Freaks and Fortune

"I'm dying, Ivy."
"You are not dying, Cal."
"One kiss goodbye, Savannah?"
"Fat chance. Even if you were on your deathbed," she replied, not even looking up from her book.
"You're no fun."
"And you're sick," I said. "Open up."

I had been trying to get a melancholy Cal to take his cold medicine for the past ten minutes. He would refuse, insisting that he was going to die soon anyway, and that the "yucky" medicine couldn't stop him.

"It won't be long now..." he said in a sad voice.
"Oh, would you shut up?" Aqua spat, working blue-tinted gel into his hair in preparation for his first show.
"Will you come to my funeral, Gregory?"
Aqua sighed and ignored him.

It had been three days since the "Dad Incident", and Cal refused to talk about it. The day after he arrived back at the cabin, he said nothing. He didn't move, talk, or so much as breathe. The second day was quite like the first. Aqua swore he heard crying, or at least saw a bit of movement, but nobody believed him. The third day, Cal took a deep breath and emerged from the blanket. Then, he erupted into a fit of coughing and sneezing. Cal had gotten sick from standing in the rain for so long, and was in bed with a fever.

"I don't think I'll ever leave this Circus," Cal mused. "I'm going to die right here, in this tiny little cabin."
"Please take this," I begged, positioning the spoon at his lips.
He slowly blinked his shadowed eyes and replied, "No. It's supposed to taste like grape, but it really -- UGH!"

I'd slipped the spoon past his lips in mid-sentence. He gulped and the slimy cold medicine trickled down his throat.

It was Wednesday, my day off, so I waltzed down to the Elephant Ring to find Ravi. I was pleased to see that someone else was working Elephant Clean-up duties. It was a small boy with mousy hair and skin the color of a walnut shell. His familiar yellow STAFF polo was stained with sweat. I chuckled... He'd get used to it.

Ravi was in the pit, sitting with his back against the stone wall. He jumped up when he heard me coming and pretended to be stretching.

"Ninety-nine, one-hundred, one-hundred-one..." he muttered, pulling his right arm across his body.
"Liar!" I teased. "You are such a slacker!"
He breathed a sigh of relief and even let out a small laugh. "I thought you were my father!"
"Are you supposed to be practicing or something?"
"Yeah... Sort of..."

I laughed.

We ended up where Ravi had started, our backs against the stone wall of the pit.

"I had this nightmare," Ravi was telling me. "Where you, me, and Ravi -- the elephant, that is -- were on the moon."
I giggled. "Sounds terrifying."
"It's not funny! It really was scary. We couldn't get back on the spaceship because the evil robot locked us out."
"This is sounding familiar."
"And Ravi -- the elephant, I mean -- didn't have his space suit. And the robot wouldn't let us in, so Ravi suffocated!"
"Space Odyssey, much?"

He huffed angrily and scowled at me.

"You just don't understand the complex emotions that-"
"Wah, wah!" I teased, trying to coax his brilliant smile from hiding.
"I need new friends," he laughed, giving me a shove.

"Yeah, and maybe a new hobby. Why not try knitting instead of prancing around on elephants' backs?"
"Okay, I do not prance!"
"Really? Because all that jumping about looks a bit like-"
"Shut up!" Ravi interrupted, hissing.
"Huh?"
"Stop talking, be my girlfriend."
"Ravi!"

"Hey, Nina!" Ravi yelled, slinging an arm around my shoulder.

Nina appeared at the top of the arena. She waved wildly and shouted a greeting.

"Gross," I muttered under Ravi's arm. "You're sweaty."

Nina descended the bleachers. I could sense Ravi panicking. He grew more tense as Nina got closer. She jumped over the high safety wall and gracefully landed in the pit.

"Gimme a kiss," Ravi ordered under his breath.
"No." I warned. "No way"
"When she gets close to us, I am going to kiss you."
"Ravi Hastin, if you kiss me, so help me God, I will pinch your knee so hard that you'll cry like a baby."
"Hmph."

Nina approached us. I shot Ravi a deadly glare. He avoided my eyes.

"Hey!" Nina looked as if she were about to burst with happiness. "I knew you two would get together eventually!"

"What's going on, elephant boy?" I breathed, faking a smile.
"Why, Ivy dear, I just told Nina here that we were dating!" Ravi said, a little too loudly.
"And why on earth would you do that..." I asked through my teeth. "Dear?"
"I just thought that she would want to know..." Ravi lied, then shot Nina a plaster-smile and rested his head on my shoulder.

Nina smiled wide and clapped her hands a couple times. She took in a deep breath and then gasped.

"Oh! I haven't told Anthony yet!" she exclaimed. "Have you told him?"
"No... No... Not yet..."
"He'll be so happy!" she said. "I can't believe you haven't even told your best friend that you're dating some one!"
I laughed. "Well, boys will be boys, I suppose!"
Ravi dug his elbow into my side.
Nina laughed. "I'll go tell him!" she shot me a knowing look. "Boys!"
"Yeah," I agreed, glancing at Ravi. "Boys."

Nina raced off, gliding effortlessly across the pit and up the stairs to go tell Anthony the "news".

"Why?" I groaned, throwing Ravi's arm off my shoulder. "Why would you tell Nina, the biggest gossip in the entire Circus that we were dating?"
"I panicked!" he cried, defensive. "She asked me if I had a girlfriend and I just blurted out your name!"
"Ravi!"
"Sorry..."
"Well, I've got a feeling that Anthony isn't going to be too happy."
"He'll be fine. He'll think it's funny," Ravi muttered, scowling.

I caught sight of Ravi's watch. It had been almost two hours since I'd left Cal. I sighed and stood, brushing the dirt off my clothes.

"I've got to go check on Cal-"
Ravi made a disgusted face. He still held a grudge against Cal for breathing fire at one of his elephants almost three years ago.
"He might have burned down the cabin by now." I thought about it... Then added: "Literally."

I flashed a quick double take to Ravi's watch. It had an elephant on it. The minute hand was a tiny arrow, but the hour hand was an elephant's trunk. I laughed lightly.

"Seriously. New hobby, my friend."

And then I left to check up on the fire breather.