The Carnival of Lost Souls : A Handcuff Kid Novel (22 page)

“Knock, knock,” Violet called from outside of the tent, and the boys stared at each other not making a sound. “I have a basket filled with sandwiches that I will use as bribery to enter the tent,” Violet said, peering in through a crack in the canvas.

Runt flung himself off of his hammock and flipped up the tent flap. Violet walked in with a basket filled with snacks. “Oh, Violet, you’re a dream. Bribe accepted.” Runt ravenously burrowed into the basket and pulled out a sandwich.

Violet passed out the food. “What are you boys up to? You didn’t come to dinner.”

“Nothing,” Jack said.

“Yeah, nothing.” T-Ray took a sandwich out of Violet’s hand and her eyes widened. He jerked his hand away.

“Oh, no. T-Ray, why didn’t you say something?” Violet asked.

“Say something about what?” Runt asked.

“Nothing.” T-Ray picked at the bread of his sandwich. “It doesn’t matter. It’s going to be too late soon anyway.”

“Too late for what?” Jack asked.

“Nothing, man. Just leave it.”

“What are you two talking about? It’s not too late.”

“Tell them,” Violet said.

“About two weeks ago, I started getting cold all the time. I just couldn’t warm up. I didn’t think anything of it at first. But my skin was always clammy and then one day it stopped bothering me so much. That’s when I knew it was happening.”

“Don’t say it.” Boxer paced the floor.

“He has to face it,” Violet said. “And if he won’t say it, I will.”

“Violet’s right, Boxer. You tell them, please,” T-Ray said, tossing his uneaten sandwich to the ground.

“T-Ray’s dying.”

Jack’s stomach sank. This couldn’t be happening. Not right in front of his face. He didn’t even see it coming. No wonder T-Ray had been so moody—he was desperate.

Jack hardened his resolve. “That just means we need to get this plan under way even faster. Violet, how much time does T-Ray have?”

Violet inspected T-Ray’s hands, fingernails, and eyes. “Probably a couple of weeks, at most.”

“OK, then. You guys heard her. That gives us two weeks at most to get out of here. Now we just need a plan to slip out of camp, unnoticed, and get to the gate. I’ve got the map and directions covered.” Jack motioned to his wrist.

“Will you help us, Violet?” Boxer asked. “We can use all the help we can get.”

“Absolutely,” Violet said.

“It’ll work,” Jack said.

“I don’t mean to complain, but so far the plan is that we need a plan,” T-Ray said. “We haven’t gotten very far.”

“I’m great with strategy and signals,” Violet said.

“I think we should go at night, after the show lets out. And we need to wear masks so that we blend in with the crowd,” Jack said.

“We’ll need food for the journey,” Runt said, devouring a hunk of chocolate cake that he pulled from Violet’s basket.

“We’ll need some light camping supplies in case we get stuck out in the forest overnight. I can take care of that,” Boxer said, rubbing his hands together.

“But what about Mussini? He watches the entire show
from beginning to end. He doesn’t miss a thing. How will we escape without him noticing?” T-Ray asked.

“You’ll need a distraction,” Violet said. “I can be very distracting when I want to be. Jabber could help.”

“I don’t know about Jabber. He might tell.” Runt leaned against Violet like a satisfied pup. His belly protruded and there was a ring of chocolate around his mouth that Violet wiped from his face.

Jack kneeled down on the ground and wiped an area in the dirt clean with his hand. Then he picked up a stick and drew a diagram of the stage, the audience, and the backstage area. “Mussini is the closing act, so he’ll be onstage.” Jack pointed to the stage and drew an
M
. “Jabber is out front, manning the door and making sure nothing goes wrong with the audience and the animals.” Jack marked
JB
where Jabber was always stationed during the final act.

“That’s it, then. We need to make some trouble to distract Jabber and Mussini,” Violet said. “Then the rest of you can sneak backstage and make your getaway.”

“No, it’s too dangerous. I don’t want you to get punished by Mussini for helping us. He’ll fire you for sure,” Jack said. “We have to come up with a distraction that Mussini won’t trace back to you.”

“That’s up to me, isn’t it?” Violet put her hand on Jack’s arm. “Let me help my family.”

T-Ray spoke up. “I could make a distraction. We
always have a set number of animals for the finale. What if I made more of them? Then Mussini would have to try and control them all. He would be up to his armpits in animals.”

“Like a flock of pooping pigeons!” Runt laughed.

“Or a bunch of squealing weasels,” Violet added.

Laughter with a flicker of hope echoed through the tent. The plan just might work after all. Boxer clapped T-Ray on the back. “That’s a great idea. We’ll nail Mussini with his own trick.”

“Where are we going when we leave the camp?” T-Ray asked Jack.

“We need to go to the wall. Then I’ll deal with the Death Wranglers.”

“All I want to know is: When are we going?” Runt asked.

“I’ll have to sneak the animals into the basket when he’s not looking, so it has to be a day that Mussini doesn’t inspect the trick first,” T-Ray said.

“How will we know if the escape plan is a go if we’re all spread out?” Boxer asked. “T-Ray won’t know until the show starts.”

“A signal!” Violet said, her eyes growing wide. “But what?”

“A hand signal,” T-Ray said, making a winged shadow bird appear on the tent flap as Boxer shined the lamp on his hands.

“No, that’s too obvious.” Jack leaned back against one of the trunks and tried to think of a distraction that could be seen from the entire theater but not be obvious and raise suspicion.

“What about a necklace,” Violet said, touching her throat. “I could wear a necklace or put my hair up.”

“We need something big and visible. A necklace is too small.”

“I know! It’s brilliant.” Jack said, sitting up as the idea hit him. “A letter. You can wear a letter pinned onto the front of your costume. Like in the story.”

“What story?” Runt said.

“
The Scarlet Letter
. Where that girl Hester has to wear a letter attached to her, you know, her front.” There was no way Jack was going to say
bosom
in front of a girl.

“Why would she do that?”

“How should I know? I didn’t actually read the book. I just heard about it.”

“I like to wait till books come out as movies,” Boxer said.

“Sounds perfect. I can sew it on. What letter?” Violet asked.

“
V
,” Jack said. “For Violet and for Victory.”

“It’s settled. We wait for the Violet Letter, and then we escape!” T-Ray said.

They finalized the plans and divided up the jobs. T-Ray was in charge of the animal distraction. Boxer
would handle the supplies, and Violet was the signal. Jack was in charge of logistics once they left camp, and Runt was in charge of keeping his mouth shut. An uneasy silence fell over the tent, and they all looked at one another, unable to believe that they were really going.

“It will all be worth it,” Jack said. “No need to be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” T-Ray said. “The worst that happens is that Mussini catches us, and then we’re dead meat. But I’m dead either way.” He paused. “I just want to make it back to see my mom again.”

“You’ll see her,” Jack said. T-Ray had a lot to live for. More than Jack, maybe.

“I hope you’ve got something good to trade with the Death Wranglers?” Boxer asked.

“Oh, it’s good. Trust me,” Jack said, giving T-Ray a knowing glance. “It’s gonna work like magic.”

“Jack, you’re on.”

The stage lights dropped, shrouding the theater in darkness. Jack stepped onto the stage as the curtain rose. A wild sea of masked faces stared back at him. For the first time, the audience applauded when Jack was announced, and the cheers thrilled him. He started the act with some easy handcuff tricks, quick escapes, locking and unlocking the cuffs from behind his back.

The challenge act was next—the most nerve-racking part of the show. A knot twisted in Jack’s stomach. Restlessly, he locked and unlocked a pair of handcuffs while he waited. Violet raised her pale arms up into the air, and a hush fell over the audience. Boxer stood next to Violet at the edge of the stage with his massive biceps
crossed, ready to give the eagle eye to any handcuffs that the dead might bring up. This was mostly for show, since the dead rarely had their own handcuffs. To keep the show moving and to add some excitement, Jabber organized the plant, which was a pair of Jack’s cuffs that one of the dead pretended he brought to the show.

The audience member, a skinny, rat-masked man, scurried up to the stage with a shiny pair of handcuffs and tossed them to Boxer. Jack recognized the cuffs right away. They were Bean Cobbs. Wait. Jack grabbed the handcuffs. Something was wrong. These weren’t his handcuffs. All the plants were supposed to be his handcuffs, the ones he practiced with millions of times, so there would be no mistakes. Was this Jabber’s idea of a joke? Or was he trying to set him up …

Jack eyed the audience, searching for Jabber in the crowd, but the bright stage lights flashed him in the face like the headlights of oncoming traffic. He squinted and shielded his eyes. A bead of sweat appeared on his brow. He couldn’t get out of these cuffs. He didn’t have the key and couldn’t pick the lock in time. Time to get creative. Jack nudged Violet’s hands to put the cuffs on the largest part of his arm (that way he could slip them clean off his smaller wrists and wouldn’t have to pick the lock). This was a time when he wished that he had thick, muscular forearms like Houdini. Quickly, Jack entered his box and pulled the handcuffs over his wrists. The
right cuff slipped off easily, but the left cuff was tight. It was mind over matter, or in Jack’s case, metal over wrist bone. It hurt, scraping a chunk of skin from his wrist as he wrestled the handcuff off. He tossed the unexpected cuffs out with more relief than triumph. But his challenge wasn’t over.

Another volunteer raised a pale white hand into the air. A commotion ricocheted among the crowd like a pulse of electricity, snapping the audience suddenly to attention. After the stress of the strange cuffs, Jack had a bad feeling about where the act was headed.

White hair appeared above the heads of the audience. Wearing a dark leather coat, the volunteer made his way to the stage. That’s when Jack recognized his weathered face and the dark blue bruises on his skin. Jabber was right. Don’t trust the dead.

A haunting trail of whispers propelled the man up to the stage.

“Shepard,” they all said.

This wasn’t part of the plan, at least not
Jack’s
plan. With his limitless supply of custom handcuffs, Shepard was Jack’s walking nightmare. The whole thing reeked of Mussini. Jack glanced over the audience; Mussini’s hawk mask glittered in the candlelight. He raised his arms and began a hard clap. This was what Mussini lived for—the surprise, the unexpected twist. Either that or he was getting back at Jack for helping Violet stay in the show.
How could Jack have been so stupid? A blind man could have seen this one coming. Jack had handcuff déjà vu. His memory flashed to Shepard’s wall of handcuffs.

The devil’s handcuffs—they had been made just for him and ordered by Mussini. He should have known only someone as heartless and brilliant as Mussini could come up with such a stunning and tortuous pair of handcuffs. Shepard reached into his coat and pulled out the golden intertwined locking cuffs and held them high above his head for everyone to see.

“The devil’s handcuffs, that’s what I call them.” Shepard spun them around for the dead to admire.

Boxer glanced at Jack and shrugged his shoulders. There was no way Jack could turn down the challenge, and Mussini knew it. Tonight, Jack was being given a taste of how Mussini operated. If Jack beat the cuffs, the crowd would celebrate his victory; if Jack failed, the crowd would be in awe of Shepard’s evil cuffs. Both ways, Mussini’s show won.

The crowd buzzed with excitement, greedily gawking at the devil’s cuffs. Jack nodded to Boxer, who took the handcuffs from Shepard and inspected them. His mind raced. He needed to come up with a way out of this mess and
fast
. Jack turned and addressed the audience.

“I’ll accept this challenge, but only if Mr. Shepard can first prove to me that the handcuffs work. He must open and close them right now.”

“You have my word, that should be enough,” Shepard said, dripping mock sincerity, which caused the audience to reel with laughter, suspecting what Shepard’s word was worth. No more than the word of any of the dead, Jack thought bitterly.

“No offense, sir, but I’d like to see you unlock the cuffs with my own eyes.”

“Very well. I’ll prove it to you.” Shepard pulled the golden key from his pocket. It sparkled as a spotlight caught it.
Nice touch
, Jack thought. Shepard was milking this for all it was worth. He opened and closed the lock to the devil’s handcuffs, making it look easy, like a baby could break out of them. Jack watched as Shepard returned the key to his left-hand breast pocket. Now he had no choice but to accept the challenge and take his chances.