The Mitten and the Cricket

The Act was performing in Trinity's quad. Carl helped Julia out of the car and past the dorms. "Jeez, Sis. They didn't give you crutches?" She shook her head and gritted her teeth. She had crutches back in Boston, but they'd been more of a hindrance. She'd fallen because of them more than once, and crutches don't help you up from the kitchen floor.

They made it to the small crowd ringing The Act. Carl made a path through the students, barking at a few who were slow to move, even discretely elbowing a particularly large coed. The Act was still setting up, but even in this they were consummate showmen, falling over each other, tumbling artfully on the grass. There were a few friends of Carl's standing near the front, and he high-fived them.

"Why are there so many students here? It's just like Ben to plan a college tour when no one's on college campuses anymore."
"Summer courses. Internships in town. Year long leases and subletters. No one ever really leaves the Trin."

Julia tried to do her balancing act, pretending not to lean on her left leg. She was concentrating so thoroughly on that that she didn't notice Carl slip away. She overbalanced and all her weight was suddenly on her sore ankle. She winced and quickly shifted back. Where had Carl gone? She distracted herself by looking for Ben. The Act consisted of Ben, four of his juggling buddies, and three brothers from China. Ben's juggling buddies were pretty run-of-the-mill college kids. They looked as lanky and under-nourished as did their hair. The supposed brothers were a different matter. Ben said they shared the last name and told everyone they were brothers, but they looked nothing alike. One was less than five feet tall, a constant ball of energy, one was nearly Ben's height but nearly twice as stocky, and the third was so tall his head didn't seem to be part of The Act, just his arms propelling the pieces of the various sets.

They were dressed in varying degrees of clown costume, which was a little odd. Julia was used to seeing them all impeccably done up before even beginning the warm-up, which was of course part of the routine as well. There was a screened off area behind the main stage of motion. Ben must be behind there, since Julia still had not picked him out of the whirling arms and legs. All of a sudden, they were all hidden from view and Carl was beside her with a chair, flashing a self-satisfied grin. Julia sat, feeling conspicuous, as if the show was just for her and the others were peasants present to enhance her experience with their oohs and aahs.

Then Ben emerged dressed in a grey, form-fitting suit that reached up over his head in the form of two large, round ears and down over his face to a peak of nose and whiskers. "Friends," he said. "We are The Act, and we bring you the most wondrous feat imaginable today. We present to you: Winter!" Two performers leaped from opposite sides of the partition, tossing a bolt of cloth between them in midair. It was a shocking blue and white and they made it ripple between them. Two other performers swept out from behind this and began to juggle a myriad collection of objects that looked for all the world like large snowflakes. The effect was mesmerizing. Julia thought for a second the burly Chinese brother would come out dressed like a nutcracker. She smiled and shook her head. They wouldn't be that cliche.

"This is the tale of a young boy, a mitten, a cricket who thought she didn't matter."

At Ben's words, the smallest Chinese brother pranced into view, holding a bundle of sticks. He spoke without an accent.

"It was the coldest day of winter, and I was gathering firewood for grandma. She told me to gather all I could, for the north wind blows cold tonight and we must have a roaring fire." He shivered, despite the day's warmth. He was wearing a tight red suit, with white fur lining the neck. Ben had slipped back out of sight. "I worked all morning to load up my sled, but as I finished and was heading home, I dropped one of my mittens. I don't know how I could've done such a thing on the coldest day of winter!" He smacked his hand to his forehead and did a back flip that took him away from the foreground. The crowd laughed. The tallest of the brothers jumped from behind the screen to replace the performers handling the cloth. He held a large picture of a mitten, with a white fur cuff and a red wool inside. "Along came a mouse," said the smallest Chinese brother, "And it was cold."

Ben moved furtively to the center of the grassy stage, no longer standing upright. He sniffed the air and pulled the grey jacket he had donned closer about him. Ducking under the soaring snowflakes, he touched the picture of the mitten. The boy character continued to narrate. "The mouse saw that my mitten was warm and snuggled down into it." The two performers who had been replaced by the tallest brother ran back on stage as the jugglers ended their snowflake sequence and ran off stage. Somehow Ben had acquired a set of red glass orbs and he began to juggle them as the two new jugglers set up a series of arcs before him. They had two sets of balls, one red and one white, and they kept them separate, creating a stream of white above a stream of red. Ben walked forward, through these arcs, still juggling his set of balls. The red and white streams seemed almost to pass through him, flowing all around his head and amidst his pattern of juggling.

Stepping from this hazardous area, Ben went into a series of different juggling techniques. The audience was duly wowed, but he moved through them quickly as if they were insignificant, mere steps he had to complete before the story could continue. He kept juggling as he sat down and moved seamlessly into a routine of contact juggling, weaving the orbs over and between his arms. Julia had seen this before but had never seen someone sit to do it.

The boy had turned to watch the performance as well and now turned back to the crowd. He mimicked clapping and the audience applauded. Nodding, the boy held out his hands. Two balls were tossed from behind the screen. He caught them and began to juggle them. One had a picture of a mouse on it, the other had a frog on it.

"Do not ask me how I failed to take my mitten with me. Don't ask me, either, how it is a frog was out and about on this the coldest day of winter. I'm just a little boy. This story is much older than me."

One of the initial jugglers jumped out from behind the screen, now dressed all in green. He performed a routine similar to Ben's. This continued as an owl, a rabbit, a fox, a wolf, a wild boar, and a bear came onto the stage. The boy told how each asked permission to come into the warmth of the mitten and how each was granted grudging entrance. Each performer sat and alternated between juggling and contact juggling. As the mitten became more crowded, the original picture was revealed to be folded as an accordion and opened out to fill the entire screen, where the tallest brother left it to hang so he could become the bear. The performers also rotated out as they mitten became more crowded, though Ben remained in the same spot. The frog became the fox. The rabbit became the wolf. The owl, played by the widest of the brothers, became the wild boar. Each substitution was accompanied by an unfolding of the mitten's image, and each unfolding revealed an image of the creature that was disappearing. The young boy was now juggling seven balls as the bear approached the mitten.

The bear did not ask permission, however, and simply forced his way into the mitten. At this, the boy threw an eighth ball high into the air. As it fell into the rotation of the other balls, he let them all drop. The other performers sprang to their feet, and all the red and white balls were tossed between the eight of them. It was an impressive showing, as the balls seemed to be a chaotic jumble in the air but always found their way to the right hands. The boy spoke the crowd over his shoulder, saying, "Now, again, do not ask me how a mitten stretched to fit all these animals. It did. The seams were bursting and the lining was coming apart, but it held together. However, a cricket came along." Julia felt Carl shifting next to her. She looked up at his face and saw him grinning. The boy said, "The little old cricket was cold and her legs ached. She saw all the animals gathered warmly together and said to herself one little old cricket wouldn't make that much of a difference. Little did she know!"

With that, Carl lobbed a painted-cricket ball over the entire series of arcs. The juggling stopped, each performer clutching his balls except for the little boy who stepped to the middle of them and caught the cricket ball in an up-stretched hand. As he caught it, the others ran off stage, two of them grabbing the sides of the painted mitten and ripping it asunder.

"At this very moment, I realized I'd dropped my mitten. I went back to look for it, but all I found was the ripped apart pieces." The two pieces of the painted mitten were thrown over the screen. The crowd laughed quietly. "I thought I saw a mouse scampering through the snow. It had a bit of red wool on its head, which looked like the lining from my mitten," said the boy. Ben ran behind the boy quickly, eliciting another laugh. "But I couldn't be sure." The boy hugged himself tightly and shivered. "I hope my grandma has made me a new pair of mittens," and he ran off after Ben.

Carl exploded into applause, and the crowd did the same. A bird squawked in the sky and changed direction, as if struck. Julia felt cold for some reason, and her hands lay limp across her lap. If she had tried to speak, she wouldn't have been able to. She sat there waiting for Ben to come back, wishing she were somewhere else.