Читать книгу Boys' and Girls' Circus Book - Enid blyton - Страница 4

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“Hie, Susy-Ann, Susy-Ann, come here!” yelled a small boy. “There’s a circus coming into the next field. Come and watch!”

“Oh, Pip, is there really?” cried an excited voice, and a little girl ran out of a tumble-down old cottage and joined the boy in the garden at the back.

“Yes, look!” said Pip, and he pointed to the golden buttercup field. Susy-Ann saw that gay caravans and big travelling cages and carts were passing through the gate into the field.

“Let’s go and sit on the fence and watch,” said Pip. So off they went. Behind Susy-Ann trotted a snow-white goat with a long beard. All three went to the fence. The children climbed up and sat on the top and the goat stuck his head through the bars of the fence.

“Mister Binks wants to watch too,” said Susy-Ann, and she patted her goat, who drew back his upper lip and pretended to nibble the little girl’s leg.

It was very exciting watching the circus getting into the field. There was a lot of shouting and yelling, a great deal of running about, and beckoning. One by one all the caravans got through the gate, and the big travelling cages too.

“Look! Elephants!” said Pip, and he pointed to where three enormous beasts stood under some great elm trees at the farther end of the field. “Oh, Susy-Ann! Aren’t they big?”

“Look! there’s a boy about as tall as you,” said Susy-Ann. “He belongs to the circus. Isn’t he lucky?”

They watched the boy. He had ginger hair that shone in the sun, and his face was so covered with freckles that it was difficult to see a place without one! He was whistling cheerily as he went, carrying two buckets, slung across his shoulders on a wooden bar.

“Hallo, kids!” said the circus boy. “Tell me where I can get some water.”

“There’s a stream in the field over there,” said Pip. “But if you like you can use our well. It’s just here.”

“Oh, thanks very much,” said the boy, and he went to the well. He sent the bucket down the well, wound it up again full of water, and tipped it into one of his own big buckets.

“I’ll help you,” said Pip, and he went to turn the handle. “Do you belong to the circus?”

“Rather!” said the freckled boy.

“What do you do?” asked Susy-Ann shyly.

“What don’t I do!” said the boy. “I do everything—fetch the water, groom the horses, oil the elephants, feed the chimpanzees, scatter the sawdust on the ring, clear up afterwards.... My word, I’m the most important person in the circus, and don’t you forget it!”

The two children laughed. The circus boy had the cheekiest twinkle in his green eyes.

“Are you coming to see our circus?” asked the boy, lifting his two full buckets. “It’s a jolly good one! You should see the chimpanzees riding their bicycles!”

“Oooh!” said Pip and Susy-Ann.

“And you should see the three elephants playing hockey!” said the boy.

Pip and Susy-Ann wished they could. They stared at the freckled circus boy and wished with all their hearts that they belong to the circus too.

“I don’t suppose we can come,” said Pip. “We never have any money.”

The boy set down his buckets again. “Listen,” he said, “if you ...”

But a loud shout from the circus field stopped him. “Jerry! Jerry! If you don’t bring that water at once I’ll come after you with a stick!”

“Good-bye!” said Jerry, with a grin. “I must go. They can’t do without me for a minute, as you see! I’ll be busy till to-night. Come and see me then. I’ll look out for you. So long, kids!”

He went off carrying his buckets. The children watched him take them to a big blue caravan where a plump woman was waiting for them.

“That must be his mother,” said Susy-Ann.

“He’s lucky to have one!” said Pip. “I wish we had! I say—won’t it be fun to go and find Jerry to-night!”

“Can my goat go too, do you think?” asked Susy-Ann, patting Mister Binks. “He won’t like being left behind.”

“Mister Binks will come whether we say he can or not,” said Pip. “That goat follows you everywhere, Susy-Ann. If only he didn’t eat everything the way he does!”

“He ate a duster off the clothes’ line next door yesterday,” said Susy-Ann. “I do hope Mrs. Jones won’t scold me for it.”

The children longed for the evening to come. All that day they watched the circus camp settling into the field. The caravans were together, smoke rising from their little chimneys. All their doors at the back were wide open. The caravan folk ran up and down their steps, shouted to one another, and enjoyed the May sunshine.

The elephants still stood under the big elm trees in the shade. An enormous tent was being put up in the middle of the field, where the show was going to be given. It was a gay scene, and Pip and Susy-Ann loved watching it all.

At last the evening came. The two children ran down their garden, climbed over the fence at the back, and there they were, in the circus field! It did feel exciting.

“I wonder where Jerry is,” said Susy-Ann. “Oh, Mister Binks, you shouldn’t have come! How did you squeeze through the fence?”

The goat snorted and wagged his beard. He pressed close to the little girl and would not go away.

“There’s Jerry!” said Pip. And sure enough there was the ginger-haired boy, jumping down the steps of his blue caravan, waving to them.

“Hallo!” he said. “Isn’t it hot? Let’s go and sit under the hedge and smell the may. I’ve got some buns for us to eat.”

The three children sat down and munched their buns. Mister Binks snorted, but there was no bun for him. So he ate the paper bag in which Jerry had brought the buns.

“I say, look at that! He’s eaten the bag!” said Jerry in surprise. “Will he be ill?”

“Ill!” said Pip scornfully. “Good gracious! If Mister Binks ate a coal-scuttle full of coal he wouldn’t be ill. He might get hiccups, perhaps—but he certainly wouldn’t be ill.”

“What a marvellous goat!” said Jerry. “And what a funny name he’s got!”

“Susy-Ann called him Mister Binks,” said Pip. “She thought he looked just like an old man who lives opposite to us and has a white beard like her goat.”

Jerry rolled over and laughed. Mister Binks sniffed at him, but Jerry pushed him away. “No,” he said, “you’re not going to eat my hair. It may look like carrots, but it’s not!”

That made Pip and Susy-Ann laugh.

“There’s a boy we know with hair like yours, and everybody calls him Carrots!” said Susy-Ann.

“I fight anybody who calls me Carrots or Ginger,” said Jerry.

“Oh,” said Pip. He looked at Jerry and thought he would be a very good fighter. He made up his mind never to call him Carrots or Ginger. Jerry was a much nicer name.

“What are your names?” asked Jerry, sitting up again.

“My name’s Philip, but I’m called Pip. And she’s called Susy-Ann,” said Pip. “She’s my little sister. We haven’t got a mother. And our father’s going away to Australia without us, so we soon shan’t have a father either!”

“That’s bad luck!” said Jerry, staring at them. “I’ve got a mother and a father, and they’re both fine. But I say—what are you going to do when your father’s gone away?”

“We’re going into a Home for Poor Children,” said Pip. “And the dreadful part is that I’m to be sent to a Boys’ Home and Susy-Ann is to go to a Girls’ Home. So we shall hardly ever see one another again.”

Susy-Ann gave a great sob. Pip put his arm round her. “Cheer up!” he said. “Perhaps you can take Mister Binks with you.”

Susy-Ann felt sure she couldn’t. It would be so dreadful not to have Pip or Mister Binks. The little girl felt very miserable. Jerry looked at her shining golden head and thought she was like a small sad doll. He felt miserable too, for he was a kind-hearted boy. He wondered what he could do to make the two children happier.

“Don’t cry, Susy-Ann,” he said. “Listen! I’ll get you into the big tent to see the show one night! How would you like that?”

“Oooh yes, Jerry!” said Susy-Ann, her wet eyes shining with joy. Mister Binks pushed Pip away and licked the tears off Susy-Ann’s cheeks. They tasted salt, and the goat liked them.

“Don’t!” said Susy-Ann, and she tried to push the goat away. “Oh, Jerry, I would so love to see the circus! And so would Pip.”

“Well, I’ll manage one night before we leave here,” said Jerry. “We are here for ten days. How long is it before you have to go away to your new homes?”

“We go in ten days too,” said Pip. “We haven’t very long now. Please don’t cry again, Susy-Ann. Look—you can hold my white mouse for a bit if you like.”

The boy made a peculiar squeaking noise, exactly like a squeal of a mouse. Jerry stared at him in astonishment. A small white mouse with pink eyes poked its head out of Pip’s left sleeve.

“I say! Look at that! Does that mouse live up your sleeve all day long?” said Jerry.

“Yes,” said Pip. “Or somewhere about me. She’s called Snowball. You can hold her, Susy-Ann.”

The little girl loved holding the tiny, cuddlesome mouse. She made a little home for her in her two hands, and Snowball snuggled there, her nose woffling up and down and her white whiskers twitching.

“Can I hold her after Susy-Ann?” asked Jerry. “I say, isn’t she sweet! I wish I had a mouse like that!”

But before Jerry could have his turn at holding Snowball he had to go. His father called him and he jumped up.

“Come again to-morrow and bring Snowball and Mister Binks!” he called.