Read Online Wonder by Dominique Fortier - Free Book Online Page B

was simply an announcement that visitors would have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see with their own eyes “The Most Amazing Man in the World, Sole Survivor of the Worst Calamity to Strike the Planet, A Man Whose Name is Written in Letters of Fire” and, to kindle the crowd’s curiosity even more, pictures of erupting volcanoes and devastated cities were held aloft. Baptiste would use that time to say hello to Numa, who always greeted him with half-closed eyes and a husky growl, and to the white manatee, to whom he fed lettuce or spinach swiped from the kitchen, which the animal chewed with a melancholy air.
    He rarely joined the other Phenomena, some of whom had regarded him with suspicion from the very first day, as if afraid Baptiste would try to steal their places or oust them from the top of the bill. It’s true that the tent wherethey performed had some of the longest lines, and that shortly after his arrival, the incredible “Vegetable Man,” that incomparable artist (who had the remarkable ability to carve, at lightning speed, carrots, potatoes, and humble parsnips into exquisite flowers, ships with sails unfurled, birds whose finest feathers could be seen), had been dismissed. But it was also being whispered that the Vegetable Man had threatened Rochester with the knife that never left his hand and that, with disastrous foolhardiness, he’d even dared to carve a turnip into an unflattering caricature of Mr. Bailey himself, who did not take such matters lightly.
    In the middle of this ill-assorted crowd that made up the circus, one part of which was always the same while the other part changed practically from city to city, Baptiste was just as alone as he’d been on his island on the day after the eighth of May. Aside from the few words exchanged every month with Rochester when the latter handed over his pay, in cash, careful to separate the bills before letting them go, his only real conversations were with Elie, Numa the lion, and the manatee. Perhaps because it was so implacably alone of its species, Baptiste had never realized the creature didn’t have a name.

 
    O NE AFTERNOON , E LIE TOOK HIM TO MEET HIS mother. Alice was frail, blonde, and grew red as a poppy almost as soon as she caught sight of Baptiste, whom her son had invited for tea. He heard her scold the boy after she’d pulled him hastily into the tent: “I meant a friend your own age, you dolt!” But she reappeared shortly, carrying a teapot and three cups, one of which wasn’t chipped at all.
    “Sir, I’m delighted,” she said softly to Baptiste who held her hand in his cautiously, afraid of crushing her fingers. Above her upper lip was a thin white scar as fine as a thread, which seemed to pull her mouth up very slightly when she smiled, as she did often and ingenuously.
    “I would like you to know, this is the first time my son has brought one of his friends home.” She broke off, looked around, and moved her hand a little, as if to excuse herself, repeating: “Well, home, in a manner of speaking.…” Baptiste realized then that the tent was not uniformly grey but had been patched with countless pieces,some of a solid hue, others with faded patterns; all had, from exposure to the elements, become various tones of beige and grey and dirty white reminiscent of the colour of rain clouds.
    The three drank their tea sitting on the grass while the sun went down slowly and moved behind the horizon, plunging the camp into a bluish dimness. They were still there when the first stars appeared. At a gesture from Alice, Baptiste picked up the sleeping Elie and placed him on a pallet spread with a woolen blanket inside the tent. The moon was high in the sky now, round and chalky like a clown’s mask. Alice shivered and Baptiste put his arm around the woman’s shoulders to warm her.
    Quite naturally they became a family, something none of them had ever known, as Alice was an orphan, a child of the circus, while Elie didn’t have a