Shan, Darren - Cirque Du Freak 02 - The Vampire's Assistant

"I doubt it," Evra said. "It was probably just a coincidence. Or fate." He paused. "Which is another thing: Mr. Tiny's first name is Desmond."

"So?"

"He tells people to call him Des."

"So?" I asked again.

"Put it together with his last name," Evra told me.

I did. Mr. Des Tiny. Mr. Des-Tiny. Mr …

"Mr. Destiny," I whispered, and Evra nodded seriously.

I was dying of curiosity and asked Evra a bunch more questions, but his answers were limited. He knew almost nothing about Mr. Tiny, and only a little more about the Little People. They ate meat. They smelled funny. They moved around slowly most of the time. They either didn't feel pain or couldn't show it. And they had no sense of humor.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Bradley Stretch," Evra answered darkly. "He used to be with the show. He had rubbery bones and could make his arms and legs stretch.

"He wasn't very nice. He was always playing practical jokes on us, and he had a nasty way of laughing. He didn't just make you look like an idiot: He made you feel like one too.

"We played a show in an Arabian palace. It was a private show for a sheik. He enjoyed all the acts, but especially liked Bradley's. The two started talking, and Bradley told the sheik he couldn't wear jewelry, because it always slipped off or broke because of the changing shape of his body.

"The sheik ran away and came back with a small gold bracelet. He gave it to Bradley and told him to put it on his wrist. Bradley did. Then the sheik told him to try shaking it off.

"So Bradley made his arm small and big, short and long, but he couldn't shake the bracelet loose. The sheik said it was magic and could only be removed if the wearer wanted to take it off. It was really valuable, priceless, but he gave it to Bradley as a gift.

"Getting back to the Little People," Evra said. "Bradley loved to tease them. He was always finding new ways to trick them. He made traps to hang them up in the air by their feet. He set their capes on fire. He squirted liquid laundry detergent on ropes they were using to make their hands slip, or glue to make them stick. He put thumbtacks in their food and he made their tent collapse and locked them in a van."

"Why was he so mean?" I asked.

"I think because they never reacted," Evra said. "He liked to see people get upset, but the Little People never cried or screamed or lashed out. They didn't seem to notice his pranks. At least, everybodythought they didn't notice …"

Evra made a funny noise that was half a laugh, half a moan.

"One morning we woke up and Bradley had disappeared. Nowhere to be found. We searched for him, but when he didn't turn up, we moved on. We weren't worried; performers join and leave the Cirque pretty much as they please. It wasn't the first time somebody had sneaked away in the middle of the night.

"I didn't think any more about it until a week or so later. Mr. Tiny had come to see us the day before and took all but two of the Little People with him. Mr. Tall told me I had to help the leftover pair with their duties. I cleaned up their tent and rolled up their hammocks — they all sleep in hammocks. That's where I got mine from. Did I mention that before?" He hadn't, but I didn't want to sidetrack him, so I said nothing.

"After that," he went on, "I washed their pot. It was a big black pot, set on a fire in the middle of the tent. The place had to have been full of smoke whenever they cooked because the pot was covered in grime.

"I took it outside and tried to scrape the grime — scraps of meat and pieces of bone — onto the grass. I scrubbed it thoroughly, then took it back inside. Next I decided to pick up the pieces of meat in the grass and throw them to the wolf-man. 'Waste not, want not,' like Mr. Tall always says.

"As I was picking up the meat and bone, I saw something glistening …"

Evra turned away and rifled through a bag on the ground. When he turned back, he was holding a small gold bracelet. He let my eyes linger on it, then slipped it on over his left hand. He shook his arm as fast as he could but the bracelet never moved.

When he stopped shaking his arm, he slid the bracelet off with the fingers of his right hand and tossed it to me. I examined it but didn't put it on.

"The bracelet the sheik gave to Bradley Stretch?" I guessed.

"The same," Evra said.

I handed it back.

"I don't know whether it was because of something really bad he did," Evra said, fingering the bracelet, "or if they were just tired of the nonstop teasing. What I do know is, ever since, I've gone out of my way to be polite to the small, silent people in the dark blue capes."

"What did you do with the remains of … I mean, with the scraps of meat?" I asked. "Did you bury them?"

"Heck, no," Evra said. "I fed them to the wolf-man, like I meant to." Then, in response to my horrified look, he said, "Waste not, want not, remember?"

I stared at him for a second, then began to laugh. Evra laughed, too. In a minute we were both rolling around on the floor in hysterics.