Circus Days Again Read online

  “I hope they won’t be sea-sick,” said Lotta anxiously. But the voyage was not long enough for anyone to feel sea-sick. The boat rounded the rocky corner of the cliff, where the waves were still splashing, and came to a sandy cove. The boat ran in, and the men jumped out. They pulled the boat up the beach, and then stood at a safe distance whilst the children tried to coax the two bears out of the boat.

  But, you know, they wouldn’t get out! No—the movement of the boat, strange and unusual to them, had really frightened them. They were afraid to move in case something stranger happened. It was no use pulling and tugging at them. They were far too heavy to move. They squatted down in the bottom of the boat, looking like great fat fur-rugs!

  “Oh, Dobby! You are a perfect nuisance!” said Jimmy, giving it up with a sigh. “Lotta, run up to the circus-field and fetch Mr. Volla. I don’t believe anyone but him could get these tiresome creatures out of this boat.”

  “You stay here with them then, and I’ll send Mr. Volla as soon as I can,” said Lotta, not at all liking the idea of going back to the camp without Jimmy—but she saw that there was really nothing else to do.

  She ran to the cliff-path and began to climb it tothe top. The bears watched her. They grunted. They were glad that Jimmy and Lucky were still with them. Lucky jumped down to the bears and tried to play with Dobby, for they were very good friends. But Dobby wouldn’t play, so Lucky went and had a glorious game of chase-the-waves-and-bark-at-them till one unexpectedly ran up the beach too quickly for her, and she got her legs wet. After that she stuck closely to Jimmy’s heels and growled whenever a wave came near.

  Lotta climbed to the top of the cliff. She saw the circus-field in the distance. It was early morning, and she did not expect people to be about. But the whole camp was up, and she could hear shouts and calls as she drew near.

  She squeezed through a hole in the hedge and looked over the field. She could hear Mr. Galliano’s voice.

  “Perhaps the caravan was blown off in the wind! This is a terrible time, yes! First the bears, then the children—and now Madame Prunella’s caravan is gone!”

  Lotta looked over the field in surprise. Madame Prunella’s caravan gone? How strange! Where could it have gone to? Sure enough, the little girl could notsee it. And at that very moment Sticky Stanley the clown saw Lotta! He gave a yell.

  “Lotta! Here’s Lotta! Where have you been, Lotta? We’ve been up all night looking for you and Jimmy!”

  Everyone crowded round the dirty and untidy little girl. Lal, her mother, came up and put her arm round her. She had been crying.

  “Oh, Lotta,” she said, “we’ve been so worried about you and Jimmy. We thought the storm might have blown you over the cliff, or something!”

  “No, I’m quite safe,” said Lotta. “We went after the bears, Jimmy and Lucky and I. And we found them!”

  “Found them!” yelled Mr. Volla joyfully. “Oh, you wonderful child, Lotta—oh, you beauty!—oh, you treasure!”

  Lotta laughed. Mr. Volla was hugging her for joy. He had been up all night worrying about his bears, and now he was like a child because his pets had been found.

  “Where are they—where are they?” he kept asking.

  “And where’s Jimmy?” asked Mrs. Brown, who was looking pale and tired.

  Lotta told her tale quickly. “We couldn’t get the bears to move out of the boat,” she finished. “So Jimmy sent me to get Mr. Volla. Can you come, Mr. Volla?”

  “I come at once!” cried the bear-trainer in joy. “Oh, what a night it has been! Neither I nor my bears have slept a wink!”

  “You haven’t found Madame Prunella’s caravan too, I suppose?” asked Sticky Stanley the clown, running alongside Lotta as she led the way to the cliff. Half the circus-folk came with them, for they all loved a bit of excitement.

  “Of course not!” said Lotta. “Goodness—we would have been astonished to see Madame Prunella’s caravan in that little cave along with the bears, I can tell you! How strange that she has disappeared!”

  They all climbed down the steep cliff-path. As soon as they came in sight of the boat, with the bears still huddled at one end, Mr. Volla gave a shout of delight.

  “Dobby! Grizel! Are you safe? Come to Volla!”

  At the sound of their beloved trainer’s voice the two bears raised their heads. When they saw Mr. Volla!” running over the sand towards them, they scrambled heavily out of the boat and went to meet him, grunting and growling in a most comical manner.

  They flung their hairy arms round their keeper, and all three danced together for joy. Jimmy began to laugh. He really couldn’t help it. Then one of the bears trod heavily on Mr. Volla’s foot and he yelled with pain.

  That made Jimmy laugh still more—and he and Lotta went back up the cliff-path with everyone else, laughing and talking, telling of their night-time adventures.

  “Is Mr. Galliano angry?” he said to Oona the acrobat. “Has he sat up all night waiting for us?”

  “We all have, young Jimmy,” said Oona. “You can’t rush off like that, you know, without being missed. You should have left word about what you were doing. Galliano is pretty down about everything this morning—the big tent is spoilt, you were missing, and Prunella and her caravan have disappeared! You know, she’s a queer person—and I shouldn’t be surprised if she’s gone off in one of her tantrums because of the storm!”

  By now they were all back in the camp. Mrs. Brown came and kissed Jimmy. Galliano roared to him: “Where have you been? Why didn’t you say where you were going? Boy, I’ve a good mind to give you a taste of my ring-whip, yes! You cannot do as you like here, no—and you take Lotta with you too. Bad, bad, very bad!”

  Jimmy didn’t know what to say. Everyone was afraid of Mr. Galliano when he was in a temper. The boy stood there and looked pale and sulky. That didn’t please Mr. Galliano at all! He put his hat quite straight on his head and glared at Jimmy.

  “Your tongue is gone—yes?” he roared. “You have nothing to say to me? The bears go, you go, Lotta goes, and Madame Prunella goes! My whole circus can go for all I care!”

  He cracked his whip round Jimmy’s feet and the boy jumped. He had never seen Mr. Galliano quite so angry and upset before, but the ring-master had been up all night and was tired and worried.

  And then Lotta, who had been standing nearby, looking scared, heard a sound that made her prick up her ears at once. It was a parrot’s screech! Well, Madame Prunella couldn’t be so far away then!

  The little girl slipped off. She ran to where the sound seemed to come from. It was somewhere near the enormous bulk of the blown-down tent, surely! The little girl stood and listened carefully. She heard a muffled voice say, “Baked beans and tomatoes, baked beans and tomatoes,” very solemnly indeed.

  “That’s Gringle!” thought the little girl joyfully. “But goodness me, wherever can he be?”

  And then she suddenly knew where Madame Prunella and her caravan were! They were buried underneath the enormous canvas of the blown-down tent! No wonder they couldn’t be seen. No wonder everyone thought that Madame Prunella was gone!

  The little girl rushed back to Mr. Galliano and pulled at his hand. She was very glad to stop him raging at Jimmy. Perhaps he would be in a better temper when he heard her news.

  “Mr. Galliano!” she cried. “I’ve found Madame Prunella’s caravan! Come quickly!”

  Mr. Galliano forgot his temper at once. He looked down at Lotta, surprised and delighted. “Where is it—where is it?” he cried. “This is good news, yes!”

  “Come and see,” said Lotta, glad to see his frowns disappear. “You will be surprised!”

  Prunella is Found

  COME quickly and I will show you where Madame Prunella’s caravan is!” cried Lotta—and everyone followed the little girl. She ran to where the great canvas tent lay in an enormous pile.

  “The caravan is under the blown-down tent,” she cried. “Listen—you can hear the parrots screeching!”

  Sure e
nough the parrots were screeching—and someone else was too! Madame Prunella had woken up and had tried to open her caravan door, to see why the windows were so darkened—and she found that she couldn’t open the door! The heavy weight of the tent lay all around it. So Madame Prunella screeched too, and kicked hard at the door.

  Mr. Galliano smiled. It was always funny when Madame Prunella lost her temper.

  “All right, all right, Madame Prunella,” he shouted in his enormous voice. “You shall be set free, yes. In a minute or two. So be patient!”

  But that was just one thing Madame Prunella could never be! She went on kicking and hammering at the door, and she and her parrots screeched like a hundred express trains at once. Lotta and Jimmy couldn’t help laughing.

  Then many hands began to tug at the great tent, and presently it was moved so that Madame Prunella could open her caravan door. It flew open and a very red and angry little woman looked out. She had on a bright reddressing-gown with a yellow girdle, and her shock of hair stuck up straight just like the crest of a bird.

  “She’s awfully like one of her parrots,” grinned Jimmy. Madame Prunella heard him, and she caught up the nearest thing to her hand, and threw it at Jimmy angrily. It was a saucepan—but it didn’t really matter what it was, because Madame Prunella could never throw straight.

  The saucepan went flying through the air, and Oona the acrobat caught it neatly. He stuck it upside down on Sticky Stanley’s head, and everyone laughed.

  “Who shut me in? Who barred my door?” Prunella cried. Then she saw the great tent, which still lay over half of her caravan. Her eyes grew wide and surprised.

  “Goodness gracious!” she said. “So that’s what happened! The big tent blew down—and I never knew!”

  “There are a lot of things you don’t know, Prunella,” said Oona, her cousin. “You must have taken your parrots to your caravan last night, and gone to sleep without knowing that the tent had frightened Dobby and Grizel, two of the bears, and made them run away. You didn’t know that Jimmy and Lotta disappeared, and we spent all night looking for them! You didn’t know that they’ve turned up again with the bears, and ...”

  “Oh, what I have missed!” wailed Madame Prunella, bursting into floods of tears. She loved any excitement, and it seemed terrible to her to think she had slept through such a lot. “How wicked of you all not to come and tell me!”

  “Yes, but we didn’t know where you were,” said Oona. “We thought you had disappeared too! It was Lotta who found you just now—she heard one of your parrots screeching.”

  The parrots were still screeching, all except Gringle, who kept muttering to himself, “Bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs.” Then he raised his voice to a shout and cried, “BACON AND EGGS!”

  “The poor darling. He does want his breakfast,” said Madame Prunella, and she ran to her caravan again to feed her parrots. They were all flying loose this morning and hovered round like a brilliant cloud of colour. Jemima the monkey was thrilled with them. She waited till one perched near her and then she made a grab for one of the bright feathers in its tail. She pulled it out and leapt away, whilst the parrot screeched and tried to claw her.

  Jemima stuck the feather into the buttonhole of her little coat, chattering proudly. Everyone laughed—and then Jimmy looked at Mr. Galliano. Was he going to say any more? Had he still got a scolding or a punishment for Jimmy and Lotta? But, hurrah! the ring-master was beaming again, and his top-hat was well on one side once more. Good! He had forgotten about Jimmy, that was quite plain. Things were right again—the bears were safe, Madame Prunella was safe, the big tent was not really damaged!

  “Come on, let’s slip away to my caravan,” whispered Jimmy to Lotta. “We’re going to get off lightly this time, Lotta. Let’s go and ask my mother for something . to eat. I’m awfully hungry, aren’t you?”

  So away they went to Jimmy’s caravan, and there they found Mrs. Brown cooking a big meal of bacon and sausages on her neat stove. Jimmy sniffed the smell with joy.

  “Mother, weren’t Lotta and I lucky not to get into real trouble with Mr. Galliano?” he began. And then he saw Mrs. Brown’s face. It was very stern indeed!

  “You may think you’ve got off lightly with Mr. Galliano,” she said sharply, “but you’ve got a whole lot of trouble coming from me, Jimmy. How dare you go off like that with Lotta, and never think of letting me or Lal know what you were doing? We have been terribly worried all night long.”

  “Well, we did bring back the bears, Mrs. Brown,” said Lotta coaxingly, slipping a small paw into Mrs. Brown’s hand. But Mrs. Brown would not take it. She was angry and hurt.

  “Bears! What do I care about bears!” she cried, slapping the sausages on to a dish. “It’s you two children I care about. And to think you care so little for me that you can slip off like that and leave me to worry and worry!”

  “Oh, Mother—we didn’t think,” said Jimmy, upset to see his mother’s white, stern face. “We won’t do such a thing again. Really we won’t. We’re sorry—aren’t we, Lotta?”

  “Yes, very sorry,” said Lotta, and she burst into tears, for she was tired and over-excited. Mrs. Brown set down the dish of sausages and put her arms round the little girl.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll forgive you both. You’re just a pair of naughty, thoughtless, independent children—but you’re brave and kind too, so I won’t scold you any more. Now, eat up your breakfast, both of you, and I’ll make you some cocoa with plenty of sugar.”

  The children were happy once more. They simply could not bear to see Mrs. Brown cross or worried—now things were all right again. They ate their breakfast hungrily, and Mrs. Brown fussed round them like a hen with a couple of chickens.

  “And now,” she said firmly, “both you and Lotta are going to curl up in those two bunks, Jimmy, and go to sleep. You look tired out, both of you. The circus is not moving for a while and there is no show tonight—so you can be lazy for once. Get off my feet, Lucky—you’ve had enough breakfast! Stop pulling at my shoelaces!”

  The children really were very tired, and they didn’t in the least mind curling up in the cosy bunks, with Lucky and Lulu the spaniel at their feet. In half a minute they were both sound asleep, and did not even stir when Mrs. Brown knocked over a pail with a great clatter on the floor.

  The circus settled down once more. Dobby and Grizel joined the other bears with great delight, and there was a grunting and smacking of paws as the two adventurous bears greeted the other three.

  Madame Prunella settled down too, her fright and temper forgotten. At ten o’clock the circus-camp was just as usual, except that most of the grown-ups looked rather tired after their worrying night.

  Mr. Galliano sat in his caravan with Tessa, his fat, smiling wife. Everyone loved gentle Mrs. Galliano, and would have done anything in the world for her. She was helping Galliano to count up the money he had taken.

  Galliano sat smiling, his hat cocked over his left ear, for he wore his top-hat even in the caravan. The circus had done splendidly at Bigminton—and now the ringmaster was planning how to make it even bigger and better!

  “Tessa, we will have more clowns—yes?” he said happily. “Two more, three more!”

  “Three more,” said Mrs. Galliano. “But Sticky Stanley must be the chief clown, Galliano. He has been with us so long and is so good.”

  “Yes—he shall be head clown,” said Mr. Galliano. “Ah—we shall be grand with four clowns, yes! And more animals. Now what animals shall we have? Not tigers, no! They are not happy in the ring as are the bears and the dogs and horses. We will have—we will have——”

  “A performing seal!” said Mrs. Galliano, who loved seals and sea-lions. “Ah, Galliano, I remember once that my uncle had a seal that loved him so much it even wanted to have a bath with him at night. But my uncle was a big man and there was not enough room for them both in the bath—so he had a great bath made especially for him, and he carried it with him wherever he went
. Then his seal could bathe with him each night. How I remember seeing that great bath always strapped to the top of his caravan!”

  “Good! We will have a performing seal, yes,” said Mr. Galliano. “And what else? Lions—no. Cats—no. Then what?”

  Mrs. Galliano turned over a sheaf of papers and letters. She came to a picture of zebras trotting round in a ring. She showed it to Galliano.

  “See, these are rare in a circus,” she said. “Here is a picture of Zeno and his twelve trained zebras. Shall we write to him and have those? They are pretty creatures.”

  “Yes,” said Galliano thoughtfully. “Pretty—but difficult. We shall have to keep that daring young Lotta away from them or she will be trying to ride them—and zebras will not be ridden! And see, wife—here is a photograph of the amazing conjurer, Britomart. He would be marvellous to have in our circus, yes! We will write to them all!”

  “And look at these performing goats,” said Mrs. Galliano, opening a booklet that showed pictures of troupes of snow-white goats. But Mr. Galliano shook his head.

  “No—not goats. They smell too strong,” he said. “We will have three more clowns, Britomart the great conjurer, the performing seal, and Zeno with his zebras!”

  The news soon went round the camp, and the children were very excited.

  “Gracious!” said Lotta, skipping round happily. “What fun we shall have! I bet I’ll ride on those zebras before they’ve been in the circus for a week, Jimmy!”

  “And I bet I’ll have that seal eating out of my hand!” cried Jimmy. “Come on—let’s go and tell Madame Prunella. She hasn’t heard the news yet!”

  So off they ran, and soon they were talking excitedly to Madame Prunella about all the newcomers that would soon arrive. She gave them peppermints to suck, and Gringle put out a foot for one, too.

  “Pickles and peppermints,” he remarked solemnly. “Peppermints and pickles!” That clever old bird could always think of something quaint to say.

  The Circus Moves On