The Gypsy's Secret Numbers

Written by Moe Zilla, Published on 12/12/2008, Re-published on 6/23/2010

There was a crime, and I was worried.

And I was always worried about an acrobat named Lorenzo.

He was my father, and he'd exercised every day until his slender body was covered with muscles. He was stuck in the bottom row of the pyramid, the acrobat supporting the other gymnasts who stood on his shoulders. More acrobats stood on their shoulders, and more on theirs … and then a clown knocked them all down.

Our circus high-wire star earned twice as much money as the acrobats. After two years of hard practice, my father still hadn't earned a spot on the high-wire team. He was stuck on the ground with the tumblers, performing each night in their routines without a break for three solid hours. Tonight I saw disappointment in his face as the spotlight focused high above him on a wire strung from the circus tent poles.

And that's when the crime happened.

That same night our circus had received an angry visit from the town's sheriff. "Your freaks don't belong here," he'd said fiercely. Lorenzo had watched with shame and anger as the sheriff bellowed, "Circus people steal. And you're creepy looking, too. Get out of our village now!"

"We received this permit months ago," said our ringmaster with laughter and warmth. "And an honorable man like yourself wouldn't want to disappoint your 3,000 neighbors sharing a friendly evening with our circus family."

The sheriff demanded a look at the permit and a chance to inspect the facilities, insisting that each customer in this dangerous place meant more work for his department on a Sunday night. The ringmaster continued flattering the sheriff, knowing we couldn't afford to cancel the Sunday show. It was an almost magical tradition – each weekend no matter how much money the circus earned, exactly one-third of that amount came from the Sunday crowds.

But now the tight-wire had broken, and one of our performers was falling towards the ground! It was a 100-foot drop, and the audience gasped, but Lorenzo and I felt even more frightened. The falling man was the “Great Marchelli" -- the proudest member of our circus family.

We watched as Marchelli leaned his falling body forward. Suddenly he grabbed his knees and somehow hurled his legs over his head, doing an erratic somersault in the air. As he tried to propel his body into the safety net, he fell and missed! But Marchelli, being great, quickly stretched his arm out, grabbing desperately for the net's edge as he fell. The net stretched tight, stopping Marchelli's fall, and as the net sprung back into position, Marchelli used its momentum to hurl himself up into another confident somersault. He landed gracefully in the net on one knee, his arms stretched proudly. Marchelli glowed with pride and even arrogance. He spent his childhood in the circus, never learning to read or write, so he took an extra pride in his great performing skills.

It was the ringmaster who was most concerned. With the sheriff arguing that circus people were crooks, he'd wanted to look organized and in control. And because the ringmaster was afraid of heights himself, he was most proud of the circus high-wire act. He shouted praise to the audience about the Great Marchelli. He added that circus life was full of excitement and surprises, and its trained experts were ready for anything.

Though, his excitement would disappear when he found out he had been robbed.

When the crowds left for the night, Zelda, the fortune teller, removed her wig of wild dark hair, and put on a pair of glasses. Privately she was proud of her ability with math, and she wanted everyone to know they could rely on her numbers.

"Lorenzo needs to buy gifts for his family!" said the ringmaster with a smile, walking with my father into her trailer.

But during the circus's performance, the money had been stolen. "And there's something even stranger," Zelda said honestly. "They didn't steal all of it!"

The money was locked in metal boxes, and every day in her book Zelda recorded the amount in each box before handing them over to the ringmaster on Sunday nights. After she'd reviewed the figures in her mysterious black book, she'd reached her startling conclusion.

"They stole some of our money?" the ringmaster asked, genuinely puzzled. "But why?"

"The thief left us a note," Zelda replied, pulling a folder piece of paper from one metal box, sitting empty on her desk. It read:

I took what you owed me. Tonight the wire will snap.

"That's our money!" shouted Lorenzo angrily, as the ringmaster eyed him with suspicion, recalling Lorenzo's eagerness to join the high-wire act.

"It wasn't me," Lorenzo protested as we left. "Maybe the Great Marchelli sabotaged his own act, determined to steal the spotlight one more time!"

I wondered if Marchelli had a plan that was even more wicked. Maybe he'd faked that spectacular fall, just to cast suspicion on my father. That would ensure that my father would never be promoted into his place.

Zelda wailed that she'd guarded the money carefully. "The money could only have been stolen after the circus started -- and even then I was only gone for minutes to get our permit for the sheriff."

Did the sheriff ask you himself?

"No," she said hesitantly. "The ringmaster sent me to retrieve it from his desk in the front wagon." Her eyes focused, deep in thought, as she tried to imagine what happened in that time. Had his worries over profitability forced him to "steal" some money to hide it from his employees?

We opened her book of numbers:

Friday: $3927 Saturday: $8073

"I didn't even get to finish calculating the numbers for Sunday! Zelda wailed.

Was there anyone who was owed money?

"No!" Zelda exclaimed. "Everyone is paid equally, and always at the end of the week!" she sighed. "The ringmaster insists that each one of us be treated the same – except Marchelli, who gets a double share. There are 99 of us, and Marchelli's extra share makes it an even 100."

On Friday and Saturday there were two boxes: One for the ticket sales before 3:00 p.m., and then one for the remainder of the day. But on Sundays, Zelda kept all of the day's money in a single box. One of the boxes was missing, and there were four boxes remaining with the following amount of money:

$1817 $4012 $2110 $4061

"Call the sheriff," I said. "I know who stole your money. And I also know who is responsible for cutting Marchelli’s rope!”