“Don’t talk to her that way,” Sam said, taking a step forward. “Or I’ll—”
He didn’t finish his sentence.
Suddenly, everyone was moving. It was hard to tell exactly what happened: the group was a mass of hands and fists and wide-open mouths, shouting. Pippa was on the ground. Thomas was yelling. Robbie swung at Sam. Sam blinked as Robbie’s fist connected. Then Robbie was howling, doubled over, cradling his hand to his chest.
“What’s the matter with you?” His face was purple. “You got iron in your stomach or something?”
Scratchy let go of Sadowski and charged. Thomas dropped and stuck out his leg at just the right moment. Scratchy went sprawling, sliding on the pavement. A rock skittered out of his hand, and landed at the toe of Max’s boot.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Max said, bending down to retrieve it.
Then it was Gertrude’s turn. She let go of Sadowski’s arm and charged. Max wound up and threw. The rock whizzed through the air and hit Gertrude square in the chest. She reeled, turning a full circle and gasping for air like a fish pulled onto a fishing boat.
“Go on, Skeeter,” she panted. “Don’t just stand there!” The boy whose hair had been cropped close to the head, revealing pink patches of bare scalp, hadn’t moved. Now, at Gertrude’s command, he made a sudden lunge for Max. With the bare line of scalp in the center of his head, he looked like a particularly ugly variety of skunk.
“You’re going to pay for that,” he snarled, raising a fist. He was tall—much taller than Max. With her hands and pockets empty, she felt suddenly exposed. “I’ll crush you up and pick my teeth with your bones, I’ll wring you like a—”
He stiffened suddenly, as if an electric current had gone through him. For a second, he stood there, swaying on his feet. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled. Behind him, Sam was standing with his fist raised, looking as if he’d just swallowed a mouthful of dirty sock. Max knew that Sam hated fighting.
“It was just a little tap,” he said helplessly as Skeeter moaned at his feet. “Honest.”
“You really are a bunch of freaks,” Scratchy spat out. But his eyes were wide with fear. He and Robbie hauled Skeeter to his feet, supporting the boy’s weight between them. Gertrude was still sucking in breaths. She, too, looked afraid.
“I’d shut your mouth, if I were you,” Pippa said, her eyes flashing. She was on her feet again. Her stockings were torn and her knees bleeding. “Unless you want our friend Sam to shut it for you.”
“Is it morning already?” Skeeter muttered dazedly. “How long was I asleep?”
Sam was still frowning. “I don’t understand it,” he murmured. “I barely touched him. . . .”
Scratchy, Gertrude, Robbie and Red took off, bruised and humiliated, dragging the still-dazed Skeeter between them.
“And don’t come back!” Max shouted for good measure. “Or I’ll stake you on a spit roast and eat you for dinner!”
Eli Sadowski was still rooted in place, trembling, his face an ashen gray color. Pippa approached him cautiously, as though worried he would bite.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Did they hurt you?”
“Ch—children,” he stammered. His voice was as soft as the scratch of dry leaves against a pane of glass. “Mother always said to beware of children.”
“It’s all right,” Thomas said. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
Eli Sadowski’s watery eyes rolled back and forth. “Beware of bees because they sting,” he muttered. “Beware of horses because they kick. Beware of dogs because they bite. But most of all—beware. Beware!”
The children exchanged a bewildered look. Cuckoo, Max mouthed. Pippa scowled at her, then turned back to Mr. Sadowski. “Can we get you something? A glass of water?”
Sadowski blinked. “Water,” he repeated mournfully. “Young lady, water isn’t safe nowadays. Hasn’t been since the government started testing in 1892.”
Pippa swallowed a sigh. “Well, how about some tea? Or some lemonade? If you want to come inside—”
Sadowski snapped into focus. “Certainly not,” he said. “I’m far too busy—urgent business—must hurry off for the doctor. My brother, Aaron, is unwell. Must be all the mercury they’re putting in the wallpaper . . . or perhaps the poison in the air ducts. There’s no time to spare. Good day to you.” And with a short bow, he turned and scurried off down the street, his head rotating constantly back and forth, up and down, as if watching for dangers to materialize in the air.
“How about that,” Max said. “Not even a thanks a lot and see you Sunday.”
“I feel sorry for him,” Pippa said, shaking her head. She was staring up at the smudgy dark window, high above the street, from which they often saw Mr. Sadowski looking. “Imagine being cooped up inside all day long, for years and years and years? He must be very sad.”
“He’s bonkers, is what he is,” Max said. She retrieved the knives she had thrown, feeling better once she had tucked them safely in her pocket.
Back at the museum, Miss Fitch was in a foul mood.
“Where on earth have you been?” she snapped. “What’s happened to you? You look as if you’ve been put through a meat grinder—especially you, Philippa. Hurry up, hurry up. The afternoon performance starts in less than an hour.”
“The performance?” Max repeated. “But we don’t have any audience.”
“No back talk,” Miss Fitch said. She pushed a strand of graying hair from her face. She had changed into her normal clothing—black dress, black shawl, and black stockings—and mostly removed her makeup, although smudges of black mascara still clung to the skin beneath her eyes, giving her the look of a deranged raccoon.
“Besides, Mr. Spotswood is here.”
All four children groaned. Mr. Spotswood was ancient—Thomas had once estimated that he was pushing a hundred—and only ever came into the museum because the building now occupied by Dumfrey’s museum had formerly housed a florist’s shop, where years earlier, Mr. Spotswood had met his wife. Sometimes he spent whole afternoons wandering the exhibits, asking the performers if they had seen Millicent and complaining about the lack of flowers.
“He doesn’t count,” Max said.
“He falls asleep during the performances,” Pippa complained.
“And last time, he clogged the downstairs toilet,” Sam pointed out.
“Enough!” Miss Fitch screeched. Thomas, who had been on the verge of saying something, clamped his mouth shut. Miss Fitch sucked in a deep breath. “A visitor is a visitor. The show must go on! Now hurry upstairs and get cleaned up before I take a whip to each of you.”
“What’s crawled into her long johns?” Max grumbled as they started up the spiral staircase at the back of the museum, used exclusively by the performers to access the upper floors.
When they reached the second floor, however, the source of Miss Fitch’s bad mood became immediately apparent.
“Howdy, y’all!” Lash was standing in the Hall of Wax, leaning on the handle of his mop. Caroline and Quinn, the albino twins, were sitting, giggling, at his feet, wearing their best dresses, which were identical except for the color of their sashes: red for Caroline, blue for Quinn. “Come on in and join us! I was just telling the little ladies about the time that me and Dumfrey played a show in Longhorn, Texas, and the dust was so bad it blew the ladies’ skirts to their ears—”
“We can’t,” Thomas said regretfully. “Miss Fitch said we have to get ready for the afternoon show.”
“Did she now?” Lash straightened up. “All right, then. You heard the boy. Miss Fitch’s orders is Miss Fitch’s orders.”
“One more story, Lash,” said Caroline.
“Pretty please,” added Quinn.
“Another day, ladies, another day . . .”
“I can’t believe it,” Pippa muttered as they continued climbing. “A whole show, all for one stupid visitor.”
“Quit whining,” Thomas said. “At least you don’t have to
spend half your act folded up like a pretzel in a pillbox.”
“At least you don’t have to read Mr. Spotswood’s pockets,” Pippa fired back. “Do you know what he had on him last time? A pickle! A single pickle! Just sitting in his suit jacket!”
Max left the others arguing all the way up to the attic—“Neither of you has the right to complain,” Sam was saying, “when I’m the one who has to break my back lifting a boulder every day,” and Pippa snapped back, “Come off it, Sam, you could lift ten boulders without breaking a sweat.” Max decided to duck in and see Mr. Dumfrey. She wanted to ask him about adding her new blindfold trick to her act. His door was closed. She heard the murmur of voices from inside his office. She knocked anyway.
“Ah, Max!” Mr. Dumfrey exclaimed when she pushed open the door. “Come in, come in. Say hello to Howie—our newest employee!” And he gestured to the dark-haired boy sitting across from him, who turned to her, smiling.
Max opened her mouth to say hi and found she did not remember how. Her mind was a complete blank. All she could think was that Howie was the most beautiful—the most perfect—boy she had ever seen. His black hair fell neatly across his forehead. His eyes were a crystal blue, his nose was perfectly straight, his teeth as white as those of a dentist’s model.
“Hello,” he said with a wave. Even his hands were perfect. Maybe, she thought, he was another knife-thrower, like her. Maybe she was getting replaced. The idea made her heart lurch.
“You’re not a freak,” she blurted out. “There’s nothing wrong with you at all.”
“Now, now, Mackenzie.” Mr. Dumfrey made a tsking sound with his tongue. “You know how I feel about that word. Freak is just another word for marvelous. And Howie is quite a marvel. Show her, Howie.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Dumfrey.” Howie blushed prettily. He smiled at Max and her heart made an unfamiliar jumping motion.
“Go on, don’t be shy. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Just then there were footsteps on the stairs behind them. Howie turned around to look at Miss Fitch, who was standing red-faced in the doorway.
Except he didn’t turn around in his chair, as Max would have. He didn’t turn his body at all. He merely swiveled his head a complete 180 degrees, so that his chin was resting directly between his shoulder blades. Max couldn’t repress a gasp.
“You must be the new one,” Miss Fitch said in a reproachful tone, as if it were Howie’s fault that the museum existed in the first place. She completely ignored Max, and looked instead to Mr. Dumfrey. “Have you seen Lash—I mean, Mr. Langtry?” she asked icily. “There’s a smudge on the stage that needs cleaning. It’s an absolute disgrace. And I have several buckets of pins I need sorted from my needles.”
“I have not seen Lash since this morning,” Mr. Dumfrey said, removing his spectacles to polish them. “Have you looked in the Odditorium?”
Miss Fitch’s only response was a prolonged sniff. With another withering glance at Howie, she spun around and started back down the stairs.
Max was still watching Howie admiringly as he swiveled his head back to its correct position.
“How—how do you do that?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
“Born that way.” Howie leaned toward her and winked. And he swiveled his head in the other direction, so once again his head was turned entirely around to the back, with his chin pointed toward his heels. Max couldn’t help but laugh.
Mr. Dumfrey beamed. “Meet Howie,” he said, “the Human Owl.”
There was one person who wasn’t happy about Howie’s arrival: Sam.
“He doesn’t even do anything,” Sam muttered, pushing around his oatmeal with a spoon. “He just sits onstage and turns his head a few times. Big deal.”
“Shhh,” Max said sharply. “He’ll hear you.” In the week since his arrival, Howie had smiled at her four times, touched her arm twice, and laughed three times at something she had said—though she hadn’t been trying to make a joke.
Sam glared at her. “Does he have owl ears, too?”
“Do owls even have ears?” Pippa asked.
“Yes,” Thomas replied, without looking up from his book of brain teasers.
“I don’t care if he does hear me,” Sam said, pushing back his bowl of oatmeal.
Pippa stared at him curiously. “What’s the matter, Sam? Howie’s not so bad.”
“Yeah, Howie’s all right,” Max echoed, and then ducked her head, blushing.
Sam looked so furious, Max thought a vein might explode in his forehead. “Oh, yeah? Well, you don’t have to share a room with him. You don’t have to listen to him rattle on and on about his gift, and his legacy, and his mom, who could spin her head like a top, and his dad, who could fold his spine in half, and his brother, who has skin like a rubber turkey. I’m sick of it. Sick of it!” And Sam got up from the table so fast, he reversed his chair. He aimed a kick at it. The chair splintered immediately into pieces.
“What’s got into him?” Max asked, sliding Sam’s uneaten oatmeal across the table to her and digging in.
“Hormones,” Betty, the bearded lady, spoke up from her position in the corner. A newspaper was spread across her lap and she was carefully trimming her long brown beard.
“Hot blood begets hot thoughts,” said Smalls the giant, and then paused significantly. When no one responded, he clarified, “Shakespeare.” For years, Smalls had hardly spoken unless he was quoting some old poem no one had ever heard of. But ever since he had gotten a poem published in a small literary magazine known as The Weeping Willow, he had become practically intolerable.
“Twelve is a very hard year,” said the Great Goldini, the museum’s resident magician, as he fanned a deck of playing cards out on the table. “Of course, thirteen is even worse. And fourteen—don’t get me started on fourteen. Fifteen was no picnic, either. And sixteen—”
“We get your point,” Pippa said.
“Very hard,” Goldini murmured. Then he turned to Thomas. “Pick a card, any card.”
“Ace of hearts,” Thomas said, without glancing up from his book.
Goldini performed a fancy shuffle of the deck, tossed it up in the air and caught it one-handed, cut it twice, then, with a flourish, turned over the top card. It was the queen of spades. He stared at it for a moment. “That’s strange,” he said, scratching his head. “Must be a faulty deck.”
“The newest buds/are so often shorn/first,” Smalls boomed, and once again paused, as though expecting applause. When he was met with another silence, he frowned. “That one’s an original.”
“Very clever,” Betty said quickly.
“Sounds like something that came out of a book,” added Danny the dwarf. Quinn and Caroline both said “Lovely!” at the same time and then jinxed each other, and then double-jinxed each other.
The kitchen door flew open, and Howie appeared. His wavy hair was falling over one eye. He was wearing a neat button-down shirt and pants without a single hole or stain. Howie wasn’t an orphan, unlike the other children, as he made sure to remind them daily. (And, of course, there was no way to explain they were orphans only because Rattigan had made sure of it.) He worked the circuit like his parents and brothers. His uncle, who was blessed with the same gift as Howie, had even served as a bodyguard to the president of the United States. The only thing better than having eyes in the back of your head was having a head that could spin around to the back.
“So you see? I was born to be in the business,” he’d said to Max two days earlier, smiling his perfect smile.
Max dropped her eyes when Howie’s gaze fell on her. For the first time in her life, she felt embarrassed by her shabby jacket and its numerous pockets, and the boys’ pants she wore strung to her waist with a rope she’d stolen from a ship’s captain, and the cheap shoes Mr. Dumfrey had bought her after her last pair had developed holes. Howie looked like someone who had always had a place in the world, and would always have a place.
Max looked like she??
?d been plucked off the back of a dump truck and deposited directly in Mr. Dumfrey’s kitchen.
“Morning,” Howie said cheerfully as he came down the stairs. “What’d I miss? I passed Sam on the way down. He looked like he’d swallowed a snapping turtle.”
There was an awkward moment of silence. Thomas pressed his face even closer to his book so that his nose was barely a centimeter away from the print.
“Ah, yes, well.” Danny coughed. “Smalls was just reciting us some poetry. . . .”
Fortunately, he was saved from saying any more. Just then, they heard Mr. Dumfrey shout.
“Help!” His voice was muffled through the walls, but it sounded as if he was in the lobby. “Someone! Anyone! Come quickly!”
Max’s heart flattened all the way into her shoes. For a second, she was rocketed back in time, to the series of misfortunes that had occurred after Mr. Dumfrey had purchased a hideous shrunken head that resembled nothing so much as a shriveled apple. First, the head was stolen. Then Potts, the janitor, was found poisoned, and Mr. Dumfrey was accused of killing him.
Now something horrible had happened. Again.
She was flying up the kitchen stairs with the others even before she knew she was moving. Danny huffed next to her, and Betty’s beard streamed over her shoulder like a silken brown banner.
Together, the residents of the museum thundered into the lobby—
—and saw Mr. Dumfrey, weaving backward and forward, holding a teetering stack of cardboard packages in his arms.
“Someone, help!” Mr. Dumfrey swayed on his feet, desperately trying to prevent the packages from tumbling.
Smalls rushed forward to come to his aid. Max, seeing that Mr. Dumfrey was safe, felt a rush of relief, followed immediately by a quick pulse of annoyance. “You shouldn’t scream like that,” Max said. “I thought someone had lost a head.”
“Quite the reverse, dear Max!” Mr. Dumfrey said, looking quite cheerful now that the packages were safely deposited on the lobby floor. “We’ve found a head, you see. We’ve found three of them!”