Tom and Zosia sneak into the circus at night and find Maximus’s cage open, with only a gold coin and a strange pawprint to follow.
The Lunapark circus rolled into town on a week of wind and rain, plastering every wall with bright posters and filling the streets with the smell of popcorn and sawdust. Tom and Zosia were half the school talking about it. They had lists of the acts they wanted to see most: tumbling acrobats, clowns with ridiculous hats, and the grey-bearded magician who could make candles vanish into smoke.
But above all, they wanted to see Maximus, the giant lion. People said he was the biggest lion in the world. People said he could sit on a stool like a gentleman, dance on two legs, and wear a shiny top hat without shaking it off once.
On Wednesday afternoon, just after lessons, Tom slipped into Zosia’s garden clutching two entrance tickets he had found under a school bench. They sat under the apple tree, whispering so no one would hear them, and made a plan that felt brilliant and slightly terrible at the same time. They would go to the circus during the show, and then they would go back after dark.
Zosia stuffed a torch, a notebook, and two cheese sandwiches into her backpack. “If there’s anything strange going on,” she said, “we’ll be the first to know.”
By midnight, the whole town was asleep. The circus grounds looked nothing like they had in the daytime. The balloons tied to the gate knocked softly against one another, the flags tugged at their ropes, and the great striped tent loomed under the moon like something waiting to wake up. Tom and Zosia crept between the wagons, their shoes silent on the grass.
Then they heard it.
A low sound from the animal cages. Not a roar. Not quite a growl. More like a whisper moving through the dark.
They froze.
The side door of the big predator cage stood open.
Inside, there was no lion at all.
Instead, lying in the straw, was a gold coin stamped with a lion’s face. And beside it, shining faintly in Zosia’s torchlight, was a huge pawprint leading away into the dark acrobats’ tent.
Tom swallowed hard and looked at Zosia. Someone had opened Maximus’s cage. Someone, or something, had gone into the tent.
For a moment neither of them moved.
Then the tent flap stirred from the inside.