The Daring Escape of Beatrice and Peabody by Kimberly Newton Fusco Read Free Book Online Page B

can.’
    Bobby sends a wad of spit off toward the stone wall. He turns back to me. ‘Spitting is a good thing to know how to do. You never know when it will come in handy.’
    I look at Peabody. I think about the tall boy and the round boy with the watermelon cheeks, and how much I would like to send a mouthful of spit straight at them. I swish my mouth trying to come up with enough saliva. I work at it for quite a while and then move the spit to the end of my tongue. This is not as easy as it sounds. Finally,I open my mouth and blow as hard as I can. A very small gob of spit lands on Peabody’s head.
    Peabody rushes over and hides behind the pig shed. Bobby grins and shakes his head. ‘What a girl.’ Then he goes over and picks up Peabody and wipes the spit off his head with his bandanna. ‘Make sure you’re up fifteen minutes earlier tomorrow morning. I want to get you running faster.’
    I fume. Bobby goes by the pig shed. Peabody won’t look me in the eye. I tell him how I didn’t mean for it to happen and that I am sorry. He needs a lot of snuggling after that to get back to feeling good about things. Just like Cordelia.

28
    Ellis comes back all fired up about setting up a show in Poughkeepsie. He makes us all go over by Eldora’s Museum of Mystery and sit in the waiting-for- your-fortune chairs and hear what he has to say: ‘There’s a big factory making army tanks down there. Lots and lots of folks are working, folks who will have money to burn at night. You get my drift?’
    Fat Man Sam and Pete the Alligator Man nod. ‘Yessiree,’ says Silas Meany the Man Without a Stomach. I hold my hair over my face and hear Peabody start whining in the back of our hauling truck.
    Pauline winces. I hold my breath.
    ‘This war ain’t gonna end soon, so what we’ll do is set up another show, a stay-put show in Poughkeepsie,’ Ellis says. ‘Some of you will come with me and some will finish out the year with this show and then go south for the winter.’ He looks over to the trucks. ‘What is that noise?’
    I grab Pauline’s arm. She looks at me and shakes her head very slowly.
    Then Bobby steps up. ‘One of the pigs has been feeling poorly and has been making an awful racket.’
    ‘Well, do something about it. Can’t have no sick pigs around here. I thought you said you knew how to take care of pigs.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ says Bobby, and then Ellis gets started telling about a new booth he wants to set up in Poughkeepsie, something he heard about from a show out in Chicago.
    ‘It’s called an African Dip. You put a coloured boy in a cage and people pay good money to throw balls at a lever. If they hit it right, the boy drops in the water. Pulls in bucket-loads of money, too.’
    Ellis laughs. I shudder. I can only imagine what he would do to my little dog.
    I tell Pauline as soon as we get away from Ellis that I think we better find a home for ourselves pretty quick. ‘Me too, Sweet Pea Bee.’ And then she goes off to help Arthur with the Tilt-A-Whirl.
    That night Pauline is feeling bad about leaving me all day. She wants to know if I want to play the ha-ha game. I sigh a few times to let her know I am not sure if she is worth my time. Then when I am afraid she might think about changing her mind, I tell her I will give her one more chance.
    We drag our bedrolls out onto the grass. Peabody snuggles up beside me. Pauline looks up at the sky. I am looking at my work boots.
    Pauline is so quiet I think she has fallen asleep. I snuggle up next to her. She slides her arm around me.
    ‘Bee, I have something important to tell you.’
    I am wide awake.
    ‘Are you listening?’
    I nod my head in the dark.
    Peabody looks up.
    ‘Ellis says I have to go join up with his show in Poughkeepsie.’
    ‘No, Pauline. I want to go to Florida.’
    Pauline sighs. I don’t like it when she sighs.
    She is quiet for a minute and then says, ‘Ellis told me I can’t bring you, Bee. He wants you to run the hot dog cart here.