Betti on the High Wire (22 page)

Timmy had his mouth wide open, and even Sam stopped chewing her gum.

George stood at the bottom of the monkey bars with Mayda. He called up quietly in our language, “Babo? Babo, you might fall.”

“I won’t fall, George. My mama and dad were famous, in the—”

“In the circus. I know. But—”

I started walking on the bar with perfect feet. One step, and then another. I teetered a little. The bar was shiny and slippery. The end of the monkey bar high wire looked very far away. But I took more tiny slow steps; at least three or four.

“Be careful, Babo!” said George.

It didn’t feel like I was moving an inch. I wasn’t sure I liked being a circus star. Scary. But I could practically hear my audience clapping; I could practically hear the circus music! A light shining on me!

I could feel my mama there, waiting for me at the end of my line. I could feel my dad, waiting below to catch
me
.

Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen steps, almost to the end of the bar. I put my hand up and waved to my whole audience. I was a star and everybody loved me.

Unfortunately, my wave made me lose my balance. It happened in slow motion. My arms were flapping and swinging in circles, and suddenly ... I was flying! Just like an airplane or a bird or a ghost. Straight toward the ground.

“Hellllp!” I screamed. But on the way down, I accidentally did a flip in the air—not a graceful flip at all, but still a flip—before I landed with a perfect
splat
in the sand.

Everything stood still.

“Babo?” asked George. His knees fell to the ground next to me, and he touched my cheek with his finger.

Mayda kneeled down too. “Are you okay?”

“Whoa, DUDE! That was pretty cool!” said Bobby Ray.

“That was so neat,” said Timmy with his wire mouth wide open.

“Totally neat-o,” said Jerry.

“She’s in the circus, idiot!” Bobby Ray flicked Jerry on the head. “In her country.”

“That’s my sister,” Lucy explained to the first graders.

Ms. Stacy ran fast from the wooden table. “OH!” she cried as she ran. Her eyes looked like they might pop out. “Oh, Betti!”

I had landed right on my orange bag and my Empty Book. The pages of my Empty Book were dirty, my letter from Auntie Moo was crumpled, and everything in my orange bag was squished. I had sand all over my face and my unique circus hair was flying all over the place.

“Betti?” said Mayda and Ms. Stacy at the same time.

“I am a ... circus ... girl,” I said very quietly, looking up at all of them. “My circus name is ... Babo.”

WHEN YOU’RE IN the circus you don’t have a birthday.

That’s just how it goes. Circus people don’t know when they’re born and they don’t really care. I didn’t know how old I was and neither did any of the leftover kids.

But after I’d been in America for almost a whole month, Mrs. Buckworth said that it was America’s birthday. “We’re going to a party, Betti. Everyone is celebrating the birth of America!”

I imagined an enormous Mama Country giving birth to huge America.

I was glad I’d stayed in America long enough for the birthday party. Day Camp hadn’t been so bad after all, now that everyone knew I was a circus star. Sometimes Ms. Stacy’s fun activities were even actually fun. Not as fun as my games, of course. But I decided that staying an extra week or two in America wouldn’t hurt anything.

For the birthday party I wore my blue party dress and my red buckle shoes.

Mrs. Buckworth put her hand on my shoulder and said, “You look so pretty in your dress, Betti! Beautiful!” My face grew very warm and I smiled, just a little, because I couldn’t help it. Then Mrs. Buckworth asked, “Would you like to wear your dress too, Lucy?”

“No,” replied Lucy, scrunching her face. “No way.”

On the way to the birthday party we picked up Mayda and Nanny, who were waiting for us on Mayda’s tilted porch.

“You have to forgive me,” Nanny told the Buckworths. “I walk slower than molasses.”

“Don’t you worry a bit,” said Mrs. Buckworth. She patted Nanny’s hand and linked her arm through Nanny’s.

Once in a while Mayda, who was holding Nanny’s other hand, would say “Oh, Nanny there’s a curb right here,” and Nanny would step down. Then Mayda said, “Oh, Nanny! You should see the purple flowers in this yard. Practically a hundred of ’em!” Nanny would turn her milky eyes in that direction and smile. And another time Mayda said, “Uh-oh. That kid left his skateboard out again. On your right.” And Nanny answered, “I certainly wouldn’t want to take a ride on that, now, would I? I’m young, but not
that
young ... ”

Nanny and Mayda laughed a private laugh as Nanny moved her brown slipper shoes to the left.

We all walked slower than “mole lassies” to Betsy Ross, and when we finally got there, Mr. Buckworth spread out a blanket, next to all sorts of other blankets. George and his mommy showed up and sat down with us. Mayda sat on one side of me and George sat on the other. Nanny talked to Mr. and Mrs. Buckworth, and Lucy played with her freak dolls and waved a flag around.

So many people came to America’s birthday party! Some of the Summer Five were there with their parents. Sam waved to me from across the play yard. Her hair had red, white, and blue streaks. Tabitha’s parents were round with pink skin, just like her, and Bobby Ray was with his family, and without his backward hat.

The sky was turning dark blue and black. Mrs. Buck-worth opened a brown basket and pulled things out one by one. I ate my sandwich and drank my Coke. But the thing I really wanted to eat was Mrs. Buckworth’s chocolate cake.

I stared at it for a long time and finally she started cutting it. She put the pieces of cake onto paper plates. I ate my piece in about two seconds. I licked the chocolate goo off my plastic fork and picked the crumbs off my plate. “Ick,” I said quietly to the ghosts in the sky. “Ick ick.”

“Yummy,” said George, with chocolate on his face and all over his teeth.

He only ate half his cake, so I ate his too. Then I ate Mayda’s leftover cake, because the ghosts probably thought I was extra good. “Happy birthday, America,” I mumbled, spitting chocolate crumbs. This was the best birthday party ever.

Then, all of a sudden, Lucy shouted, “LOOK!”

My head jerked up.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

The sky flashed with color. FLASH! Whites and Reds and Blues. Gray smoke filled the air. My body froze and my heart practically stopped. BOOM BOOM BOOM!

I plugged my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut. No, no, no. No one was even ducking on the ground! I covered my whole head with my arms. I remembered everything. The circus camp shaking, the helicopters making dust storms, the soldiers hollering and running in big boots through the village and the woods.

“Help ...” I said in a muffled, tiny voice. Barely a squeak. “Help help.”

“Help,” said another tiny voice.

George was curled up next to me like a little bug on the blanket. But no one could hear us. The BOOMS were too loud.

Maybe the Buckworths, and the rest of the Americans, didn’t know about BOOMS. All of them were very busy pointing at the sky. “Ooooooo,” they cooed. “Ahhhhhh! Ohhhhhhhh!” Some rose to their feet and a few Melons in the audience were actually clapping.

Auntie Moo said there was no war in America, but sometimes war comes out of nowhere. Sometimes it comes for no good reason at all. A people disaster.

George peeked up from the ground. “Babo?” His eyes were scared and sparkly and wet. We looked at each other and nodded. We didn’t even have to say a single word.

I grabbed his hand and we shot up from the blanket and...

We ran like crazy.

We dodged bicycles and old people waving flags. Instead of trees and prickly vines, we jumped over baskets and blankets and babies. I was much faster than any old soldier. Even George ran sort of fast when he had to. We were like smart night animals that could see everything in the dark. It wasn’t our land, we didn’t know it like we knew the circus camp, but we were used to running.

Once I tripped and fell hard on the ground, taking George with me. Falling was very dangerous in a war because then you lost time. Then they could catch you. But George and I stood up in about one second and ran again. My birthday party dress was covered in spaghetti or pizza or something, and my red buckle shoes were covered in cake. Someone shouted, “HEY!” But George and I didn’t care.

In one quiet moment I thought I heard: “BETTI! GEORGE?” Maybe it was Mr. Buckworth, it was hard to say. But then the BOOMS started again, louder than the last booms.

George was tired, I could tell, but I kept pulling him along anyway.

“Come on George,” I’d say. “Just a little farther.”

“Can’t we hide here, Babo?”

“No. Just a little farther ...” I couldn’t stop until we found someplace safe.

Then I practically tripped into Mayda and Nanny’s wooden bench. It didn’t look the same. Melons were sitting on it. But I stopped in my tracks and George had to stop with me.

“Here?” asked George, scrunching his eyes.

“Under
here.”

We squatted down behind it and crawled underneath. We were next to the Melons’ feet, but they were too busy ooooohing and ahhhhhing to notice us.

We squeezed each other’s hands.

“It’s not really a war, is it, Babo?”

“It is! Well, I think it is. I’m pretty sure it is, but—” I wasn’t a bit sure.

“My mommy will wonder where we are. And the Buckworths. If they don’t know about wars, if they don’t know what to do, they’ll—”

“I know.”

I’d been thinking the same exact thing. I had to go back to save them. That’s what happens in a war. Most people try to save each other.

“You have to stay here, George,” I whispered.

“But ... where are you going?”

“Back. To our blanket.”

“It’s dangerous, Babo,” George squeaked. “Auntie Moo always tells us not to move. We’re not supposed to make a noise.”

“I’m not afraid.” I gripped the bottom of the bench with my hands until they turned white. “I’ll be right back. With your mommy and the Buckworths. I promise.”

“But—”

I closed my good eye. I took a big, big breath. “I’m not afraid.” My voice was smaller than a peep. “I’m not afraid. I’m not—”

Before I could even think about being afraid, before I could even stand up, and run like crazy, and save the Buckworths, I saw BIG BLACK BOOTS. By the bench. The boots stopped.

“George! SHHHH!”

I peeked between the Melons’ feet and looked up.

I was right.

“George,” I whispered, “it’s a SOLDIER.”

The soldier was wearing a uniform. He was the tallest man I’d ever seen. And he had a gun right on his hip.

“A soldier?”

“Shhhhh.”

“Do they have soldiers in America?”

“There are soldiers everywhere, George. Shhhhh.”

We stayed completely quiet. It seemed like forever, even though it was just a few minutes. I heard the soldier say, “What a great night. Isn’t it, folks?”

And a man sitting on our bench answered, “Sure is, Officer.”

George gave me a little nudge with his finger. “Some soldiers are very nice, Babo.”

This soldier sounded nice, nice enough, but it was all very confusing. Tricky. And we had to be very, very careful. I inched out from the back of the bench and pulled George up with me. Because I couldn’t leave him alone. So we had to run, again.

I thought we were running in the direction of the Buckworths and their blanket. Once I stopped cold and George ran straight into my back. I looked around, I turned in a circle, and took off again in the opposite direction. We ran and ran all over the place. We ran past the volcano table, where people were sitting. We ran past the jungle gym and the monkey bars, where kids were swinging and throwing sand.

Soon George and I stopped running because there were no more people. We were at the end of the play yard. It was quiet and dark in a faraway corner. Very far away from the Buckworths and their cake. All I saw was a small white building, like a pantry or a secret room closet. I opened the door and George and I snuck in.

“Pew,” said George. “Pee you.”

We plugged our noses.

It was pitch-black inside, but I felt a lock on the door and clicked it shut. We scrunched down. I could barely see the white in George’s wide-open eyes.

We waited. We were shivering and it wasn’t even cold.

Finally, from the dark I said, “Do you think we’ll ever get to go home?”

George touched my cheek with his finger. “To the circus camp?”

Before I could even think about things, I sucked in my breath and answered, “No, to the Buckworths’ house. To your mommy’s house.”

“I hope ... so.” George started crying.

“I am the brave one,” I blurted out in a voice smaller than a peep. “But I got—I got so—”

“Scared,” said George. He understood everything. “It’s okay, Babo. I got scared too. My mommy said it is okay to be scared sometimes.”

I rubbed my good eye because it was very watery. I swatted at a few noisy bugs.

George put his arm around me and put his head on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Babo. It’s okay.”

He took a deep breath.
“There is byooteeful girl. Her name Babo. She has friend name George. They swim. In George swim poo. At George house. Babo is ... circus girl. In America. She byooteeful ... star ...”

WE FELL ASLEEP., just like that.

When I woke up the explosions had stopped. There was perfect quiet except for voices calling from far away. Maybe soldiers’ voices, it was hard to say. But I could tell that most of the people were gone. By now all the Americans were probably hiding or running. Everything was probably on fire. Or, if there wasn’t a war, they had all just gone home.