Home > Freeks(10)

Freeks(10)
Author: Amanda Hocking

The trailer wasn’t empty, though. Gideon was in our tiny galley kitchen, sipping his morning coffee. The little TV sat on the dining table across from him and played a fuzzy morning news show it picked up on its rabbit ears.

“Morning, Mara,” Gideon said, and he pointed to the beaded curtain that served as a door to the back bedroom. “Your mom’s been looking for you.”

Despite their age difference—Gideon was over ten years younger than my mom—he and my mother had been dating rather happily for nearly a decade, but they’d never lived in the same trailer. The spaces were so small that it made it impossible for two of them to have any privacy if they shared a motorhome with me.

Our current Winnebago had much more privacy than any of our previous ones, and that was a small bedroom with two twin beds. It used to have a pocket curtain-door, but it was broken, so we only had the beads.

“Mara?” Mom asked, and a second later she pushed through the beads, making them clatter. “Finally, you’re home.” Then, after assessing that I was indeed all right, her eyebrow raised, and her gray eyes hardened. “Did you and Blossom have a nice time last night?”

“I had a nice time,” I replied carefully, and I tried to erase any sign of worry from my face. “But I don’t know about Blossom. She wasn’t with me.”

“What do you mean?” My mom’s eyes widened. “Didn’t you go out together?”

“No, I went out on my own to get some air,” I tried to explain as calmly as I could.

“What about Roxanne?” Mom asked, referring to my best friend and fellow carnie Roxie.

My mom had this strange habit where she never called anybody by shortened versions of their names. Me, she referred to with the term of affection qamari all the time, but everyone else got their full names.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her,” I admitted. “I didn’t know Blossom had left, but Caudry seems like a really great small town. I met some really nice people, and Blossom probably did too. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“No, no, don’t give me that.” Mom shook her head, causing her necklaces to clatter against each other.

First thing in the morning, and she’d already donned her jewelry. Most of it was cheap costume jewelry, except for one, the only necklace she actually slept in—a large key that hung on a thin leather strap. The head of the key was a skull with two bright red rubies for eyes, and it seemed to stare at me while my mom began her lecture.

“You can’t keep doing this,” she said. “Staying out all night in strange places.”

I groaned in exasperation. “Everywhere we go is a strange place!”

“No, not like this.” She shook her head again, more fiercely this time. “This place is different.”

“Lyanka, it’s a small town, and Mara came home safely,” Gideon said. “I’m sure Blossom is fine too.”

An amethyst bandana was holding back my mom’s thick black hair. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she rubbed the back of her neck. She cast her gaze to the floor, letting her mind run wild with worry.

Gideon put a hand on her arm, and she let her shoulders relax and leaned into him. “It will be all right, love. We’ll only be staying here a week, and then we’ll be moving on. Everything will be fine.”

“I know you’re right so often, and I hope you are this time.” She lifted her eyes imploringly to me. “Please, Mara. Can you try not to give your old mother a heart attack and stay close? At least while we’re here?”

I gave her my most reassuring smile. “Sure, Mom.”

She walked over to me and put her hands on my face. “I worry about you, qamari. I only want you to be safe and happy.”

“I am, and you don’t need to worry about me so much. I’m almost nineteen. I can take care of myself.”

Brushing a strand of hair back from my forehead, my mom smiled sadly down at me. “I only wish that were true. But there are things in this world that no one can ever prepare for.”

5. carnival

Unlike many of the other members of the sideshow, I didn’t have a specific job. My mom was a fortune-teller, Gideon did a magic show, Zeke had his tigers, Brendon and his family did acrobatics, Seth was a strongman. My best friend Roxie Smith was in two acts—she helped out Zeke, and did a peep-show revue with two other girls.

I had no talent. No special ability, making me essentially a roadie. I did what was needed of me, which usually involved helping set up and take down, and various menial tasks. I cleaned the tiger cages and emptied out latrines when I had to. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but it was crucial to our way of life.

Since Roxie worked with the tigers, Mahilā actually tolerated her. Roxie was helping me clean out the tiger cage they traveled in. The cage was open to a fenced-in enclosure Seth had built, so the tigers could roam as they pleased.

Safēda lounged in the grass, the sun shining brightly on her white fur. Whenever we stopped, Safēda seemed content to just lay in the sun, sleeping the entire time, but as the older tiger, it made sense.

Mahilā paced along the fence, occasionally emitting an irritated guttural noise in between casting furtive glances back toward Roxie and me. Her golden fur was mottled with scars from her past life in the abusive circus, including a nasty one that ran across her nose.

“So where did you go last night?” Roxie asked, her voice lilting in a singsong playful way. She was out in the run, using a hose to fill up a blue plastic kiddie pool so the tigers could play in it, while I was on my hands and knees scrubbing dung off the cage floor.

   
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