That Time I Joined the Circus by J. J. Howard Page B

surprisingly used to picking up and moving every week — their brother, Eddie, was there waiting for them, looking annoyed. He didn’t acknowledge my existence, and neither Lina nor her sister introduced me, so I just followed his lead. I watched Liska shed her cardigan sweater, put some chalk or something on her hands, and climb up the long ladder. When she was halfway up and mostly out of earshot, I asked Lina if I was supposed to do something.
    Lina gave me a funny look. “What would you do? Liska just wants an opinion on our new trick. She’s kind of a perfectionist.”
    “Why does she want my opinion?” I was incredulous.
    Lina turned her head thoughtfully to the side for a moment, while she put the same stuff her sister had used on her hands. “I think she’s been watching you set up your fortune-telling act, and she’s impressed with you. She’s seen how you’ve been paying attention to every tiny little detail — like how you made me take you to fourteen stores looking for fabric and stuff? That’s the kind of opinion she wants.”
    Lina started climbing up the rope ladder, but I stopped her. “Wait! What music plays while you guys do this? I can’t remember what it was.”
    “Just ‘The Three-Ring Fanfare.’ It repeats for most of the ring stuff.”
    “It repeats ?” That seemed kind of lame.
    “Just how it’s done, I guess.” She started back up.
    “Can I hear it while I see it?”
    “Ralph!” Lina yelled, very suddenly and very loudly. A tiny old man I’d never laid eyes on before emerged from the shadows of the ring. “Play the fanfare, will ya?”
    “Course, Miss Lina,” came his soft voice in reply. I looked around surreptitiously then, wondering how many other people lurked unseen in the shadows, awaiting a random shouted command. Freaky.
    I heard the traditional-sounding circus music begin to play, and Lina finally joined her sister in midair. They both started out on the same side, on a little crow’s nest sort of stand — Lina never talked about the act, so I didn’t know the proper terminology, just the little bit Jamie had mentioned that day I’d watched the whole show.
    I watched Lina and Liska build up speed, and their surly brother caught them every time, making it look effortless. They really did look like they were flying. It was hard to tell the two sisters apart up there; if it hadn’t been for Liska’s lighter hair, I couldn’t have done it.
    I watched them cross and soar, and it was breathtaking. The music, however, was not. It was too jarring, toodiscordant and crash-y to match what the siblings did up there. I just hoped Liska really wanted my advice. Because I actually had some for her.
    I had spent every night over the past week making the playlist for outside the Fortune Trailer. (Since the attraction didn’t have an official name, that’s what I’d been calling it. Then Jamie had shown up with a painted sign — I guess one of the crew guys was really good at painting lettering — and so now the name was official.) Luckily, most of the space on my laptop hard drive was filled with music, so I had a lot to choose from. I had worked hard to choose the perfect music to get people to come up and see the trailer and to want to have their tarot cards read. I thought the challenge was to strike the right balance between familiar and new or unusual music that created the proper atmosphere.
    “So, what do you think?” Liska asked me once she was on the ground. Lina was fiddling with the net behind her, but Eddie had vanished — as usual.
    “I love the double-switch thing you added in the middle.”
    Liska looked gratified that I’d noticed. I had paid very close attention. If there had been a nonobvious way to take notes, I would have done it.
    “But,” I continued, “and this is just an idea, I think you need different music. What you’re using now doesn’t do justice to your act. You need something … well, something newer, for a start. You guys