Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Advance Praise

  “As an author, there’s a moment when noble emotions such as ‘admiration’ and ‘respect’ for a fellow scribe cross over into outright, green-eyed jealousy. And, about midway through reading Molly Elwood’s page-turning novel, Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible, my appreciation for her quirky, breezy style quickly gave way to wanton prose-

  envy of the worst kind. Elwood leads you, circuitously, to the inevitable big showdown at the Big Top. I’m a better person for every mile spent with Spartacus on his darkly comic road trip.”

  - Dale E. Basye, author of the series, Heck, Where the Bad Kids Go

  “An eccentric kidnapped mother, a malefic circus, and more evil clowns than on a clear Halloween night. Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible is fast and furiously fun.”

  - Gary Ghislain, author of How I Stole Johnny Depp’s Alien Girlfriend and The Goolz Next Door series

  “I couldn’t put it down. Literally. Never pick up a book while eating a caramel apple. But if you are going to be stuck with the book for a few days, I advise you make it Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible.”

  - Gerry Swallow, author of Blue in the Face: A Story of Risk, Rhyme, and Rebellion

  Copyright © 2018 by Molly Elwood

  Published in 2018 by Fitzroy Books, an imprint of

  Regal House Publishing, LLC

  Raleigh 27612

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN -13: 978-0-9988398-7-5

  ISBN -13 (hardcover): 978-1-947548-41-1

  ISBN -13 (epub): 978-0-9988398-6-8

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017959220

  Interior design by Lafayette & Greene

  Cover art and design © 2018 by Lafayette & Greene

  lafayetteandgreene.com

  Fitzroy Books

  www.fitzroybooks.com

  Regal House Publishing, LLC

  https://regalhousepublishing.com

  Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible

  Molly Elwood

  Fitzroy Books

  For Zachary: I wouldn’t trade you

  for all the rat-watching in Paris.

  Prologue

  There are probably hundreds of things I’m afraid of. Heights. Girls. Scorpions. Motorcycles.

  My older brother.

  But clowns? I’d never been scared of clowns. Not even after I’d heard of Bartholomew’s World-Renowned Circus of The Incredible.

  However.

  Being chased by a mob of angry, grinning clowns? Yeah, that can change everything.

  These particular clowns—they’re dressed like cops. They’re wearing flat-topped cop hats with blue wigs, and dark navy uniforms that blend into one another. They’re waving fake billy clubs and carrying fake guns.

  At least…I hope they’re fake.

  And it’s not like I’m somewhere normal where I can make a break for the nearest exit. (Then again, it’s not like clown cops are ever anywhere normal.) I’m in the big top at Bartholomew’s Circus, a.k.a The Incredible, in front of a sold-out show. I’m perched at the tippy top of a scaffold that rises like a five-story building over the main ring—and Bartholomew’s clowns are closing in.

  To the left and right of me, matching clown cops swarm the scaffold, identical red smiles painted across identical white faces. I try to tell myself that they wouldn’t hurt me in front of an audience. But then again, Bartholomew is crafty; maybe he could play it all off as part of the show.

  “It’s just fake blood, ladies and gentlemen,” Bartholomew would say.

  The thought makes me shiver.

  I know I only have a few moments before they’ll be up here with me, but I can hardly think. There’s so much chaos.

  The orchestra is playing a manic, galloping version of “Stars and Stripes Forever,” all blatting horns and screaming piccolos. Spotlights rake the tent and drive the audience to cheer wildly. And every single performer is out and parading across the ring—mime-faced muscle men on unicycles, wiry contortionists, these creepy, spindly-legged skeleton guys.

  It’s like they’re making a huge distraction to keep the audience from thinking about whatever I’m doing.

  But really, I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s not like this was part of my plan.

  I can see only one way out: I can jump down to the diving board, ten feet below me.

  Ten feet isn’t that far, is it?

  But that isn’t a long-term solution. Even if I get to the diving board (because falling off is a definite possibility), I’m still stuck on a diving board. I’ll have to get down the ladder before anyone climbs up (which seems impossible), or I’ll have to jump into the diving pool. And from this height, the pool looks like a thimble of water.

  And still—once I’m in that pool, it’s not like I’m in the clear. Not by a long shot.

  Next to the pool, in the center of it all, is the ringmaster. Bartholomew himself. He’s standing silent and straight and still in his black suit and too-tall top hat. His dark-gloved hand shades his eyes from the glare of the house lights as he watches his goons clamber up the metal scaffold towards me. His half-man, half-shark sidekick is pacing beside him, gnashing his knife-sharp teeth. I have the passing thought that I might throw up.

  One more glance at the advancing clowns and I know I can’t stay where I am.

  I drop to my stomach and swing my feet over the edge. The crowd, which has been gawking at the clowns marching across the stage like a line of ants, catches sight of me and realizes what I’m about to do.

  “Ooh!” they gasp, loudly enough to be heard over the orchestra.

  No kidding, I think to myself. I’ve never been so high off the ground before, and here I am, about to blindly lower myself off this fifty-foot high metal walkway, butt-first.

  Don’t look down. And don’t think about death.

  I scoot my torso off the edge until I’m at the point of no return, where I’m more in the air than I am on the ledge, legs hanging. I know I’m right above the diving board—all I have to do is let go, and I’ll land right on it.

  Just let go, I tell myself, but my hands don’t listen. They keep gripping the scaffold. My fingers immediately ache.

  In front of me, the clown cops emerge onto the scaffold landing. They’re just a few feet away, laughing. They’re so close, I swear I see one wink at me.

  And that’s when I panic, steal a glance down, and lose my grip.

  And I fall.

  For the brief moment I’m in the air, the music cuts. The audience’s gasp drowns out my own.

  Amazingly, I don’t die. Instead, I land on the diving board to wild applause, the cymbals c
rashing in triumph. The wide board vibrates beneath me and I cling to it.

  “Go, Spartacus, go!” someone in the audience shouts.

  Morons. They’re all morons.

  And yet…I’m still alive.

  The orchestra picks up again, right where it had left off.

  Shaking, I scramble to my feet and look up where I’d been just a few seconds before. The clown cops are up there, shaking their oversized, fake billy clubs at me. Scowling. Taunting.

  With no time to think, I lunge for the ladder. And that’s the moment a new batch of clowns bursts out from behind the stage curtains.

  That’s when I realize: Bartholomew always has more clowns.

  These new ones start scaling each side of the high-dive’s free-standing ladder, two-by-two. I’m about to be cornered again—and this time, there’s just the one way down.

  No way am I jumping, I tell myself. There has to be another way. I turn desperately to the audience. Maybe they’ve figured out this isn’t a game.

  “Please! I’m not part of the circus!” I shout, waving my arms. “This is real!”

  But the music drowns me out, and the crowd just stuffs more popcorn in their stupid mouths, loving every moment.

  I peer down at the tank of water far below. I hadn’t noticed before, but now I can make out a couple of small sharks in it. As if that weren’t bad enough, Sharkman runs and takes a flying leap into the tank. He starts swimming around in darting circles, his dorsal fin cutting slices through the water.

  I have to hand it to him: he really looks just like a shark. That, and he’s blocked my last escape route.

  “They’ve got me surrounded,” I whisper. That’s something I always thought would be cool to say out loud, but until this very moment, I hadn’t realized that it’s one thing you never want to say.

  Desperate, I yell again: “Help me! I’m not with them!”

  But it’s useless. This is like a bad dream—one that’s finally reached that point of weirdness where you just know you’re going to wake up at any moment. Yet the dream keeps going.

  Everyone is on their feet, cheering enthusiastically. Feeling numb, I wonder if Bartholomew planned the whole commotion.

  Then, someone—probably a clown—shouts it: “Jump!”

  And then another voice, from the audience: “Jump, kid!”

  Are they insane?

  I gape down at the tank. It may as well be a glass of water. I frantically shake my head and wave my arms in front of my body, trying to mime, “No way.”

  The audience loves my sheepish response and roars with encouragement. Soon the whole tent is chanting, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

  The noise is deafening.

  Jumping would be crazy. I’m not my mom. I’m not invincible.

  The clowns are almost to the top of the diving board ladder. When they get here, they’re going to take me backstage and do who knows what. Erase me. Bump me off. Rub me out.

  I’m not in a dream, and I’m not going to wake up and find myself safe in my bed. This nightmare is actually happening.

  As I gulp the thick summer air, I consider everything that has led up to this moment. To what’s looking more and more like the end of the line.

  The fat lady singing.

  The grand finale of Spartacus Ryan Zander.

  Chapter One

  I’m going to start right at the beginning, the day Mom left home to become The Amazing Athena, World-Famous Human Cannonball.

  Sure, first there were the epic fights, the Month of Silence, and the time Dad set Mom’s hula-hoops on fire. But going into all of that would just make you think Mom ran out on Dad. Trust me—none of that stuff is important.

  Dad and Will (my older brother) took her departure pretty well. And by “pretty well,” I mean they seemed to think we were better off without her. Will was convinced she’d left Dad for a circus performer. And Dad? Well, her absence was a touchy subject with him. The first time I blurted out how things were better when Mom was around, he didn’t talk to me for days.

  She went missing the same day I started sixth grade. Will and I came home to find the house looking “a little odd.” (Those were Dad’s exact words to Grandma: “The place looks a little odd.” Personally, I think saying “The place is destroyed” would have been a better way to put it.)

  Even from a block away, Will and I could tell. The windows stood open and our dark red curtains billowed out, getting tangled in the rhododendron bushes. I ran ahead, but was too nervous to open the front door, so I waited for Will while anxiously gnawing the insides of my cheeks.

  The moment Will cracked the door, water poured out onto the porch. The front hall’s bathroom sink was overflowing, flooding the entryway. Will slogged through the standing water to turn off the faucet while I poked my head into the living room. The couch’s smoldering, smoking cushions smelled like burnt lemon custard, like they’d been lit on fire and then doused with a pitcher of lemonade. Our old box television was facedown on the floor and two sets of booted footprints, one narrow, one wide, danced up the wall.

  Then there was the kitchen. The blender was running. The dining table was on its side with only three legs attached (we never did find the fourth). Six steak knives were stuck into the pantry door in a perfect vertical line. The last knife pinned a note at eye level, scrawled in handwriting that didn’t quite look like my mom’s.

  Dear Boys,

  I made it into Bartholomew’s Circus of The Incredible! Sorry to leave so abruptly—and sorry about the mess. I’ll be in touch soon.

  Love,

  Mom

  XOXO

  P.S.

  The P.S. part of the note was torn off in a jagged line, like someone had changed their mind. I wanted to tear the note down and crumple it up, but instead I just slid to the floor and sat there staring up at it, blinking away the pressure behind my eyes.

  “What are you doing?” Will, who hadn’t noticed the note yet, was peering down at me. “Poop Lip—wait, are you crying?”

  I scowled at his smirking face. Poop Lip. One unfortunately-placed freckle—not a mole, a freckle—one concentrated cluster of melanin, one overly pigmented spot just above my lip and, thanks to Will, nearly every kid at Brenville Elementary and Brenville Middle-Senior High called me Poop Lip. The town we live in is small and Will’s reach was long—even the old man at the gas station once called me Poop Lip. I just stared at him. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  I guess I was lucky that at least my dad, my teachers, and Elliott Carson (my best friend) called me Ryan, which is my middle name. I go by Ryan because my first name isn’t exactly normal, but I’ll get to that tragedy later.

  When dealing with Will, you need to follow two simple rules. Rule number one: Never question him. Not unless you want to walk away bruised and possibly wedgied. And rule number two: Never show weakness. Not even if your mom destroys the house and then abandons the family.

  I wiped my nose before standing up. I realized I was shivering—maybe I was cold from the windows being left wide open. I pulled the note from the pantry door and handed it to Will.

  “Mom left,” I told him. “With the circus. She’s gone.”

  Will skimmed Mom’s note. He looked even angrier than usual. “Of course she’s gone,” he said, kicking a can of green beans so it skittered across the floor. “How long has she been trying to get out of here?”

  Will had a point. Even though I was the only one who had known Mom was serious about joining the circus, anyone could see she wasn’t happy. Brenville and her talents didn’t exactly mesh. But even though I knew she wanted more excitement, I always thought that if she left, she’d take us with her.

  I never thought she’d leave me behind.

  Dad got home a few minutes later and the three of us just stared at the mess and the note and then—get this—no o
ne said anything. Every time I started to speak, to ask what we were going to do, Dad glared and Will elbowed me in the armpit. Can you imagine? No, you can’t, because it’s not normal.

  But then again, no one in my family is normal. So, instead of talking, Dad went upstairs to shower, Will called in a pizza, and then we sat and ate dinner in front of the broken TV, as if Mom trashing the house and leaving with the circus were the most normal thing in the world.

  

  It’s common sense that if someone goes missing and your house looks like a tornado went through it, you call the police. Dad didn’t. He made a few late-night phone calls that I couldn’t quite hear through the heating vent, but he must have decided to trust what she wrote in the note and to leave it at that.

  Maybe he was just relieved to be rid of her. Whenever he found her doing something “weird” or “crazy,” he and Mom fought like stray cats. Like when he came home to find her teaching me how to throw knives. Or when she dyed her hair orange and red so that it looked like flames. Or when the neighbors called to complain that she was leaping from fence post to fence post in front of their house. Or the time, on a family hike, she somehow got on the back of a wild elk and rode it for a whole twenty yards. And that was just the stuff Dad knew about.

  Brenville’s a small town. If you stand out at all, you may as well start your own reality TV show because everyone is going to know everything about you anyway. So the neighbors talked. And Dad? Dad just wanted to be invisible.

  The day after my mom disappeared, my best friend and next-door neighbor Eli Carson told me the Story of the Black Van. Eli had been home sick on the first day of school (which he’s been getting away with every year since second grade) and happened to look out his window to see a black van pulling up in our driveway. An unmarked van. It definitely did not have Bartholomew’s World-Renowned Circus of The Incredible scrawled across the side like you’d think it would if it had been there doing anything normal or official. No, it was a plain black van with tinted windows. Oh, and it didn’t have license plates.