Dinosaur Summer Read Online Free PDF Page A

stretched the name CIRCUS LOTHAR, and below that, in smaller letters, LOTHAR GLUCK'S DINOSAUR CIRCUS, and on a second banner below that, Beasts from the Edge of Time!
    Peter had not been to a circus since he was five years old, and he remembered only a confusion of bright colors, large cages with bored-looking animals, a huge woman in a frilly dress, and a clown in a spotlight with a bouquet of flowers. This circus, he saw immediately, was different.
    A few big drops of rain pattered from the gray sky. "Gluck hasn't made money in more than six years," Anthony said as he popped a tattered black umbrella over their heads. "I guess the public's gotten tired of hearing about dino disasters. Thirty of them died of worms at the World's Fair. Big disgrace. Cruelty to animals. Before that, in 1935, a venator got loose in a circus in Havana and killed twenty people. The newspapers blamed everybody in the business. So Lothar Gluck is at the end of his rope, through no fault of his own."
    They walked past the concession stands and the sideshow tent to the ticket booth. A husky bearded attendant who might have doubled as a strongman checked them against a list and nodded permission for them to go in.
    Immediately, they stepped from mud onto dry sawdust and the air went from warm and moist to dry and musty with a sharp smell that made Peter wrinkle his nose. He had smelled horses on his uncle's ranch in Kentucky and cows in a dairy barn, but he had never smelled anything like this. Then he remembered visiting a big pet shop in Chicago and the rich sour odor of parrots and macaws. This was more primal, alarming; it stirred deep memories.
    Peter wondered if it was actually thesmell that kept people away from the circus.
    They came to the cages, eight of them arranged in two rows on either side of the end of the first tent. Most were covered with tarps. Whatever was inside the cages was quiet and still. Ahead, through a canvas flap furled and tied to a cross-bar between two poles, Peter saw the third ring under the big main tent, and bleachers in shadow beyond. A man and woman were riding a dappled gray gelding around the small ring, taking turns standing on its back and leaping off as the other leaped on. No music, no sounds but the pounding hoofs and the grunts and comments of the performers. The man wore loose pants and a white shirt and the woman nicely filled out what looked like a black swimsuit.
    Of course, Anthony noticed her. Peter noticed her as well.
    As they walked between the cages, a tall powerful-looking man ducked under a lifted cut in the canvas. "You the photographer?" he asked in a voice stuck somewhere between black velvet and gravel.
    "And writer," Anthony said.
    "I'm Vince Shellabarger."
    "This is my son, Peter. He's my assistant." Anthony and Shellabarger shook hands, and then the big dinosaur trainer turned to Peter and glowered down at him. His judgmental sea-green eyes glinted with bits of turquoise. Straight white-blond hair stretched thin over his brown scalp. He had a long chiseled jaw and prominent cheekbones, a solid barrel gut and broad heavy shoulders. A brilliantly white shirt strained across his chest. Gray curly chest hair billowed over the V in his shirt and thick biceps threatened to rip the rolled-up sleeves. For a moment, he scared Peter.
    "Hello, Peter," Shellabarger said. He stuck out his hand and smiled warmly. Suddenly Peter was no longer afraid, but proud to shake hands with the man.
    "Is anybody else here?" Anthony asked.
    "Not yet. We're having a last supper sort of thing at five. I thought I'd introduce you to the animals before the show. Mr. Gluck--Lotto to his friends--is around someplace. Let me see if he's free."
    "How big's the crowd going to be?" Anthony asked.
    "How the hell should I know?" Shellabarger said.
    Shellabarger left them by the third ring and went off looking for Gluck. They watched the man and woman and the horse, practicing over and over again the same leap, the man running