The circus without white horses or elephants

You carry Grandma’s finger in a velvet purse. It’s your turn. Tess doesn’t have a chance of pocketing it now she’s wetting the bed again. Squeezing the smooth pelt, rolling your thumb over Grandma’s little bones, your breathing quells. In spelling tests, when big kids chase you off the monkey bars, when girls chide your hair’s like string, you have Pointer. Precious Pointer.

Grandma has a hundred stories and never says which one is true. A kitchen accident, lightning, a pruning mishap. But you and your twin know why Grandma doesn’t have a finger. You’ve heard her tell Grandpa to cook his own stew, make her a cup of tea, feed the dog. Grandma is a lion tamer.

When five, Tess scaled the roof. Friendly roars and claws, she was a dancing bear. But mid-twirl, the guttering cleaved, and she rocketed down. When wailing ebbed into staccato sobs, you examined her. Not a scratch, just a strawberry stamp on her thigh. She pulled Pointer from an old marbles bag tucked in her singlet and held it aloft—the sacred shield.

Maybe that’s why Mamma ran away with the circus. Maybe that was a time before Pointer. Before Grandpa had to choose—Grandma or the booze. Grandma says Mamma is a world-champion juggler. You practise with tennis balls in case she returns and you can be a double act. You toss and catch so often that the fuzz begins to bald like Grandpa’s dome. The only thing Tess can catch is a cold.

Every night, your illicit steps to her snuffly bed, wafts of camphor. As you cosset a cow-shaped milk jug, warm water laps the rim. You lift the duvet, spill from the jersey’s mouth. Your sister dreams on.

You’re thirteen minutes older, and Pointer is all yours.