It had been a crazy end to the month of July in the valley of Elmwood. The storm that had arrived with the weekend had come unannounced and caught everyone by surprise.
Its path through town was marked by a trail of broken glass and mangled awnings. The dappled light that shaded the length of Main Street had also been shattered, as several of the honey locust trees that lined both sides of the road lay broken and battered, their limbs twisted and snarled in the power lines overhead.
Workmen hoisted up high in metal buckets, dressed in tool belts and hard hats, worked at speed to restore, or repair where they could. There was nothing they could do to salvage the trees, so they discarded them like broken promises, cutting away the branches that threatened to increase the power outage to stores and homes with the discordant buzzing of chainsaws.
Shopkeepers armed with brooms and trash cans attempted to make sense of it, recovering what they could and removing what they couldn’t as they went about their early morning preparations. Stepping carefully over piles of roof tiles that had been yanked out like old teeth and scattered among the strips of roofing felt that had been peeled back like the skin of a discarded onion, they busied themselves, clearing the way for the Monday shoppers that would soon be arriving.
At the very start of Main St., a crowd had gathered at the entrance to the Old Library, their voices sounding like whispered prayers as they contemplated the damage to the Centennial Cottonwood; a tree that had been planted when the town had been built.
The storm had been heartless and the great tree had suffered its wrath. One of its primary limbs—a branch that took two schoolchildren holding hands to circle its girth—had snapped under the relentlessness of the wind, crushing the stone commemorative bench that sat beneath it, rendering it into several pieces. It wasn't just street furniture and trees that had been damaged; it felt as if tiny pieces of the town’s history had been erased along with the injuring of an old friend.
Five miles outside of town sat the farm where B-Jay the magnificent red Beetle car lived. It too had borne witness to the storm's fury, but the Rocky Mountains had protected it from much of the wind's anger, choosing instead to deposit a month's worth of rain overnight. Rain that had since dissipated due to the ongoing heat wave and the daily temperatures that sat in the high 90s. Compared to town, they had been lucky with only a couple of rows of sweet plump corn being flattened, alongside some old, minor roof repairs that had been further damaged.
It was midday when B-Jay stirred, still feeling slightly tired and sleepy. His sleeping pattern had been altered not only by the Saturday night's change of weather but on Sunday too, when the sleepover had been subject to another unpredictable event with the appearance of Thaddeus McTweedy. On neither of the two nights did he manage to get to sleep before sunrise.
Outside, the world was busy with the sounds of machinery humming and throbbing its way across the landscape. He looked out of the garage window to see what events were unfolding to see a swath of green and yellow harvesters crawling across the horizon, slowly and purposefully swallowing everything in their path. Their long metal snouts lowered into each of the cornrows, one after another, neatly tucking the plucked corn into their capacious bellies, leaving nothing more than a cloud of fine, dusty chaff in their furrowed wakes.
Every few yards, the spinning auger on the side of the machines swung outwards toward the accompanying trailers, depositing a steady, rushing stream of clean gold kernels into them. By the time the harvesters reached the end of each row, what had been a dense forest of green was nothing more than a fallow field ready for next season's planting.
High above, the harvest dinner bell brought a circling of Red-tailed Hawks and Kestrels, who hovered above the machines, their sharp eyes locked on the moving vehicles for any displaced rodents seeking to avoid being swallowed up with the sweet corn.
B-Jay returned his focus back to the garage, remembering the guests that had stayed over from the previous night's sleepover.
Above him, hanging upside down from a single strand of spider silk, dangled the sleeping Thaddeus McTweedy; experienced thespian of the performing arts with a specialty for musicals, or at least that is what he had professed to everyone.
On his dashboard lay the crumpled form of the Pinocchio puppet, its chest rising and falling ever so slightly, revealing where Zippo the rather theatrical ant had chosen to sleep, his head just being visible above the nape of the puppet's collar.
B-Jay wondered if his other friends, Maxwell the rather large St. Bernard dog, Cressida the proud and sassy black cat, and Aruna the wise and rather knowledgeable Great Horned Owl, had made it home safely in the early morning hours when they had chosen to depart. He certainly hoped that they had fared better than Pinocchio had at the hands of Captain Grogbeard and his horde of swashbuckling pirates in the previous night's tale.
Minutes later, Zippo crawled out from the underbelly of the puppet.
“Morning B-Jay!” he announced, stretching out his tiny ant hands and wobbling his antennae before aligning his baseball hat. “Is Thaddeus awake? Boy, can he tell a tale. I think it was at least another hour after you went to sleep that we finally finished talking. He sure is a very interesting person. I can’t wait to revisit the Pinocchio adventure after all the acting tips he gave me last night. He really does know his stuff. Did you know he performed on Broadway?”
“No—I don’t believe I was awake for that tale,” replied B-Jay, just as Thaddeus was descending from his upside-down position, his legs splayed outwards as his round arachnid body produced a few more inches of fresh silk.
“Well, maybe I will tell you too,” said Thaddeus in his deep, sleepy Scottish accent. “But it is rather a long tale that needs a wee bit of background to it, so maybe we should save it for the next sleepover.”
“I look forward to it, but I have to leave you with that thought as I promised to take Zippo back to the cottonwood tree and it is already midday. Would you like to travel with us, maybe meet the others for a while?” asked B-Jay, adjusting his side mirrors before checking his indicator lights were working safely.
“I have a rather busy day today,” replied Thaddeus, “but I don't plan on heading into town for a few days yet, so I am sure we will get the chance. I have a couple of things I want to take care of before I settle in at the local Playhouse. The local Shakespeare actors will be arriving sometime this week to begin their preparations for next month's Shakespeare in the Park, and I think I am right in saying that this year they will be performing ‘Hamlet.’ I want to make sure they get their lines memorized correctly and there is always something to do backstage. Never a dull moment in the performing arts, you know.”
“No, I guess not,” responded B-Jay, having no real clue what goes on at the Playhouse. “Well, I suppose we will see you later then,” he said, starting his engine.
“Aye, well if you need me I will be in the barn for a wee while; I need to see what tasty morsels are hiding amongst all that fresh hay,” he replied, shuffling toward the garage door, his eight legs all moving in perfect unison and at an incredible speed for such a small spider. As he got to the door he tipped his tam o' shanter hat before scuttling in the direction of the barn.
“Did you know he came to America from a place called ‘Scotland’?” asked Zippo, positioning himself on the dashboard, ready for the drive. “Apparently he came by trunk. And that trunk was stowed aboard a ship, which is a big thing that floats on water, supposedly. He said it was several days before he got here. That must have been some adventure.”
“Well, we must ask him to tell us that story sometime,” said B-Jay as he drove along the gravel path before turning left onto the road. “That must be quite a tale.”
As he turned out of the driveway, he was faced with the sight of a small tree lying in the ditch; a juvenile Aspen that had been uprooted by the storm. Clods of fresh dirt and sod still clumped around its twisted roots, while its branches rustled helplessly in the slight breeze in a last cry for help, knowing that the midday sun would eventually sap the last of what little hope it held onto, reducing it to nothing more than a collection of frazzled twigs.
“Ooooo, I just had a thought,” said Zippo to himself, turning the knob on B-Jay’s radio. “I get to ride shotgun, so I get to choose the music.”
“So what kind of music are you going to choose?” chuckled B-Jay, giving a little toot of his horn while wondering what music ants listened to.
“I don’t really know,” replied Zippo, turning the dial until he heard a voice before seating himself on the dashboard.
“You’re tuned into KGPR, 89.3 on the FM dial. I’m Mike Donahue and I will be keeping you company all the way through until the drive-time show when our guest today will be town historian Ken Robison. Ken will be giving us a fascinating insight into the life of a very famous dog called ‘Shep.’ That’s coming up at 4 p.m., which gives us plenty of time for some good ol' country and western tunes between now and then. Up next is an old favorite of mine from the one and only Dolly Parton. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart in 1974, but before we go back in time with ‘Jolene,’ we have a community announcement about a show that’s coming to town. Starting tomorrow night in the town park and running until Friday night is the world-famous Cirque du Soleil. Among the clowns, magicians, and other acts, it features the best acrobats and trapeze artists in the world, including the world-famous Volante Valentino. Valentino holds the record for a triple somersault from bar to bar without the aid of a safety net. This is said to be extremely dangerous so don't try this at home, kids. Fun for all the family and the tickets are on sale at the library as we speak. Now, let's not keep Dolly waiting... here she is with Jolene...”
Zippo waited until the music started before turning off the radio.
“I thought you wanted to listen to some music, Zippo,” said B-Jay, his rearview mirror rattling with confusion as he pulled up next to the cottonwood tree.
“No time for that, we have plans to make,” replied Zippo, moonwalking along the dashboard before spinning on his hands. He stopped suddenly. “Did you not hear what Mikey Mike said?”
“He said quite a lot if I remember rightly,” replied B-Jay, still confused.
“Adventuuuuure,” said Zippo; his words were long and drawn out in time with his eyelids, which flickered slowly up and down in a suggestive manner.
“Adventure? What adventure?” came the echoing voice of Digger Bo as he tumbled from the burrow, covered from head to foot with dry earth. He shook himself violently, disappearing behind a dust cloud.
“The Cirque du Silly,” said Zippo, leaping from the dashboard before going into a backflip. “The circus is coming to town!” he hollered as loud as his tiny ant lungs could muster.
“Have you ever been to the circus?” questioned Aruna as he flew down to a lower branch, his talons grasping tightly as he landed—the wind from his massive wings dislodging Zippo's baseball hat.
“No,” answered Zippo, readjusting his hat. “Is it fun?”
Cressida looked up from the base of the tree, her ears twitched, and her expression narrowed in disbelief as she turned toward him. “How can you be so excited about something you obviously know nothing about?”
“Oh that's easy,” replied Zippo, pointing his finger to his little ant brain. “It costs money for tickets. Human fun always involves money, so it stands to reason.”
Aruna clicked his beak twice before speaking. “Well, I believe there are people dressed in funny clown suits that do daft things and the humans seem to find them hilarious. Some of them even cry with laughter. Then there are acrobats who perform tumbles much like Digger does and that generally is accompanied by oooh, aaaah noises, so yes, I believe you could say the circus is very entertaining and a lot of fun. Or at least the humans think so.”
“I knew it,” said Zippo, clicking his fingers. At which point he turned to Digger Bo for a double high-five move they had been working on and began singing. “Five up high, five down low, to the circus we must go!”
“Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” cautioned Aruna. “There will be lots of people heading to the park. The show only comes once a year, which means it is likely to be jam-packed to the rafters—as the saying goes.” He then proceeded to spin his head around, as if checking the surroundings, before scratching his left wing with a careful twitch of his beak.
“Where is Maxwell?” inquired B-Jay, noticing that for once he wasn't under the tree.
“I think he must have decided to stay at home to catch up on his sleep,” guessed Cressida, who was also feeling the effects of the weekend. “For once I have to agree with him. I could do with a cat nap myself.”
Zippo, feeling that they were going off topic, asked, “Sooooooo, are we going to the circus? I am sure Digger Bo would love the chance to see professional acrobats and if Mr. Valentinianio, or whatever his name was, is going to perform the world record, maybe Digger Bo could get some useful tips from watching him perform his ‘not to be tried at home’ tumble.”
“I have an idea,” voiced Aruna, who had satiated his itchy wing. “How about if I fly out to the park later tonight and see what's what. It would seem prudent to know how the adventure is going to proceed so that we can avoid any mishaps like the one that happened at the Halloween parade.”
“Oh I see,” voiced Cressida, who was still feeling slightly guilty, especially as they all now knew how Pinocchio ended up on the sidewalk. “Am I to be a permanent piñata, or can you guys forgive me and move on to eating the candy? I said I was sorry!”
“You were never not forgiven, Cressida,” chuckled Aruna with a clicking of his beak. “I am sure it was accidental and I only mentioned it as a concern for the amount of humans we will obviously have around us. We have to find a way to negate any risks. We have to be safe if we are to have fun. So, I will fly there tonight and we can all meet up tomorrow for an update. If we can do it safely then we have a new adventure to look forward to. Now, I suggest we all catch up on our sleep.”
“Sounds like a plan, Stan,” voiced Zippo in a robotic voice as he shuffled forward with intermittent jerks of his arms and legs.
“Who is Stan?” asked a confused Digger Bo, the bristles on his fluffy chin wiggling in the breeze. “Will Stan be coming with us?”
“Turn of phrase, buddy,” replied Zippo laughing, before twisting around in a circle, animating his point.
“I will meet you all here tomorrow then,” said B-Jay, starting his engine, pleased that he could get some extra sleep to clear the fog from his exhaust. And with that, he turned around and headed home.
The day proceeded at a slow pace, the summer heat slowing time to a crawl. Day turned to night and night turned to day and thankfully in between were no more unexpected surprises. Then, before you could say ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,’ everyone had arrived back at the tree, all feeling refreshed after catching up on lost sleep.
As B-Jay pulled up, he noticed Maxwell chasing Digger Bo around the assault course. It seemed they were having fun together. Digger Bo was launching himself up and over the branches expertly with a series of well-executed tumbles while Maxwell seemed to prefer the quicker and more painful route of charging straight ahead, branches whipping and snapping back into place after he had plowed through them; his tail wagging at roughly the same speed as the branches.
Cressida watched them from the base of the tree, stopping the paw that was washing her cheek to say, “It will only end in tears—don't come crying to me when one of you gets hurt.”
Aruna, seeing B-Jay pull up, flew down from his high branch on the cottonwood tree, landing on the grass next to Zippo who was doing a handstand to see how long he could hold it. Zippo was shot forward by the force of his wings and for a fraction of a second looked like he might just pull off a triple tumble.
“Sorry!” Aruna said apologetically, not giving any thought to the wind his massive wings generated.
“So, how did things go?” questioned B-Jay as they all gathered around him, eager to hear if the adventure was going to happen.
“Yes,” asked Zippo, brushing the earth from his Jedi robe and choking as he inhaled half of the dust that flew up from it. “What’s the—cough—411, Boss?”
“Well, I have good news and bad news,” replied Aruna, clicking his beak. “Which would you like first?”
“Is this a quiz?” asked Maxwell, thinking he might have to pay attention; his tail wagging furiously behind him, sweeping the ground as if trying to hide the evidence of all the snapped twigs and torn leaves that he had strewn everywhere. He was still breathing hard from all the running, his tongue hanging to the side of his drooling mouth.
“Well, the good news,” said Aruna quickly, eager to report, “if we get there early enough we can park near the main tent. They leave it open wide because of the heat and we should be able to get a good enough view of the proceedings. The bad news, which I overheard while scoping out the main tent, is that we will not get to see Mr. Valentino perform his act on the final night. Two of the acrobats were speaking before rehearsals saying that he had sprained his ankle in training. Thankfully, he only performs as the last act on the final night so they don't have to cancel the circus. They plan to announce it at the very end and hope that when he appears on crutches that the crowd are sympathetic; disappointed, but hopefully they will understand that these things happen. So that is the bad news.”
“Bad news? Nay, that's not bad news, that's great news!” came a voice from the footwell of B-Jay's back seat. “Aha, here it is, I knew it had to be somewhere!”
“Thaddeus? What are you doing here?” they all cried out in surprise as the tiny Scottish spider appeared, crawling toward them.
“Well, I lost my ‘sporran’ and I had searched everywhere in the garage, so I assumed I must have dropped it in the car during the puppet tale the other evening. I was looking around the backseat when all of a sudden Mr. B-Jay here started accelerating down the drive and I fell into the footwell. Lucky for me it was on the floor of the footwell.”
Zippo laughed, spinning his hat around. “I do that a lot; it’s best to hang on tight when he accelerates.”
“I thought I felt something as I was driving,” said B-Jay, tooting his horn, his engine chuckling. “I felt an itch and just presumed I had a loose bolt. Well, that’s a relief.”
Thaddeus attached the sporran to his kilt, then jostled his body into a natural position for a creature with eight legs; body down low, legs bent, like a linebacker waiting for the snap.
“So how is this good news, Mr. Thaddeus?” asked an inquisitive Cressida in an amiable tone, her ears pricked upright, giving him her full attention.
“This is not good news—this, my dear friends, is great news. It is an opportunity. When the lead actor cannot perform, another gets the chance to be the star. Aye! The show must always go on. Who do we know that can step up to that limelight? Who do we know that can perform a triple tumble?”
“Oh my,” said Zippo grinning, knowing straight away where Thaddeus was taking the conversation. “Genius!” he said before turning to Digger Bo. “How would you like to go for that world record, buddy? How would you like to be the star of our best adventure yet?”
Before Digger Bo could even contemplate what Thaddeus was suggesting—that it was he who was going to stand in for Mr. Valentino on the final night—Aruna was thinking over all the obstacles that would need to be overcome before they could even consider it. And that was before knowing that Digger Bo was even going to go through with what seemed like a most ambitious undertaking.
“There is a small problem that I foresee, Mr. McTweedy,” said Aruna. “How are we going to get away with hiding the fact that he is a badger in front of a packed tent full of humans with spotlights shining all over him? Even if he could pull off the triple tumble, which I have seen him do many times, how do we hide the fact that he is not a human?”
“Let me see, I know they’re in here somewhere,” fussed Thaddeus, pulling out all manner of objects from his sporran—a bag of dead flies, a torch, a sewing kit, several reels of thread, a clutch of safety pins all joined together—all landing on the grass before him as he sought out something specific. “I will need a piece of paper to write on; aha, here they are!” he cried, as his arms stopped whirling around like a windmill, throwing objects into the air like a malfunctioning juggler, finally settling on three rolled-up measuring tapes.
Before he finished the sentence, Zippo appeared from behind the tree, holding out his clipboard.
“Ah, that will do nicely!” voiced Thaddeus, unrolling the three tape measures at the same time as grabbing the clipboard. He made his way over to Digger Bo like an overworked waiter, four arms carrying things and four legs running. As he stopped in front of Digger Bo, he became a whirlwind of activity, speaking out loud as he worked.
“Well, as you well know, having spent a lifetime in the performing arts—stand up straight please, Mr. Bo, that’s it, head straight—I have become quite proficient in all departments—arms out wide please, thank you—and one of my favorite jobs was working in the wardrobe department.”
As he talked aloud, he was busy moving Digger Bo around, with three tape measures taking measurements simultaneously while also scrawling a bunch of numbers on the clipboard. No one spoke as they watched, amazed at not only how fast he was moving but at how professional he looked.
“There,” he said, “aye, that should do it. You can relax now, Digger, I have what I need.” As soon as he finished, he took one of the flies out of the bag and popped it into his mouth before putting everything else back in his sporran. “No time for a lunch break,” he said chewing. “Too much to do; you have to eat as you work when there is a production at stake.”
“That was quite impressive, Thaddeus, but what exactly were you doing and how does this solve our dilemma, if you don’t mind me asking?” questioned Cressida, who hadn’t even attended to her grooming for the entire time, being too impressed for once to even consider it.
“Well, young lady, if we are to pull off this impossible feat, we need a way for Digger Bo to not only blend in, but stick out so spectacularly that people cannot help but look at him. But they will not see a badger. I am going to make him an outfit that not only hides his true form and not only helps him with his aerodynamics, but makes him shine. I will make him an outfit from the finest spider silk. I will give him an outfit that looks and feels wonderful. And I will give him wings!”
“You know, I believe this might just work. Can you have the outfit ready by Friday, Thaddeus?” asked Aruna, who was so excited he was bobbing up and down and blinking quickly.
“I most certainly can, and we will still have enough time to formulate a plan of operations, assuming of course, our star wishes to shine. What do you say, laddie, are you ready to be a star? A star doing what you love?”
All eyes turned to Digger Bo, who still wasn’t sure what was going on. He scratched his grizzled chin, looking toward Zippo for clues as to what was being asked of him. Seeing his friend’s plight, Zippo placed his arms on Digger’s stout, fluffy kneecaps, his head bent backward so that he could look him straight in the eyes.
“Are you ready for an adventure, buddy? A tumbling adventure. If you are, all you have to do is say yes. And if you say yes, then we, as your family, get to share this great adventure with you. Then, at the end of this adventure, which will be our best adventure yet might I add—not wishing to oversell it—we get to see you shine. And if I am being honest, I have to admit that I am more than a little jealous because you will probably end up with an outfit to die for, and one even I don't even have in my wardrobe. So what will it be? I say let's do this!”
“OK,” agreed Digger, “tumbling is in my DNA. I am unique. How can I say no? I love tumbling.”
“That's the spirit, laddie!” exclaimed Thaddeus, applauding with all eight legs at once. “Now, B-Jay, if you could kindly take me back to the barn, I will get to work on the outfit straight away. There is not a moment to lose. I will see you all on Friday, when we go over the plan—so that we are all on the same page.”
Thaddeus climbed aboard B-Jay, checking the measurements he had taken while he waited and began making rough sketches on the paper for the design he had in mind.
Zippo, meanwhile, was pacing small, energetic circles with Digger Bo, formulating ideas for the next few days' training schedule. He needed to be ready and in peak performance if they were going to pull this off. He gesticulated wildly with his tiny hands, his hat turned backward into its thinking position. Digger nodded his head every now and again, in between chin scratches.
Cressida and Maxwell sat on their haunches at the base of the tree, both tails wagging in unison, their attention totally focused—other than the occasional scratch or lick that couldn’t be avoided. Aruna was on a lower branch, wings flapping and beak clicking as he informed them what he had seen at the circus. Being the one who often had a plan, he suggested ideas for an itinerary of proceedings.
B-Jay took a minute to observe his friends. “So we are really going to do this,” he said to himself, turning away from the tree toward the direction of the farm. As he accelerated away, he looked back at them all in his rearview mirror, smiling at how amazing his friends were, watching them as they bustled about, preparing for Friday's adventure.
Friday could not come quick enough!