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  "A contract?"

  "Yes. I will be paid for your act, and give you some of the money."

  He reached inside his pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. "Here it is," said the headhunter. He laid the paper on his knee and showed it to Mia.

  * * *

  A Contract

  Between

  Side A: The Headhunter

  Side B: The Prophet Mia

  1. Given that the Headhunter would like to recommend

  that the manageress would hire Mia

  2. And given that Mia would like to join the circus

  3. And given that both parties would like...

  * * *

  Given and given and given–who gives what and to whom? Mia was puzzled. What party is he talking about? And why are we standing on opposite sides, Side A and Side B, when we both want to join the circus? But that was only the beginning of a long list of unpleasant and incomprehensible words.

  "What do you mean by ‘given’?" she finally asked.

  "Hmmm... it's something like ‘since’ in the language of contracts."

  Mia wasn't happy. She didn't like the way grown-ups used so many words instead of just doing things, like performing in the circus. We could have done with a handshake–she thought–we can skip all the complicated words.

  Mia thought long and hard and said, "I want to replace every ‘given’ in the contract with the word ‘cockroaches.’"

  "Cockroaches?" panicked the Headhunter. "It's impossible. I have never seen a contract that said ‘cockroaches.’ They are horrible."

  "They are not! I don't want a grown-up contract. I want an agreement between two animal lovers. Try it–you'll see that cockroaches will do just fine, Mister ‘Given.’ I want you to swap all the words I don't understand with the word ‘cockroaches.’"

  The headhunter poked her in the shoulder again. A brownish spot was already appearing there. He added a hoarse laughter.

  Mia examined him suspiciously. There was no doubt. He was a hungry raven.

  "Cockroaches that the headhunter offers to represent Mia..." stuttered the headhunter.

  "You see?" laughed Mia. "It's crystal clear. You can ask any child... in a contract for children you have to have cockroaches."

  "OK," said the headhunter gloomily. His jacket was slipping off his shoulders, and he looked very tired. "Cockroaches that Mia would like to join the circus..."

  "Exactly," said Mia. "They are coming with me and doing their dance."

  "Cockroaches that both parties hereby declare that all income... OK, I get it, I get it." Mister Given, the headhunter, flipped his jacket's wings around. "We won't use the word given anymore." He had no idea that from that day onward everyone is going to call him Given the Headhunter, because Mia was going to tell everybody about the contract and show them exactly how he pronounces his favorite word, and everybody would mimic him behind his back and laugh.

  After Given the headhunter surrendered, Mia felt calmer–at least she knew what cockroaches were. To her they looked cookie-brown and not at all horrible. The grown-ups' words in the contract were horrible.

  The rest of the contract looked like her mother's shopping list, but Mia didn't care. She realized the man was a raven who wanted to grab her food. She knew he was not to be trusted, but she also wanted him to take her to the circus. She wondered how people really lived there. The headhunter waved a piece paper in front of her face and woke her from her daydreaming.

  * * *

  A Contract

  Mia promises to perform in the circus

  and show everyone how she talks to the animals.

  Mia promises to dedicate her talent to the circus

  Mia promises to pay the headhunter 50 cockroaches after each performance

  Mia shall pay a 50-cockroach fine for every performance she misses or if she arrives too late.

  Cockroaches

  Cockroaches

  Cockroaches

  Hereby the cockroaches sign the contract:

  The Clown

  Mia was so excited she couldn't sleep. The next morning she didn't go to school. A long boat-shaped pink car waited for her in front of her house. That was very unusual–a car the color of bubblegum. The car belonged to Mister Given. Mia's parents were at work so she called them and asked their permission to go to the circus. I thought a day in the circus was worth more than a whole week of school, and since a child can't go by herself I asked Mia to wait for me and I joined her. How was I to know she would disappear all of a sudden?

  Mia used her silent whistle to call all the animals. She said her good-byes with a quick dance: She whistled Tssss for turning around and Zzsss for stomping and even Tesssss Tessss for little jumps. She took Panda the dog and Chai the crazy cat with her, and the three of them climbed into the backseat, leaving me to sit in the front with the headhunter. Mia kept her silent whistle on a shoelace on her neck, where it shimmered in the sunlight. Most people thought it was just an ordinary whistle.

  It was a short drive. We reached a large round tent that looked like a giant umbrella.

  "You look around while I go and find the manageress," said the headhunter. "I shall call you when she's ready to see us." He grabbed the tail wings of his jacket and disappeared.

  Mia approached the tent. She saw the acrobats training on the high swings. They were pushing themselves backward and forward until the swing swayed in a huge archlike movement, and then they jumped from one swing to another while rolling in the air. Mia gasped. They were up high, and they looked like a cloud of dragonflies fluttering their wings and searching for a lake. Below them, on the tightrope, two acrobats, dressed in green and yellow, were holding long poles and walking like lizards on the edge of a wall.

  Someone was pulling on Mia's shirt, and at the same time pulling her gaze downward. Mia turned her eyes from the acrobats and saw a white-faced clown. The clown had a little green ball of a nose, and her huge red lips were smiling. She was laughing. Or maybe she wasn't laughing, but she looked like she was.

  "Hey, little girl, what are you doing here?" she called.

  "I came to join the circus," replied Mia.

  "Ah, the hunter brought you," said the clown in a sad voice.

  "Yes, I’m waiting to meet the manageress," said Mia, very happily.

  "What's your talent?" asked the clown.

  "I understand the language of animals."

  "Really?" The clown shook her head in amazement. She looked like someone who just got out of the pool and was trying to shake the water out of her ears.

  "Different species have different languages," said Mia.

  "So I have heard," said the clown, still shaking her head. "Doctor Doolittle could talk to the animals. If I remember correctly... there was one language he could not learn."

  "Which was it?" Mia was curious.

  "The language of algae," said the clown with a shriek.

  "Oh, that's easy." Mia liked the clown. She made funny gestures with her body that reminded her of the body language of Chai the cat.

  "The language of algae is easy?" The clown stared at Mia with wide open eyes, and her black, round, drawn eyebrows arched in the middle of her forehead.

  "Yeah, they talk by using air bubbles," said Mia seriously.

  "Air bubbles?" The clown leapt backward, and then slowly walked back toward Mia.

  "In order to meet the algae, you need to dive underwater, right?" explained Mia patiently.

  "So?" The clown kept jumping up and down.

  "So?" I echoed. I, too, wanted to know.

  "Diving requires you to hold your breath or use oxygen tanks that you carry on your back, right?"

  "So? So?" screamed the clown.

  "So you can't hold your breath endlessly... you slowly
release it, bubble after bubble," Mia was swimming in the air. "When you do it too quickly, you scare the algae, and they clamp down. When you do it very slowly and gently, the bubbles are tiny, tickly bubbles of peace."

  "Wow," mumbled the clown to herself. Then she immediately echoed, "Wow."

  Mia went on explaining, "Algae takes time to open. At first, they resent me for leaving them the last time I visited. I keep trying to explain that I can't live underwater, that I need air, but they don't want to listen. So I begin slowly, by releasing only two or three bubbles."

  "And what happens then?" asked the clown.

  "The bubbles tickle the algae. They feel good, and when they're no longer angry, they open up."

  "They're happy to see that you're back," I tried.

  "Yeah, so I begin releasing five bubbles at a time."

  "What does it mean?" The clown opened her mouth so wide, as if she were trying to catch a fly.

  "That's how we communicate," answered Mia. "It's like asking how do you do..."

  "And after all those greetings, how do you talk to them? What can you say in Bubblish?" the clown went on.

  "You can say, ‘I love you; I come in peace,’" smiled Mia.

  "It's a language of emotions," I said, annoyed that the clown doesn't understand. "You can't ask the algae to come with you to a movie at five o'clock, can you? They have never heard of the cinema. It's a different sort of language."

  "You are a true magician," said the admiring clown to Mia. "The millions who read about the adventures of Doctor Doolittle have no clue someone managed to decipher the language of algae. You have to tell them..."

  "People will know. They will see my performance in the circus," said Mia joyfully.

  "No no no! It doesn't work like that. It's not so easy. The manageress has to know exactly what you can do; otherwise, she won't hire you."

  "What do you mean?" Mia sounded worried.

  "You have to be famous," said the clown, somersaulting back and forth. "You must be famous... you could be on a talent show, maybe on television or something."

  "But when?" asked Mia. "I am meeting the manageress in a few minutes."

  "You should at least have a flyer," said the clown earnestly. Her silky green and yellow, black, red, and white clothes kept whooshing in the air.

  "What's a flyer?" asked Mia.

  "Something that can fly," I tried. "A pamphlet you leave in people's mailboxes or on their windshields to let them know who you are and what you can do. It flies from you to them."

  Mia suspected that the clown was as nutty and unpredictable as her cat Chai. "What should be on this flyer?" she asked.

  "I am going to bring a pen and some paper for your flyer," said the clown. She sprinted away and back.

  "Do you have a nickname?"

  "My grandmother says I am a prophet. Right, Nana?" Mia was embarrassed. "Do you know what it means?"

  "Of course," said the clown hopping up and down again. "It's those guys from the Bible."

  "What?" asked Mia. She was confused.

  "You know, the prophets... the Bible... but it's too thick this book, the Bible. We need only one page... we need a flyer."

  And that's what the clown wrote:

  * * *

  Animal talk – Algae to Hawk

  The Prophet Mia talks to the animals

  Dogs and cats, pigs and bats

  Big and small – she understands all

  Mia the prophet – back from her tour

  She'll make you happy, simple and pure

  Telling the future, bright or opaque

  She solves every problem, dilemma, or ache.

  * * *

  Mia said, "You're exaggerating."

  The clown said, "It's my job. A clown is an exaggerated person."

  "But you can't tell lies." Mia was once more disappointed by the way grown-ups handled things. Grown-ups in the circus acted very much like those in her neighborhood.

  "Exaggerating is not the same as telling lies." The clown shook her head again and again until Mia laughed.

  "The flyer makes the truth fly out the window like a balloon?" she asked.

  "Exactly! Take it to the manageress." The clown shoved the flyer into Mia's pocket. "She will have to hire you!"

  "But it's not true. I never went on a tour. I never even went outside of our neighborhood before," protested Mia feebly. "When I was really little, my parents took me to see a doctor in the big city. I was sure I was a cat. I mewed and licked myself and forgot how to speak." But the clown was not listening. She disappeared among the cages, so Mia had to shout her last sentence: "A grand tour? I can hardly remember the name of that city."

  The Acrobat

  Crazy Chai leaped and disappeared somewhere on the circus grounds. She might have fallen asleep on a forgotten soft garment. That's Chai for you: One moment she's running as if a tiger is about to swallow her in the woods, and on the next, she's asleep under a bed where no one can find her.

  Panda sat next to Mia, waiting.

  Mia stood there, holding her contract in one hand and the flyer in the second. Her silent whistle was hanging from her neck, waiting to be used. I stood beside her. I could tell she didn't like the words grown-ups kept using.

  Mia lifted her gaze once more and followed the acrobats. One of them rolled in the air three times on his way from the ceiling to the floor. He was holding onto a rope and left it only after landing and feeling the ground beneath his feet. He approached Mia.

  "I am Uri the acrobat," he introduced himself. Mia looked at him. He wore a tight spandex red outfit. He was skinny, and his feet seemed to barely touch the floor, as if he were about to fly.

  "I am Mia."

  "Nice to meet you," he said and bent forward, almost touching his knees with his head.

  "What are you doing?" asked Mia.

  "I am bowing." He lifted his eyes, and his face was all red. "Curtsying... you might say..."

  "I wish I could spin in the air like you do," said Mia.

  "I heard you talking to the clown, and I understand you come from a long line of circus artists."

  "I do no—" Mia tried to protest.

  "And that you learned everything you know from your mother, who could also talk to the animals."

  "I did no—" tried Mia again.

  "And all algae bow to you with respect when you dive."

  "Ah—" Mia never got a chance to deny.

  "And your father bought you this little secret whistle."

  "That is true."

  "Well?"

  "But, Uri, all the rest was just a big fat lie."

  "You were talking to her down here, and by the time those words reached me, up there, they changed–so that's what I understood."

  "Those were just rumors," said Mia angrily and her little freckles began twisting on her nose uncomfortably. The honey-colored golden threads of her hair fell on her face, free from the elastic band she tried to restrain them with. It bothered her, but her hands were not free to gather her hair so she tried blowing it away with her lips, but her hair fell straight back on her eyes and mouth.

  "Exactly," confirmed Uri. "I like rumors. They fly even faster than flyers."

  "But they're not true," said Mia. "You shouldn't lie!"

  "A rumor is a beautiful thing," said the acrobat. "It's so light; it can twist and roll in the air."

  "Twist and roll in the air?" Mia was struggling to understand.

  "When it reaches the manageress, she'll be so happy to hire you, got it?" Uri wrapped the rope around his waist and lifted himself upward.

  The huge circus tent was full of people wearing colorful clothes. They were not all dressed in grey or black or brown like the people in our neighborhood. Mia liked the way t
hey dressed. She looked at them and felt she wanted to be a part of this group. They all seemed to jump or dance or laugh. Like children. Balls and balloons were thrown in the air. Brightly groomed horses circled the arena with ballerinas standing on their backs; wicker baskets glided from the ceiling and from inside them appeared lovely little dwarfs.

  "You're saying it's a good thing–spreading rumors about myself?" Mia was astonished.

  "Rumors are nice; they're like tiny snowballs that keep gathering more and more snow and by the time they roll down the slope, they're already huge!"

  "Will it help me?" wondered Mia.

  "It's like advertisements," said the acrobat, holding onto the rope with one hand and all of a sudden tilting. His friend, the lady acrobat, called him from above. Uri bowed twice, a little humble bow, and then again, a deep bow. He wrapped the rope around his leg, swayed back and forth, and leaped up to the sky. His hand fluttered until he bowed again before the lady acrobat, just like dragonflies do when they want the females to notice them. They both wrapped their bodies around each other, legs and hands like paper-thin tendrils, swinging again and again, and Mia was sure the lady acrobat was saying to Uri,

  "Hey, Uri, I want to save you–maybe."

  But the words came from a great distance, and by the time they reached her, on the ground, they changed. What she really said was,

  "Hey, Uri, I want to have your baby!"

  The Circus Manageress

  The headhunter came back to the tent and poked Mia in the shoulder. It was time. Mia saw the tail of his black jacket flap from side to side and began running, trying to catch up with him. He led her to a trailer. Three steps led to its main door.

  "You're on your own now," said the headhunter.

  "OK," said Mia, and she climbed up to the trailer's door. I stayed outside with Panda and Chai. I wanted to join Mia, because I could feel the fear she should have felt, but I decided to let her do things her own way. Mia signaled me to wait.

  She entered the trailer. Right in front of her stood a huge desk. Behind it stared a round female figure, a woman with cropped, spiky, shiny black hair. Her little beady eyes were moving from side to side. She had her elbows on the desk, and at the end of her lengthy arms were crossed fingers with sharp porcupine fingernails, ready to attack.