In Search of Goliathus Hercules (13 page)

Finally it was agreed that everyone, including Maria and Sophia, would travel back in a matchbox.

Then there had been the question of what to do with any fleas that did not successfully pass the audition. “Easy,” said Fabio. “Return them to Billy, their home.”

“I can’t in good conscience do that,” responded Henri. “Billy’s my friend.”

“We’re you’re friends too,” piped up Giovanni. “Are you saying you like Billy better than us?”

“Yeah! Is he better than us?” chimed in Liora.

“This has nothing to with what we’re talking about. I like all of you and Billy equally. You are all my friends. What we’re discussing is finding a new home for those fleas who don’t have the talent to join the show.”

“So you’re saying you only like talented fleas?” asked Fabio.

“Yes. I mean, no!” sputtered Henri. “We can’t keep every flea who auditions for the circus. There’s simply not enough blood in my body to feed so many hungry fleas.” This at last made an impression on the fleas. A threat to their food source was serious. Finally, they reached another compromise. He would not return them to Billy but would find another human host. This presented a bit of a dilemma for Henri. There wasn’t anyone whom he felt deserved such punishment.

As they had walked over to the fireworks, he whispered his predicament to Robin.

“Oh, I can think of loads of people who deserve them,” she giggled. “I’d like to put them in Eunice’s underpants and watch her scratch! She sewed up the legs of my costume yesterday so I couldn’t put my feet through. No, wait! You know what would be really funny? Put them on Madame Noir! She thinks she’s better than everyone else, the snooty old biddy. I’d like to see her do a bit of undignified scratching!”

Putting her nose in the air and attempting a French accent, she imitated Madame Noir’s cold and forbidding voice. “I don’t want to catch you children near my tent or interfering with my business. If I do, there will be consequences!” A cold chill went down Henri’s spine as he remembered Mrs. Agatha Black, Great Aunt Georgie’s neighbor, saying something very similar.

According to the banner hanging outside her tent, Madame Noir foretold the future through palmistry, crystal ball gazing, and tea leaf reading. Since he had poked his head into her tent, he had only seen her on two occasions. Normally most performers met at the mess tent, so Henri supposed that she cooked for herself and took her meals alone.

Madame Noir mostly wore long, black satin dresses with a band of a bright red or purple at the hem. She wore octagonal-shaped spectacles with tinted blue glass, which suggested she had sight into some other world. With her hooked nose, she was not a beautiful woman, and her hair—well, it was the wildest hairdo Henri had ever seen. Her hair was frizzy and striped black and white, much like a skunk. Henri thought of the
Insect Transformations
book and how some caterpillars are brightly colored as a defense against predators—a warning to birds that says,“ Keep away! Poison!” Madame Noir was like that. She looked so strange and frightening that he had absolutely no desire to go anywhere near her.

“Putting the fleas on Madame Noir would be asking for trouble,” said Henri.

“Oh, I bet she’s all bark and no bite,” replied Robin.

Henri didn’t answer. He didn’t want to sound like a chicken, but he really didn’t think it would be a good idea to provoke Madame Noir.

The first blast of a rocket went off. “Wow, look at that, Billy! It’s like a million tiny gold and ruby stars. Isn’t it beautiful?” asked Robin.

“Sure is,” said Billy.

As Billy answered, Henri leaned forward. “Jump!” he called to the two fleas.

“Ooh! Look at that one. Emeralds!” and Robin started to chant, “Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and gold.”

To the fleas, Henri whispered, “Did you make it?”

“We’re here,” he heard Maria call as the screech of a bottle rocket filled the air.

Henri gave Robin a nudge and the thumbs-up sign, then sat back and enjoyed the show with everyone else. After about fifteen minutes, he heard Sophia calling his name. He gave Robin a shove with his foot to indicate that she should distract Billy again.

“Don’t you wish we had fireworks every night, Billy?” Robin asked, while Henri held up his hand to the back of Billy’s head.

“If we did, then it wouldn’t seem special anymore,” responded Billy. “Maybe once a month would be good.”

“No, I would love it every day…” Robin prattled on. Henri counted in his head as the fleas jumped into his cupped hand: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

“Ten. There are ten of you, including Sophia and Maria?’ Henri whispered into his hand.

“Right, ten of us,” Henri heard Maria say. Gently, he placed the fleas into the waiting matchbox, hoping that no one was watching him. Everyone’s eyes should be upon the sky. Henri closed the box and put it in his pocket. As he looked up to see a burst of red and blue stars, he gave Robin another nudge. She turned and beamed at him. Of course, Henri could not help but smile back.

After the fireworks display ended, the crowd on the hill lingered. Many of them were circus folk, chatting about the next day’s journey, which would take them much farther south.

Robin turned to Henri and Billy. “Look at Madame Noir,” she said. “What’s she doing?”

“Dunno,” said Billy.

Henri looked over to where Robin had pointed. Madame Noir was not chatting with anyone. Instead she was stealthily moving between trees and bushes. From time to time, her hand reached out with lightning speed and grabbed something. “Looks like she’s collecting something,” said Henri.

“Come on, let’s spy on her!” Robin jumped up, and before Henri or Billy had a chance to respond, she was moving across the grass in the direction of Madame Noir. Billy shrugged and then set off behind them while Henri reluctantly followed. They caught up to Robin, who was crouched behind a bush. They were perhaps thirty feet away from Madame Noir, who continued to glide about in search of something.

“What is it she’s picking?” asked Billy. “Maybe it’s leaves she’s going to brew into a tea for her tea leaf reading?”

“No, can’t be,” said Robin. “Why would her hand come out so fast? It’s not like a leaf is going to run away. She’s catching something—but what? I wish it weren’t so dark.”

Henri gazed at Madame Noir. Robin was right. She was catching something. And he knew what too. “She’s catching insects,” he said with shock in his voice, for Henri’s eyes were sharp and it no longer made any difference to him if it was night or day. He could see her clearly.

“Why would she catch insects?” asked Robin, but Henri didn’t answer for he had just seen something else. As Madame Noir caught the moths, crickets, and mosquitoes, she put some in the pocket of her dress, but others she popped directly into her mouth. No! That can’t be, thought Henri. At that moment, Madame Noir looked directly at the bush they were hiding behind.

In the dark, Robin and Billy could not see that Madame Noir was staring at them. Henri, though, was frozen to the spot. He stared back into the rigid, frowning face of the fortune-teller, and then he noticed her earrings. A wave of nausea hit Henri as he realized that her earrings were made of insects. Dead insects. He turned and retched. This startled both Billy and Robin.

“Henri, what’s wrong?” asked Robin in a concerned voice, completely forgetting to whisper.

“Henri, are you OK?” asked Billy.

He looked up, past their frightened faces, to where Madame Noir had stood moments ago. She was gone.

“I don’t know. I suddenly felt ill,” Henri mumbled.

“Let’s get you home,” Billy said kindly.

With Robin on one side and Billy on the other, Henri was escorted back to the flea-circus tent.

“Hope you feel better,” said Billy. “We’ve got a long journey tomorrow.”

“I’ll come and check on you in the morning,” said Robin, and then she whispered, “I know you saw something and you’re not telling.”

“Thanks. I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Henri said to them both.

The following day, Henri was packing up his bedroll when Robin burst into the tent. She was out of breath and she had tears in her eyes.

Startled, Henri said, “Robin, what’s wrong?”

“Come, come with me! You have to see!”

Together they raced across the field. No one noticed them in view of all the activity. The tents were coming down and being packed up for the long journey south. Robin led him to the wildflowers where the yellow butterflies had danced the day before. She pointed her finger toward the ground, and Henri saw the torn wings of hundreds of butterflies lying in the dirt. Robin burst into tears again.

“Who would do this, Henri? It’s so cruel and terrible.”

Henri did not answer. He called out to the field in insect language: “Who did this?” His call was met with silence. There was not a single chirp or a peep. Henri frowned.

“Madame Noir did this. I think it’s a warning.”

O
nce the circus locomotive started moving, Robin came back to the car where Henri sat with Maestro Antonio and Andre, the World’s Strongest Man. Henri sat, dully watching the two men play cribbage, lost in thoughts of his own. Robin signaled to him from the carriage door. He got up and went to her.

“We need to talk,” she whispered. There had been no chance to discuss the previous evening’s fireworks event or the butterfly massacre they had discovered that morning. Everyone had to pitch in when the circus moved.

“We can’t talk here,” said Henri.

“We can’t talk in my family’s carriage either. I know—let’s go to Billy and the lions.”

As the lion tamer’s assistant, Billy’s job was to travel with the lions and tigers. He had to sit by their cages and keep the big cats calm. They didn’t like train travel very much.

“I don’t know if I want to bring Billy into this,” Henri said hesitantly.

“What do you mean?” responded Robin.

“I mean, I don’t know if I want to let him know that I can speak to insects.”

“Nothing that happened last night or this morning has anything to do with that,” said Robin.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

They made their way through the train, past Gertrude the Fat Lady, who was gossiping with Hope and Charity, the conjoined twins; through the carriage of the elegant flying Peppiano family, the circus’s trapeze artists, until they reached Billy, all alone with the big cats. He was lying on a crate with a pillow and reading a comic book. As soon as Henri and Robin entered the car, one of the tigers let out a roar causing them to jump. Billy looked up from his reading.

“To what do I owe this honor?” he said. He looked pleased to have company.

The stink of the lions and tigers in the car was very strong. Billy carried a whiff of them wherever he went. Unlike Henri, he really was an orphan. His mother had died giving birth to him, and his father—the former lion tamer of the circus—had been killed by one of his own tigers. When Herbert Kramer joined the circus, he had agreed to raise Billy and train him to be a lion tamer. He had a lot of responsibility caring for the lions and tigers and was not as free to wander about as Henri and Robin.

Billy was a head taller than Henri. He had curly brown hair and was rather skinny. Henri couldn’t imagine one of the big, hungry cats taking a chomp out of him. He would be all bone and gristle.

“OK, Henri. Spit it out,” said Robin. “You said Madame Noir was collecting insects, but I don’t think that was all you saw. Come on, fess up.”

“Ah, well…she was catching moths, mosquitoes, some crickets. You know, the things that come out at night.”

“And…” cajoled Robin.

“Well, she was putting some in her pocket.”

“And…” Robin would not give up.

“And some she was putting in her mouth.”

“Eating them?” exclaimed Robin incredulously.

“Disgusting!” said Billy. “Are you sure, Henri? It was really dark.”

“I know what I saw.”

“Why wouldn’t she eat normal food like everyone else?” persisted Billy.

“Maybe she’s some kind of witch,” suggested Robin.

“Or she’s the latest sideshow act! Ladies and gentlemen, I present Madame Noir, the Human Lizard Lady!” announced Henri.