Breathing Fire, page 4
“Ow! Shit!” The clubs clatter to the ground.
A murmur runs through the crowd, and some people back up, but most of them walk away. I relight the torches, hoping people won’t notice that my hands are shaking. My wrist is killing me. I’m doing a basic juggle for the few people who have stayed when I see the fire truck pull up to the curb.
I blow out the clubs and clamp a hand over my throbbing wrist. The skin is red and starting to blister. I fold up my things as the firefighters walk up.
“Miss, hang on. We need to talk to you.”
The last few audience members walk away, glancing over their shoulders at me.
The older firefighter frowns at me. “What were you doing here?”
“Just busking.” I can feel my face getting red.
“You can’t just juggle fire out in the open. Do you have a permit?”
“I’m sorry. It was stupid—I won’t do it again.” I’m praying that they won’t call the cops.
“No, you won’t.” As if he’s reading my mind, he adds, “I could call the cops, you know. Have you charged with endangerment of life.”
“Please.” I hold up my hands in supplication. “No one was hurt.”
He grabs my elbow gently. “Looks like you were.” He turns my wrist over and sighs. “It’s not bad. Come to the truck and I’ll patch you up. Do your parents know you’re doing this?”
I nod my head. “But I normally do it on a beach.”
After he bandages my wrist, he hands me a ticket. “I’m going to go easy on you. It’s a ticket for open-air burning. I figure your wrist was enough of a warning tonight. You can pay the hundred and fifty dollars at city hall tomorrow. ” He pauses and then gives me a fatherly pat on the back. “No more playing with fire now, you hear?”
Chapter Ten
The motel checkout is 11:00 AM, and I’m waiting out the clock. I don’t want to leave this small room that has a shower and a TV and air-conditioning. Besides, I’m waiting for the manager to come and check out the room and give me back my cash damage deposit. I wish I had a credit card.
The manager shows up at ten thirty. He’s lean and pasty-looking, with greasy hair. The kind of guy who talks directly to your breasts.
I open the door and gesture behind me. “Everything’s good. I even made the bed.”
He comes in and starts poking around. He points to a dent in the bed frame that’s probably been there since 1959. “This bed was in mint condition. Your deposit is going to have to cover the cost of repairs.”
“That’s bullshit! This shitty room is no more shitty than it was when I took it.”
He leans against the cheap bed. “I’m keeping the deposit. I’ll call the cops for vandalism if you like.”
He’s got me. Worse, he’s got my $40 deposit on top of the room fee. I grab my bags and walk out to the parking lot. It’s so hot, it feels like the asphalt is melting under my thin sandals. I have the ticket from last night buried in my bag. With the ticket, I am now officially in debt to the city. I don’t want to risk seeing Tate, but I’m going to have to hit the festival. It’s the only way I can dig myself out of this hole.
My stomach is grumbling. I can’t afford a bus ticket, so I get a half dozen donuts and a bottle of water with my last few bucks. I’m so hungry, I eat three donuts at the shop, then wrap up the rest and put them in my bag. I figure the sugar will keep me going for at least a little while.
I walk just past the bus stop on the highway. I’ve never hitched before, but it seems pretty simple. Stick out your leg, stick out your thumb and hope you don’t get a pervert.
A bunch of cars zoom by without slowing down. I pick up my bags and start walking. The road shimmers ahead of me, heat dancing like flames. I have to keep stopping and pulling out my water bottle. At this pace, I’ll get there by next year. I wish I could dump the water over my head and wash away some of the sweat, but who knows when I’ll be able to refill the bottle?
A transport truck honks long and loud, and I scramble to the far side of the shoulder. He pulls over ahead of me, and his brakes give a metallic screech. I run to the side of the truck and open the door of the cab.
“Where you headed, darlin’?”
“Beamsville.”
“Hop in, then.”
We travel in silence for a few minutes, me twisting my hands in my lap.
“So, uh, how long have you been driving?” I finally say.
He laughs. “A long time. Longer than you’ve been hitching.”
“How would you know how long I’ve been hitching?”
“You’re young. What, a runaway? Fight with Mom and Dad?”
I hug Tate’s bag of supplies to my chest. “I’m a busker. I’m headed over to Beamsville for the festival there.”
He nods wisely. “I gotcha. Going to join the circus. Well, none of my business. But I’ll bet that there’s someone missing you.”
“I hope you’re not a betting man, then.”
He gives me a sidelong look. “Just a tip, honey. If you’re alone and you’re traveling, you’d better tell strange men that there’s someone waiting for you at the other end.”
Beamsville is much bigger than Newport, and the downtown ends at a large lake. There are fancy restaurants all over town, especially on the main street, where patios extend onto the large sidewalk and throw a few cooling shadows from their oversized umbrellas. The festival starts tomorrow. I want to wait and see where the buskers are setting up before I try to sneak my own act in.
I’ve finished the last of my donuts, and I’m already starting to get hungry again. I head to one of the parks to practice with the clubs. I find an open space and start juggling, but it’s hard to concentrate with all the hot-dog vendors around. My stomach starts rumbling every time one of the vendors puts another dog on the grill. The sun beats down on the top of my head, and when I go to pick up one of the dropped clubs, I feel weak and dizzy. I stumble to my knees and sit in the grass for a minute before I can make my way over to the shade of a nearby tree.
A mom walks over and places a Styrofoam takeout container in the garbage can beside me. I wait until she leaves, then open it up. I see most of a hot dog and some ketchup-soaked fries. It still looks good—there are only two small bites out of the hot dog. I sit back down on the grass and take a bite out of the intact end of the hot dog. It’s still warm.
I finish the lunch and rummage through my bag for the bottle of water. It’s empty. My shoulders are aching from hauling my luggage around, but I grab the bags again and head out in search of a public washroom.
The library is a couple of blocks away from the downtown core, but it’s huge and beautiful. I fill up my water bottle and gulp from the water fountain, letting the cool liquid run down my chin. I wander around a bit and pick up a book at random, a biography of Winston Churchill. There are plush armchairs all around, and I’m just settling in for a nap when a voice comes over the intercom announcing that it’s closing time.
I leave the book and slink into the bathroom. I close the stall door and squat on the seat so that no one can see my feet. Hopefully, they’ll close up the library and I can ride the night out on a couch.
The noises from the library die down, but then the bathroom door squeaks open. I can hear the security guard opening each stall in turn. The guard comes to my stall and knocks on the door. I lose my nerve.
“Just a minute.” I flush, and then I open the door.
“Library’s closed, miss.”
I go back to the park. The benches are all empty, so I choose one close to the water and curl up. The first star glimmers in the distance. I read once that some of the stars we see exploded thousands of years ago. It’s just that the light takes so long to get here.
I want to stay awake. Part of me thinks that this star is already dead and I’m the only one who can keep it alive by watching the last of its glimmer. But it disappears as my eyelids pull shut.
Chapter Eleven
The cops are putting up roadblocks along the main street for the festival. They don’t even glance my way, but they still make me nervous. Officially, I’m a runaway, and I’ll bet my picture is up there somewhere in the cop shop. Once the festival is in full gear, I’m sure I can just slip into a spot and start performing. If anyone realizes I’m not on the list, I’ll be gone by the time they think to ask me for a permit.
The buskers are supposed to perform on the main road, and the audience stands on the sidewalk. I took a performance schedule from the library, and I figure I can slip into the spaces where there’s supposed to be a ten-minute break between half-hour acts.
The first break is between a whip artist and a strong-woman act. The whip artist arrives a little early to set up. He’s a pudgy old white guy with a funny little mustache. As soon as people see him start to set up, a crowd gathers.
He straps on a portable mic and his voice booms across the street.
“Welcome to the whip show, an amazing display of strength, danger and, of course”—he pauses here and runs his hands down his beer belly—“raw sexuality.” The audience laughs, and he grins with them as he reaches into his bag to take out a huge whip. He flashes it in the air. The whip cracks with a loud bang.
The show is amazing. He whips an apple off a guy’s head, plays a song using his whip and some half-filled beer bottles and keeps up a hilarious patter all the way through. The audience is in stitches. At the end of his act he gives the standard speech asking for money. A good chunk of the crowd just walks away, but a lot of people reach into their purses and pockets and pull out a few bucks. It would be more than enough for a motel, some food and maybe even a bus ticket.
He packs up his bag and steps off the street. I take a deep breath and look around. No one seems to be monitoring the space, and there’s still a sizable chunk of the crowd here, milling around and talking.
I step onto the street and say in my loudest voice, “Welcome, ladies and gents, to the best fire show in all the world.”
A bunch of people turn around, and I think of the old lady who almost caught fire.
“I know you’d all like to see the fire up close, but I’ll need you to make a large circle around me so that no one ends up too horrifically burned. Except hecklers, of course.”
The crowd laughs as they settle in, and the kids sit cross-legged on the edge of the sidewalk. Because the street is closed off, people seem to settle naturally on the sidewalk instead of edging into the street.
I take out Tate’s Kevlar torches and dip them into the lamp oil. They light up with a burst of flame as the excess oil burns off. I flip the torches into a juggle and look around.
“Who wants to see a forward-backward juggle?” There’s a smattering of clapping and cheering, so I walk back and forth while juggling, and the crowd groans.
“I’m just kidding. Here it is.” I have the three torches in the air. I catch each one and give them an extra spin so that the flame shoots toward me and completes a full turn before landing back in my hand. The heat is killer, but it’s still a pretty safe trick on a windless day like today.
“Let’s get this crowd going! If you all cheer loud enough, I’ll backflip while throwing my torches. If you cheer even louder, I’ll try to catch the torches instead of just whipping them into the crowd like I normally do.”
I throw the torches higher and higher, and as the crowd seems to hold its breath, I shout out, “Ready? Now let’s hear you!”
I’m half braced for complete silence, so it’s a relief when the crowd erupts. I hold two torches, give the last an extra-high toss, do a quick backflip and land with plenty of time to catch the third torch. The applause is fast and hard, and it feels like my heartbeat, out of control and wild.
Already I can picture the money I’m going to get. Two women push through the crowd in glitzy outfits, and I realize that I’ve completely lost track of time. They’re obviously the next act, the pair of strong women. It’s hard to look at your watch when you’re supposed to be looking at your torches. The two women are glaring at me, but I haven’t collected my money. They look fighting mad. I’ve been in a few fights in my life, but never with oiled-up muscle women in spangled bodysuits.
Chapter Twelve
The women push through the crowd, and I know that my chance to collect money has just gone up in smoke.
The taller of the two, a brunette, walks with a swagger right up to me. I catch my torches and hold them in one hand. She leans over and blows them out with one breath, then turns to the audience, flipping on her head mic.
“Let’s hear it for our amateur opening act, Fire Girl!” The other woman walks up to me and raises my other hand in mock victory, like a boxer.
The tall one continues, “We’re your scheduled professional act, Strong Women Extraordinaire! I’m Lorna and this is Sandy.” As she says this, the shorter, wiry blond, Sandy, is still holding my arm in a viselike grip. She walks me to the edge of the crowd while waving and then covers her mic with her hand and whispers in my ear. “This is our spot. Get lost.”
Sandy does a double front flip to the middle of the street, landing a few inches away from Lorna. Lorna bends into a full back arch. Sandy places her hands on Lorna’s thighs and hoists herself up as if she were on a balancing beam. There’s a hushed murmur from the crowd as she holds the position like an Olympic gymnast. They’re both perfectly still, and then Sandy lifts her legs behind her with perfect precision so that she ends up in a handstand on Lorna.
Their act is breathtaking but silent. They make it look too easy, and some of the crowd starts to melt away. I can’t believe their control. Not a muscle shakes as they lift and contort themselves into incredibly impossible positions. When they wrap up their act, they give a short speech about the money and then pass around the hat.
There are way fewer people putting in money for them than for the whip guy. Most of the families with kids got bored halfway through and left. I know most of those families would have given me money if I had had a chance to collect. Being funny pays. Some of the cash in the strong women’s hat is rightfully mine. I wait until the crowd has dispersed and then walk up to them. Strong women or not, I can’t afford for them to walk away with my cut.
“Hey. I worked up the crowd for you. I didn’t get a chance to collect. Half of that money should be mine.”
Sandy, who is holding the hat, frowns. “Look, kid, this was our act, our spot and our money.”
“My name is Ally, not kid. I worked hard for that money too, and I want my cut.”
Lorna walks over and stands with her feet wide apart, her arms folded. She looks even bigger this way, like a brick wall. “Why are we even talking about this?”
I square my shoulders, painfully aware that I’m less than half her size. “Your take isn’t half of what it should be. You lose most of your audience partway through.” I give my torches a little juggle. “Count your take. If you put me in your act, I’ll bet you get more than double what you made this afternoon.”
Sandy puts a hand on Lorna’s shoulder. “Look, you seem like a good kid, but we’re professionals. I doubt very much that you could double our take.”
“Give me a chance. One act. If I don’t double your take, I won’t get any of the cut.”
I can tell Sandy is wavering. She looks up at Lorna with raised eyebrows.
Lorna sighs loudly. “Give us a minute.”
They walk away, and Sandy does most of the talking. She’s leaner than Lorna and reminds me of a bird—all quick movements and lots of energy. They walk back to me, and Lorna gestures to my torches. “Show us what you can do first, and we’ll consider it. Fire amateurs are the worst.” She says the last part pointedly.
The street is still pretty empty, so I have enough room to work. I prepare the torches and tell them to stand back a bit. I start with some light juggling just to warm up. I move quickly to my backflip-and-catch routine and then to the splits-and-stand juggle. I can tell Lorna is grudgingly impressed.
A crowd is already starting to form, and I can’t help but grin at Sandy and Lorna. Fire is flashy. I tell them to move the crowd back, and I take a breath. This is my one real chance to make an impression. If I want to get a real spot, I had better pull out all the stops.
Fire breathing makes me more nervous than the rest of the act. I’ve only done it twice with Tate, and he told me some horror stories about people getting nervous and sucking the flames into their faces instead of out front. The treetops aren’t moving, and I can’t even feel a whisper of wind against my face.
I take a swig of oil and hold up the torch. The trick is not to spit but to spray the oil in an even, steady arc. And not to swallow.
I squeeze my lips together and spray out the oil, watching my breath become flame. The crowd ooohs and everyone takes a step back, even though they’re at a safe distance. The fire leaps out into the sky. It feels like I’m actually breathing flames, like everything inside of me is rushing out in a roaring explosion.
It takes a few seconds for the oil to run out, and the flame disappears in midair. The audience erupts into applause and whistles. I grab my bottle of water and rinse out my mouth. Some of the people come and hand me cash, and a couple drop coins into the bag at my feet.
Lorna extends her hand, and I shake it. It’s hard not to marvel at the solid muscles that bulge from her shoulder to her forearm. “Looks like we’re sharing a spot, Fire Girl.”
Sandy punches me lightly on the arm. “All right, Ally. Let’s meet up here in a hour and figure out how you can work with us without setting us on fire. Lorna and I are going to grab dinner.”
