Allen wasn't seen as reliable help at the Cirque de Solace, as he was expected to run away again at any time. Children apparently came and went. Allen was true to his word, however, and earned his keep with whatever he was asked to do. The air smelled of sweat and gunpowder, animals and oil, but at least it was clean air, and Allen's deformed hand was not the strangest thing around for miles.

The work was hard but there was a lot to see. While the circus prepared for a month of performances, Allen hauled water to the workers as he had when he first arrived until the tents were raised. Then he hauled water to the animals. There were white ponies with elegant heads, their tails broken so they stood upright in a shower of white horsehair, and trained dogs who submitted to being petted while Allen filled their water bowls. The lions were asleep when Allen first saw them, great yellow cats with dramatic manes. He stared at their teeth when one of them yawned, transfixed by potential violence, before their trainer chased him off. When Allen first saw the two elephants he dropped his bucket and had to go get another. They were huge and gray, and when Allen filled their huge water buckets he jumped and laughed because their trunks curled around his middle, sniffing his pockets as if for food. Despite their long, curled tusks, Allen quickly liked them. He didn't even mind having to take eight trips to fill their water bins to the brim. (Three days later when he had to muck their stall, Allen liked them a little less.)

Just before the show started Allen was sent back into London to advertise for the circus. "You know the city, boy," Alfred said. "Go bring in the paying customers!" Allen couldn't read the flyers he was waving around, but it didn't matter because all he had to do was hand them to people and say, "Come to the Solace Circus, the greatest show in all of Europe! Wonders from all over the world for only a bender!" He would be in London from sunup to whenever he ran out of flyers, which was usually a little after noontime, before he walked back.

Allen took his food with the setup crew, and when he was done he was sent to bring food to the performers, who had their own rooms in the carriages that made up the circus caravan. The Tattooed Man, Tulsa, was covered in ink from head to toe - all Allen saw was a snake up his arm and a naked man and woman on his back before the man took the tray from Allen's hands and dismissed him. The Bearded Lady was actually a thin man named Daniel who wore a corset and fake breasts to look like a woman. His other job was as an acrobat who rode the horses. The trapeze artists were from India and had a son who was a little younger than Allen. He didn't speak English, but Allen understood when he pointed at Allen's hand and babbled at his parents. He left before they could say anything about it. There were four contortionists from China, and even though they were teenagers they were barely bigger than Allen. The Strongman was Petrov from Russia, who didn't even notice when Allen left his food by where he lifted weights. They even had a magician. She kept rabbits and canaries in her carriage that Allen saw when he craned his neck to look before the door was shut in his face.

Allen didn't know it but most of the setup crewmembers were also acrobats and clowns. The auguste clown was Cosimo from Italy, and unlike the other acrobats he had his own carriage. Until Allen met Cosimo he had been mostly ignored or dismissed unless he was doing his job, but Cosimo was mean-spirited and hated to think anyone was more important to the circus than him. No one was his friend except Alfred and a few other crew members, but he was the best clown so no one had anything to say to Cosimo either. Cosimo didn't take kindly to criticism or anyone who talked back to him.

Allen quickly discovered that Cosimo never liked his food the first time; no matter how fast Allen came it was always too cold or too spicy or too anything. "This is inedible," Cosimo would grumble, throwing the spoon down on his tray. "Can't the cook do anything right?"

Allen liked Gregory, the cook, but that was because Greg was the source of his meals. (Allen did not know what it was like to feel full, but at the Cirque de Solace Allen had come closer to knowing than ever before.) "Is that a joke?" Allen asked the third day he brought Cosimo his food and Cosimo didn't like it. "Because it's not very funny."

Cosimo glared at him. "Keep your tongue in your head, boy," he snapped.

Allen glared back. "The food's good. You're jus' a whiner." Allen despised whiners, especially people that whined about food that was perfectly edible.

Cosimo made a sound like a growl, picked up his tray, and shoved it so hard into Allen's chest that Allen fell down, spilling the cooked beans and mutton. "Just bring me another one, you little freak!" he snapped.

Allen grumbled and swore under his breath, but he always brought a second meal. Sometimes Gregory would let Allen eat the food that Cosimo rejected, though.

Allen slept on a bed of straw at first, but soon he had a hammock with the setup crew-cum-acrobats. He found it strangely comfortable. Allen could only find great fault with the fleas, which were everywhere thanks to the animals, and could only be gotten rid of by a soapy bath or a dip in the lake, and they were always back by the next day, hiding in their clothes.

During the first performance under the bigtop Allen was nearly forgotten, and so he got to see his first circus performance. He was transfixed, eyes wide as the men who had nailed tentpoles and built the bleachers the audience now filled flipped and danced and did handstands on the backs of cantering horses and lumbering elephants. The magician made canaries disappear and turned her cape into doves. The trapeze artists rode unicycles on the tightrope. The animal trainer put his head into the lions' open mouths and made them jump through hoops. The strongman lifted weights that claimed to be one thousand pounds, which Allen knew were fake, and the contortionists bent themselves into impossible shapes and let him lift them. And Cosimo and the other clowns made the audience laugh, but Allen couldn't even smile. He had seen some of the performers practice, but everything seemed much more dazzling under the big top, with Ringmaster Alfred guiding the audience's attention this way and that and everyone's faces painted dramatically.

He wasn't forgotten afterwards though, and though it seemed impossible there was even more work to do during the performance weeks. Bedding had to be aired and replaced, clothes washed, cages mucked and the mulching replaced, litter cleaned up - there was never a shortage of jobs.

When the novelty of the strangeness of the circus folk wore off, Allen grew bored, but he didn't leave. No one particularly liked him, but no one particularly hated him either, except maybe Cosimo, but Allen hated him too. Only once did anyone ask about his hand, and it was one of the Zulu Men, who were really three black men from Wales who dressed up as African Zulu for the sideshow. "Boy," he called while Allen was walking by with laundry.

"It's Allen," Allen corrected him, tired of being called 'boy' all the time.

The man shrugged. "Allen, then - what's that with your hand there? Doesn't hurt, does it?"

Allen scowled. "Who's askin'?"

"I was just wondering, is all. Don't take it wrong, boy - Allen - but we wondered if Alfred hired y' for the freakshow on account of it and all."

Allen kicked at the dust in the Zulu Man's direction, sending it up in a cloud. "Hell no! My hand's nonna your business!"

The Zulu Man raised his arms placatingly. "Meant no offense ..." But Allen was already stalking off.

The last performance was on All Hallow's Eve, and then the circus packed up to move onwards, to the southern tip of England, for the somewhat milder weather. There the circus crew would weather the winter, which was hardest on the animals from Africa, and put on performances every three days for two months, weather permitting. Allen came with them, but the fire-eater, David, didn't, having just recieved word that his mother was ill. Allen was told by Alfred he was the longest-lasting odd jobs boy he'd ever had.

A week after the Cirque de Solace pitched their tents, a man in a long top hat came to the grounds, trailed by a hound who kept his nose low and his shoulder to the man's knee. He went to Alfred's carriage and was invited in, and neither man left the carriage for over an hour. When they emerged, Alfred announced they had a new clown - Mana - who they would give a test performance the following night. The man removed his top hat and bowed politely: "Please take care of me."

"What are you waiting for!?" Alfred barked at Allen, who was curious about the newcomer as everyone else was. "Get a pallet stuffed for him and clean out David's carriage!"

Allen didn't find clowns very funny, and not just because Cosimo was mean. The things they did were stupid and random and Allen couldn't figure out why wasting cream pies by splashing them into people's faces was amusing.

But when Mana performed, he made the crowds laugh even harder than Cosimo did. He was better at tumbling, and his dog - the Great Asimov, as Mana called him - could balance and toss balls with his mouth and nose so well that he could act as Mana's juggling assistant all by himself. Even Allen thought the dog was pretty neat. Alfred was thrilled when people asked after 'the clown with the dog'. Mana was greatly liked by the audiences, and soon it looked as though he might replace Cosimo as the auguste clown.

Mana's dog didn't stay with the others in the kennel, so Allen had to bring the dog his own separate bowl of water in the morning and food scraps in the evening. "You don't have to. I'll feed him," Mana said once while he put on his makeup, but Allen ignored him. Asimov the Great was quiet and when Allen put out his deformed hand, Asimov would lick it as though it were perfectly normal. On the rare occasions Allen had some time to himself, he would go sit with the dog.

But Cosimo was furious, his position threatened by this newcomer. He was no friend of Allen either. One night after a performance he got very drunk, and when Allen brought him his meal Cosimo grabbed the tray and threw it against the wall, shattering the cup and bowl and sending the spoon flying. "You're trying to poison me, aren't you!?" he demanded, his Italian accent thickened from slurring. He grabbed Allen by the collar before Allen could react. "I see you getting cozy with that lick-spittle Mana!" He shoved Allen back into the wall and kicked him in the chest. The breath whooshed from Allen and he choked on air, sliding to the ground, and Cosimo stomped on his deformed hand. "You're in league with him!"

Allen couldn't get enough breath to shout, and Cosimo kicked him in the shoulder and face. Allen put up his arms in defense; his deformed arm lacked feeling, and when Cosimo kicked him there it only throbbed dully. "Drunk bastard," he finally managed to snarl, curled on the ground with his arms over his face.

Cosimo sneered and finally relented, dragging Allen up by the back of his shirt and throwing him out the door. "Freak! Devil-child! I don't want to see hide nor hair of you again!"

Allen wiped his bleeding lip on his wrist and made a rude gesture as he got to his feet; Cosimo swore at him and made to come after Allen, and Allen turned tail and ran.

The next day, Asimov was found dead, beaten with a stick until his bones broke. It was the first time Allen cried that he could remember.