The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin (4 page)

T
HE DREGS OF
Colonel Joe's coffee made a sizzling hiss as they landed on the edge of the fire. From behind the flames the old soldier limped, his left leg playing catch-up with his right. He still bore the ramrod posture and handlebar mustache of military service, but his blue uniform had long since faded, and his hair was snowy white. He smiled at Page and frowned at Boz.

“You've got more nerve than a lock-jawed mongoose coming back here, Boz.”

Boz clambered down off John's back and bowed.

“Profuse apologies, Colonel, but I was unavoidably detained.”

“Where did you dig up the sprouts?” he asked, sniffing suspiciously. At that precise moment, John became aware he had trod in a large patty of horse poo.

“I've brought them to be acrobats,” Boz said, pushing the Coggins forward. “Names of John and Page. They're blithe and lithe and full of vim.”

With careful deliberation, Colonel Joe rammed his fingers into his ear and pulled out a wad of beeswax. Using a jackknife, he neatly sliced off a section, popped the wax into his mouth, and stuffed the remainder back in its storage space. Then he slowly began to chew.

It took about the same amount of time for him to complete this procedure as it did for John to realize that the Colonel's ear was completely fake.

“Nope, sorry, can't help you,” he said finally, pinging a tiny BB of wax at the tip of John's shoe.

Page grabbed John's hand in panic.

“But they're so eager to please,” Boz protested. “And think of the appeal to the eight-to-twelve demographic!”

“Nothing doing,” Colonel Joe retorted. “Already got a full complement of acts, and I won't need more until next summer. Sorry, kids, but you'll have to go back to your ma and pa, or whoever you've run away from.”

He turned back to the fire.

“We can't!” John exclaimed, and a puzzled look appeared in the lee of Colonel Joe's bushy eyebrows.

“What's that?”

“We can't go back.” John rummaged desperately in his head for a reason that might convince the Colonel. “If we do, we'll end up like the living dead.”

Colonel Joe paused.

“The living dead?” he asked, leaning over the fire to stare long and hard at John. John looked back at him without blinking.

“Yes, sir.”

Colonel Joe straightened up and glanced at Boz.

“You prompt him?”

Boz shook his head.

“Explain,” Colonel Joe demanded.

John swallowed.

“I guess, it's just . . .” He dug deep and unexpectedly found a memory of his father:
I left Pludgett to follow my dreams. I knew if I stayed, I'd never be able to tell my own stories or explore the world beyond. Trust your heart, John my lad—it's the only compass you have.

“Well?”

“If we go back to where we came from, we'll be trapped,” John told Colonel Joe. “We'll be alive on the outside but dead on the inside.”

“So why the circus?”

John thought of the spinning twirls of light.

“Because here you're always free.”

“Well, now.” Colonel Joe grinned and drummed his fingers on his bum leg. “I don't know if you know it, but you've done gone and saved your rawhide. In the book of Joe, there ain't nothing more important than a life lived free.”

“JOHN PEREGRINE COGGIN! Present yourself immediately!”

John blanched. Page blanched. Boz may have blanched, but it was impossible for anyone to tell. He had plunged under a blanket.

“Lie down flat on the ground,” Colonel Joe commanded. “Keep your pates cocked sideways.”

John and Page obeyed without question.

“Rufus, Rudolphus—to your beds.”

John felt a hot, rancid breath on his neck. One of the German shepherds had stretched itself over his entire body and laid its head on his own.

“Johnny,” he heard Page whisper.

“Shhh,” he answered.

Squelch, squelch, squelch.
Though John could see nothing through the suffocating fur of Rudolphus, he knew the sound of Great-Aunt Beauregard's footsteps all too well. She was coming for him. And she was
mad
.

“Where is he?”

Colonel Joe yawned. “Who are you?”

Great-Aunt Beauregard sniffed. “My name is Beauregard Pickett Coggin and I am looking for my great-nephew and -niece. They were kidnapped from Peddington's Practical Hotel by a rogue operative driving a stolen fire engine.”

A juicy wad of spit hit the ground near John's eyeball.

“And why do you think they're here?”

Great-Aunt Beauregard erupted. “Because there's a ruddy big fire engine parked outside your two-bit establishment, that's why!”

A hairsbreadth of a moment, then . . .

“Arrived with no one in it.”

It was a bad lie extremely well told. On his back, John could feel Rudolphus's massive heart thumping in time with his own. Would Great-Aunt Beauregard believe it?

She would.

To a point.

“That may well be, but the hotel detective suggested that this operative—a ferrety fellow with ginger hair—was also connected with your establishment.”

Colonel Joe spat again, to cover Boz's squeak of protest.

“If you're speaking about Boz, he's a huckster and a half. Discovered that last year when he blew up our big top. Came to me yesterday asking for work and I tossed him out on his backside. Just like him to play a practical joke in revenge.

“But I'll have you know, Miss Coggin”—and here Colonel Joe spoke very, very slowly—“when it comes to protecting my troupe from those who want to harm them, I ain't fooling with blanks.”

There was a pause.

“Listen.” Great-Aunt Beauregard's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “I don't want to be an inconvenience. You and I are men of the world. If you should
happen to run across a golden-haired girl and a chinless boy, you'll let me know, won't you? I'll make it worth your while.”

“They that important?”

“Important?” She regained her timpani. “I have trained that boy up in the manner befitting the family business since the day his parents died! I have clothed him, fed him, and imparted to him the secrets of the grave. His destiny is to be the best craftsman of death in Pludgett, and no one”—here John knew she must be priming her lungs for detonation—“I mean
no one
says no to the family business!”

In the warm sauna of Rudolphus's fur, John's skin went cold. Colonel Joe merely chuckled.

“You got an odd idea of family,” he said.

“Oh, what would you know about it, you, you . . . Gypsy!”

Squelch, squelch, squelch.
Away went the sound of Beauregard's footsteps, back across the field.

“Don't move,” Colonel Joe muttered. For a long while John lay under the dog, trying to get the heat back into his body. The murmurs from the big top rose and peaked and faded. Soon there were none.

“Okeydokey, out you come.”

From out under Rufus came the frightened face of his sister. From out under the blanket came the bony butt of Boz.

“Look, about Great-Aunt Beauregard—” John began as Page seized hold of his hand.

Colonel Joe lobbed the remainder of his wax into the fire.

“Think I got the gist. You and your sister are more than welcome to join us for a spell.”

John's hopes soared.

“But we can't have your names on playbills and such. Not with a poleax like that on the lookout for you. You'll have to earn your keep in other ways than performing. Boz.”

Boz snapped to attention.

“You game to work with Betsy again?”

Boz flinched, but only slightly. “I am yours to command.”

“Then take our new recruits away and find 'em someplace to sleep.” Colonel Joe paused and patted Rufus on the head. “I'll see to it that your great-aunt finds the right road back.”

And with a hint of a satisfied smile curling his mustache, he turned and limped off into the night.

“C'mon.” Boz tugged at their sleeves. “We'll ensconce you in a nearby barn. Then, when dawn breaks, we shall martial our metabolisms for a new plan of attack.”

The two siblings followed Boz away from the fire and toward a tall building under the shadow of a pine tree.

“Boz, who's Betsy?” asked Page.

“Oh, merely my partner in a display of unparalleled skill. Mind the bats,” he added, pushing open the barn door.

A symphony of whapping wings greeted them. When John looked up, he glimpsed a swarm of black. The animals appeared to be in a feeding frenzy.

“Don't worry,” Boz said, “they're simply dyspeptic. You two can rest over here on these hay bales, and I'll come and retrieve you in the morning.” Throwing a jaunty wave, he vanished into the dark.

Petrified, John lay down on a hay bale and listened to the bats circling above him. Page did the same. She had yet to release his hand.

“Johnny,” she whispered.

“What is it?”

“I'm scared.”

“Me too,” John whispered back. “But it will be morning soon, and then we'll be okay. I promise.”

“Okay,” Page said, but she didn't sound convinced.

John closed his eyes and tried to forget where he was. Page squeezed his hand.

“Johnny,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Are we really going to join the circus?”

What other choice did they have? thought John. “Yes.”

“What are we going to do if we can't be acrobats?”

John attempted to make his voice sound confident.

“I'm not sure. I bet I can work on fixing the caravans
or building the stage. Colonel Joe will give me something. Don't worry—Great-Aunt Beauregard won't be able to find us.”

“Will we be here forever?”

“Maybe.” John was having trouble thinking any further than breakfast. “I guess it depends if we fit in.”

“Tell me one of Dad's stories.”

“No, it's past midnight. Go to sleep.”

There was a fraction of a pause, then . . .

“Johnny?”

“What?”

“I can't sleep.”

John took a deep breath. “Try to think of something that makes you happy.”

“Like lilies of the valley?”

“Sure, like lilies of the valley.”

Page was silent, and John settled back into the prickly hay. He was teetering on the verge of drifting off into his dreams when—

“Johnny?”

“What is it?”

“You stink.”

Heaving the biggest sigh known to man, John pried his hand from Page's and stomped over to the door, bumping into hay bales all the way. Then, with an enormous heave, he hurled his shoes into the night.

“U
P AND AT
'em, troops! The back of a new day is already broken, and time marches on!”

Boz blew into the barn like a category-five hurricane and came to rest at John's feet. “Where are the foundations of your perambulation?” His baffled face collapsed even farther into itself.

“Where are the what?” John asked blearily. The bright summer sun was making fireflies of the dust around Page's hair.

“Your shoes, young man, your shoes.”

“I threw them outside.”

“Well, find them! We go, we see, we conquer!”

John found his shoes lodged in a crabapple tree and spent ten minutes running them under the pump. The smell improved somewhat, but Boz insisted that they
could not wait another moment.

“Least dallied, soonest rallied. Come along now, come along.”

So, with a dead-on imitation of Great-Aunt Beauregard's squelch, John accompanied Page and Boz to the big top.

In the bleached light of morning, the tent had lost what little glamour it had shown the previous night. The stage and curtain had been removed, and in the center stood a peeling pole. Around the pole was a trampled ring of dirt. Around the patch of dirt were ranged the rickety benches.

And on those benches were sprawled, in varying states of consciousness, the Wandering Wayfarers.

There was a wizened elderly lady entwined in a six-foot beard and snoring lustily. There was a scrawny whippet of a man singing lullabies to a pug dog in his arms while a purple pig sulked at his knee. There was a woman striped with the white worms of old facial scars shuffling cards at supersonic speed. There was an olive-skinned man covered in scales from his chest to his waist, curled up with a ukulele.

And then there were the Mimsy Twins. They were tapping out a complicated routine on the benches.

“Come in, come in! All comers welcome!”

An enormously tall man with big bandy legs rose like a balloon and bounded over to them. His hat was pink, his pants were high, and his upside-down pipe was tilted
rakishly behind his ear.

“Name's Gentle Giant Georgie. Emcee. And you are . . . ?”

“Wayfarers,” said a voice, “meet Dung Boy and Sprout.”

The Wandering Wayfarers scrambled to their feet. From the back of the tent came Colonel Joe, trailing a cloud of onion fumes behind him. When he reached the center pole, he looked straight at John and pointed to a place by his side.

“Time to trot,” Boz whispered, poking them both in the back.

They trotted. When they reached Colonel Joe, he swiveled his finger. They turned to face the benches.

“Psst!” Boz hissed. “Bow!”

John and Page bowed respectfully.

“Dung Boy and Sprout, meet Mister Missus Hank.” The bearded lady scowled. “Porcine Pierre, his dog, Priscilla, and his pig, Frank.” Pig and dog nodded. “Tiger Lil.” The scarred lady smiled. “Alligator Dan.” The scaly man frowned. “And the Mimsy Twins.” The girls giggled.

“What will they b-b-be g-g-good for?” Alligator Dan stuttered.

“They're pretty scrawny,” Mister Missus Hank chipped in.

“The boy's kinda feral.” Porcine Pierre smirked through a set of sharp white teeth. “I could use him as an understudy. Priscilla's got a wicked cough.”

“Quiet!” Colonel Joe said. The room fell silent. “Sprout has a knack with animals, so she'll be working to feed and exercise the dogs and horses. Got that, Sprout?”

Colonel Joe looked at Page. She nodded quickly.

“And Boz tells me that Dung Boy here knows his way around a set of tools, so he's on props. We'll sort his induction out later. Questions?”

John had a few hundred. Like why the Colonel had decided to torture him by calling him Dung Boy. Like where Porcine Pierre got off comparing him to Priscilla. Like what an induction meant. But he didn't know which to ask first. The rest of the Wayfarers weren't burdened with same indecision.

“How come we weren't consulted?” Mister Missus Hank huffed. “You know as well as I do that all major decisions must be made by the group.”

“Special circumstances,” Colonel Joe replied. “Got a situation that needs”—he winked at John—“remedying.”

Now John realized why the Colonel was calling him Dung Boy. It meant that the Wayfarers would never be able to reveal his real name.

“How long?” Alligator Dan shot back.

“As long as they're useful. If they're dead weight, you've got my full permission to chuck 'em out. Any objections to that?”

I have one!
John wanted to shout. The Wayfarers merely shook their heads.

“Then I'll leave you to get acquainted,” Colonel Joe said, and disappeared through the flap.

“Come on over, sweethearts,” Gentle Giant Georgie rumbled. “And welcome to the family.”

John and Page walked toward the benches and were immediately surrounded.

“Ooooh, what lovely hair you have,” Tiger Lil said, stroking Page's head. “Corn silk.”

“Won't sweep up much with that,” sniffed Mister Missus Hank.

“Let us see! Let us see!” a pair of voices cried out. Up close, John realized that the Mimsy Twins were older than he had first thought, more in their mid-twenties than their mid-teens.

“Hello,” the twins uttered in unison, holding out their hands.

“I'm Mabel,” said the one on the left.

“And I'm Minny,” added the one on the right.

“Hello,” John said awkwardly, shaking both hands in turn.

“How do you go to the bathroom?” Page asked.

“When we have to,” Mabel replied.

“But what happens when you sit down?”

Mabel and Minny looked at each other and burst into laughter.

“She thinks we're real!” they cried simultaneously. And with mischievous grins, they started to unbutton
their coats, squirming to free themselves from their sleeves. When they had finished, two girls now stood in front of John and Page, each with a stump where an arm would be.

“Look, Ma!” Mabel said, shaking her stump. “No hand!”

“But you're really good dancers. Why do you use a disguise?” John asked.

Minny's laugh was tinged with pain.

“Who's going to pay top dollar to see a cripple in a red dress?”

“Besides”—Mabel smiled fiercely—“now you get two for the price of one.”

“And where do you come from?” Tiger Lil asked Page.

“We're—”

But John cut her off. The less their new comrades knew about the family business, the better. “We're Boz's cousins.”

Alligator Dan snorted, plucked a scale off his chest, and flicked it at Boz.

“You don't look like b-b-bloodsucking leeches.”

“I resent that. I come from a distinguished lineage,” Boz retorted.

“So do cockroaches.” Porcine Pierre snickered.

“Now, now,” Gentle Giant Georgie said, silencing the crowd with a wave of his pudgy fingers. “Let's keep our bile to ourselves.”

“Have you always wanted to join the circus?” Tiger Lil continued.

“Kind of.” John hesitated. “Boz told us about it.”

“You'll have to do better than ‘kind of' for your induction.” Porcine Pierre smirked through his needled teeth.

“What's that?” asked Page.

“It's a test,” said Mister Missus Hank. “To see if you're good enough to be a Wayfarer.”

“You have to p-p-prove that you can earn money,” Alligator Dan corrected. “Using your special talents.”

“Like what?”

Dan whipped his ukulele over his shoulder and began playing “Turkey in the Straw.” At the first note of music, Priscilla barked twice and reared up on her hind paws. Then she danced an Irish jig.

“Isn't she a beauty?” said Porcine Pierre. “Trained her from a baby.”

Jealous of the attention his partner was receiving, Frank head-butted John in the shins.

“Pick a card,” Tiger Lil said to Page, holding out a spread deck. Page picked a card—and the rest of the deck vanished into thin air. Gone. John was flabbergasted. He looked at Page's card. She was holding the joker.

“We do our best to please.” Tiger Lil smiled, pulling the cards one by one from Mister Missus Hank's beard.

“Don't worry,” said Gentle Giant Georgie. “We give everyone a couple of months to get good at their skills.
Then we see if the public is willing to pay.”

“It's how we stay independent,” Mabel said. “Everyone shares the work, everyone shares the profits.”

“All for one and one for all,” Minny added.

“So what can you do?” Mister Missus Hank demanded. “Apart from grimace?”

John paused.

“Why, haven't you heard? Dung Boy is an inventor par excellence!” Boz cut in. “The future maker, the schemer of your dreams. This man is the world expert on Hancock's steam engineering. He even has a manual!”

John could have cheerfully kneed Boz in the nether parts. “How do you know about the manual?” he hissed.

“I may have rummaged through your bag,” Boz whispered back. “You should probably invest in new socks.”

Alligator Dan sniffed.

“I'll b-b-believe you're an engineer when I see it.”

“He's good!” Page interjected.

“In the meantime,” Tiger Lil intervened, “I know you're going to be very useful.”

“If you're working on props,” said Mister Missus Hank, stroking her beard, “you can start by making me a better comb. This thing's been knotted up since January.”

She shook her head vigorously, and a toy train, a large dead wasp, and an assortment of coins fell from her beard and ricocheted off the floor. Mabel and Minny immediately began fighting over one of the coins.

“Oh, no, you don't,” challenged Porcine Pierre. “Frank has been waiting for a hip bath for a year. You know how bad his rheumatics get when he's exposed to salt air.”

“Salt him up into a slab of b-b-bacon and you won't have any more trouble with his rheumatics,” Alligator Dan quipped.

Porcine Pierre didn't bother to waste a reply. He simply shoved Dan to the ground.

“G-g-get this p-p-pork lover off me!” Dan shrieked as Porcine Pierre bit into Dan's scales with his sharp teeth. Hearing this, Minny and Mabel ceased tugging on the coin and began tugging on Porcine Pierre's arms instead. This had the result of making Pierre look like a demented seagull refusing to let go of a dead fish.

“Children, children!” Gentle Giant Georgie admonished, trying to grab Alligator Dan's collar and pull him away from the melee. Unfortunately, Dan's only reaction was to seize Georgie's leg and refuse to let go. Georgie began to fall, entangling himself in Mister Missus Hank's beard as he went down.

“May I drop a small grain of sand in your shell-like?” Boz whispered into John's ear just after he had jumped to avoid Porcine Pierre's airborne kick. “This may be an appropriate moment to make a well-timed exit.”

John looked for Page, but she was already beating a hasty retreat with Tiger Lil.

“Attend to my dorsal fin and follow me!” Boz said,
scooting between Georgie's legs. John followed, crawling on his hands and knees through the thicket of limbs to reemerge in the sunshine.

“There now,” Boz said, leaping to his feet and brushing himself off. “Welcome to our happy little tribe.”

“Are they going to kill each other?” John asked as a high-pitched shriek from Mister Missus Hank made the tent pole shiver.

“No, no,” Boz tutted, “of course not. They'll be right as a fine summer's rain in nanoseconds.”

John wasn't sure what a nanosecond was, but he didn't think it would be nearly long enough to turn that fight into a fine summer rain. Especially when he saw Colonel Joe heading toward them with a giant sledgehammer in his hand.

Boz leaned nonchalantly against one of the exterior ropes. It was vibrating.

“Good morning, my lord, liege, and master.” Boz did his hybrid curtsy bow to Colonel Joe. “Lovely day to appreciate the constitutional sights.”

“Boz, what is going on?”

A massive crash supplied the answer.

“Dung Boy?” Colonel Joe demanded.

John almost wished he was back in the coffin workshop.

“They all wanted me to make props for them. And then Alligator Dan insulted Pierre's pig.”

As if in response, Frank came streaking out of the tent, crying and oinking. Colonel Joe watched the purple tail wiggle off into the distance, and then he turned to John.

“Let me give you a tip I picked up in the army.” Colonel Joe lowered his voice. “If you value your skull, it's generally best to keep your head off the parapet. Understood?”

John nodded.

“Boz.”

Boz sprang forward and knelt at Colonel Joe's feet. “Sire.”

Colonel handed Boz the sledgehammer. It hit the ground with a thump. “We're breaking camp. Show Dung Boy how to strike the tents and the caravans. I'll sort out the ruckus.”

“I stand and obey.” Boz's attempt at saluting with the sledgehammer was thwarted by its weight. Boz went backward. The sledgehammer went nowhere.

Events were happening far too quickly for John. He'd barely said hello, and already people were talking about inductions and dung boys and hip baths. It was a little overwhelming for a boy who'd spent the last six years ensconced in sawdust.

“Wait!” cried John.

Irritated, Colonel Joe paused at the flap of the tent. “What?”

John summoned his meager courage. “Where are we going?”

Colonel Joe looked to Boz. “You want to tell him the route?”

Boz stuck his finger in the air triumphantly. “West! To the land of the free and the home of the brave. South for the winter and north for the spring! We cover the country.”

That sounded promising to John. If, that is, he and Page made it that far.