Steven George & the Terror
18
The Balls of Fire
ONCE UPON A TIME, when the world was all in balance, there lived a clever juggler named Nico. He had begun juggling on his mother Mika’s farm where he was set to gather the eggs each morning. Nico thought it very clever that he could toss eggs into the air and then catch them without dropping or breaking a single one.
Nico had begun by simply tossing a single egg into the air over and over. One egg might not be missed if he dropped it, so he learned to toss it only so high and to catch it gently. He learned to catch it behind his back and to throw it under his leg and to still snatch it out of the air at exactly the right moment. When Nico had practiced for many days, and had gone a week without dropping an egg, he added a second egg. And so it went until he was able to juggle five eggs without dropping them and to place them all in the basket without an accident.
Nico thought he was very clever and that no one was the wiser for his little entertainments. But the people of the village, to whom Mika sold the eggs, began to notice something strange. Mika’s hens, they said, laid scrambled eggs. The eggs became very popular. People began to pass up other egg vendors in the market to take a chance that they would get a scrambled egg from Mika.
Only Nico understood where the scrambled eggs came from, and he had great fun deciding each day if he would scramble three by juggling them, or spend longer fetching the eggs and scramble ten.
Nico’s great talent was not destined to stay secret long. One day, Mika sent Nico to the market to trade eggs for peaches so she could make a pie. Nico took a basket of eggs to trade and spoke to the orchard owner about getting peaches.
“Well,” said the orchardist, “I have windfall peaches that I would trade for normal eggs, but if I were guaranteed scrambled eggs, I could give you the finest peaches picked from the highest branches of the trees.”
The orchardist thought that Nico could not guarantee such a thing, but Nico quickly agreed. He took six large white eggs from his basket and the orchardist selected six of the finest peaches. Then Nico began to juggle.
He had never put six eggs into the air at the same time before, but under the astonished gaze of the orchardist, Nico juggled all the eggs he had brought and kept them in the air until he was content that they could not be anything other than scrambled. Then he gave them to the orchardist, who immediately cracked the eggs one after another into a frying pan and verified that he had received six scrambled eggs. He gave the peaches to Nico, and Mika baked a fine peach pie.
But the secret was out. It was not Mika’s hens that laid scrambled eggs, but Nico’s juggling that scrambled them.
You might think people would simply want to enjoy the amazing feats of Nico the Juggler. But Nico lived in a very practical community. It was not long before the dairyman came to Nico with three skins of fresh cream to juggle. When Nico had juggled for some time, the dairyman opened the skins to find butter, and gave some to Nico for his labor. Now it became routine for Nico to scramble eggs and to make butter, and for his efforts his mother’s farm prospered.
The number of jobs that Nico could do because of his amazing juggling talent seemed limitless. He could knead five loaves of bread at the same time. He could make three pints of butter, and half a dozen scrambled eggs. He could blend the paint for the barn to a perfect hue and scrub four pots at once. Nico was in great demand.
Along with his hands, Nico discovered that his sense of balance was so keen that he could stand on one foot while he used the other to help in his tasks. He might, for example, be scrambling half a dozen eggs with his hands and stirring a cake batter with a spoon held in his toes.
When there was building to be done, Nico set nails for three carpenters at once by using his clever hands and feet. At the dock, Nico could separate a boatload of fish into neat piles of cod, trout, and snapper, then serve the customers by throwing them the fish with one hand and collecting their money with the other.
Perhaps one of Nico’s most spectacular feats was performed when the bell rope in the warning tower broke. While attempting to repair it, the watchman slipped through the trapdoor in the tower and fell through the ladder, breaking every rung on his way down.
Nico quickly dragged a cart from the market to the base of the tower and climbed on top of it. It was obvious that he would never reach the top of the tower from the cart, so he called for a table which he piled on top of the cart. Then he stacked chairs in a pyramid and used an old ladder from a nearby loft. By the time Nico was done, he had climbed a rickety stack of furniture and equipment to the height of the tower, attached a new bell rope, and disassembled the stack as he slid down the rope from the top of the tower. He was once again a hero.
Nico’s fame began to spread, and as with all things heroic, the stories were greater than the deeds. The story spread that Nico had thrown a rope in the air, shinnied up it while it was still flying, and then tied it to the bell and slid down.
Soon people from surrounding towns came to ask Nico for help. In one town, a child was trapped on the upper floor of a house that caught fire. The bucket brigade was having no luck dousing the flames, so Nico stacked up the buckets, climbed to the window of the burning house, and carried the child down. It was not long before the story spread that Nico had piled water on top of itself to swim to the top of the building.
Since Nico never knew what kind of job he might be called upon to do, or what he might need to do it, he began to sew pockets into his vest so that he could store things that he might need to juggle. He kept eggs in one pocket, cream in another, a knife, string, five smooth sticks, a dozen round stones, and anything he passed that he thought might someday be useful. And thus equipped, Nico began his travels as a juggler.
Wherever he went, he won praise and silver coins, both of which he stuffed in his pockets. And everywhere he went, there were new tasks that people found to use his skills.
Fire, as it happened, was Nico’s greatest accomplishment and ultimately, his undoing. One autumn after a very hot and dry summer, a spark from the campfire of a careless traveler ignited the tinder-dry forest, and a wildfire ensued. The village Nico was staying in that day was directly in the path of the raging fire. The villagers packed everything they could into little carts and fled toward the river, where they were soon trapped by the oncoming flames.
Nico soaked everything he could find in the village well, gathered it all between the raging fire and the dry thatch roofs of the village, and waited.
The fire came with a vengeance.
The first spark that flew toward the houses, Nico snapped out with a damp piece of string. The second larger spark was stopped with a thimble of water. In moments, Nico was splashing water, damp rags, buckets, and wet rocks at the encroaching flames.
The people of the village huddled with their remaining possessions at the edge of the river, watching in amazement. Nico raced from side to side, at war with the flames as only a juggler could be. It seemed almost as though he danced with the fire. There was a rhythm and beauty that emerged from his fierce battle and wherever he flew, the flames died.
Nico drew everything from his pockets and fought the flames with scrambled eggs and pints of cream. He collected sparks on the end of his juggling sticks and doused them in a bucket. He smothered them with rocks and sand. He led them away with string. As the fire towered over him, Nico seemed to shrink in size. Indeed, when all else was consumed, Nico fought the last embers with the sweat from his brow and chased the dying fire back away from the village.
When the smoke cleared, the village was safe. The people returned to their homes in awe that there was no more than a singed roof to count as damage from the fire. But of Nico, there was not a trace. As they gathered the remnants of the battle, they found pieces of string, rocks, and singed sticks. They even found an omelet, a fully baked apple pie, and a crème brûlée. And last of all, they found the juggler’s vest—the very one I wear now.
There are those who say that they have seen the juggler wandering yet through forest or dale, and that he juggles great balls of fire to this day, keeping the flames at bay.
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