assistant animal trainer He had once been the head trainer but the owner felt that Sam was too soft on the animals and so he demoted him Besides Sam was getting old Now he lay on a straw mattress that he had taken from his bunk his dachshund Daisy beside him He had placed the mattress beside a cage in the last car of the train After this car there was only the caboose Sam never slept well anyway but on this particular night he was worrying about the lion in the cage next to him This male lion was the youngest of five owned by the Wasserman circus He was just about grown with a magnificent and nearly full mane a handsome face and a powerfully muscular if still slim body He looked every inch the king of the beasts In fact he was a scaredy-cat The lion had been born at the circus’s winter home in Florida only to be rejected by his mother Sam had brought the tiny cub into his own bed to keep warm He sang to him and held a baby’s bottle to his hungry mouth The cub was a particularly sweet-natured animal so Sam named him Sunshine or Sunny Not surprisingly Sunny became attached to the old trainer so attached that he wouldn’t let another human come near That included the lion tamer called Fearless Fotham a sour-tempered man with a handlebar moustache and a drinking problem Sunny was even more afraid of other lions When Sunny was old enough Fearless Fotham brought him into the ring cracking his whip over the young lion’s head to make him rise up But Sunny jumped off his stool in fear banging into the mature male lion next to him who bit Sunny on the ear Sunny howled The other lions began to roar Fearless Fotham
smacked Sunny on the thigh with his club Sunny dived to the ground causing the lions on either side to snarl as they swiped at him with their claws The scene might have ended in bloodshed if Sam Hibbins hadn’t risked his own life by jumping into the ring and separating the lions with stern words He led Sunny out of the ring while Fearless Fotham cursing loudly used his whip to keep the others in place This near-catastrophe happened in Buffalo and it was the reason that Sunny was traveling in his own car Josiah Wasserman was threatening to sell the animal to a zoo in Ohio Sam didn’t want Sunny to languish in some dismal cage for the rest of his life so he asked for another chance He had a bed for himself and Daisy in the same car so that the animal would stay calm As the train approached Toronto Sam opened the car door to let in the early summer air The dachshund yawned and shuddered in her sleep But the lion poor creature paced in the swaying cage moaning unhappily What thought Sam was he going to do with Sunny Just then came the high whine of metal under stress and then a sudden lurch What the Sam said The faulty hitch had broken again The train was less than ten miles from Toronto’s downtown Union Station The weld cracked the hitch broke in two and the last car along with the caboose was released from the rest of the train The steam engine surged forward while the separated car and caboose began to slow down The car tilted and the wheels jumped off the
rails It began to tip sideways skidding on the gravel track and pulling the caboose over with it The terrified lion pawed the wooden floor trying not to slide against the bars Sam Hibbins grabbed Daisy as they were thrown out of bed Another jolt caused him to tumble head over heels right out the open car door He landed in some dense bushes that grew along the track The bushes scratched him up but also cushioned his and Daisy’s fall But the lion was trapped in the cage The car began to slide down the slope of the track bed Sunny was tossed sideways banging his jaw against a bar The cage twisted buckled and split apart sending splinters of metal and wood in every direction The lion was thrown free of the debris He landed in bushes a hundred yards farther on Sunny lay there for a minute or two before rising painfully bruised on his thigh and shoulder and ribs He shook himself and limped past the bits of wood and metal to begin walking up the dark hill ahead The lion came to a post in the ground He smelled on it the disagreeable odor of the many dogs that had stopped there to lift their legs Attached to the post was a sign Welcome to High Park No Littering Of course Sunny couldn’t read but he could smell earth trees grass wildflowers water He limped on
2 The Pie Maker’s Daughter I hate the way he watches me from the window Sadie Menken said to her father Strawberries had just come into season and he was pouring the red filling into the pie crusts while Sadie evened it out with a spatula He goes from one window to another Sadie went on Sometimes he holds things up Yesterday it was some dumb hand puppet Or he makes faces Maybe next time I’ll bring a rotten tomato with me Then I’ll throw it at the window splat That would show him Maybe he’s curious about you her father said He put a flattened circle of dough over a filled pie trimmed it and began to pinch the edges When they had finished twenty-five pies were lined up on the wooden table waiting to be baked Maybe he’s lonely and wants a friend her father went on picking up a pie with each hand while opening the heavy oven door with his foot Rich people can be lonely too Sadie pretended to choke herself and then fell to the ground gagging When her father merely continued to work she got up again
