come one, come all, to the greatest show on earth:

There was a girl in the tree. Everest had grown up in a circus full of acrobats, clowns and stuntspeople, but he was still unprepared to see a girl in the tree, shouting profanities. He stared at her for a moment, temporarily lost for words.

That didn’t happen often. It also didn’t happen for long. Everest’s mouth caught up with events and reacted on autopilot even if his brain was still processing.

“Madam.” He gave a sweeping bow and pretended to lift an imaginary hat at her, still while standing atop the horse’s saddle. “My gravest apologies for having disturbed your peace.”

He stood up straight and dropped her a wink with his left eye, the one which had a little patch of brown. The other eye was solidly blue, like a warm, cloudless sky. His German accent shortened each of the words and fluttered a little over the F’s and H’s.

She was cute, kinda. Short and scrappy, her amber eyes burning with fire. Her scowl marred her face and confused her age, but Everest guessed she was somewhere in her mid to late teens. Probably too young to be of serious interest to him, then, even if her wild spirit wasn’t a little much by itself. Never mind. Opportunities to advertise for the circus came in a myriad of manners and were never to be missed.

Neither were opportunities to show off. A despondent mreow! sounded behind him, causing both Everest and the stallion to turn their heads simultaneously towards the noise. There was a cat (sort of – it looked like no cat Everest had ever seen in northern Europe) lounging on one of the branches in the tree on his other side, watching the two fairies with its tail flicking. Everest glanced back at the teenager, deducing her reason for being up a tree and wondering how she could possibly have gotten the wrong one.

“Mach dir keine Sorgen, gnädige Frau,” he tipped his imaginary hat at her, “der Kolibri is on the case.”

He clicked his tongue, urging the Arabian to step closer to the tree with the sort-of cat in it. Everest kept his balance perfect as the stallion moved, although he did make a show of spreading his hands and lifting one foot carefully off the saddle. He didn’t bother to stop the horse once he was under the correct branch, but rather leapt from its moving back, grasping the bough firmly with both hands. The stallion continued to trot off back to the stream, where it subsequently dipped its head for another drink, leaving Everest hanging.

He could have just pulled himself up, but that was no fun. Careful to note the position of other branches so that he didn’t embarrass himself by hitting any, Everest swung backwards and forwards a few times to get a momentum, then swung himself round and up into the sky, performing a perfect backflip before landing a little precariously on the tree branch. He turned and walked confidently along it, mimicking the actions of a tightrope walker, before reaching up to scoop the kinda-cat out from the branch above. It growled and dug its claws into his shoulder. Preferring to avoid advanced acrobatics while holding a grouchy animal, Everest sat down on the branch and from there dropped down so that he was swinging from it by one hand. From here, it was just a short drop to the ground. He landed lightly on the tips of his feet, barely making a splash in the mud.

If only there’d been some older girls around to see that. They’d be fluttering their eyelashes and clutching their chests.

Grinning, Everest held the cat up invitingly for the girl.

dankeschön,

everest