Circus of Marvels Read online

  But this beast had grown too greedy, ventured too far, and now it had come under the watchful eyes of the Twelve and Madame Oublier. They would not allow it to continue. The two men stood beside him, with their matching pinstripe suits and carefully combed hair, had been watching this place for some time. When they were quite sure, they had called for the tracker, him and his animals. The hawk was his eyes, the lions his teeth, and the rest the tracker did himself. One of the pinstripes checked his pocketwatch, while the other made notes in a leather-bound book.

  They needed to catch the haired one tonight before it could do more harm. In the branches above, the tracker’s bird called out to him.

  “Lerft, roight … go!” the tracker breathed in a heavy Irish whisper.

  His lions padded forward and in a moment were in the darkness and out of sight. The pinstripes nodded and he left them at their posts. His breathing steadied. Out here there was no time to be scared; fear could kill you as quick as claws.

  Crack.

  A broken branch, somewhere in the distance.

  Crack. Crack.

  Another and another.

  The tracker paced forward, low to the ground. In a clearing in front of him a man sat by his tent and cried.

  “Niet, niet,” moaned the tourist.

  The beast circled him, growling, claws at the ready, saliva dripping from its hideous fangs.

  The beasts were never found this far across the border. There were treaties with their kind written in blood, an oath as ancient as the forest it now walked. But something had changed, something had made them bolder, and this one was crazed with a hunger only the tourist and his warm, oozing blood would satisfy.

  The boy pulled the silver from his pocket. A delicate chain could be as strong as a cage if handled the right way. He whistled to his lions. The beast was big and he was going to need them.

  Surprise

  Ned had been having the exact same dream for weeks now. It started with grey. No sound, no texture, just a wall of pure grey. But the grey had a way of turning in on itself, of tumbling and changing, till a shape would emerge, boldly lumbering towards him to the rising brum brum brum of a deep bass drum. The shape scared Ned. It was large and indistinct and heavy-breathing. But today the dream was different. Today he could see the shape as it truly was.

  The shape was an elephant with pretty white wings. The animal was ancient and also had terrible breath. He knew this because, as the drumming got louder, it started to lick his face.

  Ned found that there were moments, between being asleep and awake, when sounds and senses were stretched, altered. The ringing of an alarm clock might become a siren in a dream. Often it was hard to tell what was dream and what reality, and so it was as the licking from the elephant changed to the prodding of Whiskers’ snout on his cheek, as if the little rodent were trying to wake him up.

  Ned opened his eyes. He must have been asleep for hours because it was now dark outside. So it had all been a dream. And yet, the drumming had not stopped, or at least, had become something else, some other strange sound. A sound that Ned instantly knew was bad before he had any idea what it might be, because the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and the nails on his fingers felt tight.

  It seemed to be coming from downstairs. Short laboured scrapes, one after another, then a pause.

  “Dad?”

  The scraping continued. Whiskers scampered off the bed and sniffed at Ned’s door. Dad had always joked that he made the perfect guard dog. Too small to need a walk, but with the hearing of a bat.

  “Dad …” Ned shouted, “if this is a birthday surprise, it’s not very funny.”

  There was no reply. Ned opened his bedroom door and cautiously crept down the stairs, closely followed by his mouse. The scraping was coming from the sitting room’s patio doors. Something outside was trying to claw its way in.

  Ned’s first reaction was to run, and Whiskers, who was already squeaking noisily by the front door, was clearly of the same mind, but Ned’s curiosity had taken a hold. He turned, inching his way towards the sitting room, and was about to flick on the light switch when he saw something that made his blood turn cold. Standing in the glass doorway, lit up in the cold glow of the garden’s security lights, was the scariest sight he’d ever seen.

  It was a clown, though nothing like the ones he’d seen in books or on the telly. He had the same shrunken hat, oversized boots and orange curly hair one would expect, but he was caked in dirt. His make-up had cracked, like white clay left too long in the sun, and the few teeth he still had were gnarled black stumps.

  The horrible scraping sound began again as the clown dragged a claw-like nail across the glass. Then Ned realised – scratched into the glass of the patio doors were four letters.

  Y C U L

  Ned ducked down out of sight behind the sofa, heart pounding, speechless with fear.

  Suddenly from behind him Ned heard the sound of the front door being thrown open and a rather different Terry Waddlesworth than Ned was used to burst into the house.

  “Dad!” Ned managed to croak over his shoulder.

  “Ned? Ned!”

  “Dad, there’s something …” But he was suddenly unable to speak, only point with a shaking finger.

  “Thank goodness you’re all r …” His father’s voice trailed off as his eyes followed Ned’s hand. The only sound now was the continued scraping from the clown’s fingernails, who seemed not to have heard them through the thick, double-glazed patio doors.

  When Ned’s dad at last spoke again, he did so in a slow, deliberate whisper. “Ned, it’s time to go,” he hissed, beckoning him back towards him on all fours then grabbing him by the arm and leading him into the hallway.

  Ned was in a daze.

  “It’s OK, Dad, no need to panic. I’ve figured it out, I’m still dreaming. I’ll probably wake up in a minute and you’ll tell me we’re staying in Grittlesby for good, because I like it here, and I’ve got actual friends and they’ve bought me presents and we’re going to start behaving like a normal family and everything’s going to be great and …”

  Ned’s dad ignored his babbling and picked up two black bags from under the stairs, before pausing by the front door. The scratching stopped.

  “Give me a minute, son, and don’t go back in there. Whatever happens, he mustn’t see you.”

  And in a second he’d pounded up the stairs to Ned’s bedroom. On his way back down, Ned’s dad was stowing something into one of the black bags. Just as he was dragging Ned out the front door, they heard behind them the sound of shattering glass from the sitting room.

  “GET IN!” shouted his dad as he threw open the door of their Morris Minor and revved the engine, and before Ned knew what was happening they were tearing out of the driveway in a cloud of dust.

  Slowly Ned started to surface from his stupor. A bank of grey fog had rolled into Grittlesby, just like the one from his dream, and as they sped through their little suburb, Ned wondered whether his dad was using his eyes or his memory to navigate.

  “I’m not dreaming, am I? Dad, what’s going on? What was that thing?”

  “A clown, and a particularly nasty one at that. I just hope he didn’t see you.”

  “See me? I don’t understand. Why would that be bad?”

  “Because I haven’t had enough time!”

  “Time? Time for what?!”

  “To get you to safety, to explain, you see … not everything we see is as we see it. The world is a complicated place. It has layers, Ned, lots of layers. What might be the norm for one person, is not really the same for …”

  CRUNCH!

  Just then something crashed into the right side of their car, hitting it hard. Through the fog, lit up by the streetlights, Ned saw a bright purple ice-cream van with a sign on it reading, MO’S CHILDREN’S PARTIES. Its driver was hideously fat, with the same monstrous grin and cracked make-up as the clown from Ned’s home.

  “GET DOWN!” ordered his dad, before shovi
ng Ned further into his seat and out of the clown’s line of sight.

  “Please don’t tell me you hired these clowns for my birthday?!”

  “Ned, the tickets and present I gave you, do you have them?”

  “What?” said Ned, peeking between the seats at the grinning clown tearing after them.

  “THE PRESENT! THE TICKETS! DO YOU HAVE THEM?”

  Ned had never seen his father quite so crazed. Fumbling through his pockets he found both envelope and package, and pulled them out.

  “OPEN IT! QUICKLY!” shouted his dad.

  Ned tore at the present’s paper to reveal a smooth metal box. Just then there was another loud crash at their rear and the box flew from Ned’s hands.

  “I’ve dropped it!” he shouted, scrabbling around by his feet. “It’s on the floor here somewhere …”

  Terry cursed loudly and flicked on the car’s reading light, before making a sharp turn.

  “Find it, Ned, that box is the key!”

  “The key to what?”

  “Just do it!”

  Something in Ned’s dad’s voice made Ned do as he was told, and he soon found himself upside down in the passenger seat, scrambling around under the car seat to find his mysterious gift. Their old car wasn’t used to being pushed so hard and the engine groaned loudly as Terry hammered on the accelerator. Under his chair, Ned could just make out the glimmer of an edge.

  “I think I can see it!” he shouted.

  “Hold on, son, it’s going to get rough.”

  “Hold on to what? I’m upside down!”

  The car hit something hard, launched into the air and just as Ned’s fingers closed around it the box was gone again.

  “Ow! What was that?”

  “Speed bump … and another coming.”

  Their car flew over another of the hard, tarmacked lumps, and Ned smacked his head again on the vehicle’s dashboard.

  “One last bump, have you got it?”

  “No I have not, and I won’t have a neck if we carry on like—”

  The final bump hurt the most, but as they landed, Ned saw the glimmering metal box leap off the ground just before it hit him square in the eye.

  “Ow!” he said, grabbing at it before it fell again. “OK. Got it …”

  Ned felt his dad’s hand reaching for his neck and, in a single hard pull, he’d yanked him up and back into his seat.

  “Don’t lose sight of it again, Ned. Not now, not ever. Do you understand?”

  “Is this … is this what they’re after?”

  “Only two people in the world know about that box. Those clowns are after me.”

  “YOU! What could they possibly want with—”

  Crash!

  A horrible crunching sound rang through the car as Mo’s van smashed into the back of them again.

  Through the fog, Ned could barely make out the ‘NO ENTRY’ sign to Grittlesby’s pedestrianised shopping arcade and the two metal bollards at its sides.

  “Dad, we’re not going to make it!”

  “Oh yes we are, my boy, oh yes we are!”

  Their beloved old car hurtled through the barrier and there was a loud tearing noise as both of the Morris Minor’s wing mirrors were ripped off. Ned looked out the rear window to see Mo’s van screech to a sudden halt as it crashed into the bollards. At the other end of the arcade, their path was blocked by an even larger barrier, that Ned was sure not even his newly crazed father would try and break through. Terry went quiet, looking left and right, then left again.

  “Hold on to your seat, son.”

  Ned’s dad slammed the gearstick into reverse and spun the wheel. The old Morris Minor flew backwards, turning wildly up a narrow one-way street. Faster and faster the car sped, crossing one then two intersections, and then another. Ned now had no doubt that his father had gone mad when the car hit a high kerb and flew into the air.

  In that moment of free fall, Ned saw his life flash before him. He saw his school surrounded by a flock of C’s, his dad staring at the inner workings of a toaster, Whiskers asleep on his pillow. And Ned did the only thing he could think of.

  “Arggggggghhhhhh!”

  The car landed with a loud crunch. Its boot popped open sending their bags flying as smoke poured out of the engine.

  It took a good thirty seconds of his dad shaking him before Ned felt ready to stop yelling.

  “It’s all right, Ned, we made it!”

  But Ned’s thoughts were somewhere else. “Whiskers … what about Whiskers? Dad! We left him behind!”

  “Don’t worry about him; he’s tougher than he looks. You need to move,” said his dad, thrusting one of the black bags into Ned’s arms. “Quickly, Ned, they’ll be on us in a second.”

  The thought of the clowns brought him back to the moment with a thump.

  “Where am I going? Why?”

  “I was going to explain everything before the show, I wanted to prepare you, but my plans they … just get to the Circus of Marvels, Ned, they’ll keep you safe.”

  Ned couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “We’re being chased by homicidal clowns and you want me to hide in a circus?”

  “I’m sorry, it wasn’t supposed to be this way, I’ve tried to protect you …”

  “What wasn’t? Dad, you’re scaring me. What’s happening?”

  “Just get to the circus – they’re waiting for you. Take one of the tickets, you won’t find them without it. Don’t worry, Neddles, just give Benissimo the box, he’ll know what to do.”

  Terry grabbed the remaining ticket, tore it into shreds and started swallowing the pieces.

  “What is going on, Dad?? How do you know these people? Where are you going? When can I come home?”

  Ned could feel the tears welling in his eyes.

  “You’re going to need to be brave, son, and grown up, more grown up than I’ve ever let you be before … but I will find you, Ned, I promise. Trust only Benissimo and Kitty, and don’t lose sight of that box.”

  “But what does it do? What’s it for?”

  From back the way they’d come, still hidden in the fog, came the honk of a horn and somewhere beyond it another.

  “The clowns … they’re coming,” said his dad, now peering into the darkness. “They’ve found me.”

  “T E R R Y,” called a rasping voice, that was both ugly and near.

  “Run, boy, just run!”

  The Greatest Show on Earth

  Ned held onto his dad, tears beginning to flow down his face. How could he leave him to those monsters, with their cracked make up and glass cutting nails? It was the strength of his dad’s push that gave him his answer. Ned had no choice.

  He ran in the direction he was pushed, through the thick fog, only stopping when he could run no more. He looked down at the ticket clutched in his hands. Gold letters spelled out ‘BENISSIMO’S CIRCUS OF MARVELS’ and underneath the words was something he recognised. A picture of an elephant with tiny wings. It was just like the one from his dream. Nothing in his little world made sense any more. How could a travelling salesman obsessed with safety be mixed up in all this, whatever ‘all this’ actually was? Who were those clowns and what was the first one scratching into the glass?

  When he had caught his breath, Ned set off again, half running, half stumbling deeper into the wall of fog, until suddenly he hit something hard. When he looked up, in place of the tree he was expecting was a mountainous, red-cheeked man, who looked every bit as terrifying as the clowns. Ned was too dazed to try and escape, and was still catching his breath when the mountain spoke.

  “You are boy, no?” he said, sounding decidedly Russian.

  “Err, yeah …” At least, he thought he was. Though the last half hour had left him unsure of … well, almost everything.

  “I am Rocky. You are safe now, no one mek passing. De Circus has you.”

  There was a gust of wind and within a few seconds the surrounding fog started to form shapes. It swirled and rolled o
ver itself, revealing lights and an echo of music. The mountain stepped aside to reveal his father’s birthday surprise: BENISSIMO’S CIRCUS OF MARVELS.

  It had an old, hand-carved wooden entrance, with angels at its top and pitchfork-bearing devils at its bottom. Miniature red and yellow hot-air balloons with little lanterns at their bases floated above the sign, welcoming in their visitors.

  Ned’s father – safe, sensible Terry Waddlesworth – was in serious trouble, Ned was in the hands of a Russian mountain, and yet somehow, as they approached the entrance, Ned couldn’t help the faintest of smiles.

  A team of three, white-moustached emperor monkeys worked the crowd. They wore smart red outfits, with bellboy hats cocked to one side, one taking the admissions at the front desk, while another checked people’s tickets. The third monkey cranked the handle of a strange-looking machine. From its mass of brass pipes, percussion instruments and what looked to be part of a violin, came the most bizarre music. It sort of wheezed out a tune that was both fast and slow, light-hearted and melancholy.

  Ned followed Rocky past the queue and into the packed grounds. His head was a riot of adrenaline, of both horror and wonder, as he took in the sights while his father’s name and the way the clown had snarled it still throbbed in his ears.

  There seemed to be three main strips or streets, formed by gypsy caravans and painted lorries, strung together by a web of fairy lights. He could see palm readers, tests of strength, a mechanical Punch and Judy show and a hall of mirrors, outside of which, according to the sign, stood Ignatius P Littleton the third, ‘the Glimmerman’, who was a portly old gentleman covered from head to toe in tiny, rectangular mirrors.

  “Roll up! Roll up!” he yelled, his suit and hat alive with reflections. “See yourself as never before! I guarantee you’ll wish you hadn’t, or your money back!”

  The circus folk were dressed in a mix of old styles and new. A top hat with a leather coat, gypsy bracelets and ruffled shirts under military jackets and bowler hats. Their faces were all decorated in one way or another, some with glitter, others with white face paint and a few were covered in tattoos. ‘CANDY MONGER’S’ sold sweets and the biggest popcorn buckets he’d ever seen, while ‘the Rubbermen’ passed out helium balloons of every conceivable size and shape.