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Chapter 42 - Clown Show
🕑 Added 2024-12-30 17:54:20 +0000 UTC“Do some magic!” Chip Sampson demanded.
Equipped only with a pocketful of blueberries and a handful of pasta, Archie stared down the horde of children as they ran up to him. They swarmed him, forcing him to step back onto the raised paved walkway that bordered the lawn. He looked over the thin wooden guardrails, figuring the ground to be a fatal forty feet away. He took a step away from the edge.
“Alright, alright, everyone take a seat.”
Ever since being attacked, Archie had a one-track mind—will this help me fight? But that morning, spurred on by the desire to apologize to Nori, to make Nori happy, to make Nori smile, to keep Nori here, his mind emptied out all other thoughts, focusing entirely on one thing.
Parlor tricks.
Theatricality didn’t come easy to Archie, so he decided to not be Archie. He’d be Aubergine. With a dramatic unfolding of his arm, he pulled a single blueberry out of his pocket and held it up for everyone to see. Some of the adults had moved on to the liquid portion of the meal and watched Archie from afar—Nori recreated her lemon drop martinis and tried to stretch the two bottles of sake she had taken from Colby’s pantry.
Showtime.
Chip scooted forward, just ten feet away from Archie. “Wassat?” he asked impatiently.
“Here.” Archie tossed the blueberry to Chip—with massive frying pans for hands like Chip’s, there was no way he wouldn’t be able to catch it. “Now toss it ba—”
Chip popped the blueberry in his mouth. “This isn’t magic!”
“Oh—okay…” Archie sighed. The show must go on. He took another blueberry. “Now toss this one back to me.”
Archie tossed another blueberry to Chip, who promptly devoured it. The children burst into laughter, some of the adults giggling in their wake.
All except for one child. A little girl, maybe seven or eight, born blonde but starting the process of becoming a brunette, with some baby fat left hanging on her cheekbones, and pale blue eyes that glared at Chip.
“Let him do his trick,” she complained to Chip. The boy being five times larger than her did nothing to deter her from commanding him. Archie snorted. A Nori in the making.
“Don’t worry, it’s fine. I have plenty.” Archie grabbed another blueberry, still taking the time to hold it up for everyone to see. He considered throwing it overhand, wondering if he could thread the needle of the boy’s chubby cheeks and put the berry into his eye.
He refrained.
Another underhand toss, another blueberry in Chip’s belly. More laughter. Archie looked to Nori, who forced an over-the-top smile back at him.
That’s right. Smile. Smile like you’re about to make ten gold.
“Oh, Chip,” his mother said. Archie couldn’t tell if she was protesting her child’s behavior or proud of him for making the other kids laugh so hard.
Archie forced a laugh and shook his head. “It’s alright. I got about thirty of these, so we can do this all afternoon.”
He grabbed another blueberry. Held it up. All while maintaining a smile, he imagined the blueberry exploding in Chip’s stomach.
He tossed it. Chip ate it. Kids laughed. As funny as ever.
Chip stared through his eyebrows at Archie, relishing the ruined plans. Archie’s smile disappeared everywhere but his curled lips, his eyes wide as they fixated on the little Glutton.
And then Chip jerked as if someone shook him. He grimaced and put a hand to his stomach. He breathed out long and controlled—the way that someone does when they threw up in their mouth a bit. Or if they had something explode in their stomach.
Archie answered Chip’s confused look with a nod and let his smile warp into a natural, mischievous grin.
Yes. I did that, you little twerp.
“Alright, Chip. Now toss this one back to me.”
Archie tossed a blueberry to Chip, who stared at it in his hand as if it took all of his willpower not to eat it. Chip threw it back overhand, making Archie reach to keep it from flying off the edge of the building and suffering an unfortunate splat below.
Archie displayed the blueberry between two fingers. “Just one blueberry,” he said. With his other hand, he placed two more fingers on the berry.
“Ready?” he asked the kids. They remained quiet, but they shifted anxiously, wondering what would happen next. Archie wondered if something would happen next.
He had duplicated blueberries several times before, but in front of an audience, his palms started to sweat. He felt the essence of the blueberry and split it down the middle, now holding two whole blueberries and breathing a sigh of relief. The kids sat up straighter to get a better look, cooing with ooo’s and aaa’s. Even a little bit of Orange Jacket magic was enough to get their attention.
Archie tossed the blueberries to the kids, throwing them just out of reach of Chip. The kids scrambled to try to catch the blueberries, the little blonde girl managing to catch one as she giggled.
“Hey that’s mine,” Chip protested as he yanked at the girl’s arm.
Something paternal snapped in Archie.
“Hey!” he barked, letting his frustration get in the way of his showmanship. Chip jumped. The adults jumped. Not good. Archie did his best to act like it was part of his act, not an outburst. “Toss them back and I’ll show you the next part of the trick.”
The kids tossed the blueberries back to Archie.
He held the two blueberries up again between thumb and pointer. “Now two…”
He dropped two and caught four in his palms. He tossed the blueberries one at a time out to the kids who fought each other to catch them.
“Now four!”
Not trusting the children to be able to throw accurately, Archie walked around and collected the blueberries. The little blonde girl grinned as she handed him the blueberry. If he was performing for anyone, it was for her.
He closed his hands around the four blueberries.
Putting it back together is easier than taking it apart. It wants to be one. It wants to be one.
He opened his hands to reveal a single blueberry.
Some more mild “ooo’s.” Archie let the blueberry slide out of his palm and into Chip’s hands. Chip popped it in his mouth with a grin. The kids laughed again.
Archie took a deep, frustrated breath as he looked around. The kids were having a good time, but the adults were running out of food and stood with arms crossed, unimpressed. And kids weren’t the ones paying them.
Okay. Okay. I need more.
He walked slowly back up to the raised walkway, giving him time to pour essence into a few blueberries. He turned with a spin, tossing a blueberry into the air. It rose as a single berry, but fell as ten, showering the kids. The adults started to crack a little, little smiles and pleasant grunts.
Archie performed the trick again, but won no new fans. They needed more.
Okay. Let’s try something new. Delayed release. I made that blueberry explode in his stomach. Just like that.
“Okay, let’s try stepping it up a notch, shall we?”
He dumped essence into a handful of berries and threw them all at once into the air. They went up as ten, they came down as ten. The kids caught them and picked them up off the ground.
“It didn’t work,” Chip complained, having managed to snatch up three blueberries.
Archie knew what would happen next. The blueberries would multiply in the childrens’ hands.
But when Archie used his essence, he wasn’t just thinking about multiplying berries.
He was thinking about the delayed release of the one that exploded.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
The blueberries popped like firecrackers, splashing the children with an unnatural amount of juice.
The children first reacted with fear, then laughter. But for the adults, fear turned into worry. They had dressed their children in their best clothing, eager to show how much better off they were than their neighbors. Now, the finest children’s clothes in all of Caviar Court—in all of United Ambrosia—were all splattered with blueberry juice.
“Hey!” one of the adults yelled.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” another yelled.
“That better wash out!”
The adults all moved toward Archie with fire in their eyes.
Archie imagined Mrs. Sampson’s coin purse closing.
Nori to the rescue.
From the corner of his eye, Archie saw Nori throw something. A second later, a cherry tomato hit Archie in the ribs, red juice bursting across his entire side.
It got the biggest reaction of the party.
The children roared. The parents’ stunned silence turned into stunned laughter.
Archie held his hands away from his clothes, juice dripping from his fingertips.
Nori rode the wave, handing out cherry tomatoes to the kids and yelling, “get him!”
Archie barely had time to turn his back as a barrage of tomatoes came at him. The kids stood to get better leverage, going for the kill with each throw. Even some of the parents joined in, pelting Archie with no mercy. If he was lucky, the tomatoes splattered and covered him in juice. If he wasn’t, they bounced off like stones.
Everyone but Archie was having a great time.
Once they ran out of tomatoes, the kids chased each other around the lawn as their parents polished off glass after glass of wine. Mrs. Sampson retrieved bath towels for the kids, sparing a handcloth for Archie.
“Alright, Archie is going to perform another trick and then we’re having blueberry cheesecake for dessert.”
“Blueberry cheesecake!” Chip cheered.
That’s right. One more trick. The first trick I ever learned.
Archie pulled out a foot-long linguine noodle, dangling it for the crowd to see. He whipped it around in a circle and let it dangle once more, this time hanging two feet.
“He’s just stretching the dough!” Chip complained. “That’s not magic.”
“Here.” Archie walked up to the boy. “Grab one end.” He lowered his voice to a whispering growl. “Don’t. Eat it.”
Chip grabbed the end of the noodle. Archie felt the flow of essence in the noodle change, shifting toward the little Glutton.
“How far do you think it’ll go?” Archie asked. He nodded his head, compelling Chip to walk away.
The noodle got longer and longer, five feet, ten feet, but never thinned. Chip yanked on the noodle, creating a few feet of slack that fell at his feet.
“Cool!” he shouted.
Chip ran around the lawn, his hand high in the air with the ribboning pasta trailing behind like a streamer.
The noodle was reaching its limit, the essence in it draining at an unnatural rate. Archie had managed nearly forty feet during his test run that morning, but here, with Chip on the other end, he felt the noodle thin out at just twenty feet. He walked to follow Chip, retracting the noodle at every opportunity.
Something stirred deep within Archie. He remembered the first-year feast so many months ago, Nori holding the other end of the noodle. Her essence had filled the noodle and coaxed Archie into adding his own. There was an act of giving to it.
This was the opposite. The essence of the noodle drained out toward Chip, but there was something else. Something went back up the noodle to Archie. A hunger. He fought the urge to pull all of his essence out of the noodle. It took so much focus that he lost awareness of their surroundings.
“Chip! Be careful!” Mrs. Sampson yelled.
Chip looked back at his mother, his legs tangling as his neck turned. He tripped on the raised walkway and launched into the guardrail. The wood cracked and splintered, cradling him on the edge. Parents screamed.
“Chip!”
The fence gave out. Chip fell over the edge and out of view. But he still had the noodle in his grasp. Archie dug his feet into the ground. He held the noodle tight. Every last bit of essence that remained in him poured into the noodle, strengthening it.
“Help! Heeeeeelp!” Chip yelled, his voice growing distant.
The weight of Chip catapulted Archie forward, sending him tumbling across the grass. He managed to catch the edge of the raised walkway, arresting Chip’s momentum.
But Chip was a heavy boy.
Archie could tell the noodle barely held. And even worse, as Archie poured essence into the noodle, Chip seemed to siphon off more and more of it. With each passing heartbeat, the noodle weakened.
From earning ten gold to being imprisoned for killing a noble family’s kid.
Nori to the rescue.
She wrapped her body around Archie’s back, her lower body keeping him from falling while her arms reached around to grab the noodle. As much as she had done that day, Nori still had a little bit of essence to give.
With the parents screaming helplessly in the background, Archie and Nori made the noodle as strong as a metal cord.
“Extend it,” she said through gritted teeth.
Archie did as she said, extending the noodle longer than he ever had before. Twenty feet. Thirty. Forty. And with a little extra push from Nori, fifty.
The noodle went slack.
We dropped him.
Archie and Nori and the kids and all the parents rushed to look over the edge. Chip sat flat on his butt on the paved cobblestone, unharmed and laughing.
He yelled up at them.
“If anybody eats my blueberry cheesecake, I’ll kill them!”
Archie dropped the noodle over the side.
Chip ate all fifty feet of it.
Archie thought the noodle would be too tough to be eaten, but Chip didn’t seem to struggle with it at all.
As the party wrapped up, one of the other parents approached Archie and Nori.
“Great job, great job,” he said, giving Nori a pat on the back. He moved to do the same to Archie but stopped when he saw the red-stained, juicy, sticky shirt that clung to Archie’s body.
“My name is Sorghum Ackers. You may call me Mr. Ackers. My daughter, Teff, will be having her birthday in a couple of weeks.” He pointed at the little blonde girl that had won Archie over. “She absolutely loved your magic tricks. If you promise that she won’t fall off any buildings, I’d love for you two to cater.”
“Of course,” Archie said with no hesitation.
Nori used her arm to corral Archie away. “How much?
Mr. Ackers twiddled his fingers. “Oh, um. How much did Mrs. Sampson pay you?”
“Ten gold,” Nori answered.
“Okay. I can do that.”
“That was a special deal,” Nori said. She crossed her arms and managed to look like she didn’t need the money. Mr. Ackers had a hundred pounds, a foot of height, and three lifetimes of money over Nori. But he had nothing compared to her determination. “Our normal price is fifteen. Ten for the service, five for ingredients.”
“Oh.” He scratched his chest and puffed out his cheeks. He blew the air out as he nodded. “Of course. Just be sure to have some new tricks,” he said at Archie. “Do you anticipate…more mess?”
“Uhh—I mean—maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Probably,” Archie said.
Mr. Ackers nodded thoughtfully. “We’ll be sure to dress appropriately. And…Uh…”
He checked to make sure no one watched him, leaned in, and whispered. “Do you think you could make…uh…”
He clicked his tongue. “Actually, nevermind. More of the same would be good. We don’t get seafood prepared this way often. Maybe there’ll be…another opportunity. At some later date.”
Archie wondered what the man was hiding. But Nori only had one thing on her mind.
“Fifteen gold,” she reiterated.
“Yes, yes. Fifteen gold.”
“We need the five up front. For ingredients.”
“Oh, of course, of course.”
Mr. Ackers handed over the money. Nori managed to hide her smirk until he left.
