Prince of Air by Ann Hood Page A

“Mebbe . . .
maybe
you can help me?”
    â€œWe’re not sticking around long enough for that,” Maisie said.
    But Harry wasn’t listening to her. He had started to run in place, moving his arms up and down in rhythm with his feet.
    â€œTime for me to go exercise,” he said. “We can discuss when I get back.”
    â€œI didn’t say I would—” Maisie began.
    Harry hardly noticed her as he jogged past her and Felix and out the apartment door.
    â€œDiscipline,” Felix said. “That’s how he does it. He even works out his toes.”
    â€œOh, please,” Maisie said.
    Felix stared at the closed door, shaking his head.
    â€œThe Prince of Air,” he said. “That’s what they call him.”
    â€œThat’s what he calls himself,” Maisie said. “Harry Houdini is nothing great, Felix. He’s the Prince of
Hot
Air,” she added. “Mebbe.”

“How can a circus not have any animals?” Maisie demanded.
    She stood in a muddy field somewhere in Ohio, her hands on her hips, her eyes blazing with anger as she glared at Harry Houdini. Faded circus tents littered the field. In the gray afternoon light, Maisie could see how patched and frayed the tents were.
    â€œThis is the saddest-looking circus I’ve ever seen,” she continued.
    Harry smirked at her.
    â€œYou ain’t no circus expert,” he told her.
    â€œDon’t say
ain’t
!” Maisie reprimanded.
    Harry had only agreed to let Maisie and Felix accompany him and Dash to Ohio if Maisie promised to work on his grammar and pronunciation with him. They had fought the entire trip from New York to Columbus, sitting on uncomfortable wooden benches in the cheapest train car available.
    Now that they had finally arrived, Maisie was even more miserable. The circus was really a group of performers that Harry called geeks and another group that he casually called freaks—a fat lady, a giant, a legless woman, and someone who Harry called the ossified woman.
    â€œOssified?” Maisie had asked him. “What is
ossified
?”
    Harry had just shrugged. “Ya know, the skeleton woman.”
    â€œNo,” Maisie said. “I don’t know.”
    â€œI think,” Felix had offered, “
ossified
means something that has turned to bone.”
    â€œRight,” Harry said smugly. “Emma Schiller is the Ossified Woman. She’s like a skeleton.”
    â€œThat is impossible,” Maisie had said in disgust.
    But now that they were actually here, she was afraid that there really might be a skeleton woman among all the other oddities in the show. She had already seen a woman covered with tattoos—more tattoos than Maisie had ever seen on one person—walking past with a woman with a beard. “
That there’s the Tattooed Lady and the Bearded Woman
,” Harry had pointed out.
    Maisie narrowed her eyes.
    â€œHarry,” she said. “That sign says this is a museum.”
    â€œA dime museum,” Harry said. “Right.”
    â€œA circus without animals and a museum without art,” Maisie said.
    â€œYou ever heard of P. T. Barnum?” Harry asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYes, you have,” Felix said. “Barnum and Bailey. The circus.”
    Maisie didn’t realize the Barnum in Barnum and Bailey was a person. But she didn’t want Harry to know that, so she nodded, pretending to remember that of course she knew all about P. T. Barnum.
    â€œOh,
that
P. T. Barnum,” Maisie said. “What about him?”
    â€œHe started all this. The dime museums. In New York. The sideshow and the geeks, all for a dime,” Harry explained. “People are calling it a circus these days, that’s all.”
    Felix gasped and pointed to a figure walking toward them.
Well, not exactly walking,
Felix thought, staring harder. The woman had a normal head and body, but instead of legs, her feet