“I expect she carries a whip and cracks walnuts with her teeth,” he said.
But, as Pippa pointed out, they were driving steadily in just the direction that they wanted to go.
“Todcaster’s only thirty miles south of Berwick. You said nothing mattered except getting Fleck to your grandparents and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
And she leant back against a hay bale and closed her eyes and went to sleep.
It was almost dark before they reached Todcaster, the first town in which the circus was to perform. It was an industrial town surrounded by moorland and as the children tumbled out of the lorry they could feel the slight chill in the air which meant that they were truly in the north.
George was with them almost straightaway.
“Haven’t heard anything from Elsa, have you?” he asked, and Pippa said no.
“Aunt Elsa doesn’t believe in mobile telephones because she read somewhere that they give you canker of the ear.”
George shook his head. “Daft as a brush; she always was. Still, we need a dog act and hers will be the best. I suppose we’d better fix you up with somewhere to sleep in case she doesn’t make it till morning. The dogs can sleep in the lorry, but you’ll want somewhere a bit more comfortable.”
He went off and came back with a nice round-faced woman whom he introduced as Myra.
“She’s got a big caravan. You can kip down with her just for one night.”
“That’s right. There’s room for two little ones,” said Myra. “We brought up four kids in our camper.”
It turned out that Myra was a fortune teller. When the circus came to rest she smartened up her caravan and put on her hooped earrings and her purple headscarf and told people what was going to happen to them. She called herself Mystic Myra and was very popular because she never told people anything nasty.
“It’s not that I believe in it,” she told the children. “It’s a load of codswallop if you ask me, but it does no harm and every little helps where money’s concerned.”
Myra’s husband was called Bill. He’d been a sword swallower, but one day when he was doing his act, two swords had become crossed in his insides and he’d been rushed off to hospital to have an operation. Now he helped George, who was the chief mechanic.
Bill and Myra couldn’t have been friendlier. They cooked a lovely corned beef hash for the children and showed them where they would sleep and even found enough scraps for the dogs, who settled down for the night in the lorry. All except Fleck. The Tottenham terrier had tried to keep quiet, but when he realized that Hal was not coming he began to whine and then to shiver – and even though the others looked at him reproachfully, he couldn’t stop himself from howling dismally. Ever since Albina Fenton had tried to tear the flannel from his mouth and carried him back to Easy Pets, Fleck lived in a world where nothing and nobody was safe.
In the caravan, Hal heard him and put down his knife and fork.
“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling embarrassed. “He’s very young…”
“Oh well, you’d better bring him in then,” said Myra good-naturedly. “I reckon he’s not much more than a pup. Though what Elsa would say, spoiling him like that…”
So Fleck was brought in and curled up at Hal’s feet with his flannel and fell instantly asleep.
The following day was a Sunday and it was spent getting everything ready for the performance on the following day. To Hal and Pippa, who had never seen a circus, let alone travelled with one, everything was exciting and amazing. The Big Top seemed to go up in an instant… One minute there were great folds of canvas lying on the ground, and the next moment the huge dome went up, the flag on the top unfurled to say “Henry’s Circus” – and they were in business! They had borrowed leads for all the dogs so that they could wander about without getting in the way, and wherever they looked there was something going on. The liberty horses, coming out of their vans and stepping across to the stables, the acrobats warming up on mats outside, the clowns unpacking their gear…
They watched and wondered, trying to keep out of the way. Otto alone didn’t care for what was going on. He was descended from the great Barry, a St Bernard who had saved so many people from the snow that when he died he had been stuffed and put in a museum. When you have an ancestor like that, the noise and glitter of a circus is hard to bear, and he plodded along with a weary look in his bloodshot eyes. Li-Chee snuffled along behind him, his long hair brushing the ground, and from time to time he sneezed the fringe out of his eyes. But Francine’s feet scarcely touched the grass. She almost danced; her eyes shone. If ever there was a dog who was exactly where she belonged, it was the poodle – and Rupert never left her side.
But now George called them into his camper and asked again if they had heard from Elsa.
“Mr Henry’s waiting for his dog turn. Can you get them to do something without her?”
“We could try,” said Pippa. “But it’s always Elsa who sets them off. We just watch.”
“Well, you think,” said George. “We open tomorrow, and if there’s no sign of Elsa, we’d better be sending you back. Can’t have children gallivanting all over the countryside on their own.”
“Could we have a little time to think about it?” asked Pippa. George said yes, they could.
“What are we going to do?” said Hal, as he and Pippa made their way back to the caravan. “We can’t possibly make them do tricks.”
“We’ve come such a long way,” said Pippa. “If they send us back now, you know what will happen. The dogs back in their cages for ever – Fleck too – and the police probably… I don’t think I can bear it. There must be something we can make them do.”
Myra was tidying the caravan, getting it ready for people who wanted to have their fortunes told. “Petroc’s poodles used to do a turn jumping on and off the backs of the liberty horses as they galloped round the ring,” she said. “But I suppose your dogs wouldn’t do that.”
And the children, remembering the lordly horses with their silken manes, said no, their dogs probably wouldn’t do that.
“Well, what’s Elsa’s show then? Is it ‘The Murgatroyd Family Go to Their Wedding’? I always liked that, with the dogs in their cart on the way to the church. People may say it’s old-fashioned but it always goes down well, especially with a bit of business from the clowns.”
“Yes,” said Pippa, “that’s what it is … sort of.”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult, then. If Elsa doesn’t get here in time you could borrow some of Petroc’s stuff. He left it all in his van. There’ll be a cart of some kind you can use and a hamper full of costumes. I’ll look it out for you.”
An hour later, the children and the dogs were standing at the entrance to the circus ring. Two of the clowns, Tom and Fred, had found Petroc’s cart and Myra had dragged out his dressing-up hamper and gone back to her caravan.
“Well, we’ll leave you to get on with it,” said Tom. “Just call us when you’re ready and we’ll fit our business in with you. Then we can have a proper run-through.”
They went off. Hal opened the hamper and looked at the gaudy clothes with disgust.
“What gives people the right to dress up animals and make them look as silly as they are themselves?” he asked.
Pippa did not answer, and when Hal looked at her he saw that her face was rigid and she was as pale as death.
“I can’t,” she gulped, staring at the empty expanse of sawdust, and the rows of tiers stretching upwards. “I’ve absolutely no idea what to do. I must have been mad.”
“But we’ve said—”
“I can’t,” said Pippa again. “I absolutely can’t.” She was almost crying. “We’ll have to come clean. I’m very sorry.”