Читать книгу Come to the Circus! - Enid blyton - Страница 3

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“Fenella! Where are you?” called Aunt Janet’s voice. “Come here a minute. I’ve got something to tell you.”

Fenella put down her sewing and went to see what her aunt wanted. She was ten years old, small for her age, with a little pointed face, green eyes and a shock of wavy red hair. She had no father or mother, and had lived all her life with her Aunt Janet.

Her aunt was peeling potatoes in the kitchen. She looked up as Fenella came in. “Help me with these,” she said. “Fenella, I’ve got some news for you.”

“What is it, Aunt Janet?” asked Fenella, suddenly feeling that the news wasn’t going to be very good.

“Well, Fenella—I’m going to be married,” said Aunt Janet. “And I’m going out to Canada.”

“Oh, Aunt Janet!” said Fenella. “To Canada! That’s a long way, isn’t it—far across the sea? Shall we like that?”

“I shall,” said Aunt Janet. “I’ve been there before. But you’re not going, Fenella. I’m going to marry Mr. White—you’ve seen him here sometimes—and he wants us to go and work on his uncle’s farm in Canada. But we’re afraid we must leave you behind.”

“Leave me behind—here, all alone!” cried Fenella in alarm. “But what shall I do? I’m only ten.”

“Oh, you won’t be left here, in this house,” cried Aunt Janet. “You’re going to your Uncle Ursie’s. He and Auntie Lou will look after you now. I’ve told Auntie Lou how good you are at sewing, and she wants somebody she can train to help her with the circus dresses.”

“Am I to go and live at the circus?” cried Fenella, and her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t. I can’t. You know I’m afraid of animals. And there are bears there, and elephants, and chimpanzees. I know, because Uncle Ursie told me so when he came here to tea with Auntie Lou.”

“Oh, you’ll soon learn to like animals,” said Aunt Janet, emptying the dirty potato water out of the bowl. “Anyway, there’s no help for it, I’m afraid. You’ve got to go somewhere—and Harry—that’s Mr. White I’m going to marry—doesn’t want to take you out to Canada with us.”

“Nobody wants me!” wailed Fenella, suddenly. “My father and mother are dead, and you don’t want me, and I know Uncle and Aunt won’t want me either.”

“Now, don’t be silly,” said Aunt Janet briskly. “Uncle Ursie is very, very fond of his bears, and he’ll be fond of you, too. As for Auntie Lou, she’s got a sharp tongue, but if you are a good girl and help her, she’ll soon take to you. I’ll miss you, Fenella—you’re a good, quiet little thing—but what Harry says has got to be done.”

Fenella went back to her sewing. But she couldn’t see to stitch any more, because the tears would keep coming into her eyes and dropping on the dress she was making. It wasn’t much of a home, with Aunt Janet—just a little cottage, rather tumbledown, with a yard behind it—but at least it was somewhere she knew and felt safe in. And although Aunt Janet made no fuss of her, and sometimes grumbled because she had to bother with her, still, she was kind in her way.

But the circus! That was quite a new world—a frightening world to Fenella, who ran away if she saw even a gentle old sheep, and screamed if a dog jumped up at her. Whatever in the world would she do in a place where elephants and bears, monkeys and dogs roamed about all the time? She couldn’t go there. She couldn’t.

She thought of Uncle Ursie and Auntie Lou. Auntie Lou had screwed-up hair, a screwed-up face, and a screwed-up mouth. Her tongue was sharp, and she had very little patience with anyone, not even with her slow-going placid husband, Uncle Ursie, who looked after the bears, and was really rather like a bear himself, clumsy, lazy and a little stupid.

Fenella thought of the three elephants, and the two hairy chimpanzees that Uncle Ursie had told her about. She had never been to his circus, so she could only imagine everything—and it seemed very frightening indeed.

“There’ll be monkeys about—and I shall keep meeting the elephants—and, oh dear, Uncle Ursie will expect me to like his awful bears! I don’t want to go. Oh, why can’t Aunt Janet take me to Canada with her? I don’t want to go there either, but I’d rather go across the sea to a faraway land than go and live in the circus. I shall just HATE it. I know I shall.”

Poor Fenella! Her whole world seemed to be turning upside down. Aunt Janet began to pack her things. She sold most of the furniture in her little cottage. Strangers always seemed to be coming in and looking round at this and that.

Then the day came for Aunt Janet to be married. She had bought some pretty blue stuff for Fenella to make herself a bridesmaid’s dress. Fenella was a marvel with her needle. She could make anything! She knew how to use a sewing-machine, too, and was really a clever little girl. She made her blue dress carefully, but she didn’t want to wear it!

“I don’t want to see Aunt Janet married. I don’t want to say good-bye to her. I don’t want to leave here! Oh, why did all this happen?” poor Fenella said over and over again to herself.

But Aunt Janet was married, and Fenella did wear her blue frock, which everyone said looked lovely. Then Aunt Janet kissed her good-bye, and drove away with Uncle Harry, waving till she was out of sight.

Uncle Ursie and Auntie Lou hadn’t come to the wedding, because the circus was rather far away just then, and was about to put on a show. Janet was to be put on the train, in the care of the guard, and was to go off to the town where the circus was, all by herself. She was full of dread about this.

“But it will be quite an adventure for you, Fenella!” big, burly Uncle Harry had said.

“I don’t like adventures,” Fenella had answered. And she didn’t. She was afraid of them. She didn’t like strangers. She didn’t like anything she didn’t know. She was a scared little mouse, as Aunt Janet had often said.

And now she was to go and live in the middle of a big circus. It was a world of its own, with tall, shouting Mr. Carl Crack, the ringmaster, as its king. Fenella had heard about him from Aunt Janet, and she felt afraid of him already. Mr. Carl Crack! She pictured him with a big whip, cracking it if anyone disobeyed him. Oh dear! She would hide away in a corner if ever she saw him.

Mrs. Toms, her next door neighbour, came up to her, smiling kindly. The wedding was over. The guests had gone. Fenella stared forlornly round.

“Well, Fenella, dear, you come along with me now, as your auntie said, and we’ll get you out of that pretty frock and into your brown one. Then off we’ll go to the station to catch that train. And in no time at all you’ll be off to the circus—my, what a lucky girl you are!”

Fenella didn’t say anything. She went home with Mrs. Toms. Mrs. Toms had five children, all rough and loud-voiced. They crowded round Fenella and told her how lucky she was to be going to live in a circus.

“Wish I could!” said Sam, the eldest. “My word, I’d ride all the horses, and the elephants, too!”

“And I’d make friends with the chimpanzees and teach them all kinds of things,” said Lucy, a big curly-haired girl with a wide smile. “I’d love to have one for a pet. You’ll have a lovely time, Fenny.”

“I shan’t,” said Fenella. “I shall hate it. I don’t want to go a bit. I wish one of you could go in my place, and I could stay here.”

“Oh, you’ll soon get used to it, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t want to go,” said Mrs. Toms, briskly. “Now, are you ready? Sam, take Fenny’s bag. That’s right. Who wants to come and see her off?”

Everyone did, though Fenella would really rather have gone alone with kind Mrs. Toms. Her children were so very rough and noisy. The shy little girl hated walking to the station with such a crowd of shouting children round her. But they meant it kindly, and were sorry for her.

“Come along quickly—the train’s just coming in!” cried Mrs. Toms. “Here’s your ticket, Fenny. Let us on to the platform, please, Inspector, we’re just seeing this child off!”

Fenella was pushed into a carriage. Mrs. Toms hurried to ask the guard to keep an eye on her during the journey. The children all crowded round Fenella, and Lucy gave her a hug.

“Write to us! Tell us about the elephants and what their names are!”

“Be sure to tell us if you like the bears your uncle has!”

“Do make friends with the chimpanzees and tell us what they’re like!”

“Good-bye, Fenny! Cheer up! Good-bye!”

“Good-bye! You’re off!”

The train pulled slowly out of the station. Fenella waved till she could see the Toms family no more. Then she sat back on her seat, feeling sad and forlorn. She had left her only friends behind. Aunt Janet was off to Canada. And here was she, Fenella, going to an uncle and aunt she hardly knew, and who she felt sure didn’t really want her—to a place full of roaring, growling, barking animals!

There were two old ladies in the carriage, but they took no notice of the little girl at all. Once or twice the guard came in to see if she was all right. She had a packet of sandwiches with her, and when the guard told her it was one o’clock she ate them. Then she fell asleep, whilst the train rocked over the rails at sixty miles an hour.

When she awoke, the guard was in her carriage again. “Wake up, Missy! You’re there! This is Middleham, where you’ve got to get out.”

Half asleep, Fenella got hold of her bag, and scrambled out of the train. She stood on the platform and watched it go off. Then she turned to go out of the station. Aunt Janet had told her what to do next. She had to give up her ticket and then ask where the bus started that went to Upper Middleham, where Mr. Carl Crack’s circus was.

A porter told her. “There it is, Missy—over there in the corner of the station yard. Hop in. It will be going in a minute or two.”

She got in. “I want to go to Mr. Carl Crack’s circus,” she told the conductor.

She paid for a ticket and the conductor said he would tell her when to get out.

The bus lumbered through the countryside, and at last climbed a hill, and then slowed down on the slope the other side. “Here you are!” called the conductor. “This is the circus field.”

Fenella got out. She stood looking down on the circus field, her heart sinking. There was the circus, the place she was to live in.

Gay caravans stood everywhere, with smoke coming from some of their chimneys. Tents were here and there. Travelling vans were pulled up at one end of the field. A very, very big tent stood in the middle, a flag waving from the top. Painted on the tent were four enormous words.

“MR. CARL CRACK’S CIRCUS.”

Fenella had arrived. Now her new life was to begin!