The Palace of Laughter

On a blustery October night the Circus Oscuro came to town. It was clear from the start that this was no ordinary circus. They did not roll into town with fanfares and cartwheeling clowns. Instead they came in the dead of night, when all the townspeople were asleep. The circus wagons turned into the long field at the bottom of the hill that overlooked the town of Larde, and creaked to a halt in neat rows with barely a sound. There was just one witness to the arrival of the circus. A small boy, huddled in a large wooden barrel high on the side of the hill, watched the raising of the big top, awakened from his sleep by the shouts of the circus people and the occasional trumpeting of the elephants. The boy's name was Miles, and the barrel was his home...