Maggie Thoreau is seven years old, one of the babies of the Armstrong Circus, and one of Cathy's very favorite people. She gets to wear a spangly costume and play a very minor role in the elephant and acrobat acts, and offstage has spent the last couple of years learning the very basics of most of the acts.

(Trowa finds the idea of making the learning process safe for kids to be kind of novel, although he approves of it. Which is not to say that no safety precautions were taken with his childhood training, but it wasn't really such a high priority as everybody in the circus takes for granted. Trowa likes kids, in a distant way, but this whole 'nurturing environment' thing has been a discovery of the past few years.)

Yesterday Cathy was working with Maggie on very low wirework. Which, inevitably, means that Trowa got drafted to help out too.

His amusement (both at the question and at the memory) wouldn't show even if there was more light. "Fine."

"She's got good balance, but her attention span's pretty short. I don't know if she'll stick with it."

Not that he minds, either way.