Betti on the High Wire (23 page)

I had been bad at the Buckworths’ so they’d send me back. Very very bad. I had planned to run away. I had been on guard at all times, just like I was supposed to. I had waited for the right time to escape. Now George and I were alone and I felt sad because I couldn’t help it.

We were leftover kids. Again.

I thought of Rooney drooling all over me, and Puddles peeing in my room. I thought of Nanny with her special eyes, and Mayda with her special dreams. I wouldn’t get to hear Lucy talking in all sorts of crazy voices, or Mr. and Mrs. Buckworth telling me that everything was going to be okay. “You may not love us yet, little tiger, but we still love you.”

They didn’t put me in the zoo for telling stories about the war. They didn’t lock me in the TV or throw me away. They didn’t want me to forget everything.

I squeezed my eyes tight, really, really tight. I hoped all of them wouldn’t miss me too much, and I tried not to think about missing them forever.

Then someone knocked on the door. Our little building shook.

George sat up fast. I squeezed his hand. Not a peep.

Knock. KNOCK, KNOCK.

“Kids?” said the husky deep voice. “Are you in there?”

I knew it right away. The soldier’s voice.

My good eye grew huge even though I couldn’t see a single thing in the dark. I squeezed George’s hand even tighter, which made him squirm.

“BETTI?” There was another loud knock. The soldier tried opening the door. “George?” The handle jerked up and down.

“He knows our names, Babo,” George whispered in my ear. “He knows us.”

“Shhhhh. That could be even worse.”

Finally the knocking stopped. The handle stopped shaking and I heard big boots marching away in the dirt.

I let out a sigh and George whimpered a little.

“Maybe he wants to help us, Babo.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” I used to think that Melons tricked people, but not a single American had tricked me. Very confusing.

We were quiet.

Suddenly I heard the handle shaking again. I heard the lock click. The door opened a crack and then it swung all the way open. I gasped. I could see stars in the sky. I could see the jungle gym and the monkey bars far across the play yard.

The soldier never would’ve found us. Or he wouldn’t have found us if it hadn’t been for George.

“I am HERE!” cried George in English. He was standing outside our little building. “It is ME!” he hollered louder. “My name is ... GEORGE!”

POLICE MAN.

He is here to help people.

That’s what he told us as he held our small hands in his enormous hands.

“Your parents have been worried sick about you kids. We’ve all been looking everywhere,” he said. “Inside the school, all over the neighborhood, in all the parking lots. We figured those fireworks must’ve scared you...”

It was Mayda who saw us first. “Betti!”

“Is it her?” cried Nanny. “Are they okay?”

And in about one second Mrs. Buckworth was there, and Mr. Buckworth sprinted over with Lucy, and George’s mommy ran from the front doors of Betsy Ross Elementary. George dashed straight toward her with his arm out and almost knocked her over. He started sobbing and his mommy sobbed too.

“Betti, oh sweetie, we were so worried!” cried Mrs. Buckworth.

“Shhhhh. You’re safe now,” said Mr. Buckworth, hugging me like a big bear.

“I was so afraid you were lost forever!” wailed Lucy. And me? All I could choke out was, “I was
so
—worried too. But you are—saved.”

If anyone saw me in the center of this family circle, everyone hugging and crying and laughing, they may have thought it looked exactly like an American love story.

TODAY IS MY birthday.

Mr. and Mrs. Buckworth asked me if I would like to pick my own very special day. Any day of the whole year. So I picked the last day of summer, after Day Camp and before the start of fifth grade at Betsy Ross Elementary.

Last night I was sitting on the floor petting Rooney and Puddles, the Buckworths were sitting on the sofa, and Lucy was flipping fast through channels on the TV That’s when I saw something on TV and I said, “Wait.”

People were running. Things were on fire. Smoke rose from the ground. Dirty children had holey clothes, buildings were burned out, and rubble was everywhere. There were faces crying. I could see every tear up close. I could almost touch them. It wasn’t a Big Mouth TV story. It was real. I knew immediately it was my country.

I climbed right between Mr. and Mrs. Buckworth on the fluffy sofa.

I was trying to be very brave but then ... my good eye started to water. I was thinking about Auntie Moo and the leftover kids. I was thinking about Sister Baroo, who was tough as tree bark. I was thinking about Old Lady Suri at the bean stand, and Big Uncle in his beat-up taxi, and all the people George and I saw in the bombed villages. And I was thinking about the circus people. If there were any left in my country.

“Do you think my country will always be broken?” I asked in a tiny sniffling voice.

The Buckworths thought about this. Finally Mrs. Buckworth said, “Someday it will be okay, Betti.” She breathed a deep breath. “I’m not sure when, but someday your country will have peace again.”

Mr. Buckworth pulled me onto his lap even though I was about eleven years old and way too big. Mrs. Buck-worth took my head in her arms and ran her fingers through my crazy hair. Lucy crawled away from the TV with her freak dolls. She looked up at me and tilted her head. Then she bounced her dolls up my leg and on my toes, even where my toes were missing. “It will be okay, Betti. Don’t cry.”

So then I cried some more. I cried and cried and I couldn’t even stop.

But Auntie Moo believes that the world is beautiful, and I am her eyes. So today, on my special day, I cannot only think about the bad things and the sad things. I have to believe the world is beautiful too.

Mr. Buckworth took me to the post office and we mailed off lots of big presents to the circus camp. He told me that I could mail things to Auntie Moo and the leftover kids anytime, even though it might take a very long time to get there.

So ... I put a brand-new book of English words into the big box for Auntie Moo, along with my letter. I put some furry stuffed circus bears and cookies and marshmallows into the boxes for the leftover kids, and lots of stuff into the boxes for Sister Baroo’s Mission: dried food and flip-flops and some medicine for when anyone got sick. I also put pictures in the boxes, some that I had drawn myself, and some that Mayda had taken of me in America with her camera.

Just before Mr. Buckworth and I sealed up my presents, I took my Empty Book out of Auntie Moo’s box. I decided to keep it. It wasn’t empty anymore; it was filled with all sorts of things, all of my stories about living in America. Maybe I’d want to look at it someday so I could remember.

Then my special birthday party started like this:

I got to swim in George’s purple plastic pool. George’s mommy brought it over to the Buckworths’ backyard. Lucy swam, and so did Mayda and Stephanie. George and I swam too, even though George’s purple pool was very small and we were all squished. We splashed around and threw water on each other and got all wet. Rooney and Puddles got all wet too.

George got to pick a birthday too and his birthday was yesterday. George told his mommy that he wanted a monkey more than anything in the whole world. George’s mommy said that pet monkeys were a little hard to find in America. So today George got to pick a puppy and he didn’t want just any old puppy. He wanted Puddles, even though Puddles is an old lady and definitely not a puppy. But old ladies are very special in our country; they are the wise ones. When George held Puddles in his arms, George barked and Puddles wisely woofed back and everyone laughed.

The best part of my birthday, though, was my very famous circus in the Buckworths’ backyard. I made the sign myself. It would have been very useful for scaring off hungry scavengers from the bean field.

And the rest of my party guests arrived for our show.

Mayda was the first beautiful circus star.

She belongs in the circus. She comes to play with me all the time now. Especially on the days when Nanny is sick. Mrs. Buckworth likes for us to play at my house, instead of Mayda’s, so we don’t get into big trouble.

Every time Mayda comes over she tells me stories about her dad and all the places they’ve lived, and she tells me how she imagines her mom, the lost photographer with a new family. And I tell Mayda Big Mouth stories about ... me.

I told her how Auntie Moo found me eating lizards when the circus camp was burning like a bonfire. I told her how the leftover kids arrived, one by one, and how I had the very important job of being the brave leader. I told her about us walking down to the market every week, even though we didn’t have money to buy anything, and about George and me riding away in the Chevy taxi. I told her most of Old Lady Suri’s stories, too, even though so many of them weren’t exactly true. The best one was about my mama and dad, my circus people.

“That one’s a nice story, Betti,” Mayda said one day. “And who knows?” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s true.”

Mayda understands a lot.

At my birthday party she was supposed to be the Animal Trainer, so she tried to get Rooney to jump over a swing on the swing set. But Rooney smiled at her and drooled. Then Mayda tried to get Puddles to jump through a plastic hoop, but Puddles just licked Mayda’s shoes. Mayda sighed as she took her bow, and Rooney lifted his leg and peed on Mrs. Buckworth’s flowers.

Lucy was next. Mrs. Buckworth let her wear eye makeup because it was a special day. Lucy decided her act would be a Famous Puppet Show. She made all of her freak dolls, with teeny-tiny puppet heads, bounce up and down with different voices. Jessie Lynn still wasn’t married because Ramon liked Roller Derby Tina better. Lucy’s puppet show really didn’t make any sense, but she had quite a talent with her Big Mouth.

I, of course, got to be the special final act. I got to walk on my high wire line in the sky. Actually, the line Mr. Buckworth made was wider than both of my feet, and lower than Lucy’s knees. It was a board. Hardly anyone could fall off Mr. Buckworth’s fat board, not even me.

I walked very carefully anyway.

I had almost made it all the way across, which is just how we practiced it. That’s when George, my circus partner, was supposed to run out, do a turn, and catch me as I took a dramatic leap off the end. Unfortunately, George got carried away.

He twirled and twirled like crazy, and flapped his arms around, and made loud bird noises. “Caw caw QUACK QUACK!” He had so much fun that he knocked into me and made me lose my balance. He tried to catch me, but he wasn’t used to his brand-new arm—which he’d had fixed in the hospital—that looked almost real.

This morning Mrs. Buckworth told me that a doctor of eyes could possibly fix my broken eye too. But I told her that I’d have to think about it. “Maybe when I’m old,” I said. “Like in the nine grade.” I like my fish eye, grayer than smoke or a rainy day. It lets me see halfway into the past and at least a little into the future: my old life at the circus camp and my new life with the Buckworths. My eye gives me good luck.

But this time? Well, not so lucky.

George and I fell together into a heap on the ground. The funny makeup on our faces was all messed up, and my funny orange wig flew off. George, with his legs sprawled over me like a wishbone, laughed as if this was the best day of his life.

Then, suddenly ... I heard it. Clapping. It shook the soft green grass and the swing set. It was louder than a noisy monsoon.

I saw Ms. Stacy and the Summer Five clapping in my audience. Timmy didn’t have freaky teeth anymore because his metal wires were all gone. They were straight and white as river stones. Sam was there with some purple streaks in her hair and Tabitha brought me a fake stuffed cat for my birthday present. Bobby Ray and Jerry clapped too, because they liked me. Or, they at least liked me a little because now they called me Dude.