THE CAT'S MAW

CHAPTER XI

XI: OF MICE AND MAGIC

His mother had said the party would have ‘entertainment’. She wasn’t wrong. 

Billy had been relocated to a grassy mound near the back of the Claytons’ flower garden, which offered a fair view of what was in store. For the next few hours, workers in black shirts and buttoned overalls unloaded long crates, metal poles, platforms and lights, piling them on the lawn by the pool. When they started to assemble everything, it quickly became clear as to why he’d been moved – the Claytons needed all of the space for a backyard carnival. 

There were brightly painted game booths, where a good toss or throw or swinging magnet on a fishing line would win a stuffed animal. There were sandy pits with rubber horseshoes, and pop-up bowling alleys with plastic balls and pins. There was a tent with vintage arcade games and pinball machines. There was even a strongman tower, with an oversized bell that rung if you hit the bottom hard enough. 

In the middle of it all was a makeshift stage. It was made of interlocking black boxes with tall poles sticking up from the sides. A shiny red banner hung between them, shouting ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMMY!!!’ in big block letters. And beneath the banner – in the centre of the stage – sat a high-backed golden chair. 

The Claytons had spared no expense for their son’s birthday. Billy tried not to sigh as two pretty helpers in sparkling tights led Tommy out of the orchard in a blindfold. He tried not to cringe as the guests oooh’ed and ahhh’ed as they followed Tommy up the lawn, his purebred dog prancing around his feet. He tried not to groan when the birthday boy was seated in his princely throneonstageand Mrs. Clayton waved to the crowd, hushing them with a jeweled finger to her thin, ruby lips.

Billy tried.

But when Mr. Clayton gave the signal for the lights?

When the pretty ladies peeled back the blindfold?

When the music blared, and the crowd cheered, and Tommy leapt to the front of the stage with his arms raised in triumph?

It was hard not to be jealous. And it only got worse – or better, if you happened to be the lucky boy in question. 

As night fell, the acrobats appeared. They flipped and tumbled and cartwheeled like limbed comets shooting across the lawn, orbiting the stage. Then came the jugglers flinging huge knives (or was it small swords?) around Tommy’s head, as he clapped and hollered to the crowd.  

There was even a fire-eater! He was a gargoyle of a man, and it was hard to see what parts of him weren’t tattooed or pierced with rings and bolts and bits of metal you’d likely find in a kitchen drawer. He swigged from a bottle and held a lit torch near his mouth. And when he blew jets of flame into the air, Tommy stood on his chair and cheered. It was the only time he looked at Billy the whole night, grinning wide as the fire plumed in front of him.

The clowns and the stilt-walkers in outrageously tall hats came last. The painted fools stumbled and fumbled and fell in front of the stage, tripping the walkers and sending them reeling. They teetered and swayed and almost fell across the stage, before dumping hatfuls of glitter and confetti on Tommy’s head. 

The jangling music crescendoed, and all the performers turned to the stage to applaud. Tommy stood in a spotlight, bowing and soaking in the cheers as the bits of paper drifted in the air around him.

In the dark, with the lights aimed at the stage, it was as if something had shaken the world between its hands. Billy’s tired eyes saw the luckiest boy in the world, happy and adored inside a brilliant globe of snow.