Free The Circus in Winter by Cathy Day

vital nutrients to stunt their growth.
Things didn't get much better as time went on. In the Middle Ages, monkeys and dwarfs were both considered subhuman and were kept chained at the sides of rich noblemen to provide amusement for the court. Peter the Great and Catherine de Médicis bred dwarfs in barns, like dogs in kennels, trying to find the perfect strain of dwarf playmates for the royal family. Adolf Hitler exterminated, dwarfs to rid German society of their tainted genes. Before they were sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, Hitler hired artists to sketch dwarf bodies. The drawings were categorized as scientific findings and filed at the Bureau of Race. Also, dwarfs die in the womb from therapeutic abortions.
On the bright side, there are some pros to being a dwarf. An old story says that dwarfs were formed by God's hand from the leftover clay molded around Adam's rib to make Eve. In ancient Egypt, dwarfs were honored: the gods Ptah and Bes were dwarfs. A wealthy Egyptian dwarf, Seneb, and his normal-sized wife and children were buried in the famous tomb at Giza. The cult of Isis associated dwarfs with fertility, depicting them with large phalluses!
There were many famous dwarfs in Europe, such as Jeffrey Hudson who was presented to Queen Henrietta, wife of Charles I, inside a cold pie. Hudson dueled normal-sized men over beautiful ladies, carried important messages for the queen, and advised the king on matters of state. During the French Revolution, a dwarf spy named Richebourg let himself be carried around like a baby in order to smuggle messages back and forth between aristocrats. It is rumored that the classic baby face—the Gerber baby—is actually a drawing of a midget named Franz Ebert. Throughout time, there have been lots of famous little people, such as Aesop, Attila the Hun, Charles III of Italy, Toulouse-Lautrec, the Lollipop Guild, Billy Barty, Herve Villachez, Grumpy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Happy, Dopey, Bashful, and Doc.
Maybe the most famous little people in American history are General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren. Invitations to their wedding were very popular in 1863. On their honeymoon tour, the couple visited the White House as the guests of Abraham Lincoln, who couldn't take his eyes off Lavinia because she looked just like Mary Todd, only shorter. When the president asked the general his opinion of the Civil War, Tom Thumb replied, "My opinion is that my friend Barnum could settle the whole affair in a month!" Midgets and dwarfs aren't allowed to join circuses anymore, so many of them have retired to Gibsonton, Florida. The local post office there has installed a "Little People Only" line with steps leading up to the window.
In conclusion, I have shown that while there are some drawbacks to being a dwarf, history shows that if given the chance, dwarfs can contribute greatly to society.
    Because his legs were too small to climb steps easily, Chicky rode the short bus, the one for kids with disabilities. Painted on the side was L IMA C OMMUNITY S CHOOLS , N O . 5, but Chicky wished they'd just write R ETARD B US since that's what everyone called it anyway. Each morning and afternoon, he joined his fellow passengers: Three-Fingered Louise with a shriveled-up hand like a claw; wheelchair-bound Aaron the Always Crying Boy, whose mechanized elevation into the bus—a long and noisy procedure—never failed to attract passersby; and Lonnie the Masturbator, with crossed eyes, red pimples, and a hand that wouldn't quit. Sometimes Chicky wanted to tell the bus driver, "Just keep driving." The Retard Bus could travel cross-country, just like the trains that once carried his grandfather and great-grandfather. They'd stop in some podunk town, parade down Main Street, and in the evening, display themselves in all their imperfect glory under canvas and harsh lights.
    But Chicky knew this would never happen. Times had changed. People still looked at freaks, but not like they once had, with amazement