Dunc and Amos Hit the Big Top Read Online Free Page A

something, you did it until you liked it.
    Dunc thought he was crazy. “So what about getting sick,” Dunc asked him, “or hitting your thumb with a hammer?”
    “Same thing,” Amos had told him. “If you want to learn to like it, you just put your thumb on a rock and start hitting it with a hammer. It might take a while, but you’ll come to love it.”
    “You’re nuts.”
    Amos didn’t care. He believed in it. “You get your better brand of immunities that way. It’s called the doing-it-immunities. I got it from my uncle Alfred—the one who picks his feet? He’s never been sick a day in his life, and he swears by it.”
    “He swears about everything.”
    “Still …”
    Amos had always hated spicy food, couldn’t stand to sprinkle even a little pepper on it, and was applying his theory to eating the chili dog.
    He turned bright red. “It’s the sauce with the little seeds in it that’s bad. If you swallowthe seeds whole, they don’t hurt, but if you bite them …”
    He trailed off and took another gulp of Coke and a deep breath while Dunc shook his head.
    “So,” Amos gasped. “What have you figured out?”
    Dunc neatly stuffed his napkin and paper hot-dog holder into his empty paper Coke cup and shrugged. “I said I think I’m starting to figure things out, but it’s not all clear to me yet.”
    “Well, that’s good, because nothing is clear to me—I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” Amos wadded his trash into a ball and threw it at the trash barrel, missed, picked it up and tried a hook shot, missed, picked it up and stood over the barrel and dropped it, and a gust of wind blew it sideways and he missed again. He finally picked it up, leaned over the barrel, and threw the cup and napkin straight down as hard as he could. It went in. “Two points.”
    “The problem is, we aren’t covering enough ground,” Dunc said, flipping his own trashcup over his shoulder to fall delicately into the exact center of the barrel.
    Amos turned from the trash in disgust. “I still don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
    “What’s going on here at the circus.” He turned to face Amos. “I need more information, more data, and we aren’t covering enough ground.”
    “Oh, man, give it a rest!”
    “What do you mean?”
    Amos held his hands up. “You’re always seeing mysteries in everything. There’s nothing strange going on in this circus unless you count some of the men working for it. It’s just a tacky old circus getting tired and run down.”
    Dunc shook his head. “No. There’s something else going on here, something I can’t quite pin down. Something just … that … little … bit wrong.”
    “Right,” Amos said. “Like when the parrot made me swear a lot and talked to us and told us about a buried treasure, and we wound up blowing half the town away for some moldy wheat—that little bit wrong?”
    “No.”
    “Or when you got me snotted by a rotweiler?”
    “No.”
    “Well, then—admit that you’re wrong this time and that nothing strange is happening.”
    Dunc shook his head. “I can’t. I just know it, Amos—there’s something odd happening here, and I can’t figure it out. We need more information.”
    “We?
I
don’t have a problem.
I
don’t think there’s anything wrong happening. Why do
we
have a problem?”
    “Because we’re partners—I’m helping you on the trapeze, and you’re helping me on this.”
    Which of course was true and Amos knew it was true—they were partners, best friends for life—and Amos knew he was going to help, knew he had to help.
    “All right.” He sighed. “What do you need?”
    Dunc went back to the table and sat down, using his fingers to make imaginary diagrams. “The secret to everything, about everything, is knowledge. I have a feeling thatsomething is going wrong, but we need to spread out our efforts and learn more.”
    “How do I spread out my effort?”
    Dunc smiled.