Beautiful Disaster

Chapter Four

Four

The tall man began to explain a little bit about the show, about how old it was and other trivial things. Kat was fascinated, but she still had no idea what a freak was. The tall man then announced the first act, ‘The Wolfman’.

Kat’s heart sped up as a hairy gray person walked out on stage. Well, he looked like a hairy gray person at first, but then Kat noticed he didn’t have a face like a person. He had a long nose and huge pointed teeth, and he smelt like Helen’s neighbour’s dog that Kat had only seen once when she’d snuck outside. Kat had hated that dog, it had barked and growled at her, and had frightened Kat when she was so little.

Kat held her breath as the wolfman walked around, and hoped that he would be gone soon and other, more pleasant freaks would come out. Then, something terrible happened. The wolfman attacked a lady in the audience, biting her arm clean off. Kat jumped, and went to run, but then the tall man came back out and assured everyone that everything was ok, as the lady grew her own arm back!

Kat was confused now. It was obvious that ‘freaks’ were clearly something a little different from normal people. They either looked completely different or were able to have amazing talents, such as growing their own limbs back. As more and more freaks came out, this became blatantly obvious to Kat, and she realised that she wasn’t a freak. She wasn’t that special; she could do nothing but clean and be obedient. The other freaks could use their teeth to bite through metal, had two bellies, were incredibly skinny, had long heads and the list went on.

Yes, Kat was different from other people, but she wasn’t the same as the freaks. She was alone, and nobody would ever really want her around, just find her useful to have around.

But then, another freak was announced.

“Now, for something beautiful,” the tall man spoke quietly. “Evra, the Snake Boy!”

The silhouette of a tall person appeared and the boy walked out so everyone could see. People gasped as he walked out, holding a long snake around his shoulders. Kat didn’t understand why they all seemed to shrink back at his presence, when Kat was seemingly drawn in. He was normal in every way; he had a normal shaped head, only one belly, normal body weight, and he wasn’t covered in hair. His skin was green and scaly, like pictures of snakes Kat had seen in a magazine once, but that was it.

He appeared to be like any of the other people here. He was wearing a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a vest over it, and jeans, with a beanie on his head and his black hair poking out the bottom. He even had a silver ring in his right eye brow, like Kat had seen on some of the people walking down the street on her way here.

Evra whispered softly to the snake as he walked around the stage, seeming to control it to lash out and miss the audience by inches. It was captivating.

There were another two freaks on after Evra had left, but Kat could barely focus. She noticed that the woman could grow a beard and read people’s futures, and the man had a pet spider who he danced with and controlled with a flute.

Kat hadn’t really felt like she had belonged when seeing any of the other freaks, but when she had seen Evra, he had seemed just like her. He was young, like her, and he was mostly normal, just like Kat. He didn’t have special abilities but they obviously wanted him here.

When the show was over, Kat got up. She had to go around the back and find out who was in charge, beg them to take her with them. She could clean, she could cook, she would do whatever she had to in order to stay with the Cirque du Freak and away from Helen.