Dunc and Amos Hit the Big Top Read Online Free PDF

the job was done right and would force people to go through the ticket booth.
    “But what?” Blades turned on him, his eyes flattened into narrow slits, the smoke from his cigarette passing in front of them. “Have you got something to say?”
    Amos shook his head. Quickly. “No. Not me. I’m fine. I was all wrong. I can see how it needs to be done over.”
    “Then you do it.”
    “What?”
    “We’re going to take a break. You take down this whole canvas wall and put it up again the right way.” While he spoke, he moved from tie rope to tie rope, untying them and letting them drop until there was nothing holding the curtain up. It wobbled back and forth and fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. “There. And I expect it to be done when I get back, understand?”
    He waved at the other men, and they left Amos standing there looking at the canvas and poles.
    “It’s impossible,” he muttered. Even with three or four men it would have been hard. Alone, it simply couldn’t be done.
    And it didn’t have to be done. It didn’t make any sense. The wall had been up perfectly, and Blades had just been making more work to do.
    Because he doesn’t like me
, Amos thought. But the truth was, Blades didn’t know him, and he probably didn’t like anybody very much. Probably had dreams about doingthings to all the people he didn’t like. Probably turned them into frogs, and …
    He shook his head.
    It wasn’t just Blades. All the men must be involved in whatever it was, or they would have been mad when Blades knocked the wall down. They did all the work of putting it up and just laughed when he knocked it down.
    It didn’t make any sense.
    He looked around, hoping to see Dunc come walking up. Dunc might know what was happening, what this all meant. That was the sort of thing Dunc did the best. Figuring things.
    But he wasn’t there. Amos was alone with an impossible job in an impossible situation that didn’t make any logical sense. He frowned, thinking of what Dunc had said to do. What was it?
    Oh yes, the notebook. He had to keep track of all these weird things.
    He took the notebook out of his pocket and the stub of pencil and began to write:
Men doing work over they don’t need to do
. He thought a moment, then added:
Men not doing work at all?
    So intent had he been on writing that he didn’t realize he wasn’t standing alone. Somebody had come up on his side and was reading over his shoulder.
    “What’s this—you writing a book, kid?”
    Amos looked up to see Blades again.
    It was impossible. He had just walked away in the opposite direction and yet here he was—he must have run around the big top to come up in back of him that way.
    “Just some ideas I had.” Amos flipped the notebook shut and started to put it back in his pocket. “I haven’t had time to start on the curtain.”
    “Not so fast. Let me see that.” Blades grabbed for the notebook, but Amos jerked it away and took off.
    He made four steps, and Blades caught him by the back of the shirt and pulled him up, clawed the notebook out of his hand, and held Amos kicking under one arm while he read what Amos had written.
    “I thought so.”
    “Thought so what?”
    “I thought you and that other brat were spies. Are they on to us?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Sure you don’t. You just happen to be where I’m working, and you take a note like this, and you don’t know what’s happening? Let me change the question. How long have the Bobbsey Twins known what’s going on?”
    “Bobbsey Twins?”
    “Willy and Billy—the two do-gooders who own this pile of junk they call a circus. How long?”
    “I really don’t know what—”
    Blades shook him, once, and it felt as if his eyeballs were going to fall out.
    “Talk, kid!”
    “If I knew anything, I would tell you. Honest.”
    Blades ignored him and started walking, Amos tucked under his arm like a suitcase.
    “Where are we going?”
    “Where you and the