The Great Circus Train Robbery (7 page)

He limped straight over to the fallen cars, dropped to his knees and picked them up in his big paws; then he set them carefully back on track. He held up the guilty twig and shook it in Spence’s face.

“Oh,” said Spence, like he hadn’t noticed the twig before.

Boomer stood up. He didn’t look as big as he’d seemed when they first saw him in his doorway. Or as young, either. His chin whiskers were whitish and his eyebrows a grizzled gray-black. His hands, though, made Zoe think of garden rakes. His mouth was twitching, like he was trying to speak but didn’t know what to say. Zoe waited.

Finally he said, “A rail car missing, eh?”

Spence nodded. Zoe’s heart went skipping round the block. But then, he could have heard about the theft on local radio. Or maybe Mr. Riley told him when he called.

“My baggage car,” Spence said. “My red baggage car. My favorite one.”

Boomer’s head swiveled toward Spence. “Where’d it come from? That baggage car?” His voice sounded like her dad’s chainsaw cutting up a log.

The question caught Spence off guard—he took a step back. So Zoe stepped up and answered for   him. “From his grandfather.”

“It was a birthday present,” Spence said, recovering his cool.

“Why do you want to know?” Zoe asked. But that was a mistake, she realized. For now a crimson flush was creeping over Boomer’s sallow cheeks.

“Zoe?” It was Mrs. Elwood shouting from the edge of the orchard. “Ms. Delores called. She’ll be here in fifteen minutes to take you to the circus.”

“Okay,” she called back.

“Circus?” Boomer’s face grew redder still. “You won’t like that circus. It’s just a one-ring operation. No elephants—just a bunch of clowns and high wire acts. Stay home.”

“Why should we?” Zoe asked. But he just waved his arms, and limped off through the underbrush and into his yard.

“So what do you make of all that?” she asked Spence.

“He doesn’t like circuses.”

“Obvious. But those rail cars—you saw how he picked them up. I mean, he was real careful. Like he didn’t want them to get damaged.”

“Like he was looking them over,” Spence said. “To see what he’d steal next.”

“Maybe he’s a dealer.”

“Drugs?”

“No, antiques. That’s why he took your rail car. To resell it for a bunch of money.  That’s why he came over—by himself, while your father was gone.  Us, he figured, we’re just kids. We’re no problem.”

“He’s got another think coming then,” said Spence, folding his arms, looking tough.

“So we’ve got to get back in his house,” Zoe said.  “Search through his files. See who he might’ve sold the baggage car to. It’s a hot car, though.”

“They’ll repaint it,” Spence said sorrowfully. “It won’t be red anymore. But I’ll recognize it. I scratched my initials on the bottom. On all the cars. See?” He picked up the yellow caboose and turned it over. There was a fancy squiggle on the end of
SR.

“Smart kid. But you’d better put the train away because Ms. Delores will be here any minute to take us to that rehearsal.”

“I think I’ll stay with the train. In case Boomer comes over again.”

“But that train clown will be there. Tulip told him you’re coming.”

“Oh.” Spence looked thoughtful. Then he shrugged and began to pack up his cars.

“That train must be worth a pile of money,” Zoe said, looking down at it. She’d like to shrink like Alice and ride through Wonderland in one of those colorful cars. “Did you see the way Boomer looked at it? Like it was one big pile of hundred dollar bills?”

“You really think he wants it?”

“He wants it all right. He’ll do anything, I bet, to get it.”

And anything, she thought, could mean—well—
anything...

13

“WHAT DID WE GET OURSELVES INTO”?

All around the circled trailers the circus was coming to life. Performers in rainbow garb sang, shouted, juggled and danced outside a massive blue-and-white tent that seemed to have bloomed overnight. Red and white flags flew from its top like petals on a giant flower. Spence was dazzled. He let Tulip lead him over to a yellow school bus converted to a motor home. At the top of the steps a long arm reached out to yank him in.

Inside, he didn’t know where to step. The floor was littered with trains in various stages of disrepair: rusted, battered, moldy. Some were Lionel O gauge, like his own; some were tiny N gauge, less than two inches long. There were faded blue cars, dented red cars, discolored purple cars. Boston & Maine cars, Lackawanna Railroad, Union Pacific, Santa Fe. His heart chugged to think of those faraway places.

“Watch it now!” the clown cried. “If you step on one you pay!” Above the black-and-white patch shirt that read HACKBERRY, Spence saw a bulbous red nose, purple circles around watery brown eyes, pink ears, and a huge white-painted mouth in an upside-down U, like something had scared him and he’d freaked out.

Spence backed toward the door.

“Come back—you said you’d help!” the man cried in a rusty voice. He was nothing like cheerful Tulip with her broad painted smile. This tall, skinny clown wore black: a tiny round black hat, an oversize black jacket with a huge purple bow tie, raggedy black-and-gray striped pants over a pot belly, and flapping black shoes that appeared to be ten feet long.

“I’ve been trying to retire but I can’t,” Hackberry said, wringing his hands.  “I keep coming back.  I need the crowd. But I’m scared to death of them. They laugh at me.”

“That’s what clowns are for,” Spence said, hugging the wall. “To be laughed at.”

“Don’t I know it!  If they don’t laugh, I’m scared.  When they do laugh, I’m panicked. I want to run off in the wings. But I can’t. There’s always somebody pushing me back in the ring. That’s what I need you for.”

“You want me to push you back in when you come out?”

“Of course! Didn’t Tulip tell you? Now tie my shoes, please. I can’t reach them with this fake belly.” He stuck a floppy foot up on a chair.

“She said I might help with the trains.” Spence tied one of the ten-foot shoes. The laces were too long so he tied them three times.

“No-oo-o!” Hackberry cried, his face falling apart. “Only one loose knot. I’m supposed to trip over them. That’s why they’re so long. Can’t you understand that?”

“Sorry.” Spence stifled a laugh to think of Hackberry tripping over the laces.

“Don’t laugh at me!”

“Sorry. So what do you do with all these rail cars?”

Hackberry gazed into Spence’s face. His eyes with their purple lashes looked like they might sink back into his head and disappear. “I play with them. I trip over them. I get them off the track—and I cry.”

“Don’t you get face paint in your eyes from that purple stuff?”

“That’s the whole point! The paint makes me cry. And people laugh when I cry. It’s so cruel!” He covered his face with his hands.  “Oh, I can’t bear it sometimes.  And then the monkey climbs on my back...”

“You have a monkey?” Spence looked around. Sure enough, a monkey was squatting on the back of a chair in a rear corner of the trailer.

“Don’t interrupt. I hate it when people interrupt! Now I forgot what I was going to say.”

“Sorry,” Spence said for the third time. Hackberry reminded him of his Aunt Millie, whom you could never please, no matter what you said. “Look, I don’t think I can help you, I really don’t.” He looked longingly at the door.

“You can’t leave! Tulip said you
wanted
to help.  So help.”

“Hackberry?” a voice yelled. “It’s time. Get your butt over to the tent.”

“Coming,” Hackberry hollered. “Now listen,” he said, grabbing Spence’s arm. “Number One: if I run off before I’m supposed to, you push me back into the ring. Hear?”

“But how will I know—”

“You’ll know. Just do it. Number Two: trains.”

Spence relaxed a little. He might help with the trains after all.

“You watch them backstage, see that nobody plays with them.”

Spence’s heart sank. “That’s all?”

“I’m the clown, not you! I get to play with them in the ring. Like I said, you guard them out back.  Number Three: take care of Sweet Gum.”

“Who’s Sweet Gum?”

“The monkey, of course!”

“Oh.” The monkey was still on the chair, peeling a banana. It stuck out its pink tongue when it caught Spence’s eye. “That’s all?”

“For today. I’ll think of something else tomorrow. Variety’s what they like, all those strangers out there. Oh, I don’t know why I do this.” He rapped his forehead with his knuckles. “I die a thousand deaths before I go in the ring.” He rubbed his eyes and the purple paint smeared into the white.  “Wait! There’s one more.”

Spence waited. And wished he’d stayed home with his own train.

“Number Four. Number... Oh, never mind.” He waved an arm. “I’ve already forgot. Oh, I’m too old for this business. I’m sixty-three on my next birthday. I should go back into retirement. I did for a year, you know. But then...”

“You had to come back?” Spence thought of his father who’d “quit” playing in gigs, and then “just had to come back.” Music was a disease, he said.

“Yes! You’re not so dumb after all. So grab that basket of cars—on the sofa—there, see? And come with me.” When Spence hesitated: “Come, I said! Come, come! You’re holding up the rehearsal. And I’ll get blamed. Then what will I do?” He jumped up, the monkey leapt on his shoulder, and he scurried out.

Spence picked up the basket of cars and ran down the steps. Already Hackberry had disappeared into   the crowd of performers. “Jeezum,” he whispered when he ran into Zoe outside the big tent. “What    did we get ourselves into?”

“A fun day at the circus. That’s what we’re into. So smile, Spence, and face the music. Hear it?” A loudspeaker was blaring a jazzy pop tune. “You never know what’ll happen.”

“That’s
just
what I’m worried about,” said Spence, feeling glum.

14

A BLACK-TIED STRANGER AND A PANICKED CLOWN

“I can’t zip it all the way, I just can’t!” Zoe said. They were backstage in the big tent; she couldn’t help herself, she was so frustrated. Too many chattering, juggling, twirling performers—she felt like a turtle in a pool of leaping salmon.

“Pull! “Tulip cried.

“It just won’t zip. You’ll have to lose weight.”

“Not today I can’t,” said Tulip, squirming in the tight costume. “I should’ve had it made special, but the wardrobe woman—”

“Is too busy, you said. But my mom sews. If you can get the material, she can make it for you.” Zoe bit her lip. French School would end next week and her mother would turn into a high school teacher—there was never any “down time,” she’d complain.

“Really, hon? Well, ask her. I’ll see she gets paid when the show’s over. But for now, get a safety pin. Do something! That’s why you’re here. And where’s my hoop?”

Zoe didn’t know about hoops. But she had a safety pin. It was holding her shorts together at the top.

“The red hoop!” Tulip cried, “Not the yellow one. It’s not a yellow day for me. It’s a red day.”

Zoe didn’t know a red day from a yellow day, but she removed her safety pin, and now her cotton shorts hung from a single loose button. But even a safety pin couldn’t conceal the clown’s pink bra and then a pale brown strip of skin down to the place where the zipper gripped.

Vermont was such a boringly white state, Zoe thought. One day she might paint her own face a lavender-black. Or lemon yellow or pale red.

“Ouch!” cried Tulip when the pin pricked her skin. But it finally shut. “Who has my red hoop?” she hollered. “A yellow hoop on a red day is bad luck, I told you. Find it, Zoe, quick!”

Out in the arena the music had reached a crescendo. Three females in sparkly pink leotards and bare white legs rushed back through the beaded curtain, their faces flushed and excited. They smelled of sweat and perfume, body paint and hairspray. They were giggling over their mistakes and near-misses.

“Shush!” someone cried and the giggling fell to a whisper.

“Clowns!” a voice hissed, and the clowns surged forward. Zoe spotted the red hoop on the arm of a petite clown in a baggy blue-striped dress, snatched it off her arm and replaced it with the yellow one. “Sorry,” Zoe said.

The petite clown stared back through red-ringed eyes and then hurried on through the jangling bead curtain. Tulip ran out behind her, the red hoop secure over a plump arm. Her pug-dog trotted behind. When the crowd thinned out, Zoe spotted Spence in a corner; he was hooking together a trio of battered-looking rail cars.

“Hackberry’s train,” Spence whispered, pointing at the bead curtain where a stoop-shouldered clown stood looking out with a monkey on his shoulder—it had a scarlet ruff around its scrawny neck. It was eating one of the green apples Zoe had brought Tulip—the clown had insisted on bringing a half dozen with her.

Hackberry looked like he’d been hit by lightning with his down-painted mouth and the gray-black hair shooting up through his hat in raggedy tufts. Spence said, “I got to push him back in if he runs off in the middle of the act.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He gets nervous. He’s scared of the people out there.”

“There aren’t any people out there. Not today.”

“No. But someone’s watching. I saw him when the female clowns went out—he’s sitting in the top row. A tall guy with a mustache and a black tie.”

“Probably the director.” She peered out through the opening Hackberry had made in the curtain. The clowns were fooling around with their hoops; Tulip had gotten stuck in hers and the petite clown was trying to get it away from her. Now the petite clown was dragging Tulip in circles by the hoop—no small feat with Tulip’s bulk. Tulip was shrieking and the pug Lulu was nipping the petite clown’s ankles.

Hackberry ran on with his basket of rail cars. He set the three cars running on a small circular track in the middle of the ring. But the petite clown and Tulip came whirling at him and derailed the train. Hackberry wrung his hands and wailed, then banged his head on the floor. A clown with an orange hoop helped him put back the cars, and just as Hackberry reached out to set them in motion, Orange Hoop grabbed one and held it up triumphantly.