Just when she felt like she was about to pass out from terror, a little girl came into view, wearing a faded jumper and pulling her father by the hand. When she saw Lilly, she let go of her father’s hand, stopped, and put her pale fingers to her mouth. She drew closer to the rope and stared up at Lilly with wide brown eyes. Lilly steeled herself, waiting for her to cry or scream. She touched her tongue to her clenched teeth. One, two, three, four...
Behind the father and the little girl, more townies squeezed into the viewing area. What seemed like a hundred faces looked up at Lilly. A sea of mouths twisted and moved and chewed and smiled and scowled and laughed. A thousand eyes stared and squinted and widened and blinked and gaped. Sweat broke out on Lilly’s forehead. Her mouth went dry.
The little girl took another step closer. “Daddy, is she really a princess?”
The father took her hand again. “No, honey,” he said.
“But she has a crown,” the little girl said.
“That doesn’t mean anything.” The father pulled her away and moved on.
“But, Daddy, I wanted to . . .” The little girl’s voice trailed off.
Little by little, the first group of townies left while more streamed into the viewing area. Some walked slowly and others hurried past, as if they had changed their minds about coming into the freak show. Most people stopped to study Lilly for a few minutes before moving on. A frowning mother covered the eyes of the young child on her hip and refused to look at Lilly while the man she was with pointed and whispered in an older child’s ear.
“They don’t need to be seein’ things like this,” the mother hissed.
“Stop your frettin’,” the man said. “It’s all in good fun.”
“Yeah, well, it ain’t gonna be fun when they wake up with nightmares later.”
The man rolled his eyes and moved on.
A freckle-faced boy stood in front of her stage for what seemed like forever, staring at her with droopy eyes and chewing his gum with his mouth open. Lilly had no idea what to do, or what he was waiting for. She tried not to look at him, but he was hard to ignore. Three groups of townies came and went before he finally left. When he did, she breathed a sigh of relief. Then, during a quick break in the flow of gawkers, a little old lady in a flowery hat stopped to let her tiny black dog relieve itself near the back wall of the viewing area, and a horrible smell filled the tent.
After a while, Lilly’s feet started to go numb in her shoes, and her calves began to ache. Her head felt like it was about to explode from clenching her jaw. When the crowd finally started to thin, her chest began to loosen and her heartbeat slowed. The grass in the viewing area was flat and muddied, trampled by thousands of feet. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her shoulders dropping. At last, her first show was almost over. And no one had screamed or cried or gotten sick or tried to slit her throat. Then, suddenly, there was a shriek and a crash in the direction of the entrance, and the sound of a body hitting a stage.
“Get the hell out of here!” someone yelled. And then, “Are you all right, Dina?”
A boy laughed and others joined in.
A girl giggled and said, “Come on, you guys. Leave her alone.”
Lilly’s heartbeat picked up speed again. What was going on? What had happened to Dina the Living Half Girl? Did someone try to hurt her? A few seconds later, a group of teenagers hurried into the viewing area. The boys laughed and playfully punched one another in the arms and the girls tittered. The girls wore puffy-sleeved dresses, and one had on a red beret over her long blond curls. The boys were in cuffed trousers and crisp shirts. Their eyes were glassy and bloodshot, the same way Daddy’s eyes used to look when he drank too much whiskey. Somewhere a woman was crying. Was it Dina? What had the teenagers done to her? Then the girl in the red beret saw Lilly and stopped.
“Jeepers,” she said. “Look at her. Is she really made of ice?”
“Naw,” a boy said. “She’s covered in white paint.”
“Even her hair?” the girl in the beret said.
“It’s a wig,” the boy said.
“She’s supposed to be from another planet,” a second boy said. “That’s stupid.”
“She’s kind of pretty, though,” one of the girls said.
The girl in the beret made a face. “I think she’s hideous.”
Another girl wrinkled up her nose. “She stinks too.”
“She looks like a corpse,” the girl in the beret said. “Maybe that’s why she stinks.”
The girls laughed, and the first boy moved closer and grabbed the rope in front of Lilly’s stage. “Are you alive, freak?”
Lilly blinked at him. She had no idea what to do. Beads of sweat rolled down her neck and back. Then, before she knew what was happening, the boy ducked under the rope and climbed onto her stage. She stepped backward and her heels caught in her dress. “Glory!” she cried.
The boy smirked and reached for her hair. “Is this real, freak?”
The canvas wall between the platforms yanked to one side and Glory stormed onto Lilly’s stage, her face contorted with anger. “Get the hell out of here!” she yelled.
The boy jumped down, crawled beneath the rope, and rejoined his friends, who were laughing hysterically. But instead of leaving, they moved toward the back wall of the viewing area, mocking Glory and Lilly and pointing.
“Go back to your cave, ya freaks!” the boy who climbed onstage shouted.
“Yeah, ya ugly freaks!” the girl in the beret shouted. She began to chant and the others joined in. “Freaks, freaks, freaks! Ugly, stupid freaks!”
The other sidewall between the stages pulled aside and Rosy and Ruby poked in their heads. “Are you all right, Lilly?” Rosy said.
“Leave her alone!” Ruby shouted at the teenagers.
They ignored her, still laughing and chanting. Then the boy who climbed into Lilly’s stage bent over as if tying his shoe. When he straightened, a strange look came over his face, a cruel, yet nervous, smirk. He raised his arm and threw something at the stage. A handful of wet dirt hit Lilly in the chest and splattered over her white dress, and chunks of grass landed in her hair. Another boy joined in, laughing as he reached down to get more mud. But instead of mud, he picked up the dog poop and threw it at Lilly. A thick gob of it hit her above one eye and ran down her nose. She dropped the scepter and stood there stunned, her hands up, her eyes and mouth squeezed shut, unsure if she should run or scream. The stench of dog poop made her gag.
The teenagers’ laughter came to a halt, and in the sudden silence that followed, one of the girls said, “Oh my God, is that dog shit?”