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Date Posted: 08:48:41 04/09/04 Fri
Author: Kuzibah
Author Host/IP: 12.175.117.195
Subject: Re: New Fanfic- Blanket of Stars (part 2)
In reply to: Kuzibah 's message, "New Fanfic- Blanket of Stars (part 1)" on 08:47:36 04/09/04 Fri

Xander joined Oz and his wife of less than a month, Bema, for dinner at their home, Oz’s old van. It had been re-painted with a stylized mural of fierce wolves and a banner announcing, “The Legendary Werewolf ~ Transforms Before Your Eyes!”

The van itself had been refitted, the interior paneled with honey-colored wood, throw rugs piled on the floor. The bed folded up against one side on a hinge, secured out of the way, but Xander could see how it would come down to rest on facing storage units, filling the van wall-to-wall. The folding table and chairs had been set up in a canvas enclosure adjoining the van, and the gas stove where Bema cooked was just beyond. Oz lit lanterns and candles for illumination, and they cast a soft yellow glow over the company.

The meal was simple fare, a soup of vegetables and rice, and thick, crusty rolls, but the company was fine, indeed. Bema and Oz were warm and charming hosts, and told Xander of their travels. In return Xander related the goings-on in the last few years in Sunnydale, and the nine months after, and they talked long into the night. It was only when Oz began to talk of his courtship of Bema that Xander was reminded he’d promised to begin his work with first light, and thus excused himself and went to his trailer and bed.

Xander had to fumble in the darkness before he found the tiny battery-powered light just inside the teardrop’s door, then contort himself to make the bed inside with the sheets left for him and open his bedroll for a blanket. He climbed out again, comfort overcoming modesty, to change into his nightclothes and enter again.

He shut out the lamp, and burrowed into the covers, sleep already overtaking him. His last action of the night was to slip off his eye-patch, and hide it inside his pillowcase.

- - - - -

Morning, true to the cliché, came early.

And instead of a rooster to wake the circus folk, the lions greeted the dawn with a roar. Xander sat up at the sound, banging his head against the curved wall of his abode, then cursed and climbed out to stretch and yawn. He gathered a change of clothes and a plastic-mesh bag with his toiletries. His frequent trips around the globe had forced a quick self-education in the best ways to cope in less than ideal conditions, and he’d found this hold-all to be useful and practical. It held soap, razor, toothbrush, paste, comb, deodorant, and shampoo, and hung conveniently on bathroom doorknobs. He also grabbed two towels.

The water shed Oz had pointed out earlier already had a line for the eight shower stalls, so Xander made his way to the long, trough-like sink to brush his teeth.

He could sense the intense interest of those around him, curiosity about the “new kid,” and it was only a matter of a minute or two before a round-faced man across from him extended a hand.

“Good morning,” he said with a heavy German accent. “I am Helmut Meng, called Rollo in the clown corps.”

“Xander Harris,” Xander said, shaking his hand. “I’m doing some work for the Gypsies. Luca Hearne…”

“Yes, yes, the carpenter,” Helmut said, nodding. “Welcome. When did you arrive?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Helmut said. “Best of luck.”

Xander thanked him and joined the shower line. The ice having been broken, several more of the performers and crew introduced themselves, and Xander was quickly engaged in a Q and A regarding his background, his work experience, and how he found his visit so far. He slipped into a vacant shower stall gratefully.

There were hooks on the shed’s back wall, a few feet removed from the showers, and Xander stripped out of his sleep clothes, only dropping his shorts after modestly concealing himself with a towel, and then realized he had himself in a quandary; no one but his doctors had seen him without the eye-patch since the bandages had come off. He found himself more embarrassed by the possibility that someone would see the knotted scar where his eye had been than that somebody would see him naked.

Still, his only other option was to wear it into the shower, and the material wasn’t rugged enough to stand up to soap and water, he feared. He cast a nervous glance up the row to see if anyone was looking, and met the gaze of a slim girl with dark curly hair and pale green eyes. She was completely nude.

“Mind your business,” she snapped, turning and striding into her stall. It was only then Xander realized she had no arms, only smooth, rounded shoulders.

His face flushed, and he slipped off his eye-patch and put it on the hook.

- - - - -

Afterwards, Xander went to the meal tent. There was a breakfast line, so he got in it and got a plate of eggs, sausages, and sliced meat on a hard, crusty roll. Across the tent he saw the armless girl eating her breakfast and reading a magazine. He almost didn’t recognize her at first, as she was using one foot to manipulate her fork as dexterously as a hand, but he crossed to her table and sat down opposite.

“I want to apologize,” he said, and she looked up, regarding him with a furious expression. “I wasn’t trying to spy naked girls, I swear,” he went on. “I just… it’s my first day, and I was feeling really self-conscious about…” he indicated the eye-patch. “It’s stupid, I know, but I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of creep.”

Her expression had softened into wry amusement. “Here’s a joke for you,” she said. Xander was slightly stunned by the sudden change of topic, so he only nodded.

“There was this guy,” the girl began, “and he’d lost his eye in an accident.” Xander stiffened, certain he would hate this joke, but the girl went on. “He couldn’t afford a regular glass eye, so he had one made of wood. It really bothered him and he felt very self-conscious about it. Anyway, he gets invited to a dance, and he’s sure none of the girls will want to dance with him, but he goes anyway.

“Once he’s there, he sees a girl off on the side with a hare-lip. He thinks, maybe this girl won’t mind my eye too much, so he goes over to her and asks, ‘would you like to dance?’

“The girl is thrilled and screams, ‘Would I?’

“And the guy backs up and points at her, saying, ‘Hare-lip! Hare-lip!’”

Xander shook himself, too startled to reply.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like that guy,” she said. “It’s my first day, too.” She delicately extended her foot. “I’m Gracie Hicks. They’re billing me as ‘The Living Venus de Milo.’”

Xander shook her foot without hesitation. “Xander Harris,” he said. “What do you do for your act?”

She laughed lightly. “What I’ve always done. Eat with a spoon, doodle, crochet. It’s just I’m doing it in front of an audience. I was in this documentary for Film Canada, triumph of the human spirit thing, and then I got a letter from the Parliament of Wonders inviting me to join them for the season, and my parents thought it would be a good opportunity to travel. What about you? What do you do?”

Xander blushed. “I’m not a performer,” he said. “I’m a carpenter. I’m doing some work on the caravans.”

Gracie smiled. “Cool,” she said. “My dad’s a general contractor. You like it?”

“Yeah,” Xander said. “I do.”

They went back to their meals before they got cold, and after a few minutes Gracie said, “well, let’s see it, then.”

“See what?”

“Under the patch.” Xander gave her an incredulous and slightly terrified look. Gracie rolled her eyes.

“You’ve seen me in my altogether,” she said. “The least you can do is show me this shocking disfigurement.”

Thoroughly embarrassed now, Xander slipped the patch from his face.

He knew the scar was livid and unpleasant, but Gracie examined it calmly. After a few moments she shrugged. “It’s not that bad,” she said, and returned to her breakfast.

- - - - -

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[> Re: New Fanfic- Blanket of Stars (part 3) -- Kuzibah, 08:49:43 04/09/04 Fri (12.175.117.195)

Xander got started on the caravans right after his meal, framing the windows on the most needy of the wagons. By mid-afternoon several of the circus’s children had gathered round to watch and keep up a steady stream of questions. By the twentieth request to “help” by running one of the power tools, Xander began handing out sheets of fine-grit sandpaper to his “volunteers,” with instructions on smoothing the outward-facing sides and edges. He lost quite a few after five or ten minutes of unidirectional sanding, but to his delight three of them stayed on until he quit for the day.

The three, two boys and a girl, were promoted to “assistants,” and dismissed for dinner with an invitation to return the next morning, when they might move up to staining.

Xander met up with Oz and Bema in the mess tent, and was pleased to see Gracie there, as well. In fact, the table was seated with many of the performers from the Parliament of Wonders, Circus Internationale’s sideshow attraction where Oz transformed into a werewolf for the crowds.

Xander quickly gathered from their conversation that they had begun designing and rehearsing the season’s show. Gracie told him about her idea, to begin seated at a vanity, framed where the mirror should be, her lower body partially concealed by the vanity skirt. As the audience filed in, she would appear to be simply preparing to go out: patting on powder, brushing her hair, spraying on perfume with an old-fashioned squeeze-bulb bottle. It would only slowly become evident she was doing it all with her feet.

They discussed the way her booth was to be decorated, and what Gracie should wear. They debated whether music should be used, and the patter the barker would say in introduction. They continued to talk long after dinner ended, and when the cooks asked them to vacate the tent, they spread a blanket alongside Xander’s teardrop and talked for two more hours while the moon rose.

- - - - -

Xander installed the caravan windows first thing in the morning, then began work on one set of axel and wheels that had rotted into splinters. The caravan was currently supported on a truck trailer with I-beams, but Xander wanted to make the new wheel base strong enough that the caravan could be rolled into the grass at each encampment.

The “assistants” arrived mid-morning, and Xander showed the two younger ones, Pali and Simza, how to mask the glass on the windows with tape and brown paper before painting the frames. The older boy, Balo, though near 17, was a little slow, so Xander decided to have him help by holding the heavy oak logs steady while Xander shaved them down perfectly round and smooth. This also involved transporting the axel back and forth between the sawhorses and the worktable to see how it rolled.

After about 20 minutes, Simza, the girl, suggested she and Balo switch, since painting was so boring, and insisting she was just as strong as he. Xander managed to placate her by explaining he had pegged her for someone with an artistic eye, and the work continued in relative peace.

That night, after dinner, Gracie came and talked with him while he lathed the 64 spokes he needed for the caravan’s four wheels.

- - - - -

Things fell into a routine. The caravans, being small, were going more quickly than Xander had first estimated, allowing him to take some time on the ornamentation. He carved leaves and birds, abstract curlicues and the interlaced knots he’d learned from a Welsh craftsman in England. He learned from Luca that the symbol of the Romany Gypsies was a red spoked wheel, so he incorporated it into the decoration, much to the clan’s delight.

Gracie continued to rehearse and refine her act, adding props and music. Enid, the circus’s seamstress, created a beautiful beaded leotard, and Xander used part of his first day off to accompany Gracie on a trip to Venice’s flea markets to find a suitable vanity, and the rest of the day to strip it and paint it white.

After ten days, Xander came to the job one morning to find the show’s artist, Etienne, had hung a canvas poster from the side of Xander’s work tent proclaiming “The Amazing Xander! See Breathtaking Feats of Carpentry performed LIVE Before Your Eyes!” Below was a caricature of Xander as a blue-skinned Hindu god, each of his six arms holding a different woodworking tool. At the sight of it, Xander could only lean forward with his hands on his thighs and laugh.

- - - - -

That same week, the circus acts who’d wintered elsewhere with their families began to return to the roost. Xander could barely concentrate on his task at hand as the encampment filled up with elephants and tigers, stunt motorcyclists, clowns and performers of all kinds.

Mr. Carling, the circus’s owner, was the calm eye in a storm of activity as the season’s show took shape. Xander’s eye and attention wandered often as he saw the various acts rehearse, and Gracie and Bema had to bring him his dinner while he worked.

He saw his three assistants less often, as they were needed to take part in their families’ acts: Balo handing the knives and axes to his brother for precision throwing, Pali and Simza tending to the horses their sisters rode bareback.

Everyone got up early and worked late into the night, not just on their performances but preparing the circus “infrastructure” for its seven-month tour through Europe. The enormous striped tent was stress-tested and reinforced in every seam, damaged panels patched or replaced before being carefully repainted with red and yellow dye. Trucks and vans were tuned until they purred like the show’s big cats, and props were brought into perfect repair.

Enid led expeditions to the famous Venetian costume houses and returned with bounties of feathers, beads, sequins, and satins that out-dazzled a garden of flowers. And Etienne could be heard at all hours in his truck-trailer workshop, Motown music blaring as he painted the dozens of banners that would announce to all passers-by that the circus had come to town at last.

The circus was scheduled to move out at the end of March and play its opening dates by the first weekend of April. Carling wanted at least three previews before they left, and they’d already had inquiries from the locals, since the previews were open free to the public. The days were running short.

Xander, it seemed, was the only one comfortably ahead of schedule. He’d punched out on the caravans and was now refurbishing the cabinet for the calliope and the orchestra grandstand. He was, in fact, doing them for next to nothing, looking for an excuse to stay on. He wanted to see the previews, having seen too many bits and pieces to not bring his curiosity to a pitch. He hadn’t even scheduled a time to return to England, knowing he could catch the train home at any stop along the way.

- - - - -

In the week before the first preview, time seemed to compress. Around Xander’s workshop, it felt like the circus was moving in fast-forward as the show was molded into its final shape.

At dawn the morning of the preview, the encampment was awakened by the clanging of the bell outside Carling’s trailer. Roustabouts took off at a run to erect the enormous tent in the adjacent field, assisted by the three trained elephants and many of the performers.

Mr. Carling stood at the edge of the field with a stopwatch, dictating notes on the progress to his son, Brandon. Once the tent was up, the grandstand, bleachers, rings, lights, high wire, and trapeze were set up and tested. The sideshow, meanwhile, got their stage and tent in place. By the time the performers were starting to dress for the show in the late afternoon, a sizable audience had gathered, and the popcorn and cotton-candy sales were brisk.

Xander had dismantled most of his own work-space, and Etienne had given him room to store it in his trailer. Now he eagerly joined the crowd waiting to see the sideshow, and stood admiring the canvas banners hinting at the wonders within.

Oz’s banner showed a strange man/wolf hybrid, seemingly split down the middle of his body and dressed in horror-movie-style shredded clothes. The head had two faces, both in silhouette: a calm man’s face looking left, a snarling wolf looking right. Even knowing the werewolf as well as he did, Xander found the image disturbing, and a credit to Etienne’s skill.

Gracie’s banner was more straightforward, a simple, but flattering portrait of her posed as the Venus de Milo surrounded by smaller images from her act.

The show was the classic “ten-in-one,” ten performers in a line of platform stages separated by canvas walls. Barkers led through groups of fifteen to twenty, presenting each act with a short patter about them.

As Xander waited, he felt a touch on his elbow and turned to see Simza and Pali, his “apprentices.”

“We won’t be needed yet,” Simza said, “and we wanted to see the show.”

“Come with us,” Pali said.

“I was planning to,” Xander told them. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“We’ll have Mr. Tivoli lead us,” Pali said.

“He’s the owner of the sideshow,” Simza explained. “And he can tell us in English.”

“Oh, good idea,” Xander said, and then they were at the head of the line.

Mike Tivoli was, like most of the sideshow performers, from North America. St. Louis, specifically. He was somewhere between thirty-five and fifty, and was just the sort of big, outgoing guy you’d expect would run a circus show. He led Xander and the two children into the first berth, and launched into his pitch.

“Step up and see the Living Skeleton. Standing six-foot-two and weighing less than fifty pounds…”

- - - - -


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