It was dark in the tunnel and full of smoke. Somebody shoved Maisie, still on one knee, and she fell forward, her hands out, and came up against hard metal bars. The animal run, she thought, and tried to pull herself up to standing, but they were pressing her flat against the bars, mashing her chest.
“Open the cage!” somebody shouted.
“No! The lions and tigers will get out,” she tried to shout, but the smoke was too thick, her ribs were being crushed into the bars of the cage, and if she didn’t get out of there they were going to push her chest right through the bars.
She started to climb up the side of the run, pulling up with one hand and then the other, trying to get above the pushing people. If she could get up on top of the animal run, maybe she could crawl over it to the door.
But it was too high. She climbed and climbed, and there were still bars. She pulled herself up hand over hand, away from the screaming people, and now she could hear the band. They were playing a different song. A German song, like the one in The Sound of Music, only it wasn’t the band, it was a piano with a light, tinny sound, like the one on the Hindenburg.
She had been wrong. It was the Hindenburg, after all. It wasn’t the animals’ run, she was in the rigging inside the balloon, and she had to hold on tight or she would fall out of the sky. Like Ulla.
Far below her, in New Jersey, the children piled up against the cage, screaming. “You can’t get out that way,” she shouted down to them. The fire was all around her, the roaring flames like snowy fields, so bright you couldn’t look at them, and she knew if she let go, she would fall and fall, and they wouldn’t know her name.
“My name is Maisie,” she said, “Maisie Nellis,” but there was no air left in her lungs, only the smoke, thick as fog, and the bars were hot, she couldn’t hold on much longer, they were melting under her hands. The snowy fields under her got brighter, and she saw it wasn’t snow, it was apple blossoms. Beautiful, soft white apple blossoms.
If I fell onto them, it wouldn’t hurt at all, she thought. But she couldn’t let go. They wouldn’t know who she was. They would bury her in a grave that only had a number on it, and nobody would ever know what had happened to her. “Joanna!” she shouted. “Joanna!”
“Nothing,” Maisie’s heart doctor said.
“Increase the acetylcholine,” Dr. Wright said.
“It’s been four minutes,” the heart doctor said. “I think it’s time.”
“No,” Dr. Wright said, sounding mad. “Come on, Maisie, you’re a whiz at stalling. Now’s the time to stall.”
“Hang on, honey,” Vielle said, holding tight to her white, lifeless hand. “Hang on.”
“Let go,” somebody down below her said. Maisie looked down. She couldn’t see anything but smoke.
“Just let go,” the voice said, and a hand reached up through the smoke, a hand with a white glove on.
“It’s too far,” Maisie said. “I have to wait till the Hindenburg gets closer to the ground.”
“There isn’t time,” he said. “Let go.” He reached his gloved hand up farther, and she could see a raggedy black sleeve.
Maisie scrunched her eyes up, trying to see him through the smoke, trying to see if he had a red nose and a banged-up black hat. “Are you Emmett Kelly?” she called down to him.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, kiddo,” he said. “I’ll catch you.” He stretched his white-gloved hand up really far, but it was still a long way underneath. “We have to get you out of here.”
“I can’t,” she said, clinging to the burning bars. “When they find me, they won’t know who I am.”
“I know who you are, Maisie,” he said, and she let go. And fell and fell and fell.
“No pulse,” Vielle said.
“Her heart was just too damaged,” her heart doctor said. “It just couldn’t stand the strain.”
“Clear,” Dr. Wright said. “Again. Clear.”
“It’s been five minutes.”
“Increase the acetylcholine.”
He caught her. She couldn’t see him for the smoke, but she could feel his arms under her. And then all of a sudden the smoke cleared, and she could see his face—the red nose, the brown painted-on beard, the white down-turned mouth. “You are Emmett Kelly,” she said, squinting at him, trying to see his real face-under the clown makeup. “Aren’t you?”
He put her down so she was standing in the sawdust, and tipped his banged-up hat and made a funny bow. “There isn’t much time,” he said. He took her hand in his white gloved one, and started running across the big top toward the performers’ entrance, dragging Maisie with him.
The whole roof was on fire now, and the poles holding up the tent, and the rigging. A big piece of burning canvas came crashing down right in front of the band, and the man playing the tuba made a funny “bla-a-a-t-t-t” and then went on playing.
Emmett Kelly ran with Maisie past the band, his big clown shoes making a flapping up-and-down noise. A clown in a funny fireman’s hat ran past them dragging a big fire hose. An elephant ran past, and a German shepherd.
Emmett Kelly led her between them, pulling Maisie out of the way of a white horse. Its tail was on fire. “There’s the performers’ entrance,” he said, pointing at a door with a black curtain across it as he ran. “We’re almost there.”
He suddenly stopped, pulling Maisie up short. “Why’d you do that?” Maisie asked, and one of the on-fire poles came crashing down, bringing the performers’ entrance crashing down with it, and the ladder the Wallendas had stood on. The roof of the tent came down on top of all of it, on fire, covering it up, and smoke boiled up.
The clown in the funny fireman’s hat shouted, “There’s no way out!”
“Yes, there is, kiddo,” Emmett Kelly said. “And you know what it is.”
“There isn’t any way out. The main entrance is blocked,” she said. “The animal run’s in the way.”
“You know the way out,” he said, bending down and gripping her by the shoulders. “You told me, remember? When we were looking at your book?”
“The tent,” Maisie said. “They could’ve got out by crawling under the tent.”
Emmett Kelly led Maisie, running, back across the ring to the far side of the tent. “There’s a Victory garden on the far side of the lot,” he said as they ran. “I want you to go over there and wait till your mother comes.”
Maisie looked at him. “Aren’t you coming with me?”
He shook his head. “Women and children only.”
They reached the side of the tent. The canvas was tied down with stakes. Emmett Kelly squatted down in his funny, too-big pants and untied the rope. He lifted up the canvas so Maisie could go under. “I want you to run to the Victory garden.” He raised the canvas up higher.
Maisie looked out under the canvas. It was dark outside, darker even than the tunnel. “What if I get lost?” she said and started to cry. “They won’t know who I am.”
Emmett Kelly stood up and reached in one of his tattered pockets and pulled out a purple spotted handkerchief. He started to wipe Maisie’s eyes with it, but it wouldn’t come all the way out of his pocket. He yanked on it, and the end of it came out in a big knot, tied to a red bandanna. He pulled on the bandanna, and a green handkerchief came out and then an orange one, all knotted together.
Maisie laughed.
He pulled and pulled, looking surprised, and a lavender handkerchief came out, and a yellow one, and a white one with apple blossoms on it. And a chain with Maisie’s dog tags on the end of it.