Читать книгу Come to the Circus! - Enid blyton - Страница 4

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Fenella put her bag down on the ground and climbed a gate nearby. She sat on it and looked at the big circus field. What a lot seemed to be going on!

Men and women walked about busily. Horses were being cantered at one end of the field. Fenella could hear the men shouting to them.

Then she saw an enormous elephant lumbering along, waving his trunk. Beside him walked a very small man indeed. Fenella felt scared. She made up her mind she would keep as far away from the elephants as she possibly could. What big ears they had! And what funny little eyes.

Not far off was a small woman with something round her shoulders. At first Fenella thought it was a fur. Then, to her great astonishment, she saw that it was two tiny monkeys, each clinging tightly to their owner. The little girl shivered. How could anyone have monkeys round their necks?

Then a pack of barking dogs was suddenly set free from a big travelling cage, and to Fenella’s horror they came tearing over the field towards her. But they swerved away as they came near and went over to the big elephant. They ran in and out of his legs without fear, and the big creature was very careful where he put his feet down.

As she sat there, a man came over towards her. Fenella looked hard at him, and then saw that he was her uncle. She hardly knew him because he looked very different from when she had seen him last.

He had come to tea with Aunt Janet, his sister, looking very smart and clean and neat in a well-brushed Sunday suit, and a bowler hat.

Now he was dressed in a very old, very dirty pair of flannel trousers, and a brightly striped jersey; his hair was long, and standing up all over the place. He had little eyes, and a big nose and mouth. Fenella couldn’t help thinking he looked a bit like a bear, for he was fat and clumsy. But he looked quite kind.

“So you’ve arrived, Fenella!” he said. “Come along and see your aunt. We’ve been expecting you for the last half-hour. Had a good journey?”

Fenella nodded. She didn’t like the look of Uncle Ursie today. He looked so dirty and plump and clumsy. He grinned widely at her and his little eyes almost disappeared. He held out a very dirty hand.

“Come along. Don’t be shy. My, what a neat, prim-looking little thing you are! Like your Aunt Lou. Never a thing out of place with her. Too tidy altogether for my liking!”

Uncle Ursie was very talkative. Fenella didn’t really need to say a word. He pulled the little girl along over the big field, carrying her heavy bag for her.

They passed a man doing the most extraordinary things. As they came by, he suddenly bent himself right backwards till his head went between his legs and came out at the other side. His face grinned at Fenella from between his knees. She was frightened.

“Don’t you worry about old Wriggle,” said Uncle Ursie. “He’s one of our acrobats. Regular contortionist he is. He can do anything with that rubbery body of his. He’ll pull it inside out one of these days.”

They came to a neat red caravan with blue wheels. “Here we are!” said Uncle Ursie proudly. “Do you like it? Pretty, isn’t it? The blue wheels were your aunt’s idea, and the blue chimney, too. Hey, Lou, are you there?”

Aunt Lou appeared at the door of the caravan. It was at the back. Fenella looked up at her. She saw a small neat woman, dressed in a dark blue cotton frock with red spots and a red belt. Her hair was screwed up in a tight bun at the back, and her eyes and mouth looked tight, too. She gave Fenella a thin kind of smile.

“Oh, there you are! I’ve kept dinner for you. Come on in and eat it.”

Fenella went up the steps of the caravan. She looked round. Inside it was a room full of furniture. On one side was a broad seat, that Fenella saw would be a bed at night. On the other side, folded up out of the way, was a narrow bunk. That would be for Fenella.

“Do you live in this caravan?” she asked. “Don’t you ever live in a house?”

Aunt Lou gave a snort. “In a house! What do you take us for? I wouldn’t live in a house, not if you gave me a hundred pounds! How could you live with a circus if you have a house with roots in the ground! No, no—you want a house on wheels, so that you can go where you like. Now, here’s your dinner.”

Fenella was just going to say that she had had some sandwiches, when she smelt the good smell of the dinner. She decided to eat it and sat down. It was certainly very good.

“Your aunt’s a good cook,” said Uncle Ursie, watching Fenella eat. “And you won’t find a cleaner caravan than ours! No, nor a more comfortable one. I’ll say that for your Aunt Lou, she’s a worker, she is—and a wonder with her needle, too!”

“Stop your talk,” said Aunt Lou. “Get along and do some work, Ursie. Leave Fenella to me.”

Uncle Ursie clambered down the steps to the ground, and the whole caravan shook as he went.

“Big and clumsy as a bear,” said Aunt Lou, in a sharp voice. “Now you eat all that up—and there’s some fine peaches in syrup for you, too.”

“It’s kind of you, Aunt Lou,” said Fenella, timidly. She was afraid of her sharp-faced aunt.

“Well, I expect something in return,” said Aunt Lou. “You’re clever with your needle, aren’t you? Well, I shall expect you to help me with the sewing. I’ve too much for one pair of hands to do.”

“What sewing?” asked Fenella.

“I sew for all the circus folk,” said Aunt Lou. “There’s always plenty of dresses to be made, and you wouldn’t believe how careless people are with their things. Mending, mending, mending! You just look at that!”

Fenella looked at the corner where her aunt pointed. Piled there was a heap of gaily-coloured skirts and coats, stockings and jerseys. Fenella leaned forward and picked up a very small coat indeed. She looked at it curiously.

“Whose is this?” she said. “It looks as if it would only fit a doll! I’ve got a doll called Rosebud. It would just about fit her!”

“Oh, that belongs to one of Mrs. Connie’s monkeys,” said Aunt Lou, in such a disagreeable voice that Fenella looked at her in surprise. “I don’t know why I’ve got to sew for monkeys, the dirty little creatures! But that Mrs. Connie, she says she doesn’t even know how to thread a needle, the lazy creature—so Mr. Crack has told me to dress-make for the monkeys, too. Bah!”

Fenella couldn’t help thinking it would be lovely to make little coats and dresses for monkeys, even though she knew she would be afraid to fit one on. She went on with her dinner, enjoying the peaches in their sweet juice.

“Well, I’ll help you with the sewing, Aunt Lou,” she said. “I’d like to. I love sewing. And I can use a sewing-machine, too.”

“Well, that’s a thing you’ll have to do without,” said Aunt Lou. “A sewing-machine, indeed! We’re not millionaires. Now, have you finished? Well, you go and tell your uncle I want him to go and buy some sausages, or he won’t have any supper tonight.”

Fenella didn’t at all want to go out alone in the big circus field, with so many strange people ambling about, and animals appearing round any tent. But she didn’t like to say so, because Aunt Lou wasn’t the sort of person who would like that at all.

So the little girl went timidly down the caravan steps and looked about for her uncle. She saw him not far off and went across the grass to him.

CRACK! A loud noise, like a pistol-shot, made her jump almost out of her skin. Something touched her lightly and she drew back, wondering what it was.

Then a loud voice roared at her. “Get out of the way, ninny! What are you doing over here? Nobody’s allowed in my part of the field. Serves you right if you got licked by my whip!”

Fenella turned and saw an enormous man, burly and big-headed, with a grey top-hat on his head, standing not far off with a whip in his hand. He had a big nose, and great brown eyes, topped by the thickest, shaggiest eyebrows that Fenella had ever seen. It was the eyebrows that frightened her most.

The voice went on roaring at her. “Who are you? No one is allowed in this field unless they belong to the circus. Clear out! Mind the dogs don’t bite you! Mind the bears don’t eat you! I won’t have children wandering about my camp!”

Fenella was so very frightened that she ran away at top speed. She didn’t stop till she got to the field gate. She climbed over it and ran down the lane, then into another field. She lay down under a gorse bush, panting.

“It must have been the great Mr. Carl Crack himself!” she thought. “Oh, dear. I never saw that he was standing there and cracking his whip. It almost touched me. What a terrifying person he is! I daren’t live in his circus. I daren’t, I daren’t. I shall run away. I shall go to the next town and go and live with a dressmaker there, and earn money by helping her. I’ll never, never go and live in Mr. Crack’s circus. Why, he looked as if he could eat me!”

Fenella was tired and scared. She began to cry softly. Then she heard a curious sound and sat up. It came from the other side of the thick gorse bush.

It was the sound of birds singing and whistling. It went on and on. Birds flew down from trees to the other side of the bush. The whistling changed to a curious chirruping, and at once a dozen nearby sparrows chirruped back.

Fenella dried her eyes. She crept softly round the bush, and peeped. She saw a most curious sight.

On the grass, sitting up straight, was a boy of about twelve. It was he who was whistling so like the birds. Round him, some on branches, some on the ground, were all kinds of wild birds, enchanted by his calls.

But, most extraordinary of all, was a big bird squatting beside him. It was a large white goose! Fenella could hardly believe her eyes.

Suddenly the goose saw her and cackled loudly. All the birds flew away. The boy turned and saw her.

“Hallo!” he said. “Who are you? I’m Willie Winkie the whistler. And this is my pet goose, Cackles. Come and talk to me. Why have you been crying? You come along and tell me, Green-Eyes. We’ll soon put things right for you!”