Mr Majeika Joins the Circus

by Humphrey Carpenter

  ‘Not such a pretty sight, Billy Boy,’ said a voice from the doorway that led from the Big Top to the backstage area. Mr Tottle had been watching Billy’s disaster. ‘Is this your magician friend?’ he asked, taking a good look at Mr Majeika. ‘Well, I don’t think much of his so-called magic powers.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Tottle,’ said Billy. ‘I’m sure he’ll get it right at this afternoon’s performance.’

  ‘There isn’t going to be a show this afternoon,’ said Mr Tottle gloomily. ‘We haven’t sold enough tickets. They don’t seem to like us in this town.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ said Billy. ‘I like it here, and Mr Majeika lives here, so that’s handy if he can help me.’

  ‘No, Billy,’ said Mr Tottle, ‘we’ve got to move on. We’ve got to go to London.’

  ‘London?’ Billy was astonished. ‘Why on earth do you want to go there, Mr Tottle?’

  ‘Television,’ said Mr Tottle. ‘I’m friends with a television producer, and he wants to make a programme about my circus. I can’t afford to miss that chance. Going on television will make us famous. So we’ll go to London and put up the Big Top next door to the studios. And I think Mr Majeika had better come with us. If his magic starts to work again, that could make all the difference for us. Come over here for a moment, Billy.’

  Billy went over, and Mr Tottle whispered in his ear: ‘Lock him in your caravan!’

  Billy frowned. ‘I don’t like that idea, Mr Tottle,’ he said. ‘It’s not fair on him.’

  Now it was Mr Tottle’s turn to frown. ‘You’ll do as you’re told, Billy Balance,’ he said angrily. ‘I don’t pay you a wage each week just so that you can fall off that rope. Now get on with it,’

  Billy thought for a moment, then asked Mr Majeika to come and have a cup of tea with him in his caravan. Mr Majeika agreed reluctantly, but he said he must get back to school very soon. And as soon as Mr Majeika got inside, Billy had slammed the caravan door shut.

  Now Mr Majeika was sitting miserably in the caravan, wondering why none of his magic would work. There was only one person he knew who could block his spells, and he hadn’t seen that mischievous witch, Wilhelmina Worlock, for a very long time. As he sat and wondered he suddenly felt a terrible jolt, and one end of the caravan rose up a little. Billy’s caravan was being hitched on to the line of wagons, and they were moving.

  As Rubber Face watched the last caravan leave he looked very pleased with himself. His face started to change again, and there stood Wilhelmina Worlock! She set off for the school.

  Class Three were pretty miserable too. Mr Majeika’s rhyme wasn’t doing what they expected. They tried climbing on the tables and jumping off, but nobody was able to fly.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Jody, ‘perhaps I remembered it wrong. But I’m sure I didn’t. Why, oh why doesn’t it work?’

  Just then, Mr Potter came in, sighing. ‘There’s still no sign of Mr Majeika, so I’ll have to take his class myself. You may as well have your detention now, I suppose. I want you all to write these words out fifty times: “I have never wanted to run away and join the circus,” ’ Mr Potter scratched the back of his neck. ‘How odd,’ he said. ‘Those aren’t the words I meant to say at all. But they will do. Off you go!’

  Class Three all began writing. Jody looked up and, to her surprise, she thought she saw Mr Potter staring into the classroom from outside the window. She looked back at the blackboard and there was Mr Potter again. She put up her hand. ‘Mr Potter,’ she said.

  ‘Quiet, Jody!’ said Mr Potter. ‘Or you will have to do fifty more lines.’

  ‘But, Mr Potter,’ Jody cried, ‘look!’ and she pointed to the window.

  Mr Potter looked at the window, and saw himself looking back. ‘I didn’t think we had a mirror there,’ he said in his usual vague manner.

  As Mr Potter was staring at what he thought was his own reflection, something very strange happened. The classroom melted away, and they all found themselves inside a gigantic circus tent. Everyone in Class Three was wearing circus clothes and the band was playing. Thomas and Pete were dressed like acrobats, and they were flying around the room. Although they had wanted to be acrobats only that morning, they did not look as if they were enjoying themselves at all. As the music played, they whizzed around the ring, swinging wildly to and fro on trapezes, passing each other in mid-air.

  T feel sick,’ yelled Pete.

  ‘Me too,’ cried Thomas T want to get down!’

  Jody was performing the equestrian act of her dreams. But she was beginning to wonder if this was her perfect dream after all. She was standing on one leg on the back of a horse, spinning round and round as the horse galloped in circles round the tent. The horse was going much faster than she had expected, and all this spinning was making her dizzy.

  Mr Potter was dressed like a clown,with a white face and a red nose, and there was a huge audience pointing and laughing at him. Every time he tried to run away his trousers fell down and the audience laughed even louder.

  He was muttering under his breath, ‘Just a dream, old chap, just a dream,’ Although he had to admit this was quite unlike any dream he had ever had before.

  And then in came the lions. Hamish was dressed as a lion tamer, but he didn’t know how to tame lions and they were running wild in the Big Top, roaring at the children, making Melanie burst into tears. But it didn’t take much to make Melanie cry.

  ‘Don’t panic, children, it’s just a dream!’ shouted Mr Potter over the noise of the lions. ‘I’m sure we’ll all wake up in just a moment.’

  8. Fly on the Wall

  This is where you need to know about Mr Tottle’s friend who was a television producer.

  He wasn’t really Mr Tottle’s friend at all. He was using Mr Tottle in a nasty way.

  His name was Midge. This was a very suitable name for him, because a midge is a very small fly, which you can hardly see, but which gives you a nasty bite. This is what Midge did when he made television programmes about people.

  He would say to somebody: ‘I’d like to make a programme about you.’ Most people got very excited when he said that, because almost everybody wants to be on television. But having a programme made about you by Midge wasn’t nice.

  He would use hidden cameras, and he would film people so that they looked like stupid idiots. He called these ‘fly-on-the-wall’ programmes, because a fly can watch people making fools of themselves without being noticed itself. People who had fly-on-the-wall programmes made about them by Midge usually spent the rest of their lives hiding from their friends, and hoping that the programme would be forgotten (which it wasn’t).

  Midge had planned to make a fly-on-the-wall programme about Tottle’s Circus. He’d had a tip-off from someone called Rubber Face that it was in a bad way – that Ivan the Terrible was using fake weights, and that Billy Balance was losing his nerve. Midge thought it would be funny to make a programme about a circus that was collapsing. He rather hoped there would be an accident during a performance, and that he might manage to film it. He didn’t care if people got hurt, so long as he got a good programme out of it.

  This is why he had asked Mr Tottle to come and see him when he was next in London. He hadn’t expected Mr Tottle to turn up at the television studio without warning, and he certainly hadn’t expected Mr Tottle to bring the entire circus with him.

  Midge was standing in his office, on the eleventh floor of the television company building, drinking a cup of coffee, when he saw a strange procession coming up the road.

  A row of caravans was being pulled by an enormous elephant, and after the caravans came a couple of very old lorries, piled very high with canvas. A big sign hanging round the elephant’s neck said TOTTLE’S CIRCUS ON TOUR’.

  The elephant was called Hannibal, and he was very old. Although Mr Tottle let him wander around the ring for a few minutes at the start of each performance, he mostly spent his time resting, so that he would have the energy to pull the caravans when the circus left town
. This time he had to pull the lorries as well, because they had broken down.

  ‘Look at that rubbishy old circus,’ said Midge, laughing nastily as Hannibal the elephant stopped at the main gate of the television building. ‘I wonder what it’s doing here.’ He had forgotten about his invitation to Mr Tottle.

  Midge’s telephone rang. He picked it up. It was the security man at the main gate. ‘I’ve got a circus here that’s asking for you,’ he said to Midge. ‘Chap in charge is an old fellow called Tottle. Says you invited him here.’

  Midge spilt his coffee all down his shirt front. ‘I didn’t mean the entire circus to come here,’ he spluttered. ‘Kick them all out!’

  At the main gate, the security man put down the phone. ‘I’m to kick you all out,’ he told Mr Tottle.

  ‘Just you try!’ said Mr Tottle.

  So the security man tried, which was a mistake. He kicked Hannibal the elephant, and Hannibal got a bit cross about this. He picked up the security man with his trunk and threw him into the ornamental pond near the gates of the television building. Then he ripped the barrier gate out of its socket, and lumbered into the car park, pulling the entire circus behind him.

  ‘Well, we’ve arrived,’ said Mr Tottle. ‘Let’s get ready to perform on television.’

  Mr Majeika was fed up. He had been stuck in the caravan all the way to London, and every time it turned a corner, the cups and saucers on the table fell on to the floor. Mr Majeika had to hold on to stop himself falling off his seat. The journey had taken a very long time, so he was relieved when they finally stopped. When it was safe to stand up, he looked out of the window to see what was going on.

  He could see the circus people setting up the Big Top in what looked like a car park. Hannibal the elephant was lifting up all the poles, and the acrobats were climbing up them to hang the canvas over the top. In the blink of an eye the big tent was up. Mr Majeika couldn’t help feeling impressed. He’d never seen anybody work so quickly without the use of magic.

  Just as he was thinking this, the door of the caravan burst open and in rushed Billy Balance. ‘Oh, Mr Majeika,’ he panted, ‘you must come and do your spell for me again. The circus is going to be on television in just a few minutes, and I’m terrified that the whole world is going to watch me fall.’

  Doing a spell for Billy was the last thing that Mr Majeika felt like. Although he did feel sorry for Billy, the fact of the matter was that Billy had kidnapped him. But Mr Majeika had a plan.

  ‘OK, Billy, I might be able to do the spell for you, but all this bumping about in the caravan has rattled my nerves. I need to go somewhere quiet to collect my thoughts or I won’t be able to do any magic.’

  Billy looked unsure. But he did so desperately need Mr Majeika’s help. ‘OK then,’ he said, “but don’t take too long, the show will begin very soon.’

  Mr Majeika walked away from the caravan and looked around. He needed a way to escape and get back to Class Three. Although he felt bad about lying to Billy, he had a strange feeling that Class Three were in trouble.

  He couldn’t escape through the entrance to the car park, because Hannibal the elephant had settled down right in the middle of it for a well-earned rest. There was a block of offices on the other side of the car park. Mr Majeika thought that if they had a back entrance on to the car park, there might be a front entrance on to the street which he could escape through. Failing that, he could always get to a top window, make himself invisible, and float home. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to do magic in public, but this was an emergency. He quietly slipped through the door and into the offices.

  Just as he got inside he heard voices, so he quickly hid behind the door and pressed himself up against the wall.

  1 tried to get rid of them, Mr Midge, I really did, but even I am no match for an elephant that size,’

  ‘Never mind,’ said another voice, which Mr Majeika assumed was Mr Midge. ‘They’ll soon regret messing with me. Pathetic, tired, old has-beens. Their circus is already rubbish, but I’m going to make them a laughing stock! I’m going to make one of my famous “fly-on-the-wall” documentaries, and show the world how awful Mr Tottle’s Circus really is.’

  Mr Majeika didn’t like what he was hearing. He was annoyed with Mr Tottle and Billy Balance for kidnapping him, but he knew that they were good people underneath, and they didn’t deserve to have their lives ruined by a nasty little man like Midge.

  I’m going to call the programme When Circuses Go Wrong, and the highlight of the show is going to be when that ridiculous Billy Balance falls off the rope! He’ll have to change his name – to Billy Wobble!’

  That was it. Mr Majeika had grown quite fond of Billy and he would not have him made into a world-famous laughing stock. He crept back out into the car park, found a quiet corner, and summoned up all his strength to do a rather large spell…

  Back at St Barry’s School, Class Three were running for their lives. They still hoped it was a dream, but Hamish Bigmore’s lions were catching up with them, and there was nowhere to escape to. They were trapped inside an enormous circus tent – much bigger than Mr Tottle’s Big Top – and all the doors to the outside world seemed to be blocked.

  So Class Three went in the only direction where the lions couldn’t follow them… up. They climbed the ladder and stood on the wooden perch leading to the slack rope. But when they looked down, the slack rope did not lead across the sawdust ring, but across a deep and dangerous river with crocodiles, and even a shark, splashing about in the water.

  ‘Tee-hee!’ said a voice that Class Three knew very well. “I’ve got you all this time, you bunch of babies! That weaselly wizard Majeika won’t help you now -he’s run away with the circus, and you’ll never see him again. I’m in charge now, and I’m going to let you fall into the river and be eaten up, mouthful by mouthful. Tee-hee! After all these years, I’ve won at last!’

  The voice seemed to be coming from Mr Potter, or at least from one of the two Mr Potters in the tent, the one who was standing on the bank of the river. But the voice wasn’t the voice of Mr Potter, it was the voice of Class Three’s old enemy, Wilhelmina Worlock.

  ‘So that’s who it really was,’ thought Jody. And as they all watched, Mr Potter turned into Wilhelmina.

  ‘Go away, you stupid witch,’ said Thomas. ‘We’re not frightened of you, and your river is fake – you don’t have sharks in rivers, only in the sea.’

  Wilhelmina laughed nastily. ‘Maybe not, you silly little brat, but this one will munch you up just the same. Get ready to be eaten!’ She waved her hands in the air, and the perch that they were all clinging on to started to shake. Hamish Bigmore began to complain.

  ‘I’m your star pupil, Miss Worlock -you can’t throw me to the crocodiles!’

  But the perch just shook even more, and Class Three began to lose their balance. In a moment, they would be thrown into the river.

  Then suddenly Mr Majeika appeared at the other end of the slack rope.

  ‘Hello, everyone,’ he said cheerily. ‘I’ve come to fetch you all for a school trip to London!’

  Miss Worlock squealed angrily. Mr Majeika’s arrival had spoiled her spell, and the crocodile-infested river and the circus tent all vanished.

  ‘You’re coming too, Wilhelmina,’ said Mr Majeika. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do and I’m going to need your help.’

  ‘Me?’ yelled Wilhelmina. ‘But I’m your worst enemy.’

  ‘You were,’ said Mr Majeika, ‘but I think I’ve found a worse enemy than even you.’

  ‘A worse enemy than me?’ said Wilhelmina. ‘Well, I can’t allow that. Where is he? Just let me get at him!’ ‘Come along, everyone – there’s no time to lose,’ said Mr Majeika, and in the blink of an eye Class Three, Wilhelmina Worlock and Mr Majeika had all vanished, leaving a confused-looking Mr Potter scratching his head.

  9. I’m a Celebrity

  After the strange events of the day, Mr Potter was looking forward to having a quiet evening at h
ome, watching television. He turned on the television in time for the teatime news. A few minutes later, the newsreader began – but he was suddenly interrupted by Hamish Bigmore, who appeared in the studio, pushing an enormous cannon on wheels.

  ‘Go away!’ hissed the newsreader.

  ‘Go away, yourself,’ answered Hamish cheekily. ‘You can’t tell me where to go -I’m a celebrity!’

  Then an elephant came between the camera and the newsreader, and Mr Potter’s screen went grey.

  ‘Anything on the news tonight?’ called Mr Potter’s wife from the kitchen.

  ‘No, dear,’ said Mr Potter, who for a moment thought he had seen Hamish Bigmore on television, but it couldn’t be Hamish, because it was a Tuesday, and he knew that on Tuesdays Hamish Bigmore always went to tae kwon do classes. ‘Nothing special,’ said Mr Potter. ‘Just the usual.’

  At the television studio, everything was in total chaos. Hannibal the elephant was having the time of his life, wandering where he wanted, knocking things over, and picking up people who got in his way.

  Class Three had arrived rather suddenly in the middle of the television studio, and to their delight found that they were still dressed in circus costumes.

  ‘Oh thank goodness you’re here,’ said Mr Tottle, running up to Mr Majeika. ‘We thought for a minute you had run away and that everything was going to be a disaster.’

  ‘I would never do that,’ said Mr Majeika (but he did look a little sheepish). ‘Anyway, I’ve brought along some extra acts for your circus. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought it could do with a few more young people in it.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Mr Tottle. ‘How delightful! The more the merrier!’

  Mr Majeika looked over at Billy, who was standing in the wings. He could see that Billy was nervous, but so could Midge. Midge started to film Billy, pushing the camera right in his face and asking him, ‘How do you feel, Billy? Are you worried that you might fall on live television?’ This made Billy even more nervous, and his knees began to shake. Midge noticed this, and the camera zoomed in on Billy’s knees.