know as much as you when I'm that many. More'n you, I bet."

"I doubt it."

"Well I will."

They went back to staring at each other in silence, though their expressions were a bit less friendly than before. A little more time passed, and then they jumped and turned towards the vardo.

Neither boy could understand what was being said, but they heard raised voices. Then they heard the sound of something porcelain shattering. Dickie's lower lip started trembling. "What's going on? Why are they yelling?"

"I dunno." James held the toddler's hand. "It's okay though, because your mom and dad are in there and they'll come and get you if anything happens. You'll be okay." He probably wouldn't though.

"I don't like it when people yell like that."

"Me either."

The door slammed open and Mary Grayson came flying down the steps, biting her lip, dark eyes flashing, but otherwise composed. John was just behind her, expression cool but hands balled into fists at his sides.

"And another thing!" Helen yelled from the doorway. "You think you can tell me how to raise my son? Keep yours alive for a few more years and then get back to me! You throw him into your act already with those nasty tricks, you're gonna regret it when he falls and kills himself! He's just a baby!"

Mary turned on her heel, but John grabbed her arm. "Hon, pick your battles. Remember, we agreed to pick our battles," he murmured.

Lips pressed in a thin line, Mary nodded. "Helen, I'm sorry we couldn't see eye to eye on this. Have a nice life."

James' heart sank. That didn't sound like something someone would say if they were going to take you to a children's museum the next day.

John and Mary walked over to the two boys, and John knelt down to pick Dickie up. He saw the crestfallen expression on James' face and bracingly patted his arm. James was startled when John spoke to him in a low voice that wouldn't carry to the vardo. "We'll be back for you in the morning." Then he pressed a finger to his lips and winked.

James winked back, not sure exactly what was going to happen but perfectly willing to hope for the best.

The Graysons took their leave, with James watching them until they were out of sight. It was dark by that point, with a bright, almost full moon. Helen was still seething in the doorway when James climbed back into the vardo.

"Imagine them. Trying to take you off for the day just to keep a brat half your age company. Some people have to work for a living."

James didn't say anything, sure she was baiting him. He sat down on the floor by his parents' bed and waited to see if they'd give him his pillow and blanket for the night. Helen crouched down in front of him, took his chin in her hand, and started turning his face all different angles, examining him. "The bruises look better. I think you'll be okay for the act tomorrow. All you needed was one day. They really weren't that bad. You're okay Giovanni. You're a strong little boy."

"Sure Mama. Whatever you say."