Circus Mirandus Read online

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  Copyright © 2015 by Cassie Beasley

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 Diana Sudyka

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Beasley, Cassie.

  Circus Mirandus / by Cassie Beasley.

  pages cm

  Summary: “When he realizes that his grandfather’s stories of an enchanted circus are true, Micah Tuttle sets out to find the mysterious Circus Mirandus—and to use its magic to save his grandfather’s life” —Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-698-18906-5

  [1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Circus—Fiction. 3. Grandfathers—Fiction. 4. Great aunts—Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction. 6. Friendship—Fiction. 7. Sick—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.1.B432Cir 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014031463

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Version_1

  For Daddy and Mama. When I was little, you told me

  I could do anything. I’m not so little now, but you keep

  saying it. I’m starting to think you really believe it.

  I love you for that.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Acknowledgments

  Four small words. That was all it took to set things in motion.

  The words came from an upstairs room filled with the rustle of paper and the sweet stink of medicine. They came from the pen of an old man who coughed and wheezed with every breath. They came at the end of a very important letter, which said this:

  To: The Lightbender

  Care of: Circus Mirandus

  I need to speak to you urgently. I hope you remember me even though it’s been many years since I was called to Circus Mirandus. Of course I have never forgotten you. My name is Ephraim Tuttle, and we met during the war, when I was a boy.

  You promised me a miracle.

  I don’t know how I will get this message to you. I haven’t heard even a whisper about the circus since I was a much younger man. But you made a promise, and I have believed through all these years that if I had need of you, you would come.

  Here, the old man paused. He read over what he had written. His pen glinted in the yellow lamplight as he added the final line.

  I need you now.

  And at that moment, thousands of miles away in the tent of the Man Who Bends Light, a messenger woke up.

  M icah Tuttle knew that most old ladies were pleasant enough. They knitted warm sweaters and baked cakes with chocolate frosting and played old-fashioned card games at the town social hall. Sometimes one forgot to put in her fake teeth, like Mrs. Yolane from the post office, or she kept fourteen kooky cats, like Mrs. Rochester from across the street. But even those two were basically chocolate cakes and warm sweaters on the inside.

  Micah’s great-aunt, Gertrudis, was not.

  He washed a pink china teacup for the third time that Sunday afternoon while she loomed over him. She clucked her tongue, and he scrubbed the cup until he worried the painted roses might fade right off.

  On the inside, Aunt Gertrudis was probably cough syrup.

  She wore her dust-colored hair twisted into a bun so tight it almost pulled her wrinkled skin smooth, and she starched her shirts until the collars were stiff enough to cut. She made black tea every day in a bright steel kettle. The tea was scalding and bitter, a lot like her, and she wouldn’t let Micah add sugar because she said bad teeth ran in the family.

  She also said that bad sense ran in the family, and by golly she’d see to it that Micah didn’t inherit it.

  Aunt Gertrudis had come to stay with them weeks ago, all the way from Arizona, to make sure that things were “done correctly” while Grandpa Ephraim was sick. It wasn’t supposed to be for long, but Micah’s grandfather had gotten sicker and sicker. And Aunt Gertrudis had gotten more and more impossible.

  “Don’t assault the cup that way,” she snapped at him. “I only wanted you to clean it properly for a change.”

  The only thing that kept Micah from talking back was the knowledge that she’d keep him up to his elbows in chores for the rest of the day instead of letting him visit with his grandfather. He hadn’t been allowed to “pester” Grandpa Ephraim since this morning, when he had hinted that he had something important to tell Micah.

  “Something spectacular,” his grandfather had whispered. “Something magical.”

  Grandpa Ephraim had had a sparkle in his eyes that Micah recognized. And magical meant Circus Mirandus stories, which were one of Micah’s favorite things. Magical also meant Aunt Gertrudis had hustled Micah out of the room before his grandfather could actually tell him anything. She seemed to think that those stories were just the sort of bad sense Micah might inherit if she wasn’t careful.

  Just a few more minutes until you can see him again.

  He passed the teacup to his aunt as politely as he could and went to watch the kettle. While the water heated, the kettle popped like it was stretching out its joints. Soon, the little bird on top would start to whistle. That was Micah’s favorite part—the bird singing. He always looked forward to it.

  A tendril of steam curled out of the bird’s silver mouth. The first faint whistle, when it came, reminded him of the last good days he’d had with Grandpa Ephraim before Aunt Gertrudis had arrived. They’d been building a tree house together. They had worked on it every afternoon, and Grandpa Ephraim had been whistling while they tied knots for the rope ladder. “Tuttle knots!” he’d said when they finished. “You won’t find better ones anywhere.”

  Which, Micah knew, was perfectly true.

  Aunt Gertrudis was reaching for the kettle.

  “You could leave it,” Micah said.

  She didn’t even glance at him as she jerked the kettle away from the heat
. Micah strained his ears, trying to capture the last of the bird’s song, but it was too late. All he heard was the blub glub of the boiling water inside the kettle, and in an instant, even that sound disappeared.

  Aunt Gertrudis sploshed the tea bags up and down.

  “It’s just that I like to hear it whistle,” Micah said quietly.

  “It’s just that you like to waste time.”

  Micah stared at the refrigerator so that he wouldn’t have to look at her. The things that had once covered the fridge—a recipe for Double Chocolate Brownies, alphabet magnets, a picture of an elephant Micah had drawn when he was seven—had all been papered over with medicine schedules and receipts and Aunt Gertrudis’s calorie chart. The only evidence of Micah’s existence was a sticky note, half hidden behind a copy of a prescription. It was written in his handwriting, and it said “Inca Project 4 School.”

  When he had first learned that his grandfather’s sister was coming, Micah had hoped she would be as wonderful as Grandpa Ephraim. He had hoped that she would like him. He had thought the house might be less lonely with someone else in it. But it turned out that Aunt Gertrudis didn’t like any of the things that Micah’s grandfather liked, including ten-year-olds.

  He took a deep breath and held it until his chest ached. Something magical, he reminded himself. Maybe a new story. Maybe something happy.

  Happy sounded like someplace very far away and hard to find these day.

  Dr. Simon had explained that Grandpa Ephraim couldn’t get enough air. He didn’t whistle anymore. He stayed upstairs in bed all day long, and even though he still laughed sometimes, it sounded different. Like the kettle. Blub glub.

  Micah knew what came next.

  Micah scooped up the tea tray before Aunt Gertrudis could tell him to do it. It was difficult to hold it steady, and the teacups trembled in their saucers as he took a cautious step toward the door.

  Aunt Gertrudis blocked his path. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Micah tried to smile at her. “Upstairs for tea?”

  She gave him a considering look as she lifted the tray out of his hands. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’re going to sit right here where you won’t make a mess.”

  Micah frowned at her. He didn’t make messes. “But I always get to see Grandpa Ephraim during tea.”

  She sniffed. “Ephraim’s been exhausted lately. I think it’s best if you don’t bother him quite so often.”

  “But he was feeling better this morning! He wanted to tell me about . . . You just don’t want me to talk to him because—”

  “Because I don’t want you to annoy a very sick man every hour of the day. And because you don’t need any more silliness stuffed between your ears, especially not your grandfather’s sort of silliness. Now sit.” She nodded at the kitchen table.

  When he didn’t move, she set a pink roses teacup on the table and raised her eyebrow at him.

  Lately, Micah felt like he was a rubber band that Aunt Gertrudis was stretching a little farther every time she spoke. Surely it couldn’t go on forever. She would have to get tired of pulling eventually. If she didn’t, he would snap.

  But not today.

  Micah dragged his feet as he went to the table, but he went. He gave his aunt the worst glare he could muster.

  She turned to the door.

  “He’ll want to see me,” Micah said to her stiff back.

  “Drink your tea.”

  “I think—”

  She looked back at him. “Don’t you have homework?”

  He glanced at the sticky note on the fridge.

  “That’s what I thought. Maybe you can see Ephraim once you’ve proven that you are responsible and sensible about your obligations.”

  She left without another word.

  Micah waited until he could hear the hard soles of her shoes clicking on the stairs, and then he poured his nasty cup of tea down the sink.

  When Micah trudged upstairs, Grandpa Ephraim’s door was shut tight. Of course. I’ll sneak in as soon as Aunt Gertrudis leaves, he promised himself.

  He went to his room and flopped down on his unmade bed. He was supposed to be working on his half of a group project for social studies. Jenny Mendoza, the smartest girl in the whole fifth grade, was expecting Micah to bring a model of an Incan artifact to school tomorrow so that they could rehearse for their presentation. He hadn’t exactly started on it yet, but it would be easy. One of the pictures in their textbook was of a thing called a quipu, which just looked like a bunch of strings tied into fancy knots, and Micah could do that with his eyes closed. Probably.

  Knots weren’t regular homework when you were a Tuttle. They were something of a family specialty.

  Maybe, thought Micah, Grandpa Ephraim and I could make the quipu together. It wasn’t as exciting as building a tree house, but it was the sort of project his grandfather might like. Making the quipu together sounded . . . fun, normal, like something they would have done before everything went wrong.

  Micah rolled off the bed and reached for the bottom drawer of his dresser. A neat coil of blue string lay on top of a nest of odds and ends that he had collected from all over the house when he realized that Aunt Gertrudis’s idea of “tidying the place up” meant throwing everything she herself didn’t use into the garbage. Micah’s socks had had to make room for two yo-yos, a baseball, a felt hat, a small army of action figures, a pack of Old Maid cards, and the string.

  He picked it up and wrapped his fingers around it. It was good string, perfect for tying.

  All that was left to do was wait.

  When he finally heard Aunt Gertrudis shut his grandfather’s bedroom door, Micah was out of his room and across the hall in a flash. A sneaky, quiet flash.

  He slipped into Grandpa Ephraim’s familiar room, and took it all in with a glance. A ceramic duck crouched on top of the alarm clock. A five-gallon pickle jar full of shooter marbles and tarnished coins sat in one corner. Pictures covered the pale blue walls.

  A couple of the photos, tucked away in corners, showed his grandfather standing with a pretty young woman who Micah knew was his wife. Grandpa Ephraim didn’t like to talk about her. There were pictures of Grandpa Ephraim’s friends and places he’d been, and there was even a tiny one of Aunt Gertrudis, taken when she was a little girl. She had a cast on her arm.

  Micah liked to look at the pictures of his parents’ wedding. They had died in a boating accident when he was four, and the pictures helped him remember them. But his favorite photographs were of him and Grandpa Ephraim together. He liked to think they looked alike, even though his grandfather’s hair was gray and his own was brown. Most of the pictures of the two of them were out of focus because they had never figured out how to take a good photo using the timer on the camera. But in every one, they had the same hazel eyes and the same smile.

  Grandpa Ephraim didn’t look quite like himself these days. His smiles were just as warm as they always had been. But he was thinner, and pale from being stuck in bed all the time. When Micah entered the room, he was propped up on a mound of pillows, staring toward the window. Through the gap in the curtains, Micah could just see the half-finished tree house cradled in the branches of the oak.

  “It’s a great tree house,” said Micah. “It will be a lot of fun this summer. Even without a roof.”

  Grandpa Ephraim turned to face him. His eyes were bright with secrets. “Oh, there you are, Micah. We have business to discuss, you and I.”

  “I’m sorry I’m late.” Micah made a place for himself on the foot of the bed and set down his coil of blue string. “She kept me away.”

  “Ah. You missed some delicious tea,” Grandpa Ephraim said.

  “I bet.”

  Even though they were both trying to look serious, Grandpa Ephraim’s nose wrinkled up at the thought of the inky tea, and Micah’s own
nose couldn’t help itself. They grinned at each other.

  “I poured mine down the sink,” Micah confessed.

  “Well, at least one of us escaped!” Grandpa Ephraim said.

  That was true enough. But Micah would drink a whole kettle of ink every day if it meant they could spend more time together.

  “I . . . why is Aunt Gertrudis always so . . . the way she is?” He didn’t want to tell Grandpa Ephraim that his sister was horrible, but it was hard not to complain sometimes.

  Grandpa Ephraim sighed. “Your great-aunt and I haven’t been close for a very long time. It’s my fault as much as it is hers.”

  “I doubt that,” Micah muttered.

  His grandfather raised an eyebrow. “It was good of her to come. She’s not happy here, but we do need the help.”

  I could do everything she does, Micah thought. And I would be a lot nicer about doing it.

  “I know she can be frustrating. If you could just try to get along with her for a little while longer—”

  “I am trying.” He didn’t know how to explain it, to say that it seemed like he was doing nothing but trying these days. He was trying not to upset Aunt Gertrudis, and he was trying to find ways to help his grandfather, and he was trying to be okay even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t. “I’m trying a lot.”

  “I know you are. And you’re doing wonderfully, Micah. You really are.” He looked toward the window again. “I need to tell you something.”

  Micah smiled. “Something magical? I was hoping it would be one of your Circus Mirandus stories.”

  Their eyes met, and Micah felt something pass between them. A zing, a little spark of knowing that whatever his grandfather was about to say would change everything.

  “I’ve written a letter to an old friend,” said Grandpa Ephraim. “I think you should read it.”

  Grandpa Ephraim opened the drawer of his bedside table to reveal balls of crumpled paper. Micah uncrumpled them one by one until the bed was covered with letters, letters made up of impossible words.