It all begins with a small poster nailed to an oak tree. "Jasper Jupiter's Wonder Circus!" shouts someone. "What is that?" "The most amazing show in the world!" Everyone pushes forward to see, tongue-flapping skeptically, shouting. A woman screams, "Stop your fussing!" From a gap between her armpits, Nell manages to see a small part of the poster. The colors sing, with bright red dominating and a golden border all around. She sees an image of a woman with a beard, wearing a red sleeveless jacket and red wings attached to her boots. "Stella the Nightingale, hairy as a bear!" Nell leans closer trying to see the entire poster, to read the calligraphically written words. "Mini, the famous giant," a huge gray creature with a long snout, "Brunette, the Welsh giantess. The smallest museum of curiosities in the world" – a sketch of a white crocodile inside a jar, the shirt of a snake.

At the very top of the poster, three times larger than all the other images of animals and circus performers, dominates the face of a man. He has a very curled mustache and holds a cane like a lightning bolt. "Jasper Jupiter," it reads, "showman, presents a dazzling troupe of live curiosities." "What does 'live curiosity' mean?" she asks her brother. He doesn't answer. Standing there, he forgets the endless hours she has to spend each day cutting and tying bunches of violets and daffodils, the countless stings from bees that swell her hands, the spring sun that bakes her skin until it looks scorched. Admiration ignites her heart. The circus is coming here, to their small village. It will set up its huge tent on the whitewashed fields behind their house, painted with splashes of exquisite colors in the sky, and inside it, jugglers will perform magic with knives, exotic animals, and girls walking proudly in the streets as if they belonged to them.