“I never do,” Max replied.
Pippa resumed her usual spot in the wings so she could watch Max’s performance. She had to admit, Max was good. Better than good. She had a gift like Pippa’s—like Thomas’s and Sam’s, too—an ability that didn’t seem learned but was just there. Her hands moved so quickly, they were a blur. She hit the exact center of the tiny red bull’s-eye of a target pinned to the wall on the opposite end of the stage, then threw another knife that split the handle of the first one. Then she split a grape midair. She diced a whole tomato by tossing four paring knives simultaneously.
“Impressive—extremely impressive.”
Mr. Dumfrey must have been watching the performance from his typical position: the right wing, third leg. Pippa, standing in the second, heard his voice quite clearly despite the heavy cloth between them.
Miss Fitch responded with much less enthusiasm.
“Mmm,” Miss Fitch said. “Terrible manners, though.”
“Well, who can blame her?” Mr. Dumfrey dropped his voice, and Pippa leaned closer to the velvet to hear him. “I’ll tell you, Evangeline”—Pippa was momentarily bowled over by the mention of Miss Fitch’s first name, which she had never known—“that girl must have had it very hard. All those years . . . I thought she was dead! And then she lands like a fly onto the doorstep. Can you believe it? Now I know all four of them are safe—”
“Let’s hope they’re safe,” Miss Fitch replied darkly.
Pippa’s curiosity was piqued. But at that moment Mr. Dumfrey and Miss Fitch moved off, and she lost the thread of their conversation. She was quickly distracted.
Danny the dwarf—who was technically an inch too tall to be a real dwarf but kept his knees bent permanently to conceal the fact—toddled onstage, wearing a Panama hat. He took his place in front of a small wooden post, looking extremely unhappy.
Max crossed toward Danny and placed a single lima bean on the flat top of the hat.
She withdrew a sharp blade from the belt around her middle, long and slender as a dagger, sharp and glittering in the light. She turned to the audience and lightly pressed her finger to the knife’s tip. Instantly, blood welled up.
The ancient woman in the front row muttered, “Mercy.”
All this time, Max hadn’t said a word. Her face was expressionless, calm. But Pippa could see her eyes were blazing. She was having fun, Pippa realized.
Max pivoted so that she was facing Danny. She held the blade loosely in her right hand. Danny’s face was now practically as green as the lima bean balancing precariously on his hat.
Max moved so quickly, Pippa nearly missed it. One second she was still. The next she had flung out her right hand and there was a whoosh of air and a small ping, and the blade had pinned the lima bean to the wooden post board behind Danny. He had not had time even to flinch.
For a moment, there was stunned silence. Danny removed his hat with a flourish, took a little bow, and collapsed to his knees. The audience burst into thunderous applause. The old woman in the front row was fanning herself so furiously, the brim of her hat fluttered. Pippa noticed Bill Evans scribbling away in his notebook.
Max gave a short bow, then turned and abruptly left the stage, smirking.
As she passed, Pippa said, “Good job.”
“I know,” Max responded, without even looking at her.
Then it was time for the big finale. Mr. Dumfrey himself took the stage, and Potts appeared immediately after him, scowling, and pushing a wheeled glass case covered by a heavy velvet drape. Underneath it, Pippa knew, was the prized shrunken head from the Amazon.
In reality, she knew that Mr. Dumfrey had found the head on a dusty back table of a hole-in-the-wall collectible store in Brooklyn, just behind the collection of broken clocks. The head was not even all that shrunken—it was certainly bigger than Monsieur Cabillaud’s head by at least two inches around—but of course advertising a smaller-than-average head from a junk shop would not have had the same effect.
In the stage lights, Potts’s face, which was pitted with acne scars, looked like the surface of the moon. No sooner had he wheeled the case into position than he clomped off the stage, muttering. Dumfrey, however, came alive on the stage—like a strange variety of flower that blooms underwater.