"Fifty cents! A small price to pay to see Nature's greatest oddity! Please, no weak stomachs or feeble hearts--we will not be responsible..."

The cubs edged closer to the tent, watching the bright red cloth flap in the summer breeze, but they couldn't see anything inside.

"I've got fifty cents." Brad fumbled in his pockets and came up with the coins, then grinned and surveyed the others. "Who's coming with me?"

"I'll come. I'm not scared." Nathan, the young black wolf, pulled out two quarters. It didn't surprise any of them; he was always first to go along with whatever the tiger cub wanted to do.

And the others, as always, shrugged and agreed, with only a little grumbling that it was a waste of money--"probably just some guy they shaved the fur off."

And then, finally, they turned to him, and the question was half-inquiry, half-sneer. "What about you, Jeremy?"

The lion cub swallowed, looking for an excuse. "I... don't have any money left."

"Bet he lost that on the Scream Machine, too," Brad replied, snickering.

Jeremy couldn't find anything to say, so he stood there, ears down, tail-tip limp in the grass of the carnival field. He knew he shouldn't have eaten anything, shouldn't have gone on the ride--but they'd all wanted to go. Now they'd never forget it.

It would've been better, he thought, if he'd died instead of getting sick in front of all of them. Of course, they'd probably still have made fun of him somehow for being killed, but at least he wouldn't have been around to hear them.

"Here." Brad thrust two quarters into Jeremy's hand, then called to the group. "Come on, I'm going in. Anybody who isn't scared" --this at Jeremy-- "can come with me."

The others pushed their way into line. Jeremy hung back for a moment, took a step forward, then stopped and flung the coins into the dirt. They could think whatever they wanted to; he was going home.

Halfway across the field, he stopped. He didn't want to go in that tent to prove anything. But even though the thought of it did scare him, he wanted to see what was inside.

It was too crowded to even try to look for the quarters he'd thrown down, but he had just enough change left to make up for them. He paid, then edged his way inside, keeping to the back, scanning the crowd in the dim, red-tinted light to see if Brad and the others had already left.

They were still there, farther up, closer to the cage and the tent flap that served as an exit. With all the crowd and noise, he couldn't hear them, but they seemed to be laughing at something � probably Brad's insults to whatever was in the cage. He moved closer, trying to get a better look without being seen himself.

He'd never seen a human before, though he'd heard about them--the hairless, tailless throwbacks to before the long-ago Changing. They'd dressed this one in clothing, like a person, and it looked both silly and disturbing at the same time.

It was male, he could tell that much from a distance, and it sat in one corner of the cage, ignoring the crowd just as it ignored the flies that buzzed in endless circles around it.

Now he was close enough to hear Brad and the others.

"Look at its flat face..."

"Hey, it looks like you, Patrick!"

"All that skin--!"

"No wonder they can't take it out in the sun. It'd dry up like a worm!"

Jeremy shuddered despite the heat. He wanted to leave, but the crowd kept pushing him closer to the cage, and the press of bodies was making it suddenly hard to breathe.

And then he was there, in front of the cage, panting, the scent of the creature's skin and sweat and waste mixing with the scent of buttered popcorn and cotton candy, and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick again, but it passed, and he looked up into the cage.

His eyes widened. It was so young. It didn't look much older than he was, and he'd heard they lived as long as people. Then it raised its head, and their eyes met--

--and there was something behind those staring eyes. Something that saw. Something that told him this creature understood the taunts and exclamations, even though he'd always heard they didn't understand, couldn't talk, didn't know anything.

Didn't anybody else see it? He looked around at the crowd, but they were mostly acting disgusted or gleefully horrified.

He looked back at the man, though he wasn't sure whether to call it that. Then, as its gaze met his again, he knew, with another rush of nausea, that its defeated stare mirrored his own whenever the others teased him. Maybe this was what he should have been.

If it could understand... "I'm sorry," he breathed. But it was barely a whisper, swallowed up by the jeers, and the man showed no sign of having heard him.

"C'mon, kid, let somebody else look. You can go through again later."

He was jarred by the shove but didn't really feel it, and then he was stumbling out of the tent, squinting in the late-afternoon light, walking automatically toward home.

He made plans all that night in the safe darkness of his bedroom. He would go back. He would do something.

But the next day, the carnival was gone. He wandered through the field, over the trampled grass and candy-apple sticks, until he found the tent pegs still in place. A glitter of metal caught his eye: two quarters lying half-covered by mud. He started to pick them up, then left them there and walked back toward home, slowly, no plans left, no answers, under the blue heat of the summer sky.

This work and all characters (c) 2004 Renee Carter Hall ("Poetigress"). May not be reprinted or redistributed without written permission.