Betti on the High Wire Read Online Free PDF

war than the younger kids. Scarred from the inside out. But Old Lady Suri from the bean stand said that foreigners don’t want to adopt older children because we’re less likely to become Melons. Old children like me are stuck like bean paste to the ways of our real home.
    “I have a good feeling about them,” continued Auntie Moo. “I think you’re going to like it there.”
    “I like it here,” I said with my arms crossed and my nose high up in the air. But then I looked around and shut my Big Mouth. The leftover kids were looking at the pictures, oohing and aaahing. All of them wanted to be chosen by a Melon. All of them wanted to go to America. All of them except for me.
    And then Auntie Moo told George that he was going to America too. We were going to live in the same village because the Buckworths’ friend was going to adopt him. Our village in America was not the biggest village and not the smallest, but somewhere in between. We all leaned over to see the picture of George’s new life. A young woman stood in front of a purple plastic thing filled with water. Auntie Moo said that the plastic thing was called a “swimming poo” and that children in America swam in it.
    “Why will George have to swim in that weird little plastic thing?” I practically shouted. “Why can’t he just swim in a river or a swamp like NORMAL kids?”
    None of the leftover kids were paying any attention to me because they were too busy staring at the lady who was going to steal George away from the circus camp. She was smiling, and underneath the picture in very neat and pretty letters she had written: I can’t wait to see you, George.
    George stared at the picture too, and his eyes looked like they’d pop straight out of his head. “She’s my mommy?”
    “She’ll be your adopted mommy, yes,” laughed Auntie Moo.
    George wouldn’t let anyone hold the picture after that. He was afraid it would get chewed or torn up.
     
    THE NEXT NIGHT, before George and I left on an airplane for America, we all sat in a circle in the lion cage. Auntie Moo put a bowl of peanuts in the center and sat down too. I had to tell one last important story ...
    “The beautiful girl was ready for her special show up in the sky. When she looked down at her audience the soldiers were there. Hundreds of soldiers. Mixed in with all the circus people. And those soldiers smiled and laughed—”
    “What?” asked Toro, tugging on my shirt. “What’s happening, Babo?”
    I had to repeat every part of the story straight into Toro’s ear because his hearing was messed up. I skipped over some parts fast and went on:
    “But the soldiers were afraid of the beautiful circus girl because of her freaky eye. Just like they were afraid of the other circus freaks. So she was chosen to go away—to a very foreign place—all because of those lousy soldiers and the lousy war.”
    “Some soldiers are very nice, Babo,” said George.
    “SHHH!” I swatted him. “So ... With her Big Mouth, the beautiful circus girl was definitely going to tell the foreign Melons all the mean stories about the war. Because they should know. But —”
    But just then, when I was getting to the good part, a huge explosion rocked the circus camp.
    BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
    We shook and so did the lion cage. FLASH! The sky lit up with colors. Whites and reds. Gray smoke filled the air. BOOM! All of us hit the floor and covered our heads with our hands.
    “Babo?” said George.
    “Boom,” said Toro.
    “Children,” whispered Auntie Moo. “Stay down.”
    Then there was another BOOM, even closer. We heard big boots running down in the village and lots of shouting. Soldiers were in the woods, not far from the pig yard. They were speaking gobbledygook words. It was impossible to tell where they came from and whether they liked us or not.
    But there was only so long we could duck down without getting fidgety. We were way too used to big blasts and marching men and a smoky sky. George grabbed