Up on stage, a mannish-looking girl was dragging a boulder the size of a small refrigerator out from behind the curtain. “She may not be the sharpest tool in the woodshed,” Emma whispered, “but she’s got a massive heart and she’d go to the grave for her mates. We’re thick as thieves, Bronwyn and me.”
Someone had passed around a stack of promotional cards Miss Peregrine had used to advertise their act. It reached me with Bronwyn’s card on top. In her picture she stood barefoot, challenging the camera with an icy stare. Emblazoned across the back was THE AMAZING STRONG-GIRL OF SWANSEA!
“Why isn’t she lifting a boulder, if that’s what she does on stage?” I asked.
“She was in a foul mood because the Bird made her ‘dress like a lady’ for the picture. She refused to lift so much as a hatbox.”
“Looks like she drew the line at wearing shoes, too.”
“She generally does.”
Bronwyn finished dragging the rock to the middle of the stage, and for an awkward moment she just stared into the crowd, as if someone had told her to pause for dramatic effect. Then she bent down and gripped the rock between her big hands and slowly lifted it above her head. Everyone clapped and hooted, the kids’ enthusiasm undimmed though they’d probably seen her do this trick a thousand times. It was almost like being at a pep rally for a school I didn’t attend.
Bronwyn yawned and walked off with the boulder tucked under one arm. Then the wild-haired girl took the stage. Her name was Fiona, Emma said. She stood facing the crowd behind a planter filled with dirt, her hands raised above it like a conductor. The orchestra began to play “Flight of the Bumblebee” (as well as they could, anyway), and Fiona pawed the air above the planter, her face contorted in effort and concentration. As the song crescendoed, a row of daisies poked up from the dirt and unfurled toward her hands. It was like one of those fast-motion videos of plants blooming, except she seemed to be reeling the flowers up from their loamy bed by invisible strings. The kids ate it up, jumping out of their seats to cheer her on.
Emma flipped through the stack of postcards to Fiona’s. “Her card’s my favorite,” she said. “We worked for days on her costume.”
I looked at it. She was dressed like a beggar girl and stood holding a chicken. “What’s she supposed to be?” I asked. “A homeless farmer?”
Emma pinched me. “She’s meant to look natural, like a savage-type person. Jill of the Jungle, we called her.”
“Is she really from the jungle?”
“She’s from Ireland.”
“Are there a lot of chickens in the jungle?”
She pinched me again. While we’d been whispering, Hugh had joined Fiona on stage. He stood with his mouth open, letting bees fly out to pollinate the flowers that Fiona had grown, like a weird mating ritual.
“What else does Fiona grow besides bushes and flowers?”
“All these vegetables,” Emma said, gesturing to the garden beds in the yard. “And trees, sometimes.”
“Really? Whole trees?”
She sorted through the postcards again. “Sometimes we’ll play Jill and the Beanstalk. Someone will grab hold of one of the saplings at the edge of the woods and we’ll see how high Fiona can get it to go while we’re riding it.” She arrived at the photo she’d been hunting for and tapped it with her finger. “That was the record,” she said proudly. “Twenty meters.”
“You guys get pretty bored around here, huh?”
She moved to pinch me again but I blocked her hand. I’m no expert on girls, but when one tries to pinch you four times, I’m pretty sure that’s flirting.
There were a few more acts after Fiona and Hugh left the stage but by then the kids were getting antsy, and soon we dispersed to spend the rest of the day in summery bliss: lazing in the sun sipping limeade; playing croquet; tending to gardens that, thanks to Fiona, hardly needed tending; discussing our options for lunch. I wanted to ask Miss Peregrine more about my grandfather—a subject I avoided with Emma, who turned morose at any mention of his name—but the headmistress had gone to conduct a lesson in the study for the younger kids. It seemed like I had plenty of time, though, and the languid pace and midday heat sapped my will to do anything more taxing than wander the grounds in dreamy amazement.
After a decadent lunch of goose sandwiches and chocolate pudding, Emma began to agitate for the older kids to go swimming. “Out of the question,” Millard groaned, the top button of his pants popping open. “I’m stuffed like a Christmas turkey.” We were sprawled on velvet chairs around the sitting room, full to bursting. Bronwyn lay curled with her head between two pillows. “I’d sink straight to the bottom,” came her muffled reply.
But Emma persisted. After ten minutes of wheedling she’d roused Hugh, Fiona, and Horace from their naps and challenged Bronwyn, who apparently could not forgo a competition of any kind, to a swimming race. Upon seeing us all trooping out of the house, Millard scolded us for trying to leave him behind.
The best spot for swimming was by the harbor, but getting there meant walking straight through town. “What about those crazy drunks who think I’m a German spy?” I said. “I don’t feel like getting chased with clubs today.”
“You twit,” Emma said. “That was yesterday. They won’t remember a thing.”
“Just hang a towel ’round you so they don’t see your, er, future clothes,” said Horace. I had on jeans and a T-shirt, my usual outfit, and Horace wore his customary black suit. He seemed to be of the Miss Peregrine school of dress: morbidly ultraformal, no matter the occasion. His photograph was among those I’d found in the smashed trunk, and in an attempt to “dress up” for it he’d gone completely overboard: top hat, cane, monocle—the works.
“You’re right,” I said, cocking an eyebrow at Horace. “I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was dressed weird.”
“If it’s my waistcoat you’re referring to,” he replied haughtily, “yes, I admit I am a follower of fashion.” The others snickered. “Go ahead, have a laugh at old Horace’s expense! Call me a dandy if you will, but just because the villagers won’t remember what you wear doesn’t give you license to dress like a vagabond!” And with that he set about straightening his lapels, which only made the kids laugh harder. In a snit, he pointed an accusing finger at my clothes. “As for him, God help us if that’s all our wardrobes have to look forward to!”
When the laughter had died down, I pulled Emma aside and whispered, “What exactly is it that makes Horace peculiar—aside from his clothes, I mean?”
“He has prophetic dreams. Gets these great nightmares every so often, which have a disturbing tendency to come true.”
“How often? A lot?”
“Ask him yourself.”
But Horace was in no mood to entertain my questions. So I filed it away for another time.
As we came into town I wrapped a towel around my waist and hung another from my shoulders. Though it wasn’t exactly prophecy, Horace was right about one thing: nobody recognized me. Walking down the main path we got a few odd looks, but no one bothered us. We even passed the fat man who’d made such a stink over me in the bar. He was stuffing a pipe outside the tobacconist’s shop and blathering on about politics to a woman who was barely listening. I couldn’t help staring at him as we passed. He stared back, without even a flicker of recognition.