A Magician Never Tells His Secrets

We pulled into a truck stop after a few hours. I recognised a couple of cars from back at the fairground, and concluded that they were carnival employees too. Tori, Peter and I all got out, stretching our legs, and Daw went into the shop to buy some bottles of water. I wondered over to the front of the Beetle, while Peter and Tori stayed by the rear. The sounds of their flirting drifted over to me on the wind. My teeth locked together and, taking a deep breath, walked to join Daw in the shop.
“Wow, tense in there,” I commented as she shut the fridge door, two bottles in her arms.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You don’t mind sharing do you?”
I shook my head and followed her to the counter, daring myself to ask.
“Is there something going on between you and Peter?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. A bottled water bounced off the linoleum and she turned to face me, eyes wide.
“What?!” She demanded. My curiosity crumpled like my confidence at her severe tone.
“It’s just . . . you didn’t seem to . . . you know . . . get along back there. In the car. I was just wondering if . . . if something happened,” I jaggedly stuttered out.
Daw laughed a dark chuckle and turned away from me. “No, nothing happened. That’s just the way it is.”
She didn’t elaborate and I waited until she’d finished paying to ask more.
“The way what is?”
“The carnival. Uncle Sam doesn’t like the freaks. The freaks don’t get along with the Europeans. The Europeans don’t get along with Uncle Sam.”
“I don’t get it,” I confessed, wildly confused. Daw sighed.
“It’s like, even though we don’t go to high school, we’re still teenagers. We have our groups. There’s the Europeans, The Freaks and Uncle Sam. And none of us really get along.”
“You serious?” I said, aghast. Who would’ve thought there’d be cliques at a carnival?
“Peter’s in with other Americans,” Daw said waspishly. “So he’s a jerk to me, his inferior. All freaks are lesser than the Uncle Sams or the Europeans. The only thing they agree on is how much we suck.”
I looked back through the glass sliding doors to where Peter and Tori were standing by the car, chatting amiably.
“Well that’s stupid,” I mumbled. “No one from other groups get along?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “Or they’re at least civil to each other. Precious Peter Prescott is friends with a European, Anton Volkov. They’re best friends, actually.”
“Peter and Anton are best friends?” I gasped. Daw nodded, confusion picking at her features.
“Why, do you know Anton?”
I shrugged. “Not really. I met him when I came to the carnival for the first time. He gave me one of his cards. Knew me by name.”
I said this all nonchalantly, as if these details hadn’t mattered at all. Hadn’t kept me up at night puzzling over them.
“He does that with everyone he gives a card too. He gets Vera, his physic girlfriend, to find out their names so he and Peter can freak them out a bit. It adds to his show.”
I nodded, but inside I wanted to shake my head. Silly me, to think them knowing my name was some sort of weird destiny thing.
“The adults all act above it, like there’s no division between everyone,” Daw continued. “But everyone knows they feel it too. Mr and Mrs Shi, the contortionists Mayling and Shaoran’s parents, hate the guy who looks after the Europeans, Vera’s father Prokhor. Prokhor blames them for having him thrown out of the carnival when he was twenty-one. And he and Mary Prescott are often at odds because she has no control over the European kids; they only listen to that bastard Prokhor.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “Who would’ve thought there’d be so much tension?”
Daw shrugged. “Look for long enough and you’re bound to find scars.”