The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick Page B

company. We’re ten hard miles from the terminal in Jersey City, in low, weedy country not far from the sea, and come upon an army encampment. Must be a hundred white canvas tents set up in the tall grass, and the sound of rolling gunfire and shouting men just over the horizon.
    “Is there a battle?” I want to know, standing up in my seat to see better. “Is this the war?”
    “The war is still some great distance away,” Professor Fleabottom explains. “These are new recruits, training to fight.”
    We set up our wagons in a little area surrounded by sandy bluffs, which he says is to keep us from the wind, but which also means we’re hard to see if you don’t know where to look.
    “A medicine show is not always welcomed by the generals,” he tells me. “They think it distracts from the business of war. Whereas we believe that these young men deserve a bit of fun at the end of a long, hard day. Thus we strive to entertain, but with the utmost discretion.”
    While we unload gear and get ready for the show, the two men who drive the other wagons approach the army camp on foot, and let the recruits know where we are, and what might be expected of us.
    Me and Minerva are in charge of setting out the lamps and torches for when it gets dark and putting up the banners and flags.
    A warm wind lifts the silky banners and makes it look like the words are dancing on air.
     
    F LEABOTTOM’S M IRACLE E LIXIR !
    T HE T OTALLY T ATTOOED L ADY
FROM C ANNIBAL I SLAND !
    T HE T ALENTED T UMBLING B RILLO B ROTHERS !
    T HE A MAZING P IG B OY !
     
    The really amazing thing is, I can’t wait to see the show, and I’m in it.

 
     
    W HEN THE LAST BLUE TWILIGHT finally fades from the evening sky, soldiers begin to arrive in groups of two or three, whispering to one another and laughing quietly. They’re not supposed to be here, watching a medicine show, but are meant to be back in their tents fast asleep.
    “One evening is all we spend at any encampment,” Mini explains, covering up her tattooed arms with long, puffy, clip-on sleeves. “Folks like us, traveling kinds of people, we must keep moving or the law will catch us.”
    “What we’re doing, selling bottles of medicine, that’s against the law?”
    “Not exactly,” she says uneasily, not meeting my eyes. “It’s more that strangers are never truly welcome, not for long.”
    When the show begins, we’re inside the main wagon — Mini, because she’s putting on her long sleeves, and me, because I’m the Amazing Pig Boy and can’t show my face until the end.
    Peeking out through the canvas, I watch as Professor Fleabottom claps his hands and leaps up on a little wooden platform that tips down from the side of the wagon.
    His hat is tall, his knee-high boots are polished like black glass, and the buttons on his coat are five-dollar gold pieces that glow like little suns in the light of the oil lanterns.
    “Good evening to all you brave gentlemen! Welcome to the Caravan of Miracles! May Almighty God bless the Union Army and deliver it from losing, time and again! With all you new recruits being trained to kill your fellow man, surely victory will soon follow! And to help you along the way, to ease the woes and pains of the battlefield, and the pinch of bedbugs in your soggy tents, and to improve the taste of the insects that infest your food, and, frankly, to give you courage when most needed, I, Professor Fenton J. Fleabottom, honored graduate of ancient universities in the Far East, have perfected a certain strong elixir. An elixir that will lift your spirits and put the gleam back in your eyes! An elixir containing a sure cure for what ails you! An elixir that will, from the very first sip, deliver you from evil, and place you in the soft, motherly bosom of mankind!”
    A murmur comes from the crowd of young soldiers, and many raise up their hands, as if to grasp at invisible bottles.
    “Patience, young heroes! Patience! Patience! The elixir goes on sale