The Tiger's Egg Read Online Free Page B

trailer fire that had almost killed him many years before. His terrible injuries had ended his career as an acrobat,and Gila said that this had robbed him of his good humor as well as his voice, although Miles was sure he must have been short of patience all his life. He poked Miles none too gently in the chest, and wagged his head from side to side like a metronome. Miles had become used to Stranski’s sign language, and he understood this as a reprimand for moving his head. He was sure he hadn’t moved at all, but he was wise enough to heed the warnings of a man who threw razor-sharp knives at him every evening, when he wasn’t sawing him in half.
    Stranski was no less gruff with Hector the monkey. It was the monkey’s job to sneak under the banked seats, pick the pocket of someone in the audience and slip the stolen wallet into Stranski’s own pocket without being noticed. Stranski would keep an eye out for the monkey’s little hand as it reached up from under the seats, and at the end of the act he would single out the unwitting victim and astonish him by producing the wallet from inside a colored handkerchief, before it had even been missed.
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    There was a lot to be learned in the days before the circus took to the road. During the day Milestended the circus zoo under Umor’s and Gila’s instruction. They taught him how to feed and care for the animals, how to keep them healthy and calm and how to end the day with the same number of limbs with which he started it. With every animal bite and aching muscle he felt himself grow in confidence and strength.
    Sometimes, when no one was around, he would try to talk with the lions, but they would gaze at him disinterestedly for a moment and return to their grooming, or to pacing the length of their wheeled cages. Then Miles would talk instead to Tangerine, who would poke his head out of Miles’s inside pocket and smile his lopsided smile at the lions. The life that Little had sung into the stuffed bear while she was still a Song Angel allowed him to climb like a koala and walk like a gin-soaked sailor, but his mouth was a row of clumsy stitches, and he was no more capable of uttering a word than he had ever been.
    Little worked with the circus band for most of the day, coaxing from them an unearthly music that grew sweeter as the days went by. The other performers, too, were tightening up their acts and perfecting their routines, and though Miles spent most of his time with the animals he was soon onnodding terms with everyone in the circus. Everyone, that is, except Doctor Tau-Tau. The fortune-teller’s wagon stood at the end of the field, shaded by a tamarind tree and with its curtains drawn day and night, and never a sign of its mysterious occupant. Miles passed the wagon every evening on his way home to Partridge Manor. Sometimes he would be startled by a jet of steam from the narrow stovepipe on the roof, or a burst of tuneless singing that would break off abruptly as he approached, and he felt his curiosity grow with every passing day.
    â€œHave you ever seen him?” Miles asked Little as he locked up the elephants’ pen for the night.
    â€œNo,” said Little. “There’s a small bird in his wagon—I’ve heard her talk, but from Doctor Tau-Tau I have only heard snores, and snores speak of nothing.”
    â€œI wonder what he’s hiding from?” said Miles.
    â€œMaybe he has two heads,” suggested Little.
    â€œOne called Tau,” laughed Miles, “and the other called Tau.”
    Little put her finger to her lips.
    â€œNobody’s listening,” said Miles, looking around.
    â€œI am,” said Little. “Listen. The bees are singing the flowers. That’s just the sound I needed.”
    â€œBees don’t sing,” said Miles. “That humming is made by their wings beating.”
    Little laughed. “Of course they sing, Miles. They hum that part of the One