Passage. Part 91

She worked her way along, walking carefully along the soft floor and holding on to one strut and then the next one, and after a few minutes the struts on the side she was on disappeared, and there was nothing to hold on to on either side of her. I must be at the end of the tunnel, she thought, peering into the darkness.

A light shone suddenly, mercilessly, in her eyes. She put up her hand to protect her eyes, but it was too bright. "The explosion!" she thought.

The light swung suddenly away from her. She could see its long beam as it swung, like the beam from a flashlight. There were little specks of dust in it. It swung around in a big arc, lighting the struts behind her as it went, and she could see they were the underneath part of a grandstand, full of people.

Up above the tunnel where she had been standing was a big red-and-gold sign that said "Main Entrance."

The light swung in front of her and then stopped and shone on a man standing on a round box dressed all in white. Even his boots were white, and his top hat. The light made a circle around him.

"La-deez and gentlemen!" he said, really loud. "Kindly direct your attention to the center ring!"

"I like this part the best," someone said. Maisie turned. A little girl was standing next to her. She had on a white dress and a big blue sash. She was holding a fluffy pink puff of cotton candy on a paper cone. "My name's Pollyanna," the little girl said. "What's yours?""Maisie."

"I love the circus, don't you, Mary?" Pollyanna said, eating cotton candy.

"Not Mary," Maisie said. "Maisie."

"Ladeez and gentlemen!" the ringmaster said, real loud, "we now present, for your entertainment, an act so sensational, so stupendous, so amazing, it has never been attempted anywhere!" He pointed his whip with a flourish, and the spotlight swung again so that its smoky beam shone straight up at a little platform at the top of a narrow ladder. There were people standing on it, dressed in fancy white leotards.

Maisie stood staring up at them, her mouth open. They looked like Barbie dolls, they were such a long way up. Their leotards sparkled in the smoky bluish light of the spotlight. "...those wizards of the tent top," the ringmaster was saying, "those heroes of the high wire!"

A band struck up a fanfare, and Maisie looked across the ring to see where the band was. They were sitting in a big white bandstand, wearing bright red jackets with gold decorations on their shoulders. One of them had a tuba.

"Look!" Pollyanna said, pointing up with her cotton candy. Maisie looked up again. The people on the platform were bowing and smiling, waving one of their arms in big wide swoops and hanging on to the ladder with the other one.

"We proudly present," the ringmaster was saying, "the daring, the dazzling, the devil-may-care..."

He paused, and the band played another fanfare. "...death-defying... Wallendas!"

"Oh, no," Maisie said.

The band started playing a slow, pretty song, and one of the girl Wallendas picked up a long white pole and stepped onto the end of the high wire. She had short blond hair like Kit's. "You have to get down!" Maisie shouted up to her.

The girl Wallenda started out across the high wire, holding her pole in both hands. "There's going to be a disaster!" Maisie shouted. "Go back! Go back!"

The girl continued to walk, placing her feet in their flat white shoes carefully, carefully. Maisie tilted her head back, trying to see the top of the tent. She could see the Wallendas, waiting for their turns to go out on the high wire, but everything above them was black, like there wasn't a tent above them at all, just sky.

If it was the sky, there'd be stars, she thought, and just then she saw one. It glittered, a tiny white point of light, high above the Wallendas' heads. So maybe it's all right, Maisie thought, looking at the star. It glittered again, and then flared brightly, brighter even than the spotlight, and turned red.

"Fire!" Maisie shouted, but the Wallendas didn't pay any attention. The girl Wallenda reached the middle of the wire, and a man Wallenda started out toward her.

Maisie ran as hard as she could across the center ring, her feet sinking in the sawdust, over tothe bandstand. "The big top's on fire!" she shouted, but the band didn't pay any attention to her either.

She ran over to the conductor. "You have to play the duck song!" she cried, "the song that means the circus is in trouble! 'The Stars and Stripes Forever!' " but he didn't even turn around.

"See!" Maisie said, yanking on his sleeve and pointing up at the fire. It was burning a line down the roof of the tent now, making a jagged red tear.

"Get down!" she shouted to the Wallendas, pointing, and one of the Wallendas saw the fire and started climbing down the ladder. The girl Wallenda who looked like Kit was still out in the middle of the wire. One of the men Wallendas threw her a rope, and she dropped her white pole and grabbed it. She wrapped her legs around it, and slid down.

"Fire!" somebody shouted in the grandstand, and all the people looked up, their mouths open like Maisie's had been, and began to run down off the grandstand.

The fire burned along the high wire, along the rigging, moving lines of flame. Like messages, Maisie thought. Like SOSs. Somebody grabbed Maisie's arm. She turned around. It was Pollyanna.

"We have to get out of here!" Pollyanna said, tugging Maisie back across the ring toward the main entrance.

"We can't get out that way!" Maisie said, resisting. "The animal run's in the way."

"Hurry, Molly!" Pollyanna said.

"Not Molly," Maisie said. "Maisie!" but the band had started playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" and Pollyanna couldn't hear her.

"Look," Maisie said, reaching inside the neck of her hospital gown. "My name is Maisie. It's all written right here, on my dog tags."

They weren't there. She fumbled wildly at her neck, searching for her dog tags. They must have fallen off, back there while she was standing in the entranceway, looking up at the Wallendas.

"Well, Margie or whatever your name is, we better get out of here," Pollyanna said. She took Maisie's hand..

"No!" Maisie said, wrenching it away from her. "I have to find them!" She ran wildly back across the center ring. "I have to," she shouted over her shoulder as she ran, "or they won't know who I am when they find my body."

"I thought you said we can't get out that way," Pollyanna called to her. "I thought you said it wasn't clear."

"Clear," her heart doctor said, and the jolt jerked her really hard, but it must not have worked.

The heart monitor was still whining.

"All right," her heart doctor said. "If you've got anything, now's the time to try it," and Dr. Wright said, "Start the theta-asparcine. Start the acetylcholine.""Hang on, honey," Vielle said. "Don't leave us," but she had to find her dog tags. They weren't in the main entrance. She dropped to her knees and dug in the sawdust, sifting it in her hands.

A lady ran by, kicking sawdust onto Maisie's hands. "Don't-" she said, and a big girl ran by, and a man carrying a little boy. "Stop it," she said. "You're mas.h.i.+ng it! I have to find my dog tags!"

But they didn't listen. They ran past her into the darkness of the tunnel. "You can't get out that way!" Maisie said, grabbing at the big girl's skirt. "The animal run is in the way."

"It's on fire!" the big girl said and yanked the tail of her skirt away so hard it tore.

"You have to go out the performers' entrance!" Maisie said, but the big girl had already disappeared into the darkness, and a whole bunch of people were running after her, kicking the sawdust all over, trampling it, stepping on Maisie's hands.

"You're messing it all up," Maisie said, cradling her bruised fingers in her other hand. She struggled to her feet. "This isn't the way out!" she shouted, holding up her hands to make the people stop, but they couldn't hear her. They were screaming and shrieking so loud she couldn't even hear the band playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever." They were stumbling against her, shoving her, pus.h.i.+ng her into the tunnel.

It was dark in the tunnel and full of smoke. Somebody shoved Maisie, still on one knee, and she fell forward, her hands out, and came up against hard metal bars. The animal run, she thought, and tried to pull herself up to standing, but they were pressing her flat against the bars, mas.h.i.+ng her chest.

"Open the cage!" somebody shouted.

"No! The lions and tigers will get out," she tried to shout, but the smoke was too thick, her ribs were being crushed into the bars of the cage, and if she didn't get out of there they were going to push her chest right through the bars.

She started to climb up the side of the run, pulling up with one hand and then the other, trying to get above the pus.h.i.+ng people. If she could get up on top of the animal run, maybe she could crawl over it to the door.

But it was too high. She climbed and climbed, and there were still bars. She pulled herself up hand over hand, away from the screaming people, and now she could hear the band. They were playing a different song. A German song, like the one in The Sound of Music, only it wasn't the band, it was a piano with a light, tinny sound, like the one on the Hindenburg.

She had been wrong. It was the Hindenburg, after all. It wasn't the animals' run, she was in the rigging inside the balloon, and she had to hold on tight or she would fall out of the sky. Like Ulla.

Far below her, in New Jersey, the children piled up against the cage, screaming. "You can't get out that way," she shouted down to them. The fire was all around her, the roaring flames like snowy fields, so bright you couldn't look at them, and she knew if she let go, she would fall and fall, and they wouldn't know her name.

"My name is Maisie," she said, "Maisie Nellis," but there was no air left in her lungs, only thesmoke, thick as fog, and the bars were hot, she couldn't hold on much longer, they were melting under her hands. The snowy fields under her got brighter, and she saw it wasn't snow, it was apple blossoms. Beautiful, soft white apple blossoms.

If I fell onto them, it wouldn't hurt at all, she thought. But she couldn't let go. They wouldn't know who she was. They would bury her in a grave that only had a number on it, and n.o.body would ever know what had happened to her. "Joanna!" she shouted. "Joanna!"

"Nothing," Maisie's heart doctor said.

"Increase the acetylcholine," Dr. Wright said.

"It's been four minutes," the heart doctor said. "I think it's time."

"No," Dr. Wright said, sounding mad. "Come on, Maisie, you're a whiz at stalling. Now's the time to stall."

"Hang on, honey," Vielle said, holding tight to her white, lifeless hand. "Hang on."

"Let go," somebody down below her said. Maisie looked down. She couldn't see anything but smoke.

"Just let go," the voice said, and a hand reached up through the smoke, a hand with a white glove on.

"It's too far," Maisie said. "I have to wait till the Hindenburg gets closer to the ground."

"There isn't time," he said. "Let go." He reached his gloved hand up farther, and she could see a raggedy black sleeve.

Maisie scrunched her eyes up, trying to see him through the smoke, trying to see if he had a red nose and a banged-up black hat. "Are you Emmett Kelly?" she called down to him.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, kiddo," he said. "I'll catch you." He stretched his white-gloved hand up really far, but it was still a long way underneath. "We have to get you out of here."

"I can't," she said, clinging to the burning bars. "When they find me, they won't know who I am."

"I know who you are, Maisie," he said, and she let go. And fell and fell and fell.

"No pulse," Vielle said.

"Her heart was just too damaged," her heart doctor said. "It just couldn't stand the strain."

"Clear," Dr. Wright said. "Again. Clear."

"It's been five minutes."

"Increase the acetylcholine."He caught her. She couldn't see him for the smoke, but she could feel his arms under her. And then all of a sudden the smoke cleared, and she could see his face-the red nose, the brown painted-on beard, the white down-turned mouth. "You are Emmett Kelly," she said, squinting at him, trying to see his real face-under the clown makeup. "Aren't you?"

He put her down so she was standing in the sawdust, and tipped his banged-up hat and made a funny bow. "There isn't much time," he said. He took her hand in his white gloved one, and started running across the big top toward the performers' entrance, dragging Maisie with him.

The whole roof was on fire now, and the poles holding up the tent, and the rigging. A big piece of burning canvas came cras.h.i.+ng down right in front of the band, and the man playing the tuba made a funny "bla-a-a-t-t-t" and then went on playing.

Emmett Kelly ran with Maisie past the band, his big clown shoes making a flapping up-and-down noise. A clown in a funny fireman's hat ran past them dragging a big fire hose. An elephant ran past, and a German shepherd.

Emmett Kelly led her between them, pulling Maisie out of the way of a white horse. Its tail was on fire. "There's the performers' entrance," he said, pointing at a door with a black curtain across it as he ran. "We're almost there."

He suddenly stopped, pulling Maisie up short. "Why'd you do that?" Maisie asked, and one of the on-fire poles came cras.h.i.+ng down, bringing the performers' entrance cras.h.i.+ng down with it, and the ladder the Wallendas had stood on. The roof of the tent came down on top of all of it, on fire, covering it up, and smoke boiled up.

The clown in the funny fireman's hat shouted, "There's no way out!"

"Yes, there is, kiddo," Emmett Kelly said. "And you know what it is."

"There isn't any way out. The main entrance is blocked," she said. "The animal run's in the way."

"You know the way out," he said, bending down and gripping her by the shoulders. "You told me, remember? When we were looking at your book?"

"The tent," Maisie said. "They could've got out by crawling under the tent."

Emmett Kelly led Maisie, running, back across the ring to the far side of the tent. "There's a Victory garden on the far side of the lot," he said as they ran. "I want you to go over there and wait till your mother comes."

Maisie looked at him. "Aren't you coming with me?"

He shook his head. "Women and children only."

They reached the side of the tent. The canvas was tied down with stakes. Emmett Kelly squatted down in his funny, too-big pants and untied the rope. He lifted up the canvas so Maisie could go under. "I want you to run to the Victory garden." He raised the canvas up higher.Maisie looked out under the canvas. It was dark outside, darker even than the tunnel. "What if I get lost?" she said and started to cry. "They won't know who I am."

Emmett Kelly stood up and reached in one of his tattered pockets and pulled out a purple spotted handkerchief. He started to wipe Maisie's eyes with it, but it wouldn't come all the way out of his pocket. He yanked on it, and the end of it came out in a big knot, tied to a red bandanna. He pulled on the bandanna, and a green handkerchief came out and then an orange one, all knotted together.

Maisie laughed.

He pulled and pulled, looking surprised, and a lavender handkerchief came out, and a yellow one, and a white one with apple blossoms on it. And a chain with Maisie's dog tags on the end of it.

He put the chain around her neck. "Now hurry," he said. "The whole place is on fire."

It was. Up above, the roof of the tent was one big flame, and the grandstands and the center ring and the bandstand were all burning, but the band was still playing, blowing on their trumpets and tubas in their red uniforms. They weren't playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever," though. They were playing a really slow, sad song. "What is that?" Maisie asked.

" 'Nearer, My G.o.d, to Thee,' " Emmett Kelly said.

"Like on the t.i.tanic," Maisie said.

"Like on the t.i.tanic," he said. "It means it's time to go."

"I don't want to," Maisie said. "I want to stay here with you. I know a lot about disasters."

"That's why you have to go," he said. "So you can become a disasterologist."

"Why can't you come, too?"

"I have to stay here," he said, and she saw that he was holding a water bucket.

"And save people's lives," Maisie said.

He smiled under his painted-on, sad-looking expression. "And save people's lives." He squatted down and lifted up the canvas again. "Now go, kiddo. I want you to run lickety-split."

Maisie ducked under the canvas and stood poised in the opening a moment, clutching her dog tags, and then looked back at him.