“Hey, Joss! Pass a mallet!” A curly haired man heaved a rope to another man and hooked the end around a loose wooden peg. His muscles strained as he held it in place.
Quickly, Lizzie scanned the grass. A mallet was lying just a few feet away. She raced to it and dragged it across the grass. “Here!”
The curly haired man glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Knock this peg in before this rope pulls it back out, love.”
Lizzie heaved the mallet as high as she could and let it drop onto the peg. The peg sank deep into the soft earth.
“Thanks.” The man let go of the rope and rubbed the sweat from his brow. Then he frowned at Lizzie. “Who are you?”
“I’m Lizzie Brown.” She looked at him hopefully. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“You can stay out the way.” The man waved her away. “The tent’s not safe till every peg’s driven in.”
“I’ll be careful,” Lizzie promised.
“Girls ain’t no good for heavy work.” The man strode away, not looking back.
Lizzie stuck out her tongue. “I hammered that peg in for you, didn’t I?” She glanced around and spotted a woman struggling to drape a striped canvas over a wooden booth. “Let me help.” She grabbed a corner of the woman’s tent and began pulling it.
“Get off!” the woman snapped. “You’ll tear it!”
Lizzie let go. “I was only tryin’ to help.”
“Go help somewhere else.” The woman turned her back.
Lizzie’s heart sank. Wasn’t there anything she could do? Around her, the site rang with the sounds of hammering and cursing. Sideshows began to dot the field around the big tent, and beyond them, Lizzie could see the great frames of the swing-boats and roundabouts silhouetted against the horizon. Perhaps once everything was set up, she’d be able to find some way to earn her supper. She wandered to the edge of the field and sank into the grass.
The sun was warm now, and the low hedge behind shielded her from the breeze. Lizzie watched the circus grow, studying faces and voices, trying to guess where the most work was and who’d be most likely to give it to her. A woman sat sewing up a tear in a wide sheet of canvas. Another was building a fire in front of her stall. There had to be some way to win their trust, but right now Lizzie couldn’t think of one.
The sun slid across the sky until she felt her eyelids droop. Exhausted, Lizzie let her thoughts drift and, within minutes, she was dozing, and dreaming.
The alleys and doorways of Rat’s Castle twisted and snaked at the edge of her dreams. Her breath quickened as she saw eyes flashing from the shadows. She pelted forward into darkness and ran blind. Suddenly the Phantom loomed ahead of her. His grotesque face grinned a breath away from hers, a smile twisting his lips. . . .
Lizzie opened her eyes with a start. The nightmare had been so vivid she had to keep blinking to make sure the face wasn’t really there. She shook her head to chase away the terrifying image. Nightmares were nothing new to Lizzie. She’d always had vivid dreams, and when she was little she’d loved to tell her mother about them when she woke up. But since Ma had died, her dreams had become darker and even more realistic.
It was dark now, and crowds were swarming toward the circus. Music thrummed from the big striped tent. Stallholders hollered beside their booths. The swing-boat swooped up and down against the night sky, squeals of terror exploding with each drop of the gondola.
“You’ll catch cold on that damp grass.”
Lizzie looked up at the sound of a voice. An old man with a kind smile was standing over her.
“I’m fine,” she said, scrambling to her feet.
“Here.” He held out a tin mug filled to the brim with hot soup. “This’ll keep the chill off.”
Lizzie stared at the soup warily. The man was dressed like a gentleman, but his voice had the twang of Rat’s Castle. Lizzie said, “What do you want for it? I ain’t got no money.”
The man pressed the mug gently into her hands. “Just give the cup back to the soup-seller when you’re done.” He nodded toward a small canvas booth set up nearby. A woman, sleeves rolled, stirred a large iron pot hanging over a fire.
Lizzie narrowed her eyes. What if he was one of those do-gooders? He might make her go home to Pa. Or to an orphanage. Or to the workhouse. But the soup smelled good, and her belly was rumbling. She leaned over it and let the steam warm her face.
“Here.” He slid a penny into her palm. “Treat yourself.”
Lizzie backed away. “I ain’t a beggar, sir.”
“I know.” The man gazed at her steadily. “But I was poor and hungry when I was your age, so I know how it feels.”
Lizzie watched him walk away. The hot mug stung her hands and the soup burned her lips, but she swallowed anyway. She was so hungry it was worth the scalding.
By the time she finished, Lizzie felt warmer. The lights from the circus flickered enticingly. Shaking the dampness from her skirt, she crossed the grass. “Thanks, missus.” She offered the mug to the soup-seller.
The woman took it without looking up. “Better hurry, dearie. Next show is the last show.”
Lizzie hadn’t realized it was so late. Had she really slept so long? She hurried among the booths, peeking past the canvas doorways held open by their owners.
“Walk in! Walk in!” A stallholder brandished an ivory cane. “Come and see the Pig-Faced Woman!” Lizzie strained to see into the shadowy tent. Above the door, a painted sign showed a picture of a woman dressed in a crinoline. Lace cuffs framed pretty hands, but above the collar the woman had a snout, beady eyes, and pointy ears that poked out from under her hair.
“Come on, dearie,” the stallholder enticed. “Just a penny to see one of the Wonders of the World.”
Lizzie clutched her penny in her palm.
“See the world’s only captive mermaid!” another stallholder hollered. “Come inside and watch her comb her golden hair while she flaps her fishy tail.”
Lizzie glanced from the Mermaid to the Pig-Faced Woman. She only had one penny. Which one should she choose?
Then another sign caught her eye:
Ten in One
“I spy a curious young lady.” A showman twirled the waxed tips of his moustache between his fingers. “Come closer, my dear. See ten amazing acts for just one penny!”
Ten amazing acts.
Without hesitating, Lizzie headed straight for his tent, handed over her penny, and ducked inside.
Visitors clustered in front of the small stages, their faces glowing in the gaslight. Eagerly, Lizzie wriggled her way into the nearest crowd. As she popped out at the front, she saw a man standing bare-chested beside a smoldering fire. With a flourish, he lit a long taper on the burning coals and lowered the flame into his mouth.
Lizzie gasped as he closed his lips around it. He stared at her with sparkling eyes, then opened his mouth to let out a cloud of steam. Where was the flame? Lizzie watched in awe as he relit his taper, opened his mouth, and extinguished it again as easily as snuffing a candle.
What other wonders were waiting for her to see? Lizzie pushed her way to the next stage where a miniature rocking chair creaked in front of a small fireplace. A tiny hearth rug covered the stage, and little curtains dressed tiny windows painted on the backdrop. It looked like a parlor built for a child, and the woman seated in the rocking chair was not much bigger than a doll. She rocked back and forth in her chair, sucking on a clay pipe and reading a newspaper on her knee. Above the stage, the sign read:
Anita, the World’s Smallest Woman
Lizzie struggled to get a better look, but the crowds were too thick for her to see through. Then, to her amazement, Anita noticed her and waved. “Let the little one through to the front please, ladies and gents!” she called. “She’s paid her penny, same as you.”
People laughed and shuffled aside to let her forward.
Lizzie beamed up at Anita. “You’re real!” she said.
“Well, I ain’t made of wood, if that’s what you were wonderin’ about.” Anita winked.
A gasp burst from the crowd beside her. Lizzie turned to the next stage and saw an old man dressed in nothing but a loincloth. With a serene smile, he hopped from one foot to the other on a pile of glass shards.
His feet must be shredded, Lizzie thought. But the glass shards sparkled clear as fresh water with no sign of blood.
A showman strutted in front of the stage. “I discovered this ancient fakir in the mountains of Persia. Each morning he bathes in Epsom salts, and each night he drinks a potion of Eastern herbs which makes his skin as tough as leather.”
Lizzie stared at the old man’s skin. It did indeed seem as brown and weather-beaten as a leather glove. She turned, breathless with amazement, and saw a tall woman, black as ebony and tall as a giant. The sign above her read:
The Amazon Queen
Just then a blade flashed at the corner of Lizzie’s eye. On the next stage, a man was tilting his head back and sliding a sword down his throat until the hilt rested on his lips.
Lizzie’s eyes widened. In the circus, anything could happen. Surely there could be some small place here for her?
CHAPTER 3
Silk rustled behind her and Lizzie whirled around. A smiling woman — hefty as a draft horse and done up in brightly colored ruffles — was shooing her toward the exit. The other visitors were already streaming out of the tent.
“But I just got in!’ Lizzie protested. “I haven’t seen it all!”
“Then come back tomorrow,” the woman said. “Why don’t you pop along to the big tent? The last performance’ll be starting any moment. We’re closing up here. Poor Anita is exhausted.”
“You’re right about that, Flora. I’m worn to the bone.” In her miniature parlor, Anita slid forward in her tiny chair and began rubbing her feet with small, plump hands. “I’ve lost all feeling in my toes.” She hopped to the ground and began to limp toward her pint-sized fireplace.
In the tall booth opposite, the Amazon Queen pulled off her feather-and-bone headdress and dusted down her skirt. She called to Anita. “Come for your dinner at my wagon, ’Nita. I’ll be makin’ stew.”
Lizzie stared in surprise. The Amazon Queen — twice as tall as Lizzie and as exotic as a bird of paradise — spoke with a raucous East End accent. “I thought she was from Africa!” Lizzie said.
“She is.” Flora folded her hands and leaned back proudly. “I taught her English myself. Quick learner, she was.”
The Amazon Queen gave a throaty laugh. “In Africa I speak like a queen. In England I speak like a washerwoman.”
“What do you mean?” Flora threw up her arms. “Queen Victoria herself don’t speak no better than me.”
The Amazon Queen ignored her and nodded regally to the old man, then the sword swallower. “Why don’t you both join us too? And if you’d be so kind as to bring a lil’ somethin’ to throw in the pot, we’ll have a proper meal.”
Lizzie felt a nudge from behind. It was Flora again. “You still here? Go find your ma. She’ll be missin’ you.”
Flora shooed her out with the rest of the visitors, and before she could argue, Lizzie found herself outside. Purple clouds streaked a pink sky. An evening chill was flooding Hyde Park, and Lizzie shivered in the cold. She lifted her wool skirt, pulling it tight around her shoulders like a shawl and leaving her tattered petticoats to flutter around her legs.
The crowds were thinning as the last of the sideshow visitors filtered into the big tent. A top-hatted man in a patchwork waistcoat beckoned latecomers through the brightly lit entrance. “Last show! Last show!” He swapped their coins for tickets and waved them inside where flickering lights swallowed them.
Lizzie’s shoulders drooped. Her purse was as empty as her belly. Heart heavy, she wandered across the grass while figures worked around her, closing up the sideshows and lighting lamps outside the caravans. Canvas flapped in the breeze, while music swelled inside the big tent, and a happy roar rose from the crowd. The show was about to begin.
Lizzie stopped beside a flower bed thick with bushes and stared across the field. This would be a safe place to rest. She sank to the ground and crawled beneath one of the bushes. The bruise on her cheek ached as the cold jabbed at it. But she knew Pa would give her another if she went home.
Curling up tight as a hedgehog, Lizzie listened to the ringmaster calling out the first act as stones grated against her bony arms. The crowd cheered while Lizzie snuggled deeper into her petticoats, trying to escape the cold and imagining what was happening inside the circus tent.
Lizzie carried on sitting there long after the show had finished and the audience had gone home. An owl screeched overhead and made her gasp. Aching all over, she crept out from beneath the bush into a sleeping world. The big tent flapped eerily in the darkness, and here and there caravan windows showed lights, but no one stirred. The owl screeched again, and Lizzie’s teeth began to chatter. She had to find somewhere warmer.
Quiet as a mouse, she crept between the tents and caravans. A horse stamped beside her, making her jump. Warmth pulsed from its flanks. Heavy-hooved and clumsy with sleep, it knocked against her. Lizzie backed away past a caravan and glanced up at its door. Light shone from a small pane of glass, and laughter sounded inside. Lizzie could smell the mouthwatering scent of food. She wondered if the Amazon Queen was inside, eating dinner with the World’s Smallest Woman.
The horse whinnied and thrust its head toward her inquisitively. Lizzie darted back, slipping into the shadows beside the big tent. She followed the striped canvas away from the booths and caravans. In the quiet moonlight, she saw animals shifting about in makeshift wooden pens. They huffed and sighed, breathing softly with sleep.
Lizzie leaned over a fence. A small herd of ponies was bunched together, their coats golden in the moonlight as they dozed. In the pen beside them, two huge beasts paced the grass. Lizzie stared at their long gangly legs. Then she saw the huge humps on their backs.
“Blimey!” Lizzie whispered. “God must’ve been havin’ a laugh when he made you.” The creatures paused and gazed at her with huge, dark eyes. Then they carried on pacing, their broad, soft feet silent on the grass.
A breeze lifted Lizzie’s hair and made her shiver. Spotting a gap between the pens, she squeezed into it, eager to be out of the biting wind. She felt hay beneath her feet and sank gratefully into it. In the pen beside her, the two strange creatures tucked their legs clumsily beneath them and settled down for the night. Lizzie could feel their warmth through the slats of the fence. Wriggling closer, she closed her eyes and rested, relaxing to the sound of their soft breathing.
* * *
“Hey!”
Lizzie sat up with a jolt as a stick jabbed her ribs. Her first thought was, Pa’s going to hit me again.
Two feet stood beside her. One foot was small; the other was large and misshapen. She looked up with a gasp and saw a face frowning down.
The stick jabbed her again. It wasn’t Pa, but Lizzie’s heart was still pounding. She pushed the stick away. “Get off!” She leaped to her feet. “Stop it!” She found herself staring into the eyes of a skinny boy, smaller than she was. “There’s no need to keep poking me,” she muttered.
The boy glared down at her. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“I was just leaving anyway.” Dawn was lighting the sky behind the big tent. Lizzie stepped forward. “Let me past.”
“What’s going on here?” A man sauntered up behind the scowling boy and looked Lizzie up and down. She recognized the man from the big tent. He was still wearing his patchwork waistcoat and top hat. “What have you found here, Mally?”
“She was sleeping in the hay,” the boy answered without taking his eyes off Lizzie.
“We don’
t want that, do we, Malachy, m’boy?” The man’s eyes twinkled. “If we feed the animals girl-flavored hay they might develop a taste for young ’uns.”
Lizzie glanced anxiously at the strange animals in the pen. “They wouldn’t eat me, would they?” she asked.
Malachy laughed. “They eat hay, not girls.”
The man rested his hand on Malachy’s shoulder. “I reckon a lion might enjoy her.” He tipped his head to one side. “Though there’s not much meat on her.”
Lizzie backed away. “I-I’m sorry I slept here, but I . . .”
“Now, now, little ’un.” The man nudged his hat so it sat back on his head. “We don’t mean any harm.”
Malachy shifted his misshapen foot. “Sorry I poked you so hard.” He lifted his walking stick apologetically. Now he’d stopped glaring, his thin face looked more mischievous than unkind. “I thought you were a stray dog.” He reached over the fence and patted one of the strange animals. “Dogs worry the animals.”
Lizzie looked down at her shabby gray dress with dismay. “You thought I was a stray dog?”
Malachy flushed. “Sorry.”
The man smiled at her. “I’m Edward Fitzgerald. Most people call me Fitzy. And this is my son, Malachy.”
Lizzie stuck out her hand. “I’m Lizzie.”
“Pleased to meet you, Lizzie.” Mr. Fitzgerald reached past Malachy and shook Lizzie’s hand. “What are you doing here? Are you lost?”
“No.” Lizzie lifted her chin. “I’m looking for work.”
Mr. Fitzgerald rubbed his chin. “You look a bit skinny to be any good for hard work.”
“I’ve worked since I was seven years old,” Lizzie retorted.
Malachy looked at his father. “Why don’t we give her a try?” he suggested. “You were saying just this morning there’s more work than hands around here.”
The Magnificent Lizzie Brown and the Mysterious Phantom Page 2