Читать книгу Boys' and Girls' Circus Book - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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Every day the three children met and talked and played. The circus show had opened and was doing well. Crowds of people went to see it every night, and Jerry told Pip and Susy-Ann that Mr. Phillipino, who owned the circus, was very pleased.

“Sometimes we don’t do at all well,” said Jerry. “If it’s a rainy week and nobody wants to turn out at night to come to a wet field we don’t get much money. Then we have to go short of food if we haven’t saved any money for a bad time!”

Mister Binks the goat snorted, and Pip laughed.

“Mister Binks wants to say that nobody needs to go without food,” he said. “He ate my handkerchief yesterday, and he tried to eat the clothes’ pegs out of the basket.”

“He’s a marvellous goat,” said Jerry. “I wish he was mine.”

“Perhaps I could give him to you if I can’t take him to the Home with me,” said Susy-Ann.

“Don’t let’s talk about that now,” said Pip, seeing that Susy-Ann was suddenly looking very gloomy. “What is that noise, Jerry?”

“That? Oh, that’s the parrots screeching,” said Jerry. “We’ve got three talking parrots, you know. My word, they’re clever! They belong to Madame Clara, and she thinks the world of them!”

Pip suddenly threw his head back and made a noise exactly like the screeching of a parrot. Jerry jumped and stared at him in amazement.

“I say!” he said. “That sounded just like a parrot. How clever of you!”

“Pip can imitate any noise,” said Susy-Ann, proudly. “Be a cow, Pip.”

Pip at once mooed like a cow. Where he got the deep bellowing noise from, Jerry couldn’t think! Two cows in the next field cantered up to the hedge and looked over it. They mooed to Pip.

Pip mooed again and the cows stared in wonder.

“Now do a horse neighing,” said Susy-Ann. So Pip neighed and whinnied, and at once there were answering whinnies from the circus horses at the other end of the field.

“It’s marvellous!” said Jerry. “I say, Pip, I do wish you could teach me.”

“I’ll try if you like,” said Pip. “But I can’t teach you much in a few days.”

“How did you learn all that?” asked Jerry.

“I didn’t learn it,” said Pip. “I just found I could do any noise. Listen—what’s this?”

He made a chuffing sound—a creaking noise—and a clank!

“A train going into a station and stopping,” shouted Jerry. “Go on—do something else!”

Pip made a curious churring noise, then a honking noise, and then another churring noise.

“That’s a motor-car going fast and hooting, and then going slow and stopping!” cried Jerry. “Oh, Pip, you are a real marvel!”

The parrots in their caravan screeched again, and Pip screeched back. A small woman with a very pink face and bright blue eyes came running over to them.

“Jerry! I can hear one of my parrots screeching over here! It must have escaped! Have you seen it?”

“No, Madame Clara,” answered Jerry, politely, trying not to laugh. “Have you looked to see if they are all in your caravan?”

“They were when I was there last!” said Madame Clara, and she ran to see. Pip screeched again, and she turned round in astonishment, looking up into the trees and all around.

“Pip! Don’t!” begged Jerry, who was nearly bursting with trying not to laugh. “You’ll get me into trouble. Madame Clara has a very bad temper.”

So Pip did not screech again, and the three children watched Madame Clara go into her caravan to see that all her parrots were there.

She came out again in a minute and called to Jerry. “They’re all here! It’s very funny—I can’t think what that noise was!”

“That was funny,” said Jerry, giggling. “I say, Pip, could you and Susy-Ann come to the show to-night, do you think? My father says he can get you two seats at the back.”

“Oh, yes!” cried Pip and Susy-Ann together. “Thank you, Jerry!”

“Well, don’t you do any screeching or bellowing or squealing in the show to-night,” grinned Jerry. “Or you’ll have the people thinking one of our show-animals has escaped and is wandering somewhere among the seats!”

Pip and Susy-Ann were very excited all that day. They had never in their lives seen a circus before. They could hardly wait for the time to come.

But at last it came and the two children went in at the gate with all the other people. Jerry was there to meet them and to tell the man at the gate that they were his friends and need not pay.

He took their arms and ran with them to the big tent. “This is the ‘big top,’ ” he said. “That’s what we call our show-tent, you know. Look, here are your seats. They are at the back, but you can stand if you want to, and you’ll see very well.”

“Jerry, do you go into the ring with all the other performers?” asked Susy-Ann.

“No, of course not!” said Jerry. “I’m not much good at anything except feeding animals and doing odd jobs that nobody else wants to do! Well—so long! I’ll see you after the show. Hope you enjoy it!”

He disappeared. Pip made a tiny squeaking noise, and his white mouse put her head out from above the little boy’s collar.

“I thought Snowball might enjoy seeing the circus too,” said Pip to Susy-Ann. “It’s a pity you couldn’t have brought Mister Binks. I hope you tied him up safely?”

“Well, I tied him up with that piece of wire,” said Susy-Ann. “But he may eat it and come.”

“Sh!” said Pip. “The circus is beginning!”

There was a sound of trumpets. The children gazed down at the big red ring in the middle of the great tent. It was spread with sawdust, and was quite empty. The trumpets sounded louder. The great red curtains that swung at one side of the ring, where the entrance was, were suddenly pulled aside.

And in walked or ran or rode all the circus folk! But how different they looked now from the daytime! They no longer wore dirty old jerseys and blouses, caps and shawls, ragged coats and skirts. No—now they were dressed in silks and satins, in glittering silver and gold, in suits and frocks that shone as if they were on fire!

Mr. Phillipino and his daughter Annabella came in first, riding in a golden carriage pulled by four tiny white ponies. Phillipino jumped out of the carriage when it had gone twice round the ring and stood in the middle, cracking his great whip. In came the beautiful black horses he owned, pawing the ground gracefully, tossing their plumed heads, cantering round and round the ring after the carriage.

Annabella leapt from the carriage, which was taken out by the ponies, and jumped on to one of the black horses. A glittering youth rode another. Then in came the three clowns, turning somersaults and cart-wheels among the horses, shouting and yelling.

Out went the horses, and the clowns ran round on the red plush ring itself, whilst a procession of performers came in—Terry the sharp-shooter and his beautiful wife, Juana the famous sword-swallower, Jinks and Jenks the wonderful trapeze-folk, Madame Clara and her three parrots sitting on her shoulder, Mr. Hola and his two chimpanzees who walked by him, fully dressed, holding his hands, Delia and her Dancing Bear, and last of all the three great elephants, Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, with their proud keeper, Mr. Jummy.

They all marched round the ring, whilst Mr. Phillipino stood in the middle, cracking his whip. Then one by one they all marched out again, and the circus began.

Tan-tan-tara! The trumpets sounded outside once more, and in pranced the beautiful horses again. Annabella and the glittering young man were marvellously clever with them.

“Look at them standing on the horses’ backs!” cried Pip in excitement. “Oh, I hope they don’t fall!”

But of course they didn’t—they not only stood on the horses, they jumped from one to another! They made the horses dance with the music, turning round and round as they danced. It was beautiful to watch.

Then the clowns came in again, and were so funny that the two children almost cried with laughing! They fell over one another, they banged each other with big balloons that burst with a pop, and they tried to ride a fat old circus horse that was sent cantering into the ring to them.

They all got on to it, and then the fat horse solemnly stood up on its hind legs and let all the three clowns slip off over its tail with a bang-thud-crash! Then the horse picked up one of the clowns by the belt and trotted out of the ring with him, the other two shouting and following.

“Oh, I do love those clowns,” said Susy-Ann, in delight. “Look—what’s this now, Pip?”

It was the three great elephants who had come to play their game of hockey in the ring. Each elephant held a hockey-stick in his trunk, and when their keeper sent the ball to them, how clever they were at knocking it about from one to the other! There was a small goal set at one side of the ring, guarded by the elephant called Rag, and he didn’t let the others score a single goal!

Everyone clapped the clever beasts as loudly as they could when they went out of the ring. The next turn was Juana the famous sword-swallower. The children watched in astonishment, for his tricks were really amazing.

He swallowed two pocket-knives and a short dagger. It was most astonishing to see them disappear into his mouth and come up again! And then he took a long sword—and, dear me, that went down his surprising throat too, and only the handle was left to be seen!

He flourished the sword in the air as he bowed. Pip couldn’t imagine how anyone could swallow such a very long weapon!

Then came the two trapeze folk, who climbed a long ladder right up into the roof of the tent till they came to their little swings. And on those swings they did the most daring things! They swung themselves from one swing to another, almost seeming to fly in the air as they went!

Susy-Ann was afraid they might miss the swings and fall, but they never did.

“Anyway, there’s a net underneath to catch them if they do fall!” said Pip, watching. Jinks hung by his strong teeth from his swing, and Jenks, his partner, was hanging from his by his toes. He suddenly leapt to the other swing, and, as Jinks fell, Jenks caught his upstretched hands and swung him safely across to the swing he had just left. No wonder everybody clapped!

Then in came the clowns again with a ladder, and the times they put it up and tried to climb it and it fell down! Everyone laughed till they could laugh no more. Then Mr. Phillipino cracked his whip again and the clowns ran out. It was Madame Clara’s turn.

Her parrots were wonderful. They could say the alphabet, and “Jack and Jill” and “Little Jack Horner.” One parrot could sing “God Save the King,” and another could recite all the Kings and Queens of England without a single mistake.

Then they sang “Pop goes the Weasel” altogether, and made a popping sound at the end like corks being drawn from a bottle. They were really marvellous.

And even more wonderful were Mr. Hola’s two amusing chimpanzees, and Delia’s Dancing Bear. The chimpanzees could ride bicycles, work a sewing-machine, and dance the Lambeth Walk, which looked a very funny dance indeed when the two big apes danced it. Delia’s bear wore funny shoes and did a tap-dance, very slow and correct, whilst Delia, in a beautiful glittering frock, danced round too, playing a big concertina.

Terry the sharp-shooter was so clever that Susy-Ann and Pip were quite frightened. He put his lovely little wife against a screen, and then shot all round her with his revolver, making a picture of her head, her shoulders, her arms, and her legs! When she stepped away from the screen everyone could see her outline done in bullet-holes!

Then the circus was over. People cheered and clapped and then went out. Half-asleep, Susy-Ann and Pip went too. They tumbled into bed, and dreamt all night long of the wonderful circus. How they wished they belonged to it too!