A Living Nightmare (8 page)

I nearly got sick when I thought of Madam Octa sliding down his throat and into his belly. I was sure she'd bite him and kill him. But the spider was a lot smarter than I knew. As she was falling, she'd stuck her legs out and they had caught on his lips.

He brought his head forward, so we could see his face. His mouth was wide open and Madam Octa was hanging between his lips. Her body throbbed in and out of his mouth and she looked like a balloon that he was blowing up and letting the air out of.

I wondered where the flute was and how he was going to control the spider now. Then Mr. Tall appeared with another flute. He couldn't play as well as Mr. Crepsley, but he was good enough to make Madam Octa take notice. She listened, then moved from one side of Mr. Crepsley's mouth to the other.

I didn't know what she was doing at first, so I craned my neck to see. When I saw the bits of white on Mr. Crepsley's lips I understood: she was spinning a web!

When she was finished, she lowered herself from his chin, like she had before. There was a large web spun across Mr. Crepsley's mouth. He began chewing and licking the web! He ate the whole thing, then rubbed his belly (being careful not to hit Madam Octa) and said, "Delicious. Nothing tastier than fresh spiderwebs. They are a treat where I come from."

He made Madam Octa push a ball across the table, then got her to balance on top of it. He set up small pieces of gym gear, tiny weights and ropes and rings, and put her through her paces. She was able to do all the things a human could, like lift weights above her head and climb ropes and pull herself up on the rings.

Then he brought out a tiny dinner set. There were mini plates and knives and forks and teeny-weeny glasses. The plates were filled with dead flies and other small insects. I don't know what was in the glasses.

Madam Octa ate that dinner as neatly as you please. She was able to pick up the knives and forks, four at a time, and feed herself. There was even a fake saltshaker that she sprinkled over one of the dishes!

It was around the time she was drinking from the glass that I decided Madam Octa was the world's most amazing pet. I would have given everything I owned for her. I knew it could never be Mom and Dad wouldn't let me keep her even if I could buy her but that didn't stop me from wishing.

When the act was over, Mr. Crepsley put the spider back in her cage and bowed low while everybody clapped. I heard a lot of people saying it wasn't fair to have killed the poor goat, but it had been thrilling.

I turned to Steve to tell him how great I thought the spider was, but he was watching Mr. Crepsley. He didn't look scared anymore, but he didn't look normal, either.

"Steve, what's wrong?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

"Steve?"

"Ssshhh!" he snapped, and wouldn't say another word until Mr. Crepsley had left. He watched the odd-looking man walk back to the wings. Then he turned to me and gasped: "This is amazing!"

"The spider?" I asked. "It
was
great. How do you think …"

"I'm not talking about the spider!" he snapped. "Who cares about a silly old arachnid? I'm talking about Mr … Crepsley." He paused before saying the man's name, as though he'd been about to call him something different.

"Mr. Crepsley?" I asked, confused. "What was so great about him? All he did was play the flute."

"You don't understand," Steve said angrily. "You don't know who he really is."

"And
you
do?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "as a matter of fact I do." He rubbed his chin and started looking worried again. "I just hope he doesn't know I know. If he does, we might never make it out of here alive …"

T
HERE WAS ANOTHER BREAK
after Mr. Crepsley and Madam Octa's act. I tried getting Steve to tell me more about who the man was, but his lips were sealed. All he said was: "I have to think about this." Then he closed his eyes, lowered his head, and thought hard.

They were selling more cool stuff during the break: beards like the bearded lady's, models of Hans Hands, and, best of all, rubber spiders that looked like Madam Octa. I bought two, one for me and one for Annie. They weren't as good as the real thing but they'd have to do.

They were also selling candy webs. I bought six of those, using up the last of my money, and ate two while waiting for the next freak to come out. They tasted like cotton candy. I stuck the second one over my lips and licked at it the same way Mr. Crepsley had.

The lights went down and everybody settled back into their seats. Gertha Teeth was next up. She was a big woman with thick legs, thick arms, a thick neck, and a thick head.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Gertha Teeth!" she said. She sounded strict. "I have the strongest teeth in the world! When I was a baby, my father put his ringers in my mouth, playing with me, and I bit two of them off!"

A few people laughed, but she stopped them with a furious look. "I am not a comedian!" she snapped. "If you laugh at me again, I will come down and bite your nose off!" That sounded pretty funny, but nobody dared chuckle.

She spoke very loudly. Every sentence was a shout and ended in an exclamation mark(!).

"Dentists all over the world have been astounded by my teeth!" she said. "I have been examined in every major dental center, but nobody has been able to figure out why they are so tough! I have been offered huge amounts of money to become a guinea pig, but I like traveling and so I have refused!"

She picked up four steel bars, each about ten inches long, but different widths. She asked for volunteers and four men went up onstage. She gave each of them a bar and said to try bending them. They did their best, but weren't able. When they had failed, she took the thinnest bar, put it in her mouth, and bit clean through it!

She handed the two halves back to one of the men. He stared at them in shock, then put one end in his own mouth and bit on it, to check that it was real steel. His howls when he almost cracked his teeth proved that it was.

Gertha did the same to the second and third bars, each of which was thicker than the first. When it came to the fourth, the thickest of the bunch, she chewed it to pieces like a candy bar.

Next, two of the blue-hooded assistants brought out a large radiator and she bit holes in it! Then they gave her a bike and she gnashed it up into a little ball, tires and all! I don't think there was anything in the world Gertha Teeth couldn't chew her way through if she set her mind to it.

She called more volunteers up onstage. She gave one a sledgehammer and a large chisel, one a hammer and smaller chisel, and the other an electric saw. She lay flat on her back and put the large chisel in her mouth. She nodded at the first volunteer to swing the sledgehammer at the chisel.

The man raised the sledgehammer high above his head and brought it down. I thought he was going to smash her face open and so did lots of others, judging by the gasps and people covering their eyes with their hands.

But Gertha was no fool. She swung out of the way and the sledgehammer slammed into the floor. She sat up and spat the chisel out of her mouth. "Hah!" she snorted. "How crazy do you think I am?"

One of the blue-hoods came out and took the sledgehammer from the man. "I only called you up to show the sledgehammer is real!" she told him. "Now," she said to those of us in the audience, "watch!"

She lay back again and stuck the chisel in her mouth. The blue-hood waited a moment, then raised the sledgehammer high and swung it down, faster and harder than the man had. It struck the top of the chisel and there was a fierce noise.

Gertha sat up. I expected to see teeth falling out of her mouth, but when she opened it and removed the chisel, there wasn't as much as a crack to be seen! She laughed and said: "Hah! You thought I had bitten off more than I could chew!"

She let the second volunteer go to work, the one with the smaller hammer and chisel. She warned him to be careful of her gums, then let him position the chisel on her teeth and whack away at it. He nearly hammered his arm off, but he wasn't able to harm her teeth.

The third volunteer tried sawing them off with the electric saw. He ran the saw from one side of her mouth to the other, and sparks were flying everywhere, but when he put it down and the dust cleared, Gertha's teeth were as white, gleaming, and solid as ever.

The Twisting Twins, Sive and Seersa, came on after her. They were identical twins and they were contortionists like Alexander Ribs. Their act involved twisting their bodies around each other so they looked like one person with two fronts instead of a back, or two upper bodies and no legs. They were skillful and it was pretty interesting, but dull compared to the rest of the performers.

When Sive and Seersa were finished, Mr. Tall came out and thanked us for coming. I thought the freaks would come out again and line up in a row, but they didn't. Instead, Mr. Tall said we could buy more stuff at the back of the hall on our way out. He asked us to mention the show to our friends. Then he thanked us again for coming and said that the show was over.

I was a little disappointed that it had ended so weakly, but it was late and I suppose the freaks were tired. I got to my feet, picked up the stuff I'd bought, and turned to say something to Steve.

He was looking behind me, up at the balcony, his eyes wide. I turned to see what he was looking at, and as I did, people behind us began to scream. When I looked up, I saw why.

There was a huge snake up on the balcony, one of the longest I had ever seen, and it was sliding down one of the poles toward the people at the bottom!

T
HE SNAKE'S TONGUE FLICKED IN
and out of its mouth and it seemed mighty hungry. It wasn't very colorful dark green, with a few flecks of brighter colors here and there but it looked deadly.

The people beneath the balcony ran back toward their seats. They were screaming and dropping stuff as they ran. A few people fainted and some fell and were crushed. Steve and I were lucky to be near the front: we were the smallest people in the theater and would have been trampled to death if we'd been caught in the rush.

The snake was about to slither onto the floor when a strong light fixed itself to the snake's face. The reptile froze and stared into the light without blinking. People stopped running and the panic died down. Those who had fallen pulled themselves back to their feet, and fortunately nobody appeared to be badly hurt.

There was a sound behind us. I turned to look back at the stage. A boy was up there. He was about fourteen or fifteen, very thin, with long yellowy-green hair. His eyes were oddly shaped, narrow like the snake's. He was dressed in a long white robe.

The boy made a hissing noise and raised his arms above his head. The robe fell away and everybody who was watching him let out a loud gasp of surprise. His body was covered in scales!

From head to toe he sparkled, green and gold and yellow and blue. He was wearing a pair of shorts but nothing else. He turned around so we could see his back, and that was the same as the front, except a few shades darker.

When he faced us again, he lay down on his belly and slid off the stage, just like a snake. It was then that I remembered the snake-boy on the flyer and put two and two together.

He stood when he reached the floor and walked toward the back of the theater. I saw, as he passed, that he had strange hands and feet: his fingers and toes were joined to each other by thin sheets of skin. He looked a little like that monster I saw in an old horror film, the one who lived in the black lagoon.

He stopped a few yards away from the pillar and crouched down. The light that had been blinding the snake snapped off and it began to move again, sliding down the last stretch of pole. The boy made another hissing noise and the snake paused. I remembered reading somewhere once that snakes can't hear, but can feel sounds.

The snake-boy shuffled a little bit to his left, then his right. The snake's head followed him but didn't lunge. The boy crept closer to the snake, until he was within its range. I expected it to strike and kill him, and I wanted to scream at him to run.

But the snake-boy knew what he was doing. When he was close enough he reached out and tickled the snake beneath its chin with his weird webbed fingers. Then he bent forward and kissed it on the nose!