O'Hara nodded. "I know. Restitution, torture and death."
The Boss Canvasman shrugged again. "Well, then in either case it won't take up much of your time."
The Governor pursed his lips, then turned toward the office wagon. "In that case, fire away."
Tyli's skin crawled as Na-Na The Two-Headed Beauty Who Proves That Two Heads Are Better Than One finished blowdrying the girl's hair. During the evening performance, Na-Na had given Tyli instructions to rinse her hair in a foul-smelling concoction, which she had done. Afterward, with the other female artistes observing, Na-Na armed herself with a comb in one hand (controlled by Na) and a blowdryer in the other (controlled by Na) and put the finishing touches on Tyli's coiffure. With the hair frizzed up around her face, Tyli felt as though she were peering out of a hairy tunnel.
"Well, Na, how is that?"
Na frowned, then pointed with her hand. "It could be fluffed up a bit there, don't you think, Na?"
"You're right, Na. Work on it with the comb a bit while I dry it some more, will you?"
"Of course, Na."
"Thank you, Na."
Tyli had been astounded at the sight of Na-Na. Each head was ravishingly beautiful, but there was one too many. She shook her head.
"Hold still, now, Sweetie Pie."
"Yes, Na-Na." Tyli frowned and peered through her hairy tunnel. At its end, seated on three chairs, Bubbles the Fat Lady—700 Pounds of Plentiferous Pulchritude, observed the process.
The mountain of flesh waved an arm. "You should have put more beer in the rinse, Na-Na. It would stand up better."
"I think it's standing up just fine, Bubbles. Don't you agree, Na?"
"Yes, Na."
Tyli felt a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped off of the bucket upon which she had been sitting. "I didn't mean to startle you, dear," said Na. "We're finished. Take a look in the mirror."
"Yes, do," said Na.
Tyli turned and glanced once at Na-Na, then turned toward a portable mirror leaning against a trunk. Turning her head slightly from side to side, she marveled at her new appearance. Her hair, now white, stood out straight from her head in all directions, almost completely covering her face. Bubbles chuckled. "She looks like a snowball on top of a post."
Tyli looked at herself again and had to agree. Her hair stood out well beyond her shoulders. She smiled, then faced Na-Na. "This looks pretty neat."
"Well," answered Na, "we will have to trim it a bit to make it perfectly round."
"I agree," said Na. "But not too much."
Willow Wand Wanda, The Living Skeleton, entered the tent. "Duckfoot says to beat it so he can tear down the sideshow. You can put the finishing touches on in the shuttle."
She heard a great bellow of laughter coming from outside the entrance. Immediately, two female midgets, glowers on their faces, stormed inside and headed toward one of the trunks. As they sat down to change their costumes, they kept their backs toward each other. After another bellow of laughter, Big Sue, the giantess, stooped through the entrance, tears streaming down her cheeks. Bubbles looked up at Sue. "What's so funny?"
Sue sat on a trunk, slapped her knee, then dried her eyes with a hanky about the size of a bedsheet. She cocked her head toward the two midgets. "Tina and Weena were on the lot next to the office wagon arguing at the tops of their lungs. Tina says, 'You're a liar, Weena! I am too shorter than you!' and Weena comes back with 'That's only because you hunch over, Tina!' The Governor opens the pay window on the wagon, looks down at Tina and Weena—'Small talk,' he says, then slams the window shut!"
Tyli held her hands to her mouth to keep from laughing, but it was to no avail. Bubbles shook and Na-Na laughed twice as hard as anyone. Tyli looked at the two midgets. They glanced back at each other, frowns still on their faces. The frowns melted and they laughed.
TWELVE
At first, the inhabitants of the sideshow jarred Tyii's nervous system. Nearly all of the artistes were married: Bubbles to The Ossified Man, Na-Na to The Three-Legged Man, and Tina and Weena to other midgets. Big Sue had a hot steady going on with Dog Face Dick, The Wolfman, while Willow Wand Wanda was making moon eyes at Ogg, The Missing Link. At first the relationships seemed preposterous, if not impossible. But, by the time the show made its stand at Battleton three weeks later, Tyli was an "artiste" while everyone else—with the exception of the other artistes—belonged to "other world."
The Wolfman, cuddled like a puppy in Big Sue's lap, would occasionally wax philosophic about "our world." "I don't know how many times in a season I get asked why I would want to put myself on exhibition. I suppose about half as many times as I get asked why I don't kill myself." Sue would scratch behind his ears. "Out there in other world, looks are everything. It's the same here. The only difference here is that in our world we can be proud of our looks—proud of what we are."
"Gee, Dog Face," Tyli said, "I kind of wish that my act was more like yours, instead of a product of stale beer and bleach."
The Wolfman smiled, exposing his overlong canines. "Look, Sweetie Pie, all of us have a little bunk in our acts. Look at these." He tapped his teeth. "Caps. And I paint my nose black, and you should hear me growl and howl." He nodded at Big Sue. "Those steel bars that Sue ties into knots are just wire-filled rubber. It's what the customer sees that's important."
Early in the morning and late at night, putting up and tearing down the show, Tyli would push one of Duckfoot's cats. The canvasmen called her the Mad Snowball, after she added a drooling idiot wrinkle to her act at Fish Face's suggestion. Insanity increased the attraction, and it also relieved her from answering embarrassing questions from the customers, any one of whom could have been a copper.
At night, after loading the cat at the runs, she would drag herself off to the performers' shuttle and fall into her bunk exhausted. She had little time to think of Chaine and Diva, or of the police. Just before she slept, she would sometimes try to recapture the images of her mother and father, but their memories were too distant. By the time the show had reached its last week on Doldra, she realized that she had a new home and a new family.
There was one relationship that puzzled her, however. The only meal she ever could eat with Duckfoot was lunch, and each time they sat at the picnic tables together with Diane, Queen of the Trapeze. Duckfoot and Diane would chat and laugh, and after a while, Tyli realized that she felt that Diane was crowding a little on her property rights. She would watch the beautiful flyer and the ugly canvasman talk while she did a slow burn. On the next to the last stand at lunch, the canvas of the cookhouse flapped in the wind while Diane and Tyli sat together. Diane looked up at the flapping canvas, then began eating her food.
Tyli frowned. "Aren't you going to wait for Duckfoot?"
Diane shook her head. "With the wind up, he'll be standing by at the main top with the guying out gang. He won't eat until he's certain it's safe."
Tyli experimentally poked the food on her plate, then she looked up at Diane. "Diane?"
"What, child?"
Tyli put a forkful of food into her mouth and talked around it. "What do you think of Duckfoot?"
Diane's eyebrows went up. "Why... what a strange question."
Tyli shrugged. "You always sit with him. I just wondered why."
Diane lowered her eyebrows, then nodded. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't eat with him?"
"No. No reason. I just wondered what he is to you."
Diane nodded. "Well, I don't see him much because we work in different squadrons of the show, so sometimes it's hard to tell. That's why I have to look at this every now and then to make sure." Diane pulled a golden locket from the front of her costume and showed it to Tyli.