11. The Tour

After finishing their breakfast, they got up and started their tour around the premises. Josh was first dragged inside the main tentby Kevin, and experienced once more the warm, sweet, and popcorn-scented air of the circus. As it was early in the morning not all things had been put up. He was soon ordered by people to help with setting up the seating for the audience and installing some fairy lights on top of the stage. When that was done Kevin waved him towards the backstage, where additional help was needed, but Josh needed a second to take everything in.

There were floating props around the horned guy that had been on the field the day before, scribbling down something on a notepad while talking to a pink gilled girl who had a long dolphin-looking tail and resided in a huge tank, leaning over the edge. There were people of all shapes, sizes, colours and magical bodyparts. He saw the old grannie who was one of the people surrounding him before he fainted. She wore really exotic clothes while riding on a broom, holding a box on top of one of her hands, warning people to get out of her way politely. All kinds of magical creatures crawled, flew or ran around, helping with their respective tasks. There was a small red dragon who breathed fire into a popcorn maker while a man filled the machine with popcorn kernels.

Josh was mentally blacked out seeing all of this fantasy stuff right in front of his eyes. Kevin then returned to shake him into existence and said with a grin:

"Better get used to this, Josh. Welcome to the actual Circus."

Josh glanced about aimlessly before receiving a box of random stuff and an order to help by the burly man James.

"You need to help as well. No one here has the luxury to stand around dazed before the show is about to start."

Josh snapped back to reality and decided to ignore everything and move his ass like they told him to. No use panicking about something you can't change. He lifted boxes, delivered scripts, helped with various small things like he'd done it a thousand times. Well, he had aquired a diverse set of skills due to his impressive list of past jobs. This much was nothing. 'Apart from the setting of course.' But after thinking that he mentally slapped himself, getting that thought out of his head. If he payed mind to anything at all, he would probably experience a brain overload and faint on the spot again. This was not the time to get the boss of this place to dislike him even more. He needed his head and neck on the top of his shoulders, thank you very much.

After a long time of running errands, Kevin once again popped out to guide him to the next place. Josh followed him without a word into what seemed to be a warehouse, full of trinkets and different props for the shows, as well as all kinds of old machines and a corner full of boxes which were marked with words and languages he'd never come across. Kevin noticed his stare and said:

"That's just some exotic ingredients for different stuff, some for magic potions and the like. There is probably also some random food stacked there. No one has been in charge of that corner in a while."

Kevin shrugged and started going through what equipment they often used and pointed out what machines did what. The only one Josh actually recognised was an old Singer machine, designed for stitching heavy learther. 'What do they need that for?' he thought, but quickly forgot about it so that his imagination didn't run off with him.

Next up was a small coffee room for the staff, which was to Josh's relief a quite normal room. The only thing he noticed that was out of the ordinary was the several coffee machines and drink systems on the counter. 'Well, as long as one of them produced normal coffee, then all is fine.'

The tour continued with the fortune-teller's room which already had a customer inside so he didn't get such a good look at it. The old lady from before that rode on a broom seemed to be the fortune-teller. Her hair seemed to constantly change colours as she mumbled some language by the crystal ball. The last place Kevin dragged him to was a mirror maze inside the tent. 'How the hell does everything fit inside this tent??' he quietly remarked before following his guide through the maze. He would probably never be able to navigate this thing. Josh noticed a movement in the corner of his eye and looked into one of the different shaped mirrors. His reflection stopped, and TURNED to look at him. It then smiled a goofy smile and waved its hand before vanishing.

"...... Kevin!!" Josh excaimed as he had already lost the redhead. Kevin soon popped his head out behind a mirror and said:

"Dude, hurry up. Guests are coming." not noticing Josh trembling as he once more disappeared behind the mirror. Josh took a couple of shaky steps forward, looking behind the aforementioned mirror and saw that the end of the maze was right in front of him. He beathed out a long sigh and walked towards the end. The hairs on his nape continued to stand up after he walked out, as if reminding him to be careful.