Circus Mirandus Read online

  “Evasive maneuvers. Normal bird behavior is a go! Polly wants a cracker.” The parrot smacked the glass with her beak. “Pretty birdy. Want a cracker. Open the window, you old goat, there are strange people in your tree watching me make a goose of myself.”

  “I’m not people,” said Micah. “I’m his grandson.”

  He hurried to the edge of the tree house’s platform and jumped to where he thought the big lower limb was without even stopping to check. The soles of his sneakers slipped sideways against the rough bark, but he managed to catch himself on his hands and knees before he could fall. “Please wait! I need to talk to you.”

  He started crawling across the branch toward the ugly bird.

  “Don’t,” Jenny called. “I think something’s wrong with it.”

  “Chimney!” said the parrot.

  “Wait!” said Micah.

  But it was no use. The parrot shot toward the roof of the house and out of sight.

  Micah stood up on the limb, holding his arms out to either side of him for balance. “Come back!” he shouted. “The Lightbender! Is he coming soon?”

  There was no reply.

  Micah looked back to the tree house, and the glare of the flashlight in his face blinded him. He shielded his eyes with one hand. “You saw that didn’t you?” he demanded. “You saw the magic parrot?”

  Jenny lowered the flashlight so that he could see again. “I saw a parrot,” she said slowly.

  “That was her. The Lightbender’s messenger.”

  Micah’s knees were Jell-O. The messenger had come. They hadn’t forgotten Grandpa Ephraim.

  “Lots of parrots can talk,” said Jenny, “but it did seem unusual. Did it say it was going to the chimney?”

  Micah’s shoes started to slip again, and he got back down on his hands and knees. “Yes,” he said. “She’s heading for my grandpa’s room. I need to get back inside and talk to her before she gets away again.”

  “Didn’t your aunt lock the door?”

  He grimaced.

  “Come off that branch,” said Jenny. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  Micah started back toward the tree house. It was much slower, and more frightening, crossing the limb in the dark now that he was paying attention. Jenny grabbed him by the front of the shirt when he reached the platform and helped him pull himself up.

  “I don’t think you have to go back into the house.”

  Micah was already reaching for the rope ladder. “I’m not letting it escape before I find out everything I can about Grandpa Ephraim’s miracle.”

  “No,” said Jenny. “I mean I don’t think it will be able to get back up the chimney. Most birds can’t fly up a tight space like that, and that was a big bird. It’s going to be trapped in the house unless someone lets it out.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “My dad’s a vet,” she said. “Or . . . well, he will be. He’s gone back to school for it.”

  “Oh.” Micah pulled his hand back from the ladder. “It’s a magical bird, though.” He didn’t have much experience with this sort of thing, but it seemed to him that a magical parrot shouldn’t be stumped by something as simple as a chimney.

  “It couldn’t get through the window,” Jenny pointed out. “So unless your grandfather gets up to let it out, it will still be there in the morning.”

  “I don’t think he’s well enough to get out of bed,” said Micah. “Or the window would already be open.”

  They both sat, their legs dangling over the edge, and stared toward the window. After several long minutes, a light came on. It was hard to tell because of the curtains, but Micah thought it was Grandpa Ephraim’s bedside lamp.

  “It’s in there,” Jenny whispered.

  “She’s talking to him,” said Micah. He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “I wish I could hear what they’re saying.”

  Jenny patted him on the shoulder. “We can watch in shifts. Just in case your grandfather does open the window for it. That way we won’t miss anything.”

  “I’ll go first,” said Micah. “You should try to sleep.”

  He held his hand out for the flashlight, and she passed it to him. She crawled over to the sleeping bag and pulled it all the way up to her chin. She was so quiet after a little while that he thought she had fallen asleep, but then she said, “Micah?”

  He pointed the light at her.

  She blinked sleepily. “I’m glad Mrs. Stark made us partners.”

  Something warm uncurled in Micah’s chest. “Me too, Jenny.”

  Micah decided not to wake Jenny up for her turn on watch. He was so worried about Grandpa Ephraim, so curious about what might be happening behind the closed curtains, that he was sure he couldn’t possibly be sleepy.

  He kept the flashlight shining toward the house and ignored his yawns. A couple of moths, attracted to the beam of light, fluttered around his hands. He gave up shooing them after a short while, and watched their huge shadows flap against the house’s pale siding.

  A few feet away, his grandfather was talking to the Lightbender’s messenger. Micah almost couldn’t stand it. He was missing what might be the most important conversation of his entire life.

  To distract himself, he pulled the wad of knots that felt like his grandfather out of his pocket and examined them. They were so different from anything he’d made before. How could a knot feel like a person?

  He rubbed one of them between his palms. It was warm and fraying, just like the others. And it was a little sad. He curled his fingers around it. It wasn’t right. Grandpa Ephraim was sad now, maybe, but he hadn’t been before.

  Micah swung his feet back and forth so that the edge of the tree house’s platform bit into the backs of his legs. When they’d been working together to build the tree house, he and Grandpa Ephraim hadn’t been able to stop laughing and telling jokes. Now . . .

  It just wasn’t right.

  He watched the shadows of the moths until his eyes began to feel heavy. His fingers were moving over the knot almost without his permission. They were tweaking here and tugging there. They were remembering sunny days and the smell of freshly sawn boards.

  Micah only meant to close his eyes for a moment. He was trying to remember better. But one moment turned into several, and the new knot slipped out of his hands.

  Jenny screamed.

  Micah’s eyes snapped open, and he scrambled to his feet, suddenly wide awake. The flashlight had rolled away from him to rest against one of the tree house’s walls, and it was pointing away from Jenny. She was a bulky, flailing shape on the floor.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Get it off! Get it off!” she shrieked.

  “Let go of me!” squawked another voice. “Don’t you dare grab my tail.”

  Micah headed for the light, but he tripped on his backpack in the dark. He landed flat on his stomach, missing the edge of the platform by inches.

  “It stinks,” Jenny wailed, just as Micah’s fingers closed around the flashlight’s handle and he whipped around.

  The sight before him was bizarre. Jenny and the sleeping bag looked as if they’d had a fight to the death, and the bag had almost won. Its stuffing was oozing out of one corner, but it had managed to eat half of Jenny before it died. She seemed to be missing an arm and a leg, and the bag’s zipper had gotten caught in her braids.

  Jenny wasn’t the sleeping bag’s only victim. The Lightbender’s parrot was lying on her back at the foot of the bag with her long claws caught in the stitching. She was ripping at the fabric with her beak.

  Micah crawled forward. “The Lightbender’s coming, right?” he asked the parrot. “He’s going to help?”

  He reached out to help free her feet, but she hissed at him.

  “Micah?” Jenny’s voice trembled. “It’s just the bird isn’t it? I . . . I
can’t see anything.”

  Micah stared at his new friend and realized with a guilty squirm that he probably should have helped her before interrogating the bird. Jenny’s hair had been dragged over her face by the zipper’s teeth, and she had to bend her neck sideways to keep it from pulling.

  “It’s okay, Jenny,” he said. “You’re just tangled up. I can fix it.”

  He helped her tug her arm and leg free first, and then he went to work on her hair. “What’s that smell?” she asked after a few seconds.

  Micah, who had almost managed to liberate Jenny’s left braid, paused to sniff. Something did smell awful, like a toilet that hadn’t been flushed in much too long. He looked around for the source of the odor, and his eyes landed on the parrot. He’d thought she was ugly at first, but now he could see that she was just extremely dirty. Patches of gleaming red feathers showed through the muck.

  “I think the smell is the Lightbender’s parrot.”

  The parrot turned her head toward Micah, and her pupils narrowed into pinpricks. “I’m my own bird, thank you very much.”

  “It smells like sewage,” said Jenny. “I was asleep, and it attacked me.”

  Micah managed to unsnarl the last bit of her hair from the zipper, and they both stared at the bird. The flashlight was pointing right at her, and her feet were still caught in the sleeping bag.

  “Selfish children these days,” she muttered around a beakful of cottony stuffing. “Won’t even share a few delicious tidbits with the messenger. I blame television.”

  Micah realized then that the floor of the tree house was covered in peanut butter cracker crumbs.

  “You ate our breakfast,” Jenny accused. She turned to Micah. “I must have spread the sleeping bag out on top of some of our supplies last night. The bird wanted our food. I don’t know how it got out of your house. The window’s still shut.”

  “A trick I learned in Iceland, and don’t call me the bird,” squawked the parrot. “Like I’m some common chicken. It’s ‘Ms. Chintzy’ to you two, or ‘ma’am.’”

  Micah leaned over Chintzy, just out of reach of her sharp beak. “Do you want some help?” he asked. “Ma’am? I could untangle your claws.”

  “I can do it myself. I’m a professional.”

  Micah nodded. He thought that Chintzy looked anything but professional, lying on her back with her feet stuck to a sleeping bag, but he couldn’t risk offending her. He watched the parrot struggle.

  “I need to talk to you about the Lightbender, ma’am,” he said when he couldn’t stand waiting any longer. “Is he coming? Will he be able to help my grandfather?”

  “Oh, so you’re Micah?” Chintzy shook a wad of stuffing out of her beak and looked at him. “You’re not making the best first impression. Your friend swatted me, you know.”

  “You were stealing,” said Jenny. She put her hands on her hips, which looked a little silly, since she was still sitting on the floor.

  “It’s traditional to offer travelers a snack!”

  “We were asleep. We didn’t offer you anything.”

  “Well. A serious failing of character if you ask me,” Chintzy squawked. “You’re probably the kind of girl who doesn’t leave cookies for Santa.”

  Both Jenny and Chintzy looked like they were puffing themselves up for a good long argument. Micah glared at them. “Stop it!” he said. “Who cares about the crackers? What about Grandpa Ephraim?”

  “Sorry,” Jenny said. “I forgot.”

  Chintzy didn’t apologize, but at least she didn’t seem inclined to continue the fight. Instead, she tilted her beak toward him. “Your grandfather doesn’t want the sort of thing people usually ask for, you know.”

  Micah leaned closer to Chintzy. She eyed his hands warily, and he shoved them under his armpits to prove that he didn’t mean to grab her without her permission. “I don’t think it’s that strange,” he said eagerly. “We need the Lightbender to save him. He can do that, right? Is he coming?”

  Chintzy blinked her wrinkled gray eyelids a few times. She bent her neck to her chest and plucked one of her own feathers almost absentmindedly. Micah wasn’t sure, but he thought it was a nervous gesture.

  He took a deep breath. “He is coming? Soon?”

  “Of course,” said Chintzy at once. “He promised your grandfather, so he’s coming. We’re all coming. Looking forward to the change in climate myself.”

  A small firework burst in Micah’s chest. The Lightbender was coming. “And he’ll be able to help Grandpa Ephraim, won’t he?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he turned to Jenny. “He can do the most amazing things,” he told her excitedly. “You wouldn’t believe my grandpa’s stories. I haven’t told you everything yet, but just wait. You’ll see.”

  “Umm,” said Jenny.

  “Well,” said Chintzy. She sounded uncomfortable, but Micah thought that anyone with her toenails caught in a sleeping bag had good enough reason.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m just the messenger.” Chintzy plucked another chest feather. “Not the authority on how these things are done. And I don’t think I should talk about it with you before I’ve done my messengerly duties. Seeing as you’re neither sender nor recipient.”

  Jenny narrowed her eyes. “That sounds like an excuse.”

  “It’s okay,” Micah said quickly. “Can I do anything to help? When the Lightbender comes, I mean.” He would keep Aunt Gertrudis out of the way. He wasn’t sure how, but he would do it. She couldn’t be allowed to interfere with Grandpa Ephraim’s miracle.

  “You’ll need to do a lot,” said Chintzy. “Get to Circus Mirandus for one thing.”

  “I thought it was coming here,” Jenny said before Micah could get the exact same words out of his mouth.

  “It will,” Chintzy replied. “But, well, I’m not sure how the Head will want to deal with . . .” She clicked her beak a few times. “Just keep a sharp eye out.”

  “I can do that.” Micah wasn’t completely sure what Chintzy meant, but if he had to do it for Grandpa Ephraim, he would. And having the chance to see Circus Mirandus himself! He hadn’t dared to hope for it.

  “That’s good. Excellent. The Man Who Bends Light, the Head—well, I can’t imagine what they’ll say about all of this,” Chintzy babbled half to herself. “This isn’t the sort of thing we usually deal with.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Micah said. “Grandpa Ephraim’s miracle . . .”

  Chintzy threw one wing out dramatically. “No more questions! I’ll do my job and you’ll do your job, and everything will work out for the best if it works out for the best.”

  Micah nodded, even though a thousand questions had started fighting to get out of his mouth as soon as she said “no more.”

  Chintzy jabbed the sleeping bag with her beak a few more times and then hissed at the stitching. She turned back to Micah. “The first part of your job,” she said, “is helping me with my job.”

  For a moment, Micah wasn’t sure what she meant. She didn’t let him wonder for long.

  “Get this human torture device off me!” she shrieked.

  “Oh! Sure.” He pulled his hands out from under his armpits and reached for her scaly feet. “It will only take a second. I’m really good at things like this.”

  “So I’ve heard,” the parrot muttered. She eyed him suspiciously while he tugged at the stitches that had trapped her claws. “If you ever tell anyone about this,” she said, “you’re going to lose a thumb.”

  “That’s not very nice,” said Jenny.

  “And an earlobe,” Chintzy added.

  Micah and Jenny stayed up talking for a long time after Chintzy vanished into the night sky. They couldn’t quite agree on what their conversation with the parrot had meant.

  “It was hiding something,” Jenny said for the
third time. “It dodged a lot of your questions.”

  Micah shook his head. “I don’t think she would do that. Anyway, they’re coming soon. Maybe even tomorrow. I’ll know for sure what’s going on then.”

  Jenny shook her head. “If it’s really flying back to Bolivia to deliver a message it will take days and days. And moving a whole circus! That will take ages.”

  “They have ways.” Micah didn’t know what these ways might be, but he was confident. “Chintzy is a magical parrot. It’s a magical circus.”

  Jenny didn’t reply.

  “You can’t argue with that!” Micah exclaimed. “She talked just like a human, only with more squawking and threatening.”

  Jenny sighed. “It was a very peculiar parrot. I’ve never heard of one that smart.”

  Micah beamed.

  “But it’s probably been genetically modified!” she said. “Of course. Scientists can do that, I think. That explains it.”

  Cracker crumbs crunched under Micah as he flopped down onto his back and groaned. “You have an answer for everything.”

  When Jenny didn’t say anything, he rolled over onto his side to look at her. She was staring down at the flashlight in her lap, flicking the switch back and forth.

  “What’s wrong?” Micah couldn’t think of what he might have said to upset her.

  “Nothing,” Jenny said quickly. She didn’t take her eyes off the flashlight. “It’s just. . . It’s good to have answers, isn’t it?” She bit her lower lip. “I like knowing things. Only it bothers some people.”

  Micah remembered the girls in class that morning, laughing at Jenny behind her back. “It doesn’t bother me.”

  “Okay,” said Jenny.

  “Really. I think it’s good that you’re so smart,” he said. “And if you think Chintzy might be a science experiment, it doesn’t matter.”

  She finally turned to him.

  “You’re helping me,” Micah said. “You’re my friend.That’s what matters.”

  “FEATHERS! Why is your room covered in feathers?!”