Circus of Marvels Read online

  But as much as Ned marvelled at the sights and sounds, he couldn’t stop thinking about the clowns out in the fog, and his dad out there with them.

  “Rocky, my dad said I should talk to Benissimo, do you know where he is? Can you take me to him?”

  “Everyone see Benissimo, Benissimo is boss,” answered Rocky, motioning beyond the sea of faces and over to the big top.

  Ned had the sense that Rocky had been waiting for him and knew at least something of his predicament, though the urgency of the situation seemed to be going over his head. He hoped that, for all Rocky’s enigmatic comments, he was taking Ned where he needed to be. As they waded through the crowd, Ned had an odd sensation. It wasn’t that anyone was looking straight at him, but it felt like there was someone out there watching from the shadows, from the nooks and crannies of the tents and trailers. Then just as suddenly as the feeling had started, it stopped. It was then that Ned noticed something else. He didn’t recognise anyone in the crowd, not a single soul, and yet they all seemed to know each other, giving the occasional nod or stopping to shake hands. Ned realised that he hadn’t seen a single circus poster or ad in any of the usual spots around town. In a place like Grittlesby, a visiting circus was news, so why weren’t they publicised? Where had they all come from and who were they?

  Suddenly a crescendo of horns, trumpets and drums all blared at once as a dozen men on stilts appeared, towering over the crowd.

  “Your circus awaits!” they shouted, as they began ushering people to the big top.

  Some juggled fire, others plucked violins or blew trumpets. They worked like a team of cow hands, coaxing their herd to the mouth of the big top. Ned followed, too much in the moment to notice himself take his seat: front row and centre.

  “Watch show. After, I find you,” announced Rocky, and with that he was gone.

  “But …”

  Ned tried to protest but at that moment the shouting stopped and the lights dimmed and Ned found himself surrounded by many, but completely alone. He’d just have to sit it out and wait for Rocky to return.

  A beat later, the big top’s main spotlight fired up, casting its beam on the centre of the ring. There was an almighty crack, as a pile of sawdust was kicked up off the floor by a coiled leather whip and in strode the Circus of Marvels’ Ringmaster. He was an imposing figure, at least six-foot-three with a thick moustache and eyebrows to match. He wore a red military jacket with tarnished gold buttons and tatty braiding, faded striped trousers and a waistcoat that had seen better days. Even his top hat was crooked and a thin scar ran down the left side of his face, giving the impression of a man part gypsy, part rogue. Was this who Rocky had meant by the boss? Was the Ringmaster Benissimo? He paced around the ring almost leering at the audience; this was clearly his ring and his circus. If anyone under the big top was going to help, Ned hoped that it was going to be him. That was, until he started to speak, and as he did so Ned noticed the strangest thing: the Ringmaster’s whip was moving on its own. It was hard to see at first, but it seemed to twist slightly, like a coiled snake writhing in his hand. Ned blinked and it stopped. Who were these people and why did his father trust them so much that he’d left Ned here alone with them?

  “My Lords, Ladies and layabouts, welcome to the Circus of Marvels!” the great man barked. “I, Benissimo, am your Ringmaster and guide. From the mountains of China, the deserts of Africa and the jungles of South America, I have brought you the most miraculous and strange. Tonight you will see and hear things that will blind your ears and deafen your eyes! Let the show begin!”

  The band burst into action and in strode seven of the cheeriest men Ned had ever seen, with ‘THE FLYING TORTELLINIS’ emblazoned on their shirts.

  “Hey! How you doing, whad-a ya know, where ya been, whad-a ya say?” they chorused.

  Boys with overprotective fathers have little in the world to be scared of, apart perhaps from homicidal clowns. But ever since he could remember, Ned had had an overwhelming fear of heights. He felt his stomach lurch as the Tortellinis flipped, lunged and somersaulted through the air. Up on the trapeze and high-wire they moved like mountain goats, as happy a hundred feet up as they were on the sawdust below.

  The next act – ‘Mystero the Magnificent’ – came as a welcome relief to Ned. He wore a dinner jacket with a bow tie and was a slight, ill-looking man with pale, clammy skin and a serious disposition. How he managed to escape from the inside of a safe, without so much as a rattle, was completely beyond Ned. Ned knew more than most boys his age about how intricate a locking mechanism actually was. He pictured it in his mind, how the chained and padlocked escape artist might move in the cramped space of a safe, how he might try to unlock it. His father would have had an idea, Ned thought with a twinge. He always had an idea when it came to puzzles and plans. Again Ned felt restless in his seat, wishing he could talk to Benissimo.

  But there was no time for that, as the next act took to the stage – a Frenchman who called himself Monsieur Couteau, and announced himself to be the finest blade in all of Europe. He was also wearing a blindfold. There were screams from the crowd as his razor-sharp sword cut a series of crossbow bolts from the air, each and every one of which had been aimed directly at his head. When the lights came up, only sawdust and matchsticks remained of his would-be assassins.

  The acts went on and on. The Guffstavson brothers lit bulbs by placing them in their mouths. The Glimmerman walked through one mirror only to emerge through another, more than thirty feet away. Ned imagined an elaborate trap door and tunnel, hidden beneath the sawdust, but the Glimmerman had seemed to disappear and reappear in an instant.

  As much as it made his head hurt, the final act was the strangest and most unsettling of all.

  “Now,” announced Benissimo, “do not be alarmed. Though our next act has a terrifying aspect, I assure you, you are in no danger. Even so, our youngest members of the audience may wish to look away. Found as a small baby by my own hand, he is the largest gorilla in recorded history. I present to you, George the Mighty!”

  Benissimo stepped back into the shadows. For a long time nothing happened. And then it came. A long drawn out wailing – a grunt – and then a deep thundering roar that silenced the big top. Curtains were pulled back to reveal a huge gorilla, at least twice the size of an ordinary ape. He snarled and bellowed at the audience, his mouth curling back over his gums angrily. Ned had never seen such real or ferocious rage.

  There were several displays of George’s incredible strength. Metal pipes were bent, huge weights lifted and members of the audience duly terrified. And then it happened. As the ape snapped his last metal chair into countless broken pieces, he stopped moving, peered across the ring, and fixed his great dark eyes front row and centre, on Ned’s own. He grunted softly and then … smiled, a smile that seemed to be aimed directly at Ned.

  Ned’s body tensed. He looked about him to see if he was mistaken and the giant gorilla was in fact looking at someone else, but at that moment the big top’s lights flared up. The crowd clapped and cheered. The show was over.

  And then there it was again, that feeling, that from somewhere in the shadows, from way beyond the now empty stage, someone was watching him.

  ***

  Outside the big top, the sky was a deep black. All the stalls had closed and just a few fairy lights pointed the way to the exit. Ned had no idea what he was supposed to do now. He had to find Benissimo, the Ringmaster was sure to be backstage somewhere and Ned’s head physically hurt with questions. When would he see his dad? Who were those clowns? What was the Circus of Marvels and was Ned really safe with them?

  Happy Birthday, Ned, he thought to himself as the rest of the crowd walked off into the fog, chatting happily, back to their ordinary, clown-less homes. He turned back to the big top, ready to go and look for the Ringmaster, and came face to face with Rocky.

  “Boy, come. Sleep,” announced his surly bodyguard.

  “Erm, I … I still need to see Benissimo. It’s urg
ent. My dad sent me, Terry Waddlesworth, do you know him? Is he safe?”

  “Niet niet. Now tomorrow you meet boss, mek questions.”

  Ned protested as Rocky shepherded him towards a clearing surrounded by cages, with one large container at its centre. The cages were empty and around the entrance to the central container, which was apparently his new bedroom, were multiple signs – ‘NO ENTRY’, ‘KEEP OUT’ and ‘DANGER’, each one larger than the next.

  “Are you sure this is right? This is where I’m sleeping?” asked Ned spinning round, but Rocky had gone. Ned’s sense of humour was beginning to wear thin. His phone still had half a bar of batteries; it was time to try Dad.

  “Hello, Dad?” he blurted out as soon as the phone stopped ringing, “I’m not having a very good time here! This place is really weird and I still don’t know what’s going o—”

  “The number you are calling is no longer in service.”

  Ned’s heart skipped a beat, then another. What had happened to his dad’s phone?

  “Just come and get me, Dad …” he whispered.

  But the recording at the other end of the line had nothing left to say. It wasn’t fair. You couldn’t treat someone like a rare piece of china for years then abandon them to some freakshow without the slightest explanation. Ned had wanted to be free, but not like this.

  He reached for the metal box in his pocket and was about to hurl it away angrily, when he heard what sounded like soft scratchy music being played on an old gramophone. He followed its trail to the door of the container and stepped through. What he found inside was something between a library and a home. In place of plain walls, were row after row of leather-bound books, with strange titles like, Tales from Beyond the Veil, What Hides from the Hidden, and From Shalazaar to Karakoum – A Traveller’s Compendium.

  The back of the room was shrouded in shadows, but when Ned stepped further in he could make out a huge leather armchair, and, peering closer, to Ned’s horror, sat in the chair was … George the Mighty. And yet, the terrifying ape looked quite calm. He was chewing a banana and reading from an old book through delicate, steel-rimmed spectacles.

  Ned blinked, and wondered for the millionth time that day if this could all still be a dream. At that moment the ape turned his head towards Ned, laid his book to one side and got up from the chair. Ned could feel his legs starting to tremble. George lumbered closer and closer, with each pace the container rocked back and forth, till they were only inches apart and Ned could feel the hot air from the gorilla’s nostrils on his skin.

  Very suddenly, George narrowed his eyes and opened his jaws wide, revealing large yellow fangs, as thick as Ned’s wrists. Was this it? Was this the end? Was Ned about to be eaten by a bookish monkey? But George the Mighty, George the Ferocious, George the Terrible, only yawned, and said in the queen’s best English: “My dear boy, are you lost?”

  That was it, the final straw. The room started to spin and a blackness came over Ned. As he fell to the floor, the last thing he saw was the metal box slipping through his fingers and tumbling away.

  Kitty

  When he eventually crossed over from deep slumber to the first glimmers of being awake, Ned was smiling. There was a gentle hand patting him on the head. Dad hadn’t woken him like that for years. It didn’t matter, he’d either dreamt the whole circus thing up, or his dad had come to get him. Life was going to go back to normal, or at least the Waddlesworth version of normal.

  “Hi Dad, I had the weirdest dream …” he said groggily.

  There was no answer, which wasn’t the only thing that was strange. Dad’s skin felt rough and clammy. It also smelt horrible.

  “Now, Alice, come on girl, we talked about this. You can’t go pestering the boy, he’s trying to sleep.”

  Ned opened his eyes abruptly. An elephant, oddly like the one in his dreams and apparently called Alice, had opened a window from the outside, reached in to his room and was stroking him with her trunk. A man, who Ned couldn’t see but assumed was her trainer, was clearly trying desperately to move her away.

  “Morning, Mr Waddlewats,” wheezed the man, poking his head round the door, “I’m Norman, sir, Alice’s trainer. So sorry about this, but I think she likes you.”

  Ned could see from looking around that he was no longer in George’s container. He seemed to be on the ground floor of a huge, pink, multi-storey bus. Judging by the beds and the equipment he could see, he guessed it must be the circus infirmary – the perfect place to recover from the shock of the last twenty-four hours. At least it would have been without an elephant trying to break in through the window, or the three emperor monkeys he now saw approaching his bedside, finishing off the remains of his breakfast.

  “No, no, no, this won’t do at all!” squeaked an elderly lady, as she hobbled in through the infirmary’s entrance. “How many times have I told you to leave the newlings alone. He’s a josser, for goodness’ sake! Julius, Nero, Caligula … out of here this instant!”

  The three emperors stuck out their tongues and leapt out of the window, sliding down Alice’s trunk, which disappeared seconds after them.

  “Name’s Kitty,” warbled the elderly woman, holding her hand out to Ned for shaking, which he did. Her skin was old-lady soft. Ned guessed she must be in her late eighties at least. She had grey-white hair, but, somewhat strangely, she was carrying a pink plastic schoolbag, which Ned noticed had a Hello Kitty label on it. In fact, she was dressed from head to toe in Hello Kitty merchandise. She wore Hello Kitty shoes, badges, bracelets, and even Hello Kitty hair clips.

  “So, here we are, my little gum-drop,” she said, breaking into a beautiful smile.

  “I’m Ned, Ned Waddlesw—”

  “Yes, I think you probably are. But how are you, dearie? That’s the question.”

  Ned had plenty to say on that subject.

  “Honestly? Well, let me see … The most safety-conscious dad on the planet has abandoned me to a bunch of –” Ned paused for a second – “a bunch of weirdos, no one will tell me why I’m here, I’ve been chased by homicidal clowns, and last night I walked in on a giant talking gorilla. It talked, you know? Actually talked. And Dad is somewhere—”

  “Tea, dear?”

  “Oh, err, yes that would be nice, thanks. But—”

  “Now. That wasn’t really what I meant, Ned. What I want to know is how you are inside, what it is exactly that you’re made up of. Whether it’s snips, snails or puppy dogs’ tails. Benissimo needs to know about you before he can tell you about us. I’m the circus’s Farseer. It’s my job to see where our new arrivals are heading and where they aren’t.”

  Ned had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I’m not really sure what you mea— oi!”

  The old woman had taken an alarmingly large pair of scissors and cut a strand of hair from the side of his head.

  “Jossers always yelp the first time!”

  Kitty giggled like a small schoolgirl, before busily tying his hair with a knot of old lace. Job done, she locked the bundle in a tiny safe nearby.

  “Wha … why, why did you just do that?”

  “Well, to make a spirit-knot, dearie, why else? All the newlings get them. They’re quite dangerous in the wrong hands, but only one can exist at a time. Now I have yours, you’ll be quite safe from any of that sort of mischief.”

  It was at this point that Ned realised Kitty was as mad as a box of frogs.

  “Why don’t I show you?”

  The old lady reopened the safe and reached into a tray of tiny containers, pulling out a bundled curl of elephant hair, tied together with grey ribbon.

  “What goes around comes around,” she announced, before chanting something under her breath and stroking the bundle with a small white feather.

  Through the bus window, Ned could see Alice the elephant and Norman. As Kitty stroked the knot, Alice’s leg started to twitch, before kicking back gently and knocking her trainer into a barrel of water.

  “Don’t w
orry, dear, he’ll dry out soon enough, and next time he might just stop the old girl from waking up my patients!”

  Ned’s mouth was hanging open. Where had his dad sent him?

  “Umm, I’m sorry, but I think there’s been a mistake.”

  The old woman’s face shifted, to clear, cold focus.

  “Mistake? I don’t think so, my little seedling. Those clowns don’t make mistakes, and if they’ve seen you, things from here on in will be different. Your old life may well be over, dear. What we need to find out is where your new one might take you.”

  Ned suddenly felt very small.

  “I don’t want a new life, I just want to go home. My dad sent me here but I haven’t heard from him and I don’t know if he’s—”

  “Safe and long gone, dearie, and don’t worry, you’ll see him again,” cut in Kitty.

  Ned lit up. It was the first glimmer of hope that he’d had since leaving his father, though he didn’t understand how she knew. The last time he’d checked, his dad’s phone had been disconnected.

  “Are you sure? Did he contact you?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. You’ll be staying with us for a little while, anyway. Now have a sip of that tea and we’ll take a wee look at you, shall we?”

  The tea tasted strange but was hot, sugary and soothing. It seemed to flow through his body, warming him right to the ends of his eyes. Somehow it managed to make him feel calm.

  What happened next did not. Kitty took his hands into her own and gave them a good long squeeze, checking over the length of his fingers one by one.

  “Hmmmm,” she pondered, then smiled wildly. “Do you play the piano?”

  Before he could answer, Kitty drew back her arm and slapped him in the face.