Chapter Ten:
A Possibly Lead?
Raz slammed the door to his trailer behind him. Across from him, the scenery whizzed past as the Circus wagons hurried shakily over the dusty streets that came from nowhere and led to nowhere of any importance. He took a step into his room, rubbing his temples and resisting the urge to fall forward onto his bed and sleep for the rest of the day.
Instead, he sat down at the crudely made desk and laid his head down, feeling the rough wood and possible would be splinters on the side of his face. He could do nothing about what he had heard a few moments ago until they reached their next location. Then, he would find his father and relay all that he had heard. He closed his eyes.
XXX
Lili opened her eyes; someone was poking her on the shoulder. Under her cheek she could feel the cool surface of one of the tables that surrounded the Science Lab. She looked up at Tessa, who raised her eyebrow in amusement.
"You were sleeping and talking to someone who wasn't there…I had to do something before you got loud enough to drain out the teachers lecture." Lili sat up, catching Angus's eyes as she did. He smiled a little nervously at her. He had been rather awkward all that morning due to the incident from the night before. She rubbed her eyes and turned towards the teacher, tuning into the lecture at about the moment it ended.
Beside her she could see Tessa picking up a pen and writing something on her worksheet. She looked down at it curiously as the other girl turned and began gathering up the materials they'd need for the lab.
What's his name?
Lili stared at it for a moment before picking up her own pen and writing on the other girl's worksheet.
After setting up a large beaker, Tessa stood and cast a look down at what the other girl had written.
It doesn't matter.
She sighed and leaned over, her mouth an inch from Lili's ear.
"Come on…tell me." Lili frowned.
"Why? Why do you want to know?" She whispered back. Across from them Angus had finished writing his name down on his worksheet and was now glancing up at them out of curiosity.
"Because. Come on, just tell me!" Tessa countered. Lili sighed and wrote briefly on the margin of Tessa's worksheet.
Raz
"Oh hey, yeah…I saw that on the calendar." She said.
"What are you guys talking about?" Angus said, from across the table. Both of them looked up at him as though they just realized he was there and answered in unison.
"Nothing."
"Go away." (That one was Tessa.)
Angus frowned.
"Okay…I'll just get the stuff for our lab then." He said, looking back at them bemusedly as he headed towards the front of the classroom.
Taking advantage of his absence, Tessa leaned forward on the table.
"So which circus is his?" She said, speaking low enough so that no one else in the room would take notice of their conversation. Lili gave her a strange look…then shrugged.
"If I knew that I wouldn't write down the schedule of all of the circuses nearby." She said wearily. Tessa frowned.
"Oh…so…you don't even know where he is most of the time?"
"It never came up." She gave her friend a guarded look. "Why?"
"Just curious. Do you have an idea?" She realized that by now she sounded pretty suspicious…and was probably openly traveling beyond the borders of simple curiosity. Still…if she was going to get anywhere, she would have to have something to start with.
"Dunno…" Lili said, suspicion still showing on her face. "Somewhere that allows for young kids to work I suppose." Tessa let it go, but grudgingly. You never knew with circuses…especially the ones that were less eminent. In any case, Angus returned at that moment with the stuff, and she didn't really want to talk about any of this in front of him. Sometimes, even if you tried your best to ignore them, girlish intuitions still emerged. And she was having one that was telling her to leave Angus out of this situation as much as possible.
So they started on their project, doing most of the steps in silence for their own reasons.
XXX
After the bell rang Tessa made a quick excuse to go to the library and left the other two walking in silence towards their next class.
Occasionally Angus glanced briefly at his friend, his face growing redder and redder every time he did.
"Umm…Lili?" He said after a while, bringing her out of her thoughts. She looked at him with her somnolent green eyes, sending a mass of butterflies charging through his stomach. He swallowed.
"Uhh…I'm really sorry…you know…about yesterday." He said quietly. Lili's eyes fluttered for a moment as she paused before her next class.
"Sorry about what?" She asked without emotion. He had started to play with his sleeves.
"You know, about the bracelet." He said, looking at the floor in embarrassment.
"Oh." Lili said. She paused, seeming to think. After a while she shrugged and turned into the classroom. "It was just a dumb bracelet."
Angus watched her back in amazement. Once she vanished inside he let out a sigh and turned, wondering if Lili was the sort of person who could end up with anyone. And puzzling over, for perhaps the hundredth time what sort of thoughts and emotions went through her head.
A guy would have to be able to read her. He thought to himself. And I can't even tell when she's happy or sad. He shook his head and walked down the hall to his own class, wondering what sort of reaction he would get from her if she ever knew how he felt. He tried to imagine her smiling, or hugging him…or allowing him to kiss her, but each time his face would turn bright red and then the image would break up…because he couldn't imagine her doing anything but looking at him with her cynical, gloomy eyes and telling him that she wasn't interested. He reached the door to his pre Algebra class and headed in, feeling rather depressed.
XXX
Tessa was sitting at one of the computers in the rather extensive library at Demure looking up various circuses around the area. Behind her a couple of guys in cardigans were throwing erasers at her head. She had been able to ignore them at first…because they kept missing (Demure boys weren't well known for their athletic ability…except in various non-sports Just because a school counts them as sports, does not make it so. like bad mitten, golf and chess.) (And no…despite favorable clichés…Angus is not into chess.) Finally, when one rebounded off of her computer screen and landed in her lap she turned around and threw her chemistry book at them. It hit one of them in the face. The other one grabbed it and ran.
Tessa rolled her eyes and got back to what she was doing. So far she hadn't any luck. She kept typing in stuff like Small Circuses, but the search always seemed to come up with various animal rights groups (Circuses are NO fun for animals), Danish festivals…and this one Flea circus in Pittsburgh. Tessa sighed and pulled out her notebook, leafing through all of the pages until she found a folded up piece of paper with various names on it. (The ones she copied straight from Lili's calendar.)
"I guess I check them all." She said, and began typing in various names of circuses all over the country. As was to be expected of lesser entertainers, most of them showed up very rarely in searches. When they did, it was usually only mentioned slightly…or mentioned in show schedules or websites with a section labeled Fun things to do with the whole family!
Tessa rested her head on the keyboard (Sending a message of ghjg across the search bar.) and rubbed the side of her face where her temples had begun to ache.
"Umm…excuse me…are you planning to use that computer…or…you know…just lay on it." Tessa opened her eyes and moved her head slightly. Manny was standing next to her with a few library books tucked under his arm. "I kinda wanted to look something up." He said quietly. If it had been anyone else, both sentences probably would have been laced with sarcasm. Tessa sat up, moved over a chair, and then slammed her head back down onto the table.
"Ow." She said in a monotone voice. Manny sat down and backspaced over the nonsense on the search bar. Tessa heard the sound of typing on the computer and she looked up. Crypto-zoology: Science & Speculation by Chad Arment He hit enter.
"Your into all of that chupacabra, loch monster stuff?" She asked dully. "Do you know those things don't exist?" Manny shrugged.
"There still interesting." He said, in barely a whisper. She sat up and looked at the books he had set aside on the table.
"Reincarnation, Ancient Egyptian Myths and Legends, Spirits, Specters and other Spooks. Not bad…better then Zark trading cards anyway." Manny smiled weakly at her. He started searching down a list of books available in the library and clicked on the one he wanted. While he waited for the screen to load he looked down at the list beside the computer.
"My brothers going out Celeste City to see them perform tomorrow." He said while pointing at one of the Circuses on the list. Tessa looked down wearily.
"Celeste city? That's fifty miles from here isn't it…where do you live?"
"A long ways away. He likes them though. He's been a gymnast for almost fourteen years now and he says they have a kid there who's really good with acrobatics."
"Oh." Tessa said, gazing down at the name. "The Aquato Circus. Think it's worth it?"
"Not to put up with the clowns." He said, slight dread edging into his voice. "Not too mention I fell off of one of those gymnastic bars once and broke both my legs. I get squeamish when I watch people on tight ropes a hundred feet in the air."
Tessa sighed and leaned on one hand.
"Well me neither, I hate the circus and anywhere else with lots of people and noise and bright colors." Manny gave her an odd look.
"Then…why are you looking them up on the computer?" He asked quietly.
"I'm looking for some kid." She said, while rubbing her face in frustration. "He travels with the circus…but I don't know which one…and I don't know anything about him…aside from his name. He's friends with Lili and I'm trying to track him down so that they can see each other again." Manny watched her for a while.
"Is he are age?" He asked cautiously. Tessa shrugged.
"I assume…or very close…hopefully." She added uncomfortably. Manny started to rummage through his backpack. Tessa looked up and raised her brow.
"What are you doing?" She asked as Manny pulled out a folder and began searching through its contents.
"My brother sends me stuff from every place he visits. He got a flyer from the Aquato Circus the last time he went and I'm trying to find it."
"Why are you doing that?" She asked, aware that when you were desperately looking for something you NEVER found it…and if you did that it was never this easy.
"Because, it had the kids name on it. The acrobat." He said. "It was in a list of other attractions and stuff. You know…bearded ladies, magicians, stuff like that."
"It's not going to be the same kid." She paused for a moment, then, out of curiosity added; "How old is he anyway?"
"About twelve or thirteen I think. Real young. He was only ten the first time my brother saw him." He smiled as he pulled out a colorful poster and began to unfold it.
"Here it is, let's see, Witness and be amazed at the mystifying enchantments of Godric Twilight as he makes his lovely assistant vanish into thin air, be stunned as Baroda van Darken, the strongest man in the world lifts over a thousand pounds of elephant using only his feet, sit back in awe as the worlds fattest lady swallows a watermelon whole (Tessa raised her eyebrow at this point.) And watch as the Flying Aquatos take to the sky, starring Rafael and his twelve-year-old son, Razputin as they perform amazing feats on the tight rope. Expect a night like no other at the Aquato Circus.
He looked up.
"It is actually a lot better then it sounds." Tessa's eyebrow was still up.
"It sounds like a bunch of freaks in tights. Who lifts elephants with their feet?" Manny shrugged.
"My brother said that he was going to try to make the last night this time, because he said on the last night everything feels more real."
"What does he mean by that?" Tessa asked with little interest. She had taken the flyer from Manny and was examining the last couple lines.
"Dunno. He just said it was pretty amazing on the last night…juggling fire, no nets, real magic…stuff feels…less like a show, I guess."
"Razputin." Tessa said to herself, ignoring Manny. "So his friend's would probably call him Raz then, huh? Or something like that." Manny shrugged.
"Right guy?"
"Oddly enough…" Tessa answered, mostly to herself. "I think it is."
Violetwitch: I think I meant for Baroda to be either Scottish or Irish…I dunno…I heard the accent in my head, but I'm not sure what it was. Oh…and trust me…AngusxLili doesn't really thrill me either.
And as for all of you other peoples, don't worry, they WILL meet…I guarantee it. Unfortunately I got a little off track with the plot…so now I have to bring it back around and find a way for it to flow again…sigh…this was suppose to be a nice little short fic till I added in the action…o well.