Prince of Air (9 page)

“I can't see you until dinner tomorrow,” she said. “We can't go out in the sun.”

“I'm sorry,” Maisie said.

“Sorry? For what?”

“I don't know. That you can't go out in the sun and that your father left and—”

“Don't be sorry,” Felicity said. “It's just my bad luck.”

After just a couple of days, Felix almost forgot that Myrtle had four legs or that Jojo stood only two and a half feet tall. They seemed like anybody else he knew and liked: funny, smart, and good storytellers. All of them were. One night as he lay on his cot, he wondered what their lives would be like if they didn't have the dime museums. How would they live? Who would hire Willy the Werewolf, for example, with his face completely covered in hair and his fanglike teeth? Maybe Harry was right.

But all of it disgusted Maisie. She hated how people paid a dime just to stare and point at them. Now that she and Felicity LaSalle were best friends, she hated that Felicity had to perform in something called a freak show. Felicity wasn't a freak. She had a genetic condition, that was all.

“They're like animals in a zoo,” Maisie said. “It's wrong, wrong, wrong.”

Felix felt confused about all of it. Like Maisie, he never went into the sideshow tents. Instead he spent the evenings watching sword swallowers and fire-eaters and, of course, Harry and Dash. But at meals and after shows, he sat with Willy and Unthan and Jojo—all of them—and enjoyed their friendship.

The next to the last night before they were scheduled to leave Ohio, Maisie and Felix walked around the grounds as usual. And, as usual, a line of people for the sideshow snaked around the tent.

Maisie shuddered at the sight of all those people willing to pay dimes to gawk at her new friends.

She pointed to the sign hanging on the tent that shouted in big letters:
FREAKS
!

“Look at that,” she said, disgusted.

Felix decided it might be time to share his theory with Maisie.

“I know,” he said carefully. “It's terrible. But don't you kind of think that it's maybe okay?”

“Are you crazy?” Maisie said, looking at him like he had gone mad. “They have birth defects. They're not freaks. They're people with disabilities.”

“But what would they do in the real world? Do you think they could get jobs driving buses or fixing things or—”

“I don't know,” Maisie said. “That's not the point. The point is that all of these people are paying to stare at them and laugh.”

“You don't know that,” Felix said, his opinion starting to waver. “We've never gone inside. Harry said people were amazed by them.”

“Amazed that someone has four legs or looks like a monkey or whatever. Not amazed by them as people,” Maisie argued. “I bet they don't even realize they are people.”

“Well,” Felix said, “there's only one way to find out.”

“Oh no,” Maisie said. “I'm not going into anyplace that bills itself as a freak show.”

“Well, I am,” Felix said. “I want to see for myself exactly what goes on in there.”

Felix headed for the back of the tent where the performers entered, Maisie on his heels.

But as he lifted the flap of the tent to enter, Maisie grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“I think it will upset us,” she said quietly.

“Us?” Felix said.

“I'm not going to let you go in there alone,” Maisie said.

They looked at each other for a moment.

It was so unusual for Felix to take charge like this that Maisie finally relented. In her heart, she knew it was a mistake to go inside. But she nodded her head, took her brother's hand, and lifted the flap of the tent to enter.

Maisie and Felix joined the crowd of people waiting to enter the sideshow. To Maisie, the entire group seemed sweaty and disgusting. The air was heavy with the smell of that sweat mixed with cigar smoke and earth and animals from neighboring farms. She held her breath as long as she could, then took a few gulps of air. Felix hadn't let go of her hand. She watched him watching everyone, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the barker shouted. “Come and view living monstrosities so horrible you very well may not sleep tonight. Were it not for an accident of birth, you might very well be like them. You, too, might have been . . .”

He paused, letting his eyes stop briefly on each face in the front of the crowd.

“A freak!”

All at once, the crowd moved. Maisie held on tight to Felix as they got pushed forward.

The first thing Maisie saw was the LaSalle family. They sat together in a fake parlor pretending to play cards as if they weren't on display.

She watched as people stood, staring in horror, at the LaSalles.

“Zombies!” one woman screamed, burying her face in her husband's jacket.

Maisie pushed through the crowd.

“They aren't zombies,” she said loudly. “They're just like you and me.”

She caught sight of Felicity shaking her head no, but how could Maisie let this woman make fun of her friend?

“They have a genetic condition,” Maisie continued. “Albinism.”

“Out of the way, little lady!” someone yelled.

“Please,” Felicity whispered. “Go away.”

Maisie looked at her, surprised.

“But—”

Felicity made a shooing motion with her hands.

The crowd yelled for Maisie to get out of the way. Embarrassed and saddened, she let Felix pull her along.

In a small empty space, Maisie could see how the sideshow was set up. The performers stood on little stages, each one acting as if all of these people weren't staring at them and heckling them. The Bearded Woman combed her beard. Willy the Werewolf paced back and forth, pounding his chest and grunting. The Armless Wonder wrote a letter, holding the pen with her toes. Frieda and Hans, the little people, were dressed as a bride and groom and sat in a miniature kitchen eating breakfast, even though in real life they didn't even like each other very much.

Felix and Maisie watched as people heckled their friends, laughed at them, or shivered in fear. Women covered their eyes with their hands and men taunted The Giant and Willy, poking them with their canes.

“Hey, freak,” one man said to Unthan. “Can I touch your flippers?”

Without any expression, Unthan slid one of her feet toward him.

“Ew!” the man's wife said.

Maisie looked at Felix. “Had enough?” she asked him.

He nodded.

Together, they made their way back through the crowd and out into the warm night.

From another tent, Harry's voice announced the beginning of The Metamorphosis.

“Want to go watch?” Felix said.

“Okay.”

In silence they walked into Harry's show, taking seats in the back. Felix tried to pay attention to the trick, but his heart felt too heavy to enjoy it.
What those people have to endure is not worth it at all,
he thought. Maisie was right.

As Maisie and Felix neared their room, Felix saw the LaSalles lugging a big trunk across the dirt.

“Hey! What are you guys doing?” he called to them.

Little Francois LaSalle stopped.

“Leaving,” he said, his voice sounding very small in the dark, quiet night.

“Leaving? Now?” Felix asked him.

Francois nodded. “We got kicked out. Said we were trouble.”

“Oh no!” Maisie said. “It's my fault!”

She ran across the muddy field to Felicity, whose red-rimmed eyes looked even redder than usual.

“I'll tell them it was my fault,” Maisie said. “You didn't do anything wrong.”

Mrs. LaSalle rested her hand on Maisie's shoulder.

“There's no use explaining to them, Maisie,” she said. “They think we're troublemakers now, and there's no changing their minds.”

“But where will you go?” Maisie asked desperately.

“Don't worry, darling,” Mrs. LaSalle said. “There's dime museums all over the Midwest. We'll catch up with another one, maybe in Pittsburgh or Cleveland. They're always looking for freaks.”

“But you aren't freaks!” Maisie insisted.

Mrs. LaSalle tousled Maisie's curls. “We'll be fine,” she said.

The three LaSalles started off again.

“Felicity!” Maisie called.

Felicity turned to her.

“You're my best friend,” Maisie told her.

Felicity grinned. “You're
my
best friend,” she said, and then she blew Maisie a kiss before continuing on.

That night on her narrow cot, Maisie couldn't sleep. All she could think about was the LaSalles' fate. What would happen to them now? Where were they sleeping? How would they get all the way to Pittsburgh or Cleveland? She hated to think of her friend homeless, ridiculed, and afraid.

As soon as the first light of morning came through the small window, someone pounded on the door.

“It's Harry! Open up!” Harry shouted.

Maisie got up and let him in.

“Pack up,” he said, smiling wide. “I just got booked at Tony Pastor's.”

“Where's that?” Maisie said.

“Tony Pastor's New Fourteenth Street Theater. In New York City,” Harry said. “We're going back home.”

Mrs. Weiss was not happy to see Maisie and Felix again. She frowned at them and muttered in whatever language she spoke, banging pots and pans onto the small stove.

“Mama,” Harry said, throwing his arms around her, “are you making us your famous goulash?”

“To welcome you back home,” she said, softening.

Two years earlier, when Mr. Weiss died, Harry had promised to take care of his mother. It was obvious to Maisie and Felix that Mrs. Weiss favored Harry. When he walked into a room, her usually stern face lit up.

“Maisie here is helping me with my enunciation, Mama,” Harry explained. “And Felix is a magician, too.”

Mrs. Weiss barely glanced at them. “Hah!” she muttered.

When the oil in the pan began to sizzle, Mrs. Weiss set about slicing onions and tossing them into the hot oil. She sprinkled a big amount of paprika on the onions and stirred. The little kitchen filled with the spicy aroma.

“That smells really good, Mrs. Weiss,” Felix said.

“Ach!” she said dismissively as she took beef cubes from butcher paper. “Everyone out!”

Harry laughed. “Okay, okay, Mama,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “We'll leave you to your goulash.”

Out in the parlor, Maisie asked Harry where his family came from.

“Appleton, Wisconsin,” he said.

“Harry,” Maisie said, “your mother is not from Wisconsin. And neither are you.”

Harry sighed. “Mama and Papa were born in Hungary, yes. In Pest. Papa was a very wise man. A rabbi.”

“How did you get from Hungary to Wisconsin to here?” Felix asked.

“Papa followed work wherever it went,” Harry said.

“Our father, too,” Felix said, getting that sad feeling he got whenever he thought about how far away their father had moved. “He's an artist. A sculptor. But he took a job at a museum in Qatar.”

“The Middle East,” Maisie added.

“He'll send for you?” Harry asked. “When he gets settled?”

Felix shook his head. “We live with our mother.”

“Families sometimes have to do this,” Harry said matter-of-factly. “Separate in order to survive.”

“Tell us how you got so good at magic,” Felix said. He didn't want to talk about families separating. He didn't want to feel sad.

“When I was just nine years old, I learned to pick up needles with my eyelids, hanging upside down,” Harry said, boasting. “I was the Prince of Air! And people paid to come see me in our backyard in Appleton. I loved to perform. And then one day, my father took me to see a magician named Dr. Lynn. Dr. Lynn's most famous trick was to cut up a man—”

“Cut him up?” Maisie said. “What do you mean?”

Harry made a chopping motion with his hands. “Cut off an arm and a leg and even his head, then throw them all into a cabinet, close the curtain, and after a while, the man shows up, all in one piece. I watched that trick, and I knew I had to be a magician like Dr. Lynn. Better than Dr. Lynn!”

“You will be,” Felix said.

“Ha!” Harry said. “I already am! I'm a magician and an escape artist, and now I'm working on cracking locks. All kinds of locks. This is an interest I've had my whole life, and I just keep getting better and better at it.”

Mrs. Weiss laughed from the kitchen. “You learned to open locks just so you could get at my pies, Ehrie. That's what I think.”

“Ain't that the truth,” Harry said.

He glanced at Maisie. “I mean,
isn't
it?”

For half a second, Harry Houdini almost charmed her.
Almost.

After the dinner of goulash and wide egg noodles followed by peach pie, Harry sequestered himself in his room to practice for his opening at Tony Pastor's the next night.

“Let's take a nice long walk,” Maisie suggested to Felix.

They had tried to help Mrs. Weiss with the dishes, but she'd scowled at them and ordered them out of the kitchen.

It was a warm June night, and even with the windows open, the Weisses' apartment on East 69th Street felt stuffy and airless. A walk sounded like a great idea to Felix.

But once outside, Maisie grabbed his shoulders and, with her eyes bright with excitement, said, “Let's go see our old apartment.”

Felix groaned. “Not again,” he said.

When they'd held the coin and ended up following Alexander Hamilton from Saint Kitt's to New York City, Maisie had insisted that if they went to Bethune Street they might be able to figure out how to time travel forward enough to land smack into the time before their parents got divorced, when they'd all lived there together and been happy. But when they finally found the spot, Bethune Street was not even a street yet—it was under the Hudson River.

“Don't worry,” Maisie continued. “I just want to see it, that's all.”

“Really?” Felix asked, doubtful.

“Promise,” Maisie said. “Besides, it's probably still underwater.”

Felix let himself picture their old apartment. He imagined the kitchen with the old six-burner stove their father had salvaged and repaired as a gift for their mother. And he pictured his mother at that stove, stirring spaghetti sauce and humming a song from an old Broadway show. He could see his father's bike hung on the wall in the entryway, and the clutter of their rain boots and Rollerblades and sneakers beneath it. The way those shoes mingled, with Felix's laces tangled in his father's and Maisie's rain boots tucked into their mother's Wellies, anyone would know a family lived there.

“Okay,” Felix said.

His mouth had gone dry, and the word came out like a croak.

“Now let's see,” Maisie said, “we just have to get to the subway at Lexington Avenue and Fifty-Third Street.”

“I don't think so,” Felix said.

“You think we should walk over to Broadway instead?”

“Maisie, think about it.”

“You want to walk over to Eighth Avenue?” Maisie said, turning west. “Fine with me.”

“Maisie, it's 1894,” Felix said. “There are no subways yet.”

Maisie stopped in her tracks.

She couldn't imagine New York City without subways. One rainy Saturday, their father had taken them to the Transit Museum. They'd sat in old subway cars and saw the different ways fares had been collected, like the first paper ticket-choppers and the later turnstile designs that accepted coins and tokens. But she couldn't remember exactly when subways had started.

“Granville T. Woods,” Felix said. “Invented the third-rail system for conducting electric power to railway cars. Without it, we wouldn't have had subways at all.”

“Sounds vaguely familiar,” Maisie mumbled. She hated when Felix knew more than she did.

“And as it is,
we
don't have subways at all right now. I think they're about ten years away.”

“So we . . . walk? Sixty blocks?” Maisie did some fast calculating. Over three miles.

“No,” Felix said. “We take one of those.”

He pointed upward at an elevated train track with a train clacking along it.

“I suppose it's as easy as finding one going downtown,” he said.

It was that easy. Twenty minutes later, Maisie and Felix were crossing Fourteenth Street and heading down Hudson Street. When they reached the corner of Hudson and Bethune, Maisie literally jumped with joy.

“We're home, Felix!” she said, clapping her hands.

Felix stood still, taking in everything around them. It looked the same, but it also looked completely different. Instead of cars moving up Hudson Street, there were carriages pulled by horses. And the smell of horse manure was almost suffocating in the summer air. Felix could actually see piles of it everywhere.

“Look, Felix,” Maisie said, pointing down Hudson.

On the corner, two blocks away, stood the White Horse Tavern, right where it stood when they lived in the neighborhood. It looked exactly the same, too, just the way it looked when their father went there after work on Friday nights.

“Wow,” Felix said.

He glanced down their block. The corner where a D'Agostino's supermarket should stand now had an apartment building on it instead.

“No D'Ag's,” Maisie said as if she'd read his mind. “But it's the same building!” she realized.

“You're right,” Felix said.

He took a deep breath and started down their block, Maisie walking close beside him.

“I don't know why, but I feel kind of creepy,” Felix said.

They stopped in front of 10 Bethune Street.

“It looks the same,” Maisie whispered.

His mouth had gone all dry again so Felix just nodded.

“If we go around the corner, and you stand on my shoulders, you can look inside our apartment,” Maisie said hopefully.

“Well,” Felix managed, “we've come this far. Might as well.”

They rounded the corner onto Greenwich Street. A light shone in the window of what would have been their living room.

“I guess someone's home,” Maisie said.

“Kneel down,” Felix told her.

Maisie kneeled as close to the window as she could get, and Felix climbed onto her shoulders. The apartment seemed lower to him. But maybe he had grown in the almost year since he'd last been on Bethune Street.

Felix pressed his face to the window and peered inside.

“Do you see anything?” Maisie asked him, trying hard to stand steady.

“You won't believe it,” Felix said.

“A family?” she asked, hoping he didn't see that.

“Hardly,” he said, hopping off her shoulders.

She waited.

“Our apartment,” Felix announced, “is a bakery.”

“A what?”

“Yup. There's a row of big ovens and all kinds of baking stuff. I saw giant burlap bags of flour in there, and sugar and salt.”

“No kids? No beds or—”

“It's a bakery,” Felix said firmly.

“I like that,” Maisie decided.

A bicycle came screeching to a halt beside them, almost knocking Felix down.

“Hey!” Maisie yelled at the kid on the bike. “Watch where you're going!”

She glared at him, but the boy gave her a giant smile.

“Aha!” he said. “I figured you'd show up here sooner or later.”

Felix studied the boy's face.

“I know you,” he said thoughtfully.

But even as he said it, he knew it was ridiculous. How could he know a kid—or anyone—in 1894?

The kid wasn't listening to him, though.

“I went up to the Weisses',” he said. “But they said you'd all gone off to Pennsylvania—”

“Ohio,” Maisie corrected.

“Okay, Ohio,” the boy said. “Then I saw the sign over at Tony Pastor's, and I knew you'd be back any day now. I thought,
Where will those two end up?
And then I thought,
They'll want to see their crummy little apartment over on Bethune Street.
And I was right.”

That voice
, Felix thought. More than that voice, that
attitude.
So familiar.