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    Blenders
    Blenders
    Blenders
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    Blenders

    By Erin Lee

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Blenders

    Circus Freak Series Book Six

    A paranormal thriller

    Everything about the circus is an illusion.

    People come out strictly to see the show, never thinking about what goes on behind the scenes. They fail to realize that when the big top lights go out, well, that's when things actually get the most interesting.

    The charm in the circus, you see, is in the things—and people—no one sees.

    Albert Blender and his family aren't your ordinary circus freaks.

    Undetectable, yet confined to the restraints of gravity, the Blenders must put on one final show to save the tent from coming down… Heroes of the slowly dying spectacle? Maybe. Only, it will be anything but magical to pull this last illusion off. It may get downright vicious. It might even be expected. It's what happens when the unseen demand the stage and steal the show…

    What it won't be, though, is predictable.

    Because the truths behind the travelling carnival are anything but typical and certainly invisible.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrazy Ink
    Release dateApr 9, 2019
    ISBN9781386148067
    Blenders
    Author

    Erin Lee

    Erin Lee lives in Queensland, Australia and has been working with children for over 25 years. She has worked in both long day care and primary school settings and has a passion for inclusive education and helping all children find joy in learning. Erin has three children of her own and says they have helped contribute ideas and themes towards her quirky writing style. Her experience working in the classroom has motivated her to write books that bring joy to little readers, but also resource educators to help teach fundamental skills to children, such as being safe, respectful learners.

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      Book preview

      Blenders - Erin Lee

      Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

      ―Voltaire

      Copyright © 2018 by Erin Lee

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

      PUBLISHER’S NOTE: THIS is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

      Dedication:

      For all those just trying to blend in.

      I see you.

      Welcome to the grand finale.

      Blenders

      Prologue

      Present Day

      Albert (Bert) Blender the third

      Ifloat across the shabby, makeshift living room, my eyes adjusting to the darkness, wondering where she’s put him. He’s always here. Propped up against a purple pillow with scratchy sequins on the left hand side of a tired pull-out couch. That’s where he’s supposed to be and motor vans are only so big. Peaches 2.0— or is it Plum these days? —hisses at me as if he or she knows. In a short burst, I hiss right back at the hideous thing, whose fur is halfway to grown back and hasn’t lost the hair dye stains. If I hadn’t grown up a circus freak, I’d think I was in a movie. This can’t be real. But it is.

      The ugly cat leaps from an armrest to the spot where Moe’s skull should be and never once breaks its glare. Through darkness and the slight glow of purple battery-operated Halloween lights that stretch past Cat’s bookcase to her velvet and lace-covered side window, I strain to get a better view of it. But there’s nothing to see.

      Outside, cheap-assed Madame Leslie has killed the main ground lines for electricity and the best I’ve got is a grouchy 3 a.m. moon only a sliver of what it was the night the carnival’s token serial-killing femme fatale killed her conjoined lovers and one of my very best friends. But there are perks to this enchanted life too. Being invisible, I have the luxury of being here now. I have the power to do what others can’t do. Anyone else would be seen. It doesn’t matter if Plum hisses at me all night. Even if the one-armed killer midget emerges from the sleeping area, she won’t be able to see me. She’ll just think her feline friend is in a shitty mood.

      The sleeping quarters! That’s where Moe has to be. For a moment—one shorter than the time the carnival actually brought in decent money and long before the turn of the economy—I feel guilty. If Cat’s still sleeping with Moe’s round remains, maybe she really did love him. Maybe the whole theory Es has about Cat only wanting to free him from his shady brother was all it was. Still – she didn’t have to kill him. Anyone who’d feed their lover to the big cats isn’t worth feeling sorry for. Once a killer, always a killer. You don’t have to let her get away with it. You could set up a healing tent and let the law have its justice. The choice is yours...

      I refuse to think of my father – though he’d say and likely think something similar. It doesn’t matter that he’s warned me. There’s a time when every guy needs to become a man. This time is mine. I can’t live with knowing I didn’t try to at least make right this peculiar predicament. Slowly, I move to the wine-dipped curtain to expose one of the country’s most wanted criminals. Gently, I pull it back. There, in a double sized bed covered in stuffed animals from The Wheel of Fortune and Weight Guess is Cat.

      Delicate snores come from her pixie nose. Her eyes are covered in a sleeping mask that reads ‘Diva’ written in clear rhinestones. I move closer until finally, I’m close enough to touch her. I smile at the sight of her ‘Cat Mom’ pillow.

      With my left hand, I bit-by-bit pull the covers from under her double chin. She stirs a smidge, scratches her forehead, and rolls over. It is then that I see him. In fact, he rolls right over to me as if begging me to save him. I jump back. I haven’t even decided what to do yet; a thing that makes me feel most guilty of all.

      It’s not like I haven’t seen him a million times before. She rides around with him all day in the basket on her motorbike scooter. She tells us he’s a really well-done replica of the real thing and that she got the clearance Halloween decoration merely as a reminder. But I know truth. The circus is small. Everyone pretty much knows that the skull Cat treasures so much comes from a man who was everyone’s friend in spite of his conjoined twin. From what Dad says, the cops know it too.

      Hi, Moe, I whisper.

      Obviously, he doesn’t answer me. How could he? He’s been dead since four towns back. I hold my breath and strain my ears, listening for my father. I know there’s a good chance he’s watching me but doubt he’ll try to stop me. He can’t. Like I said, there’s a time in every guy’s life where he need to be left to his own decisions. My father gets that. Or, at least, I hope he does. So far, I’ve respected him and done nothing about curing cancer. So stupid. Maybe I should take him up on the healing tent. We could hook up with St. Judes...

      Blenders

      Chapter One

      Six days earlier

      Albert (Al) Blender the second

      Iam the thing you cannot see: The catalyst behind the sparkle in a child’s eyes as they watch the big cats jump through blazing fire hoops under the Big Tent. I am the silence between the ‘ooohs’ and ‘ahhhs’ of a round-mouthed crowd looking up at the tent’s dome for

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