A novel about a trip to the circus that never happened.
Billy Hoffmann is eleven, and it bugs him that there's no middle initial between his first and last name, the way American kids have. A middle initial could stand for Trevor or Timothy, which would be pretty cool.
His biggest wish is to go see the elephants at the circus with his big brother Phillipp. But he can't, because the night before the show, his brother gets hit by a car.
Billy has ADHD. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. "I don't have that," he says. "I just have a lot of energy." That's why he runs twenty laps around the pillar by the parking garage exit while his mother goes to get the car — and when she pulls up honking for him to get in, he has to run all twenty laps back down to zero first, or the energy balance of the universe would be thrown off.
He experiences the world of adults as arbitrary and deeply unsettling. Definitely not something to aspire to.
Adults get migraines a lot. That happens when their brains aren't as sharp anymore as a kid's. So adults wait around for bad weather, and then they get their migraines.
When he grows up, he wants to be a professional walker, or maybe a Star Destroyer commander. Billy gets most of his equipment for dealing with reality from movies. He's a walking film database, and whenever possible, he answers questions with quotes from his heroes. It gives him a sense of security. But that means fiction and reality keep bleeding into each other.
My Brother's Elephants—a novel about a trip to the circus that never happened.
