Chapter 4
The sun rises on the Circus of the Angels, the rays reflecting off of the trademark winged being standing atop of the Big Top. It's an off day though, for its overworked performers, and instead of people getting up at 6am like usual, nobody steps outside of their caravans until 10am, and even then, it's the Jarlov family tending to the Lions under their care.
The circus doesn't reach its normal bustling peak until 11:30am, and it isn't until the clock hits noon that the circus children step out into the sunlight, blinking away the harsh London lights like vampires. Training goes on like usual, but there's a sense of lethargy to everything, something that only comes after a big first night like the day before, when everyone is swarming to see the newest big thing. The novelty to the public wears off after a while though, so the crowd that comes tomorrow is likely to be as swarming as it was the day before.
The fatigue he feels doesn't deter Harry from his juggling practice, eyes fixated on the pins as he stood outside his family's caravan, focusing on the complicated figure-eight-behind-the-back routine he was doing, preparing for the day he would finally be allowed to have his own act. He'd been taught how to do this with three pins, by one of the crew's many clowns, and was ramping up the difficulty by trying it with 5. Beside him, Leo was meandering around on a unicycle, talking to Joyce, the ringermaster's daughter, who was casually flipping a hoop between her hands, twirling it and catching it with both her magic and without, also on a unicycle.
"Dang it!" Harry muttered, snatching his hands away as all the pins fell onto the pavement with a resounding number of clanks. He scowled and picked them back up, about to start again when Joyce interrupted. "Y'know, it's easier to turn around first before doing the figure eight. I know you'll be facing the back when you do it, but then all you have to do is start facing the back and end facing the audience. You could even do it on a unicycle too, if you did it that way," Harry squinted as he looked up, and frowned, miming the actions she was describing without throwing the pins. She nodded. "Like that, yeah. You wanna borrow this for a while to practice?" she gestured down at the unicycle she was perched on, and Harry nodded. "Here," she gripped the seat and flung herself backwards, hopping off and gripping the seat to avoid having it fall into the caravan. "Leo! Catch!" Harry found the pins up to his brother, who caught them with ease, waiting patiently as Joyce passed the unicycle to the younger boy, who had to give himself a jumpstart to get on, seeing as the unicycle was slightly taller then he was used to. Joyce nodded, gathering up her hoops. "I'll see you guys later. Jerry wanted me to help with setting up the weights and I had to skip breakfast today because of how late I woke up," she stretched and walked away, still absent-mindedly juggling the hoops as she did so. The two brothers waved goodbye at her, before their attention was brought back to each other, and Leo threw the pins at Harry, who started right away, miming the motions a few more times before he felt comfortable enough to start throwing them. Leo watched, doing lazy circles around his brother, interested to see how his brother adapted what he'd done on the ground onto the unicycle. "How do you do that anyways?" he asked, tilting his head to the side as Harry quickly spun around to catch a pin behind his back. There was a short pause as Harry followed through the movement, tossing two pins behind his back to join the three already in the air, before he caught them with a small flourish, and looked up. "You mean like-?" he made a looping motion with a hand, and his older brother nodded. "It's really hard, you have to time it right so you can pass the 3rd pin in time to catch the 5th pin, but-" he made a small aborted motion with his hands, about to show his brother when he realized his hands were still full of juggling pins. He scowled, tossing them to his brother before making the motions again. "It's like how Lional taught us when we were younger- with the whole 'catch before you throw' thing. But because your reaction time has to be faster- because there's more pins, so you literally have to catch before you throw," he mimed the motions again, and Leo's eyes traced an invisible set of pins as he did so. Harry held out his hands, and Leo passed the pins back to him. They spent a few more hours like this, Harry going through his routine and Leo watching him, sometimes on his unicycle, and sometimes on the ground, having pushed his motorcycle out of its compartment in the storage area to work on some fixes. At one point, Ani dropped by, still leaning heavily on her cane, to share her candy stash with them, mostly consisting of Chocolate frogs and smarties. A normal day for the circus, on a day off from work.