Читать книгу Circus Days Again - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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Jimmy and Lotta told Mrs. Brown all about Madame Prunella and her parrots and tantrums. Mrs. Brown was amused.

“Well, if parrots join this circus, there will be even more chattering!” she said, smiling at the children, who had both been talking at once. “Jimmy, Lal has been shouting for you. She wants you to go and see to the dogs.”

It was part of Jimmy’s work to help with the performing dogs, and he loved this. Every dog adored Jimmy and when he came near their cage they all pressed against the wire, some standing up on their hind-legs to go near to him. Lucky, his own dog, ran at his heels, for Jimmy would never allow her to be shut up in a cage.

“I say, Jimmy, it would be rather fun to tease Madame Prunella and get her into a few tempers, wouldn’t it?” said Lotta. “I do think she was funny, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Jimmy, washing out all the dogs’ dishes. “We’ll have a good time with her. I like her. Here, Lotta, dry these dishes. Surely you can do a bit of work too?”

“I’ve done my work this morning,” said Lotta lazily. “I’ve groomed Black Beauty, and exercised him, and done my practice in the tent. This is your work, not mine.”

Jimmy took hold of her tiny pink ear and led her to where a clean cloth was hanging. “I shan’t stand any nonsense from you!” he said. “I’ll go to Mr. Galliano and tell him I won’t let you share my turn tonight in the ring!”

Lotta wriggled away, grinning. She and Jimmy were very good friends, though they often teased one another. She began to dry the dishes.

“Isn’t it windy up here?” she said. “You know, we’re not very far from the sea, Jimmy. We might go down and bathe one afternoon.”

“I can smell the sea in the wind,” said Jimmy, sniffing. “I hope the breeze doesn’t get any stronger. The tents are flapping enough already!”

Jemima the monkey sidled by. She snatched Lotta’s drying-cloth and tore off with it. Lotta gave a squeal of rage and ran after her. The tiny monkey was a ball of mischief, and loved to tease Lotta. She jumped up on to the top of Jimmy’s caravan, and twisted the cloth round the smoking chimney.

“You wait till I get you!” cried Lotta. The monkey leapt off the caravan roof and shot up a tree, where she sat grinning and chattering, looking down at the two children. The cloth waved wildly from the chimney, much to Mrs. Brown’s amazement when she came in from doing a bit of shopping, and there it stayed till Jimmy climbed up and fetched it down, black and smoky.

The circus opened well. Mr. Wally and his wonderful chimpanzee, Sammy, amazed every one, and they had to come back half a dozen times after their turn and bow all around the ring. Sammy loved the clapping and the cheering. He took off his hat and waved it wildly, which made every one cheer all the more.

The horses and their beautiful dancing were always loved by every one. Lal and Laddo looked magnificent in their circus-suits as they rode their horses, glittering and shining, under the flaring circus-lights. The dogs, too, were cheered, and indeed they were very clever in the way they walked, jumped, played ball, carried flags, and did all kinds of tricks. Lal and Laddo patted them and rewarded them with kind words and biscuits, and the happy little dogs wagged their tails like leaves waving in the wind!

Lotta and Jimmy, who were known as the two Wonder-Children, always got long and loud cheers and claps, for little dog Lucky, and the pony Black Beauty, were marvellous in their tricks. When Lucky leaped on to Black Beauty’s back just as Lotta had done, the cheers almost brought the roof down! It was great fun, and both children and animals loved it.

The children had to go to bed very late when the circus was on, but they were used to this. Mrs. Brown saw that Jimmy went straight to bed, instead of chattering and laughing with the other circus-folk after the show, and she had told Lal, Lotta’s mother, that she would see to the little girl too.

“Thanks,” said Lal. “I have to see to the horses and dogs with Laddo—so if you will see that Lotta is safe in bed, instead of rushing round till midnight, I’d be grateful!”

Madame Prunella did not join the circus for a few days. She sent word to say that one of her parrots was ill, but she would come before the week-end. The children were delighted. They hung on the field-gate about the time that Madame Prunella was expected—and at last they saw her caravan arriving. It was a very gay one indeed!

It was bright orange, with blue wheels, and the horse that pulled it had his mane plaited with blue and orange ribbons, and his tail plaited too. He was an old circus-horse, and he whinnied to the other horses, and they whinnied back.

“What talks they’ll have about old times!” said Jimmy, as he unharnessed Madame Prunella’s horse and led him to where the other horses were. “There you are, old boy—have a good feed, and a chat about all the circuses you have ever been in!”

Madame Prunella was standing the perches of her parrots outside in the sun. Each parrot was chained by the leg to its perch, and they all screeched and squealed at the tops of their voices. Madame Prunella scratched them on their heads, and they chattered away happily.

“Kippers and herrings,” said Gringle solemnly to Jimmy. “Kippers and herrings.”

“Pickles and sauce,” answered Jimmy in just as solemn a voice. Gringle put out a foot and Jimmy shook hands with him.

“Gringle has certainly made friends with you,” said Madame Prunella. “But just you mind what I say, children—no playing about with my parrots, please, or I shall have something to say to you!”

Jemima the monkey came near and the parrots set up a great screeching. Jemima grinned and chattered back. She took off her little hat and put it on a parrot’s head. The parrot took it off in anger and threw it on the ground.

“You’d better tell Jemima, too, not to play about with the parrots!” grinned Jimmy. “I say, what a row they make! I can see my mother getting headaches all the day long! I’d better move our caravan a bit farther off!”

“Boy, my parrots can be as quiet as mice in a corner!” said Madame Prunella with a gleam in her eye. She swung round on her brilliant birds. “Hush!” she said. “Hush! The baby is asleep!”

At once every parrot was quiet. The children looked about for the baby. They couldn’t see one anywhere.

“There just isn’t a real baby,” said Madame Prunella. “It’s just one of our tricks. Whenever I say the word ‘baby’ they have to be quiet.”

The parrot-woman had a very untidy caravan. It smelt of parrots, and it really seemed as if there was no room for anything else but a bed for her and a stove inside the caravan. All the rest of the room was taken up by cages or perches. Prunella loved her parrots so much that, like Mr. Wally and his chimpanzee, she would not be parted from her pets even at night. Jimmy had often seen Sammy the chimp sleeping in his bunk opposite to Mr. Wally in his caravan. He couldn’t imagine how Madame Prunella could bear to sleep with twelve parrots!

“Still, I wouldn’t let Lucky sleep anywhere but with me,” he thought. “So I suppose if Madame Prunella loves her parrots as I love dogs, she feels the same.”

Madame Prunella took her parrots into the ring that night. They were an enormous success! Jimmy could hardly believe his ears at the things they could say and sing.

They all knew the nursery rhymes, of course, and they could all count and say the alphabet. Gringle could reel off the names of all kinds of food, and Pola, another grey-and-red parrot, could recite long poems. When they sang together it was very funny indeed, for although they knew the words well, they did not always keep good time, and the band, which played the music for them, had to keep going slowly or quickly to keep time to the parrots’ loud, harsh voices!

Gringle could whistle too—and his cleverest trick of all was his imitation of all kinds of noises!

“Now, Gringle, tell us how an aeroplane goes,” said Madame Prunella, who was very plump and pretty in a brilliant blue-and-gold skirt and bodice, with golden feathers nodding in her hair.

Gringle swelled out his throat and opened his beak—and from it there came the throbbing sound of an aeroplane! It was really marvellous.

“And now I want an ice, Gringle,” said Madame Prunella. “Where’s the ice-cream man?”

The sound of an ice-cream man’s bell came jingling into the ring. Jimmy looked round in surprise—surely the ice-cream man would not be allowed in the ring! But it was only Gringle, making the exact noise of the tricycle bell!

“Now it’s firework night! The fireworks are going off, Gringle!” cried Prunella—and from the clever parrot came the noises of pops and explosions, splutters and bangs—for all the world like fireworks going off on Guy Fawkes’ Day! It was really most extraordinary.

Gringle could cry like a baby, howl like a wolf, and mew like a cat. Jimmy and Lotta thought he must be the cleverest parrot in the whole world.

When the people cheered and yelled and clapped, the parrots went mad with joy. They danced from side to side on their perches, and screeched loudly above the applause.

“Sh! The baby’s asleep!” said Prunella, and at once every parrot was quiet. They each bowed solemnly round the ring and then, fluttering round Madame Prunella, they were taken from the ring.

“Madame Prunella, we are proud to have you here,” said Mr. Galliano, delighted, his hat well on one side. “Your turn is good, very good, yes. We shall do well at Bigminton!”

And so they did! The money poured in, and Mr. Galliano went whistling round the circus-camp, paying every one well, and telling them that they were to stay another week in the windy, cliff-side camp. The children were pleased. They had discovered a short way to the beach and had bathed and paddled every afternoon.

“It’s fine here!” said Jimmy. “I hope we have another good week, Lotta. I don’t see why we shouldn’t!”

But the next week wasn’t quite what anyone expected!