Betti on the High Wire

Table of Contents

 

 

 

DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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Copyright © 2010 by Lisa Railsback

 

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Railsback, Lisa.
Betti on the high wire / by Lisa Railsback.
cm.

Summary: Firm in her belief that her missing parents will return to the bombed-out circus camp where she lives with a group of “leftover” children, ten-year-old Babo has no desire to leave her war-torn country.

eISBN : 978-1-101-43716-2

[1. Abandoned children-Fiction. 2. People with disabilities—Fiction.

3. War—Fiction. 4. Conduct of life—Fiction. ] I. Title.

PZ7.R1287 Be 2010

[Fic]—dc22 2009040046

MOST OF THE leftover kids have nightmares. But me? I dream about the circus.

My name is Babo.

The leftover kids call me Big Mouth Babo because I have an opinion—or a Big Mouth story—for just about everything. They like my circus stories best. By now they feel like they practically know the Hairy Bear Boy and the clowns who all have red hair and the Snake Lady and the Teeny-Tiny Puppet Man and the rest.

They especially love the long story about my mama, the Tallest Woman in the World with a Tail, and my dad, the bumpy Green Alligator Man. This story, I tell them, is absolutely true, and it will definitely have a happy ending once the war cools off and the circus comes back again.

And the true story about me? Well, my story started when Auntie Moo spotted me alone at the empty circus camp when I was about three. Now I’m about ten, I think. Auntie Moo found me eating lizards and drinking rainwater from the elephant bowl, toddling around just like I owned the place. Pots and pans littered the ground, old makeup was thrown in the dirt, and the canvas circus tents were flaming like a bonfire.

Auntie Moo named me Babo and the name stuck, and I’ve been at the empty circus camp ever since. She got stuck too, sort of. You can’t exactly leave a toddler toddling around by herself, especially during a war. And before long, more leftover kids were left here, so we were all stuck together.

I’ve asked Auntie Moo at least a hundred times about what happened to the circus. She says that the soldiers were probably afraid of the circus freaks, so they burned everything down. But while things were burning, three of the soldiers got squished by the elephant, one soldier got chewed by the lion, one got squeezed to death by the big snake, and another got swallowed. And the circus animals and the circus people disappeared.

That’s why the villagers say our circus camp is haunted.

They say that circus ghosts are still flying all over the place. They can still hear the circus music floating through the woods on windy nights. Sometimes they think they hear gasps and claps from the audience, and faint, happy singing from the circus people. The villagers won’t visit our circus camp because they’re afraid.

That’s what happens during a war. Everyone is afraid of everything.

But I’ve been here forever and I’m not afraid, even though sometimes I hear the old circus music too. I’ll never be afraid because I was here first, so that makes me the leader. I’m the brave one. Besides, there’s nothing left for soldiers to take and nothing left for them to burn. And nobody cares about the leftover kids at the leftover circus camp anyway.

Nobody except my mama and dad, of course. All I know is that they must’ve left me here because they had to. Because they’d be back to get me any day.

“PSSST. GEORGE?”

I was the only one awake when the sun hadn’t started beating down on us yet. We slept in the old lion’s cage because that’s where we could all fit. It was the best animal cage out of all of them because we could see straight up to the sky, so we always knew if something was coming.

“George! Can you hear it?”

“Go back to sleep, Babo.”

George was taking up too much space, like a little pig. His arm flung out to the side and his legs were split like a wishbone. The rest of us were crunched into the corner, as usual. Nine of us, but there used to be ten before the foreigners started coming.

“It’s another one.”

“I don’t hear anything, Babo.”

“George, wake up! I’m sure. There’s another one coming.”

George rolled over and covered his face with his potato sack. He mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand. George didn’t like mornings, and on this morning, sure enough, it was going to be impossible to sleep. Because I was right.

The bars of the lion cage started shaking and the sky was grumbling like a noisy monsoon.

I covered my ears and pointed up. “See? George, look!”

George finally sat up and rubbed his eyes with his hand. “Oh!” He jumped to his feet and hiked up his baggy shorts. “You’re right, Babo!” He waved his potato sack in the air like a flag. “It is a plane!”

The little ones started waving too. Some of them were so excited that they had to jump up and down while the wind was blowing their hair all over the place. “Hallooooo, Foreeenerz. Hallooooo!” they shouted in so-called English. I rolled my eyes. I was the only smart one who knew that you say “hello” and not “hallooo” and that not a single foreigner could hear from so high up in an airplane.

“Stop waving!” I hollered. “We don’t
want
them to come here! REMEMBER?”

The noise was so loud that none of the leftover kids could hear me. Or they didn’t want to hear me. So I shouted again: “STOP! STOP IT! STOP!”

And finally, that lousy plane was gone. It left a dusty cloudy trail in the sky and George kept staring up and smiling, even though the sun was hitting him straight in the eyes.

“STOP!” I cried louder, but they had already stopped and everything was already quiet.

George looked at me with his dark eyes and tilted his head. “Why, Babo?” His potato sack dropped to the floor. “Why don’t you want the foreigners to help us?”

“You really think the Melons want to
help
us, George?”
The Melons
was my very special name for the foreigners. They usually had pink faces, and everyone from my country, especially at the market, tried to squeeze money out of them like juice. I took a deep breath and started pacing back and forth. Being the leader was such a big responsibility. “I already told you. A million times. You think they’re
nice?
”

George nodded, a little.