Dunc and Amos Hit the Big Top Read Online Free PDF Page A

him.
    “This—the sideshow. They call it a geekshow because that’s what they used to show—a geek.”
    “Just exactly,” Amos asked slowly, “what is a geek?”
    Clive snorted. “Man, you kids don’t know nothing.”
    I know enough not to swallow dirt
, Amos thought, but he remained quiet.
    “Geeks was wild men, kid.” He rolled his eyes and pretended to be crazy. “Wild men from the Borneo jungles. They sat in a cage with a chicken, and when the crowd was pitched right, they’d grab the chicken and bite the head off it.”
    So that
, Amos thought,
is what my sister means when she calls me a geek
.
    “ ’Course they didn’t swallow it,” Clive said sarcastically. “They just bit it off and spit it out. Your basic geek or even your top-line geek wouldn’t hold a candle to a good swallower.”
    “Oh.” Amos was again working mentally on the notes.
Geeks, chickens, swallowers
.
    “It’s the puking.” Clive pulled the banner up and tied a rope off.
    “Pardon?”
    “It’s the puking that makes the difference. Some will get sick when a man bites the head off a chicken, but to really make them puke, you got to swallow a sword. It’s a real gagger.”
    Maybe
, Amos thought,
if I go away quietly
 …
    “Proudest I ever been was when I had a full ten banger. Ten people, and all ten blew chow. Let’s see a geek top that!”
    All the time he was talking, Clive kept working, and the banner was now fully back up and tied down.
    “Come inside the tent.” He moved back into the tent, and Amos followed. He didn’t want to follow, he was sure something awful would happen if he followed, was sure he would be a gagger if he followed, but he followed just the same. He couldn’t help it.
    But inside Clive just helped him set up panels to make booth areas for each sideshow. There were no other acts around, and when he had finished helping, Clive waved him away. “Go help somebody else. You got to keep moving, you want to be a circus man—got to keep moving. Of course, if you want to stay and learn how to swallow, I could teach you.”
    Amos shook his head. “No—I’m not cut out for it.”
    Clive looked at him suspiciously. “You ain’t a geek, are you?”
    Only if you ask my sister
, Amos thought, but he shook his head. “No. I’m just a rousty and maybe going to be a trapeze person.”
    “Fallers,” Clive said. “That’s what they are. Do good until they slip, then they’re fallers. Splatter all over the place. Biggest mess you ever saw. No, you want job security, you got to be a swallower.…”
    He was still mumbling as Amos moved around the corner of the tent, took two steps, and ran face-first into a man’s chest.
    “Watch where you’re going, kid.”
    Amos looked up and found himself staring directly into the eyes of Blades.

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    Amos gulped, wondering if that made him a genetic swallower. “Nothing.”
    “You rousting?”
    Amos nodded. “I was helping put up the geek—I mean, the sideshow.”
    Blades studied Amos. It was, Amos thought, about like a snake studying a frog it was about to eat. Oh great. Another swallowing joke.
    “It doesn’t look to me like you’re doing anything. Come on.”
    Blades waved Amos to follow and moved off down the midway away from the big top to where some men seemed to be working. Theyall looked like Blades. Dirty jeans, dirty T-shirts, hair back in ducktails with lots of grease, scuffed and dirty engineer boots. All of them, every one including Blades, had a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth.
    They were putting up a canvas wall to shield the side of the circus from people who would try to get in without paying, and when Blades approached them with Amos, one of the men laughed.
    “Hey, Blades—we’re almost done. What do you want us to do?”
    Blades looked at what they had been doing and shook his head. “Naw, it’s all wrong. Tear it down and do it over.”
    “But—” Amos started to say. Even with no experience, he could tell