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

other little monster won’t cause any more trouble.”
    Which, Amos thought as Blades carried him around the end of the big top and toward the small enclosed area—which didn’t sound good at all.

• 9
    Blades threw Amos into the back end of a camper shell that was sitting on top of an ancient pickup parked near the back edge of the animal enclosure.
    “Oooofff!”
    Amos landed face-first in a pile of dirty T-shirts and socks mixed with empty bean cans and part of what he thought might be an antique slice of pizza.
    He rolled over and sat up, then pulled himself up onto the small bench next to the table.
    The inside of the camper looked about like Amos thought the inside of Blades’s camper should look—a dump. There were empty beercans and food containers everywhere, and six or seven used tubes of hair grease thrown on the floor mixed in with other dirty laundry.
    He heard a key in the lock and realized that Blades had locked him in the camper. This alarmed him until he saw that the window over the table was broken out and it would be a simple matter to slip across the table and out the window.
    He climbed onto the table and stuck his head out.
    “Get back in, kid.”
    One of Blades’s men—he could have doubled for Blades himself—was standing by the window.
    Amos ducked back in.
    There was another window over the double bunk, and he clambered up onto the bunk, but the same man could see that window as well.
    Amos moved back down to the table and sat on the bench.
    A cockroach that seemed the size of a small puppy crawled off a chewed piece of chicken on a paper plate on the table, and Amos slid farther off to the side.
    Well, he thought, it was bad, but itwouldn’t be long. He was supposed to meet Dunc, and when he didn’t show, Dunc would come looking for him and probably call the police, and before long the whole place would be upside down.
    He stopped thinking as a key clicked into the lock and the door opened and Dunc came barreling in to land in the same place as Amos had landed.
    “Oh, man,” Dunc said, sitting up, “this is disgusting.”
    “You think that’s bad—wait until you see the cockroach. You could ride him.”
    “How long have you been here?” Dunc asked.
    “Just a few minutes. I was figuring you’d come to rescue me.”
    Dunc ignored the dig. “I’ve figured it out.”
    “Figured what out?”
    “What’s going on here. It threw me for a little while because what seemed to be happening wasn’t really happening and only
seemed
to be happening, but once I gathered some data—”
    “Dunc.”
    “—the data backed up my calculationscompletely. It’s just that I had a little initial confusion because the data indicated what it didn’t really
seem
to indicate—”
    “I’m going to kill you and feed you to the roaches if you don’t stop and tell me what you’re talking about.”
    Dunc stopped. “I’m telling you.”
    “So I can understand it.”
    Dunc sighed. “Well, look—what did you find out before they caught you?”
    “Nothing.”
    “No, really. What did you see?”
    “Nothing.”
    “What did you put in your notebook?”
    “Oh. Something I didn’t understand. I just said the men seemed to be working but weren’t really working or doing work over they didn’t need to do over.”
    “My point exactly!”
    “It is?”
    “Sure. Don’t you see what it means?”
    Amos looked out the window where the sun shone off the greasy head of the man guarding the camper. “No. I don’t.”
    “Why would they do something over and over?”
    “Maybe because they’re stupid? I mean, some of these guys are pretty bad—right down there with bacteria and one-celled animals.”
    “It’s to ruin the circus.”
    “What?”
    “Sure. It’s simple once you figure it out. They do work over and over, seem to work when they aren’t, but in the end they get it done, or pretty much get it done. And Willy and Billy told us they were having trouble financially.”
    “You got all