The dwarf descended from the ladder and the three men moved on to another lamppost and another street. After all, they were here for “One Night Only,” and there was much work to be done if that night was to be as special as it could possibly be.
Over the course of the next week, more and more circus folk began to arrive in the town. Rides were assembled, and sideshow booths appeared. There was the stink of animals, and many children gathered at the edge of the field to watch the circus take shape, although the circus folk kept them back behind the wall by warning them that the animals were dangerous, or by telling them that they did not want the surprise to be spoiled. William tried to spot the clowns, but they were nowhere to be seen. He supposed that they looked like ordinary people most of the time, until they put on their makeup and their big shoes and their funny wigs. Until they did that, there was no way of telling if they were clowns or not. Until they dressed up and made you laugh they were just men, not clowns.
On the night of the performance, while his tummy was still full of birthday cake and fizzy drinks, William and his mother and father drove into town and parked their car at the edge of the great field. People had come from all around to see the circus, and a HOUSE FULL sign stood beside the ticket caravan. William could see the grown-ups clutching yellow admission tickets. William’s tickets-the special free tickets given to him by the ringmaster-were blue. He did not see anyone else holding blue tickets. He suspected that the ringmaster couldn’t afford to give out too many tickets without charge if the circus was only in town for one night.
The big top itself stood at the center of the field. It was black, with red trim, and a single red flag flew from the topmost support. Behind it were the performers’ caravans, the animals’ cages, and the vehicles used to transport everything from town to town. Most of them looked very old, as though the circus had somehow transported itself from the middle of one century to the beginning of the next, traveling through time and space, its animals ageing but unchanging, its trapeze artists now very ancient but blessed with the bodies of younger people. William could see rust on the bars of the empty lions’ cage, and the interior of one of the caravans, glimpsed through an open door, was all red velvet and rich, dark wood. A woman looked out at William, then pulled the door closed to prevent him from seeing anything more, but William briefly caught a glimpse of others within: a sullen fat man whose naked body was reflected in a mirror as a young girl bathed him by candlelight, her own figure barely concealed by the thinnest of slips. For an instant, William locked eyes with the girl as her hands moved upon the older man, and then she was gone and he was left with an unfamiliar feeling of disgust, as though he were somehow complicit in the commission of a bad deed.
He followed his parents through the sideshows and rides. There were shooting ranges and hoop toss, games of skill and games of chance. Men and women called out from behind the stalls promising wonderful prizes, but William saw nobody carrying the big stuffed elephants and teddy bears that stood arrayed on the topmost shelves of the game booths, their glass eyes gleaming emptily. In fact, William saw nobody win anything at all. Shots were missed by those who regarded themselves as fairground marksmen. Darts bounced from playing cards, and hoops failed to land around goldfish bowls. All was disappointment and broken promises. William could almost see the smiles beginning to fade, and the cries of unhappy children carried on the breeze. The hucksters exchanged glances and sly grins with one another from their booths as they called to the new arrivals, the ones who still had hope and expectations of success.
William was not aware of drifting away from his parents. One minute they were beside him, and the next it was as if the whole circus had shifted slightly, moving silently in a great circle so that William no longer stood among the rides and games but at the very periphery of the performers’ caravans. He could see the lights of the sideshows and could hear the sound of the children on the merry-go-round, but they were hidden from him by vehicles and tents. These looked more dirty and worn than those close to the big top, the fabric of the tents shabbily mended where it had torn, the panels of the caravans slowly decaying into rust. There were puddles of waste on the ground, and a stale smell of cheap cooked meat hung on the air.
Uncertain, and a little afraid, William began to pick his way carefully back to his parents, stepping over guy ropes and avoiding the tow bars of the caravans, until at last he came to a single yellow tent that stood apart from the others. Outside stood a red jalopy decorated with balloons, its wheels misshapen and its seats balanced on huge springs. William could hear voices speaking inside the tent, and knew that he had found the clowns. He crept closer and lay down on his belly so that he could peer beneath the bottom of the tent, for if he was seen at the entrance, then they would surely send him away and he would learn nothing more about them.
William saw battered dressing tables with brightly lit mirrors above them, the bulbs powered by a humming, unseen generator. Four men sat at the tables, dressed in suits of purple and green, yellow and orange. They had oversized shoes on their feet. Their heads were bald, but they wore no makeup. William was faintly disappointed. They were just men. They were not yet clowns.
Then, while William watched, one of the men took a cloth and doused it in liquid from a black bottle. He looked at himself grimly in the mirror, then drew the cloth across his face. Instantly, a line of white appeared, and the rim of a big red mouth. The man wiped himself again, harder now, and circular red cheeks appeared. Finally, he hid his face in the cloth, rubbing furiously, and when the cloth came away it was covered in flesh-colored makeup and a clown stared back from the mirror. The other men were engaged in similar activities, rubbing away the cosmetics that concealed the clown faces beneath.
But those faces were not in the least bit funny or engaging. True, the men looked like clowns. They had big smiling mouths, and oval shapes around their eyes, and big red circles fixed on their cheeks, but their eyeballs were yellow and their skin looked puckered and diseased. Their bare hands were very white, reminding William of cheap sausages or lengths of uncooked dough. The clowns moved listlessly, and they spoke in a language William had never heard before, more to themselves than to one another. The tongue sounded very old, and very foreign, and William felt himself grow increasingly afraid. A voice in his head seemed to echo their words, as though someone close by were translating for his benefit.
Children, the voice said. We hate ’em. Foul things. They laugh at what they doesn’t understand. They laugh at things they should be afraid of. Oh, but we know. We know what the circus hides. We know what all circuses hide. Foul children. We make them laugh, but when we can…
We take ’em!
And then the nearest clown turned and stared down at William, and the boy felt moist hands gripping his own as he was dragged beneath the canvas and into the tent. Two clowns, unseen until now, knelt by him, holding him down. William tried to cry out for help, but one of the clowns placed a hand over William’s lips, stilling any sound within.
“Quiet, child,” he said, and although he still spoke in that strange language, William understood each word. The clown’s painted mouth smiled, but his other mouth, his real mouth, remained grim. The other clowns crowded around, some with a little of their old makeup still in place, so that they seemed half human and half other. Their irises were entirely black, and their eye sockets were rimmed with bright red flesh. One of them, now with an orange wig upon his head, placed his face very close to William’s and sniffed at the boy’s skin. Then he opened his mouth, revealing very white, very thin, and very sharp teeth. They curved inward at the bottom, like hooks, and William could see great spaces of red gum between them. A tongue emerged, long and purple and covered with tiny barbs. It unfolded like a fly’s, or the end of a paper whistle, slowly uncurling from deep in the clown’s mouth. The tongue licked at William, tasting his tears, and it felt to William like having a thistle or a cactus rubbed against his face. The clown stepped back, preparing his tongue to lick again, but another clown with blue hair, bigger and taller than his fellows, grabbed it between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it so hard that his stubby nails punctured the flesh and yellow liquid dripped from the wound.