Chapter 6 #3
Chicot bounced, doing a ball change and a dance flourish as she turned to walk toward Elvis, Monty jogging to keep up with her.
Once they had him on board, they started to discuss what they could cut and replace with easy but impressive cheerleading or acrobatic lifts.
Once they’d decided on their plan, Monty, Elvis, and Lyza sat down to continue working on the script, sending Chicot away so she’d have time to practice with Elijah.
They had the gym for another forty-five minutes, so they could only run the show once at that point.
Before they could start, Chicot clapped her hands together, dropping to her knees as she pouted at Elijah. “Can I jump on the trampoline for one minute?”
Elijah groaned, his eyes lidded and his brows raised as he pinched his lips into a line. He agreed though, gesturing with an open palm toward the trampoline.
“Go ahead,” Elijah said. Chicot jumped to her feet, thanking him quickly as she ripped her socks off.
She ran to the trampoline, carefully examining it before she climbed up.
It had been so long since she’d gotten to tumble with this much bounce under her.
She started easy with cartwheels going down the length and then bounced back like an excited kid doing flips.
Once she’d done that, she stayed in the middle, getting as high as she could so she could do a solid 360, landing on her feet and falling back onto her butt.
When her minute was up, she tore herself away, receiving applause from Lyza, Elvis, Elijah, and even Monty. Chicot panted, climbing off and rejoining the group.
“So, you never went to circus school?” Lyza asked. Chicot shook her head, picking up her water bottle.
“I did gymnastics, dance, and then I was a cheerleader.” Chicot sat with the group as Elijah was still trying to figure out how to Velcro the foam box they were using in place of their crate to the floor so it wouldn’t move too much.
“You should consider it in the offseason.” Lyza gestured at herself, Elvis, and Monty. “We all take classes when we’re not going faire to faire. Makes sure we keep up our skills.”
Chicot thought of the jar they had for her new phone. They’d pulled everything out of it twice—once to put a new tire on the RV and again to pay for Duchess’s regular yearly checkup, which had snuck up on them. She sighed softly, looking at the ceiling as she answered.
“Hopefully we can set some aside for it,” Chicot said.
Lyza suggested a circus school in Idaho that was cheap.
However, the mention of it resulted in Elvis, Monty, and Lyza arguing about whether the price was worth it considering how cold their winters were.
Chicot let out a shallow sigh, listening as the three of them began to bicker.
She liked how it sounded, siblings arguing with each other.
It made her miss debating with her brother and sister about what to watch on TV.
They’d never been mean to each other—they’d just had different tastes being that they were so different in age.
Of course, her mother had always had to ruin it by yelling at them to stop fighting and taking the remote from them.
Even when they weren’t fighting in the first place.
Nothing could convince Chicot to return to her mother’s house.
She didn’t have to linger on those thoughts for long, thankfully. Elijah called to her, and she turned to join him. They ran their show straight through with the same ease as always. Then they double-checked all their blocking on the tape version of the stage before they finished.
The five of them cleaned up quickly, another group coming in as they were leaving.
It was the two older swordsmen who did a fun comedy show where they cracked jokes at each other’s expense and then fought over it.
Chicot was fairly certain the name of it was something along the lines of Gert & Salvio: The Swordsmen, which they’d been doing for nearly twenty years at Albion.
And there was good reason for it. Chicot had seen their act once as a young teen when her dad had brought her and her siblings, and she remembered laughing so hard she’d dropped her ice cream.
Even if their acrobatics were simpler now, their jokes were unmatched.
The swordsmen were followed by a short woman holding a unicycle that Chicot didn’t recognize.
She had beautiful mahogany curls that touched her shoulders.
Chicot was fairly certain the woman was another acrobat, doing both the unicycling and contortion for her show.
As they left the gym, the woman smiled brightly at them and waved, chipper as she hopped toward the area she was using to practice.
Chicot waved back, which earned her an even more excited wave.
When they got to the car and piled in, she was earnestly feeling good about everything.
They stopped at a Staples to have their scripts printed for the new version of The Pirates Three: Big, Middle, and Wee.
She wasn’t even worried about being on stage without a mask.