Sweet as Sugar

"I'm even better on the high-wire" Mu grinned. He switched hands again. "Anything else you'd like to see?"

"I would like to see the high-wire, but I don't have anything like that you can use," admitted Mr. Dane. "Can you juggle?"

"A little. Hao is better than I am, but He isn't here" Mu replied. He pushed off the ground and landed back on his feet. "I can only ever get up to four items."

"Oh, that's still impressive though," replied Mr. Dane. He looked around. "Don't really have anything you can juggle, though. Can't have you juggling bread."

"I think I have something," said Melly, scrounging through her backpacks. She pulled out four rubber balls and tossed them to Mu. "Here you go."

Mu started juggling right away. "How's this?"

"Ah, wonderful, wonderful!" cheered Mr. Dane, clapping again. "You know, I tried to learn juggling myself once, but I never could get the hang of it." He turned back to the oven. "But that's okay. These hands were made for baking."

He brought out the cinnamon bun and the chocolate-filled pastry, both steaming with warmth.

"Alright!" cried Melly, scrambling over.

Mu was too busy not dropping the balls. "Melly. I can't stop." He stated.

Melly brought over both baked goods and set them on a table nearby. "Uh...let's see...can you...aim them toward my bag?" Melly suggested, holding up her traveling sack.

"Easily." Mu smiled. He tossed each ball back into the bag when it reached his hands. "Ta-da"

"That was great," said Melly. She had been enjoying the show as well. "And now let's eat!"

Mu eagerly picked up his chocolate confection. "Thank you sir" He grinned, taking a big bite.

Melly had already began munching into hers, its stickiness all over her face and hands.

"As great as ever!" said Melly.

"Glad to hear it," said Mr. Dane.

"This is really sweet!" Mu chirped with a happy little grin. "I love sweets!"

"It's chocolate," replied Mr. Dane, smiling. "It's meant to be sweet."

Melly paused for a second. "Now that I think of it, have you ever had chocolate?"

"I've had candy" Mu replied. "Some of it may have been chocolate, but it never tasted like this."

"That's gourmet chocolate," Mr. Dane explained. "High-quality stuff."

"As expected from Mr. Dane," added Melly, chowing on her cinnamon bun again.

"Thank you sir" Mu chirped again, returning to his treat as well.

"You ever had one of these?" asked Melly, pointing to the remains of her cinnamon bun.

"Summer used to make them when Teddy could be convinced to light the pilot light on the cirque's oven" Mu replied.

"You guys had an oven?" Melly asked. She supposed it wasn't too surprising. A circus moved a lot of heavy things between shows. Still, something about an oven struck her as odd for some reason. "Did you use it to bake food to sell with your show, or was it just for you guys?"

"just for us" Mu smiled. "Most of the stands sold fried food"

"Did you have cotton candy?" asked Melly. She thought back to when she was a little girl, happily consuming the pink sticky stuff as she toddled behind her parents. "I love it. It's been so long since I've had it."

"Yeah! That's my favorite." Mu smiled. "I can make it in a blender."

"Cool," Melly answered, as she ate up the last of her meal. "Thanks a lot! What do we owe you?"

"Why I think that show will be payment enough," said Mr. Dane. "It's not everyday I get to see tricks like that. Now money, I see that all the time."

"You sure?" asked Melly.

"It's tourist season. I can afford a few things on the house."

"Thank you sir!" Mu chirped once again.