The Pegasus Expo, Chapter 8

*copyrighted material*

Page 1

    October 16th, 1932. Kettle corn machines crackled, and stockpiles of cuddlesome toys of every size awaited as marvelous prizes. Teddy bears, rabbits, and pups. A repertoire of crooner quartets, contortionists, buffoons, play-actors, and games of all exceptional attractions had come along for the long weekend in celebration of the arrival of The Pegasus Expo to town. The news had every townsfolk marking time for a whole month in anticipation of one of the greatest and most revolutionary events of modern times. The Pegasus Expo was a place to officially endorse Roanoke’s brightest minds and their groundbreaking discoveries backed by the government, inventions, and researches relevant to an international level. The exhibit toured all across Europe every year, boasting, as usual. But for the first time in decades, a special in-country circuit had been announced after the official worldwide scheduled trip. The opening ceremony had been organized at the snow-covered park around Nooktown’s Ancient Botany Museum—Woodbone’s place of work as an environmentalist, although he’d settled upon the term herbalist for his humble Renou origins. The exposition would take place inside the museum, a place embellished with pilasters, archways, and cornerstones. 

Page 2

    Calvin and Wyatt had gotten their asses a day off while Bixbee worked at the fair as a manicurist at the children's and women’s section. The beauty parlor she worked at would have never considered letting such an opportunity escape their grasp. Her stepmother had always been a hard-boiled character, not much different from the owner of the parlor and her immediate boss. Being a hairdresser wasn’t Vivian’s forte but shaping and polishing nails had proved to be quite easy for her, as well as a self-sustaining service.

     Over a full year, Wyatt and Bixbee had knitted a warm and tender relationship. A painful amount of time for a twelve-year-old to witness without feeling too nosy or embarrassed everywhere they went. Wyatt, now twenty-three, and his new girlfriend had grown inseverable. Encouraging and shielding each other constantly. Calvin’s older brother had committed to helping Vivian’s father at the chicken farm whenever she couldn’t. Feeding the chickens or stockpiling fresh eggs ready to be consumed by the townspeople at the market. Donny Bixbee, contrary to his wife, was a good-natured kind of individual that showed nothing more than love and understanding to his only child. The man had welcomed the Elsner brothers into the family as if they were all from the same homefolk. The kid had been taken by surprise at his sibling’s sudden change of focus but realized then it would do him well to step aside from his old antics.

    Bixbee’s quiet and subtle integration into Calvin’s tiny family made him realize how simple was the act of covering each other's needs in the face of adversity. His brother’s girlfriend had kept and safeguarded her part of this exchange too. She’d usually look after the boy, cook lunch and help him with the coin wash process. Paying for the nearest laundromat from The Lodge House once a month had been her idea after all. Calvin found her sharp as a tack, with her love for Gothic fiction literature and massive sports pins collection from all over the world. A hobby she

Page 3

had acquired at a young age thanks to his father’s love for harness-racing and flea market trinkets.

    She was dazzled when her boyfriend and his little brother stopped by the nail bar stall at midday to retrieve her from work hours earlier. She did refuse but didn’t have much choice when he hopped into the stall and swept her off her feet with no intention of letting go. She surrendered to the laughter and accepted the offer with a slap-happy spirit. Fooling around at the park later took them inside the building, exorbitant for such a simple town. The structure of the place spoke stories of a once moneyed and prosperous nation. Its vaults were long and vast halls full of herbs of all kinds, textures, oils, and colors. Glass cabinets with soil, seedlings, and sward. Honeysuckle, myrtle, tilly, sage, and more. Rows and rows of displays lightened up with light bulbs hanging from above their encasements. The lobby hall had been bedecked with blue flags hanging from the walls and a lustrous blue carpet that took them to the exhibition hangar. An immense room with fanlights, concrete flooring, and horn speakers overhead. The stands had been distributed evenly in large cubicles. Aligned display after display containing all sorts of apparatus, gimmicks, probes, and memoirs for the sole purpose of scientific recollection.

    Physics, chemists, mathematicians, astronomers, historians, and more had been well-received to showcase years of research and paperwork that backed it up. Biologists growing and breeding new types of corn to fight hunger, and astrophysicists studying the luminosity curve of the Sun and ordinary stars. Paleontologists displayed their newest discovery on fossilized embryos of a possible Titanosaurus found near the Southern shores of the country, a folkloric mythical creature of the region for decades. There were also a handful of inventions and inventors to pick from, like Henrik Kloburcher, a physicist that had perfected the art of building the safest and fastest monowheel in history. A monowheel, for those that didn’t know, was a one-wheel motorbike in which the driver sat within a vertical ring. The idea was unauthorized and

Page 4

dismissed years ago until Kloburcher’s new proposal of a monowheel brought it back into the picture. The new vehicle had been reinforced with a tactical mechanism that permitted the unicycle to roll around like a ball to gain more speed on curves and a strong preventive brake system that would reduce the chances of a fatal collision to 35%. This had been accomplished—according to him, as he explained to the people watching his exposition—by creating a dozen sets of wheel rings that detached from the main vertical structure creating a stainless steel barrier ball around the bike and driver. 

    Wyatt and Bixbee were catching up on their kind of fun that afternoon, their best interest was focused on each other as usual. So Calvin let them wander off through the multitude following them from afar. She giggled while his brother pulled her from behind and into a bear hug, wrapping her arms and kissing her lips. And when his brother’s hands went too far, he just had to look away and aim his attention somewhere else. 

    “You are a ray of sunshine today!” Bixbee chuckled, pulling Wyatt’s arm around her shoulders and landing a kiss on his neck. Her soft lips sent chills all over his body.

    “Hey, I have my good days too. And that didn’t sound like a complaint, Vivian, believe me.”

    She snorted, “You noticed, huh? I could get used to it.” The blonde girl mocked.

    “Is that a challenge?” He smirked, pressing her back against his chest to murmur something in her ear. 

    She exploded in laughter and covered her mouth. “Wyatt! No!”

    “I can get dirtier!” He answered, laughing out loud.

Page 5

    “Fair enough, but not around your little brother, right Calvin?” She looked around but the boy wasn’t anywhere. “Where did he go?” Vivian took her boyfriend’s hand and pulled him back where they came from. Wandering against the mob.

    “Vivian, he is twelve, he’ll be fine.” He protested. “He must be lurking around, you know he is no baby.”

    “There’s just too many people in this place. Don’t you think so?” Bixbee insisted, and then said bitterly, “Honestly, I don’t trust this town . . .”

    He pulled out his hand from her gentle squeeze. “You are not his mother, you know . . .”

    She turned around, seemingly confused by his reaction. “Wyatt?”

    “I’ve watched over him for years, he doesn’t need this . . . this . . . Whatever you are trying to do.”

    “This? This is called caring for other people.” She shook her head.

***

 At the other side of the exhibit hangar, in a sheltered and private section of the exhibit, Calvin stared perplexed at a thickish crystal box sealed with steel corner guards. A jumble of stag beetles acting strangely inside it. The pile had seemingly ripped off their wings and some of their legs, forming a mass of contorting and buzzing insects around a hollow steel ball with tiny holes that most likely contained something, his first thought was of some sort of synthetic hormone or toxin. But then realized the insects were coated with a magenta pigment powder stored in the ball. Fine-grain, flour dust with a reflective blue hue. A drug? The kid looked for any labels around the deserted cubicle. Deserted? How odd. He found no name or description of its content but a brief note at the side of the box that warned viewers to stand at a safe distance. A

Page 6

rare sight and no statements or research, the whole thing rubbed him the wrong way. He made sure no one was looking when he stepped closer and pressed a palm over the protective screen. And then, before getting to any conclusions, Calvin heard gunshots coming from somewhere inside the building. And his first thought went back to Wyatt and Bixbee.

END OF CHAPTER #8