Nannerl had forgotten exactly which town they were in. They had been travelling for weeks now, and all the different towns and cities seemed to run together, just like all the roads outside their carriage window blurred into one long, dull road. Anyway, keeping track of those things was Papa's job. Her job, and Wolfgang's, was to play their music well, and do the tricks Papa had taught them, and behave like a little lady and gentleman in front of the important people. They had performed last night in a big palace full of marble floors and gilded ceilings, and Papa had been very pleased indeed with the gifts of gold and jewels they'd been given. He was so happy that today, for a treat, he was taking them to see a show-not a stuffy concert in a theater, but a real show, performed on a wooden stage in the open air.

She had thought they might take a carriage to the place where the show was being held, but Papa said it wasn't far and they needed to economize where they could, and so they walked, only getting lost once when they took a wrong turning down a street full of poky little shops. When they finally found the square, it was terribly hot and dusty and crowded, and Nannerl was worried about her blue silk dress, which had been made especially for this trip. Mama would know how to get the spots out if she got dirty, but Mama was far away in Salzburg. She felt a little sick from the sun, and from the candied nuts and marzipan that Papa had bought for her and Wolfgang along the way, but she would not dream of making a fuss when Papa was being so kind to them.

Five-year-old Wolfgang, on the other hand, had no such worries. He complained that his feet hurt and he couldn't see, so Papa hoisted him up and settled him in the crook of one arm, where he looked around, every inch the young prince surveying his kingdom. He caught Nannerl's eye and pointed at a nearby man whose bald head glistened like a hard-cooked egg in the noon glare, and they both giggled, Nannerl covering her mouth with one hand.

Papa heard it and looked down with his eyebrows all knitted together.

"What's funny?"

"Nothing, Papa." Nannerl made her face go prim and sober, a skill she had perfected during a hundred long evenings at the sort of formal dinners where children were to be seen and not heard. "Will the show start soon?"

Her father nodded and started to turn away, then looked at her more closely and reached to lay the back of one big hand against her cheek. "You're all flushed. Do you have a fever? We can go back to the lodging house if you're ill."

"Oh, no," Nannerl said, not quite sure if it was the truth or a lie. "It's hot, that's all. I want to stay."

"Well, if you're sure," Papa began, but just then a man in ragged lace and velvet bounded onto the hastily knocked-together platform at one end of the square, and the show swept all three of them into its spell.

Nannerl had seen travelling performers before, both at home and abroad, but never anything quite as fascinating as this. First came two men who juggled burning brands and tossed them back and forth across the stage; then a boy with trained dogs that wore white ruffs and walked on their hind legs; and then a group of tiny acrobats, no taller than Wolfgang, took the stage to leap and tumble and fling each other in the air. No sooner had the little people bowed and departed than a beautiful black-haired lady arrived—this part drew loud whistles and rude comments from the men in the audience—and sang a tragic song about her dead lover. A conjuror swept about in a long cloak and made showers of rose petals and hissing fireworks and fluttering, flapping doves appear from nowhere. And then just when Nannerl thought surely nothing else could happen, a clown emerged from a trap door in the stage, in a particolored costume and a peaked hat, with his face painted stark white and red. He turned a lazy flip-flop off the edge of the platform and began dancing and capering through the crowd, moving steadily toward the Mozarts where they stood.

Wolfgang took one look at the clown and started to whimper. "I don't like him."

"Don't be silly, son." Papa said, and ruffled Wolfgang's hair. "He's a clown. You're supposed to laugh at him. See, everyone else is laughing."

"He's not funny." Wolfgang's lower lip quivered. "He's scary. He'll eat me up."

"No he won't, will he Nannerl?" Papa gave Nannerl a meaningful glance over the top of Wolfgang's curly blond head, and she knew she was supposed to agree. She wanted to agree—she wasn't a baby like Wolfgang, but a grown-up girl of ten, more than old enough to know that the clown was just an ordinary man with greasepaint on—but the longer she looked at him, the more uncertain she felt. The clown's eyes were so very dark and shiny, and the red paint smeared around his mouth looked so awfully like blood, as if he really had been eating little boys. He grinned, exposing long yellow teeth, and the sickness that had plagued her earlier came back in a hot queasy rush, until she was afraid to open her mouth.

"Maria Anna," Papa said warningly. "Tell your brother there's nothing to be afraid of."

Acid burned at the back of Nannerl's throat, and for a moment she truly thought she would be ill, but then the idea of spoiling her blue silk came back to her, and she swallowed fiercely once, then once again, and clasped her arms hard across her middle for good measure.

"Papa's right, Wolferl," she said in a strained voice. "It's just a funny clown, see?"

A tear spilled over the lower edge of Wolfgang's eye and ran down his plump little cheek, still sticky from the sweets he'd eaten.

"It's not a funny clown," he said. "It's a bad clown. A bad clown."

Nannerl ducked her head and looked past her brother's dangling feet in their small buckled shoes. The clown had nearly reached them now; she could hear his high, bubbling laughter as he took a mock tumble and was boosted up by the approving crowd, waving a bladder on a stick. He would be upon them in a few seconds, and all at once she knew that if her eyes met his, or worse, if he touched her, she would die on the spot.

"I'm sick," she said abruptly. "Papa, I'm sorry, you were right. I do have a fever. I should have said so before. Please can we go?"

Her father frowned, and she thought he might say no just to teach her a lesson for deceiving him when he'd first asked. He was strict that way sometimes. But instead he smoothed damp strands of hair off her forehead and said, "I thought as much. Come along then, we have travelling still to do and you must guard your health. We'll take a carriage back to the lodging house."

Nannerl followed him meekly from the square, already thinking ahead to the relief of lying down in the dim quiet of their rented room. She wouldn't even complain about the musty curtains or the way the bed sagged in the middle, she thought, as she tried to hold up her precious skirts with one hand and keep the other pressed to her aching stomach. But just before the crowd closed behind them, she glanced over her shoulder and saw the clown standing on the place where they had only just been, watching her go with one hand raised in a wave, its grinning lips coming together to form a single, inaudible word.

She wondered what that word might have been through the bumpy ride back to their lodgings. She wondered later that night, when Wolfgang woke them all up screaming about the bad clown and crying because he had wet the bed in his terror. She was still wondering when they packed their trunks the following morning and left for their next engagement.

She wasn't sure, but she thought it might have been a name.