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usually much of a reason to do it in Sea Cliff. I guess that’s part of the beauty of the circus coming to town. It shows up, and suddenly the whole town feels special, because there’s a reason to dress up and go out together.
                I’m just getting ready to go out with Mason when there’s a knock at the door. I open it, trying to work out who it could be. It’s Thomas. He looks great tonight in a casual shirt that shows of the muscles of his upper body and dark pants.
                “Thomas? What are you doing here?”
                He smiles, looking very good as he does it. He looks me up and down, his eyes lingering on me. “I figured that you wouldn’t be able to keep away from the circus.” He looks a little more serious now. “I don’t like that you signed up, but I’m not just going to abandon you. And honestly, I’d like to see what goes on there. I want to know what you’re getting yourself into.”
                “Plus it should be fun,” Mason adds, coming into the hallway, ready to go out.
                “That too,” Thomas admits. “You look amazing tonight, Leela. Really. That dress really suits you. Come on, we can walk over together.”
                I nod. Thomas might have tried to stop me from signing up for the circus, and he might have threatened to tell my mother, but he’s still my closest friend in Sea Cliff. Plus, it will be fun, going to the circus not just with my brother, but also with a good looking guy who’ll be sure to attract attention. “I’d like that.”
     
     
     

 
    Chapter 5
     
     
    I t doesn’t take long to walk over to the Circus of Curiosities. The main tent is huge, easily bigger than any house, and covered in bright red cloth. Around it, there are wagons and trucks of all descriptions, smaller tents that people obviously sleep in and caravans that don’t seem to have anyone in them at the moment.
                Thomas leads the way into the tent. A large man on the door, dressed in clothes cut from glittering silver cloth and wearing a strange kind of half mask, takes money from us for Thomas and Mason. It isn’t much. Just a dollar each. It’s hard to see how the circus can make much money like that. Especially when I get in free for showing the card Dr. Dex gave me.
                When I get inside, I understand. At the center of the tent, there is a large, open ring surrounded by clear plastic screens. Beyond those are rows of benches, and on those benches is practically everyone in town. Everyone, packed in close so that there’s barely any room for the three of us. We find a spot on one of the front benches together, with me sitting between Thomas and my brother. The benches are packed tight enough that I have to press close to Thomas, feeling the strength of him as he sits there.
                Around us, the excitement is building. People are murmuring. What will the circus be like? What will the acts involve? What will happen?
                We get an answer when clowns make their way into the ring. I say clowns, because they have the red noses, and they’re dressed in those bright harlequin costumes pieced together from other things so that they look like shining Christmas tree baubles as they move. Yet they’re more like acrobats, really. They flip and they spin as they move into the ring, each one of them as graceful and muscular as a highly trained athlete. One of the women among them runs at the toughened plastic around the tent, leaps up onto it, and then springs for a rope suspended above the crowd. She runs along it as though it is a wide road and then starts scaling one of the supports holding the tent up. She climbs and she climbs, clinging on as it arcs out over the ring.
                Meanwhile the other “clowns” have started to build a kind of human pyramid, laughing and joking as they do it, stretching up