Beatrice did not remind Rosie Rightly of her first assertion—that nothing lived in the Big Bah-Ha outside Chuckle City. No place but here. But if the Gacy Boys could fly beyond these walls, she wondered if she might scale them. Was there a back door? If she ran free, would the Gacy Boys bag her next, and bring her back to put in their petting zoo, and feed her to the beasts trapped there?
“At night, in the arena under the Big Top, the Gray Harlequin will pit one of the petting zoo against his prize tigers. Or sometimes against one of us! It’s stu-stupendous! Action-packed! Irresistible. Wanna see?”
“No,” said Beatrice, very firmly. “I don’t like fights.”
“You don’t like anything!”
Back with her Barka Gang, Beatrice had fought several battles against the Rubberbaby Gang and Aunt Oolalune. The skirmishes were usually quick and dirty. The weapons were grab-what-you-can. Sticks, stones, switchblades, slingshots. Rules were generally, “First blood ends the fight / Whoever’s not bleeding wins.” But of course, first blood had a tendency to enrage and incite. Often it was followed by second blood, and third blood, until there was blood everywhere, and the Tall Ones were slavering at the gravy yard gates in the hopes that their next meal succumbed to death sooner than the slaprash scything it down.
How could any such rule as “first blood” apply here, where nothing bled? You could be burned, smushed, and ripped apart, but you’d still go on and on. Like the fires, and the balloon aminals, and Rosie Rightly’s grin. Horrors without end.
“I wanna see the Gray Harlequin,” said Beatrice grimly.
“All riii-iiight.” Rosie Rightly drooped. “If you’re sure.”
“Sure as spit means a promise.”
“It’s just…”
“What?”
“You’re gonna have to look in the mirror before he’ll meet you, and I just don’t think you’re ready, I really don’t.” Rosie Rightly’s grin bent upsy-daisy of itself. “You don’t want to—to—get stuck here, Bee-Bee. Like me. And the rest. You still have time. You might learn how to laugh again before you go and look.” She canted her pink-gloved hands helplessly. “Maybe I could try a cartwheel? I usually fall. Bam! Right on my face. Maybe you’ll think that’s funny?”
Beatrice shook her head. “I’m sorry, Rosie. I know this ain’t my territory. I know I’m new and don’t have all the rules down straight. But I guess I’m used to dealin’ with leaders. You say the Gray Harlequin runs things? He’s the one I gotta see. ’Cause I ain’t puttin’ on no red nose and sweatin’ blood for laughs. There has to be another way outta here.” She shrugged. “I’ll find it. I’m good at that.”
“Maybe you were before,” Rosie Rightly whispered.
Beatrice nudged her, even tried a wink. “Hey,” she said. “I brought myself along with me when I died, didn’t I? That’s the sum of somethin’.”
But Rosie Rightly would not be comforted.
Tex sniffed the air as they slipped beneath the portcullis. “Smells like bad eggs.”
“Sulfur,” the Flabberghast said absently. “And brimstone. So picturesque.”
Diodiance stood en pointe in her tennis shoes. Widened her nostrils. Nodded agreement. “Reminds me of our Rotten Egg War. Who won that one again?”
“Aunt Oolalune. But we got her back the next week at the Battle of the Baseball Diamond. Sent her howlin’ back to her side of town. Remember—”
Diodiance shushed him. Pointed. “What’re those?”
Granny Two-Shoes petted Sheepdog Sal. Balloons, she thought through her stroking hands. Bad balloons.
Seven sharp barks, staccato, conveyed the message to their comrades.
“Balloons?” was all Tex got out before the first one dove upon them.
“Flee!” cried the Flabberghast. “I will hold them off!”
Springing at the yawning purple maw that snapped with black piranha teeth, the Flabberghast raked its bulbous sides with his thin white hands. The balloon whipped around and pounced at his back, squeaking like a tricycle left too long out in the rain. Two more balloons joined it: one tiger-striped with the long neck of an ostrich, one with the face of a bear and the body of a snake.
Then—POP!
Tex had turned out his pockets of rocks and pointy bullet casings and began to bang that artillery—pop-pop-whap!—right into the polychromatic fray. Beatrice used to say how she bet Tex’d been a Junior League pitcher back in the olden days. He couldn’t rightly know either way, but ever since the world ended, his aim had just improved.
Diodiance unstrapped the thornstick from the loop on her belt, and—BLAM! WHAP! POP!—laid about her. Even Granny Two-Shoes jumped perch, snatching the switchblade from its sheath to thrust it up into the air. WHAP! POP! KERBLOOEY! Sheepdog Sal rose to her hind legs, lunging and gnashing with far greater gusto than any measly thin-skinned balloon beast. Pop! Pop! Wheeeeeeeze! went the whistling things as they rocketed away, deflating as they died.
Suddenly the air was still again. Gray and still. The cobblestones of Chuckle City were littered with rainbow skins. Diodiance whooped out the Barka Gang’s war cry and chanted, “Tex! Tex! Our boy’s the best! Fastest arm in the whole Midwest!”
Leaping up and down Main Street in those great gazelle arcs she’d learned in ballet, Diodiance hollered, “Jeté! Jeté! Tour jeté!” and landed back in front of them with a mighty ululation. Tex received her clap on the back with a sweaty grin, picking up his stones and bullet casings and pocketing them again. He caught Granny’s eye, who returned his gaze with blazing blue solemnity, and said, “Thanks for the warning, Granny Two-Shoes.”
Granny tugged at his camo cutoffs, shrugged, smiled. Her baby teeth were white as Diodiance’s tyranny and fluoride toothpaste could make them, except for the iron gray one in the middle. Dead at the root, Beatrice had said. The Rubberbabies did that, that time they took her for their slave.
“Hey!” Diodiance stopped dancing. “Where’s the Flabberghast anyway?”
“Who cares?” Tex muttered.
Granny Two-Shoes pointed down a street, where the Flabberghast crouched near a tiny ambulance. Balloon skins hung all about his person, making motley of his peacock coat. He appeared to be prodding something with his long fingers, which the Barka Gang, joining him, saw to be the painted head of a small clown. The rest of its body was crushed to death under the ambulance.
“Are you hopin’ the head’ll pop off?” Tex stiffened to kick him. “Gettin’ hungry, are you?”
“This is not a body. Not really. And I do not eat souls. It is forbidden.”
The Tall One almost sounded regretful. He tugged off his lawn cravat and used it to scrub the dead clown’s small face. Off came the ash. Off came the paint. Off came the singed red nose, the curly wig. The child was pale and bald, with sunken eyes the same gray as the sky. As everything.
“Leukemia,” the Flabberghast said. “From long before the slaprash. Here, you see? The ravages of her treatment? She’s been in the Big Bah-Ha awhile. It must have been a harsh death to keep her here so long, and then when the Gray Harlequin came, she found herself fixed. Like the rest of them. Insects on his corkboard. Poor little butterfly.”
His voice had dropped like he was talking to himself, but the Barkas leaned in, paying close attention. “Those underground said the situation here was dire, but the others did not heed their voices. They mocked me when I paced before the gates and worried. They called my frowns the best jest yet. But I was right to come when I did—no matter how questionable my methods.”