"An hour!" somebody yelled.
"Forty-five minutes!" somebody else roared.
"Two hours, ten minutes, and thirty-three seconds," another person shouted. Soon everybody was calling out. I said an hour and three minutes. Steve said twenty-nine minutes. The lowest guess was seventeen minutes.
When we were finished guessing, the clock started to tick and Rhamus started to eat. He ate like the wind. His arms moved so fast, you could hardly see them. His mouth didn't seem to close at all. He shoveled food in, swallowed, and moved on.
Everybody was amazed. I felt sick as I watched. Some people actually were sick!
Finally, Rhamus scoffed the last bun and the clock above his head stopped ticking.
Four minutes and fifty-six seconds! He'd eaten all that food in less than five minutes! I could hardly believe it. It didn't seem possible, even for a man with two bellies.
"That was nice," Rhamus said, "but I could have used more dessert."
While we clapped and laughed, the ladies in shiny suits rolled the carts away and brought out a new one, packed with glass statues and forks and spoons and bits of metal junk.
"Before I begin," Rhamus said, "I must warn you not to try this at home! I can eat things that would choke and kill normal people. Do not try to copy me! If you do, you may die."
He began eating. He started with a couple of nuts and bolts, which he sucked down without blinking. After a few handfuls he gave his big round belly a shake and we could hear the noise of the metal inside.
His belly heaved and he spat the nuts and bolts back out! If there had only been one or two, I might have thought he was keeping them under his tongue or at the sides of his cheeks, but not even Rhamus Twobellies's mouth was big enough to hold that load!
Next, he ate the glass statues. He crunched the glass up into small pieces before swallowing it with a drink of water. Then he ate the spoons and forks. He twisted them up into circles with his hands, popped them into his mouth, and let them slide down. He said his teeth weren't strong enough to tear through metal.
After that, he swallowed a long metal chain, then paused to catch his breath. His belly began rumbling and shaking. I didn't know what was going on, until he gave a heave and I saw the top of the chain come out of his mouth.
As the chain came out, I saw that the spoons and forks were wrapped around it! He had managed to poke the chain through the hoops inside his belly. It was unbelievable.
When Rhamus left the stage, I thought nobody could top such an act.
I was wrong!
Chapter ELEVEN
ACOUPLE OF PEOPLE in the blue-hooded robes came around after Rhamus Twobellies, selling gifts. There was some really cool stuff, like chocolate models of the nuts and bolts that Rhamus ate, and rubber dolls of Alexander Ribs that you could bend and stretch. And there were clippings of the wolf-man's hair. I bought some of that: it was tough and wiry, sharp as a knife.
"There will be more novelties later," Mr. Tall announced from the stage, "so don't spend all your money right away."
"How much is the glass statue?" Steve asked. It was the same kind that Rhamus Twobellies had eaten. The person in the blue hood didn't say anything, but stuck out a sign with the price on it. "I can't read," Steve said. "Will you tell me how much it costs?"
I stared at Steve and wondered why he was lying. The person in the hood still didn't speak. This time he (or she) shook his head quickly and moved on before Steve could ask anything else.
"What was that about?" I asked.
Steve shrugged. "I wanted to hear it speak," he said, "to see if it was human or not."
"Of course it's human," I said. "What else could it be?"
"I don't know," he said. "That's why I was asking. Don't you think it's strange that they keep their faces covered all the time?"
"Maybe they're shy," I said.
"Maybe," he said, but I could tell he didn't believe that.
When the people selling the gifts were finished, the next freak came on. It was the bearded lady, and at first I thought it was meant to be a joke, because she didn't have a beard!
Mr. Tall stood behind her and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very special act. Truska here is new to our family. She is one of the most incredible performers I have ever seen, with a truly unique talent."
Mr. Tall walked off. Truska was very beautiful, dressed in flowing red robes that had many slashes and gaps. Lots of the men in the theater began to cough and shift around in their seats.
Truska stepped closer to the edge of the stage, so we could see her better, then said something that sounded like a seal barking. She put her hands on her face, one at either side, and stroked the skin gently. Then she held her nose shut with two fingers and tickled her chin with her other hand.
An extraordinary thing happened: she began to grow a beard! Hairs crept out, first on her chin, then her upper lip, then the sides of her face, finally all over. It was long and blonde and straight.
It grew about four or five inches, then stopped. She took her fingers away from her nose and stepped down into the crowd, where she walked around and let people pull on the beard and stroke it.
The beard continued growing as she walked, until finally it reached down to her feet! When she arrived at the rear of the theater, she turned and walked back to the stage. Even though there was no breeze, her hair blew about wildly, tickling people's faces as she passed.
When she was back on the stage, Mr. Tall asked if anybody had a pair of scissors. Lots of women did. Mr. Tall invited a few up.
"The Cirque Du Freak will give one solid bar of gold to anyone who can slice off Truska's beard," he said, and held up a small yellow piece of metal to show he wasn't joking.
That got a lot of people excited and for ten minutes nearly everybody in the theater tried cutting off her beard. But they couldn't! Nothing could cut through the bearded lady's hair, not even a pair of garden shears that Mr. Tall handed out. The funny thing was, it still felt soft, just like ordinary hair!
When everyone had admitted defeat, Mr. Tall emptied the stage and Truska stood in the middle again. She stroked her cheeks as before and held her nose, but this time the beard grew back in! It took about two minutes for the hairs to disappear back inside, and then she looked exactly as she had when she first came out. She left to huge applause and the next act came out almost directly after.