Circus of Brass and Bone, Episode 21: The Killing Ground

[abracanabra]

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope those of my readers from the U.S. of A. had a good one, filled with family, friends, and food, in whichever order you prefer.

Episode 21

The Killing Ground

Ginger, the Whitefaced Clown

Port Rumsey, New York

Because he was already looking in that direction, Ginger noticed clown-in-training (and probationary ringmaster) Christopher Knall peer around the corner of the fat lady's tent. The tent used to belong to the fat lady and the skeleton man, but now--. Ginger cut off that line of thought.

A moment after Christopher pulled his head back, a beak poked around the edge of the tent.

Ginger grinned so widely that his cheeks hurt from the unaccustomed strain. Training Christopher had been a good use of his time after all. The young man had seized on the same idea that had crossed Ginger's mind earlier, but he had been in the right place to execute it.

One . . . two . . . three . . . four ostriches stampeded away from the circus tents, their feet thudding against the ground, their plumes bouncing, hissing like a sack full of angry cats. As a distraction, it worked. Commissioner Guirard froze mid-signal. The policemen fell silent, their attention arrested. The seamen's weapons sagged along with their jaws. The Sasse family halted their approach and the storklike guard paused in his attempts to arrest them. Everyone stared, from the most battle-scarred sailor right down to Miss Anderson, the Sasse family's sickly cousin. The spectacle seized her attention so firmly that she ignored everything else, including the shining trail of saliva that dribbled down her chin.

Even Lacey lost her focus for a moment, gawking at the ostrich stampede and letting her hand drop slightly. In that moment, Ginger moved.

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