The Palace of Laughter

by Jon Berkeley

  “What was it like in the tunnel?” asked Miles.

  “It was white, and cold,” said Little. “I was sliding very fast, twisting and turning, until I didn’t know up from down. I tried to slow myself, but there was nothing I could hold on to. The tunnel became darker, purply gray, and darker again until it was almost black, and I was going faster still. I couldn’t see Silverpoint anymore. My shouts were lost in the sound of the thunder, and the wind was racing through the clouds and spinning me around as it passed. Then suddenly there was no cloud, and I was falling from the sky in a rain of hailstones. When lightning flashed I thought I saw Silverpoint far below me, but the hailstones were so thick I couldn’t be sure.”

  “Why didn’t you use your wings, like in the circus?” asked Miles.

  “I did!” said Little. “I opened my wings before I even left the tunnel, but the storm was too strong. I’m only a softwing, and in a hailstorm like that even a longfeather needs all his strength and skill. The wind took me and threw me this way and that, and though I did slow my fall I couldn’t control where I was going, not even if I could have seen what was below me.

  “Just when I thought I would never stop falling, I saw the shapes of trees rushing up to meet me, and other shapes—a huge striped tent and a circle of trailers. I flapped with all my strength to slow myself down, then I fell into a big pile of hay in the back of a wagon. Right into the center I dived, and the hay covered me up completely. I didn’t know whether anyone had seen me, so I lay as still as I could for a while, waiting to get my breath back. That hay was really itchy!” She wriggled her shoulders at the memory.

  “The stalks of hay poked up my nose and in my ears, and the little seeds tickled me all over. I wriggled over to the side of the wagon and looked through the wooden slats to see if there was anyone around.” Little giggled. “To tell the truth, I didn’t know what kind of monsters I might see. I’d never been to the Hard World before, but I had heard all sorts of stories.”

  “Really? What kind of stories, my dear?” asked Lady Partridge. Her precariously piled hair had been gradually undoing itself, and looped in gray coils over her ears and down her neck, but she didn’t seem to notice. The ginger cat played with a long strand, biting the end and swatting it with his paws.

  “Oh, all sorts. I heard that people have no wings, which was true, and that they might have two heads, or hairy faces. Bluehart, the Sleep Angel, told me that some people eat without stopping until their insides explode, and others walk like skeletons and eat seeds from cracks in the earth. The first man I saw, looking out from the hay, had a white face and a round red nose like a ball. His hair was purple and it stood up on end. He was beating a pig with a long stick.

  “I couldn’t understand what was going on. The pig was on four legs and had no hands to hold a stick of his own. He was covered with big green spots, but they were washing off in the rain. He was tied to the wheel of a wagon, and could do nothing but stand there and squeal. I could hardly even make out what he was saying.”

  “Do you mean you can understand animals?” exclaimed Lady Partridge.

  “Of course,” said Little. “I am a Song Angel, and every language is an echo of the One Song, even the sigh of the wind and the groan of the mountains. Everything speaks. You just have to know how to listen.

  “Anyway, the poor pig was crying as the man beat him. I thought I heard him saying ‘not again,’ then he said some things about the man that were so rude I would have laughed, if it wasn’t so horrible. Nobody came to his help, so I had to do it myself. I climbed out of the hay (and anyway, I couldn’t have stayed in there a second longer), and I told purple-head to stop at once.”

  “That was very brave of you, my dear,” said Lady Partridge. “What did the man do?”

  “He turned around and stared at me. He had one real eye. The other was made of glass and could see nothing. He turned back and gave the pig an extra-hard whack, then he walked over to me and raised his stick high in the air.

  “Just at that moment there was a loud crack, and the man’s purple hair burst into flames. He dropped the stick then, and he let out a yell. He began to run around in circles, flapping his hands at his head and shrieking. The pig was shouting, “My turn gone, your turn now! My turn gone, your turn now!” For a moment I thought the pig had somehow done it to him, then I saw Silverpoint standing there with his hands on his hips and thunder in his face, and I understood. The man with the flaming head tripped over an iron peg and fell straight into a big bucket of paint. That put the fire out all right, but when he stood up his whole head was white and dripping, and he stepped straight into something the elephants had left behind. It was really very funny.” Little giggled at the memory.

  “Silverpoint was angrier than I had ever seen him. I didn’t know if he was more angry with me or with purple-head. He grabbed my arm, and there were sparks still coming from his fingertips that made my skin hurt. He said, ‘Come!’ But before we could leave, a man stepped out of the shadow of the tent.”

  “He was a small man, no taller than Silverpoint himself. You have met him, Miles, I think. He is called the Great Cortado. He spoke to us from behind his great mustache, and his words were kind. ‘That was a very impressive trick, and funny too’ was what he said to Silverpoint. The purple-haired man had wiped the paint from his eyes, and he bent to pick up his stick, but then he met the Great Cortado’s eye and he dropped it again, and slunk off with his head down.

  “Silverpoint thanked the Great Cortado politely and told him that we really must be leaving, but Cortado insisted that we go into his trailer to have some supper and to dry off. Silverpoint tried to refuse, but Cortado wouldn’t take no for an answer. While he went to have supper made for us, we sat in his wagon and Silverpoint told me off for following him. He said that it was very foolish, but now that I was here, there were things that I must remember. He said that humans could not be trusted. I mean he said…” She hesitated.

  “Don’t worry, my dear,” said Lady Partridge. “In some cases I’m afraid he’s right, but we’re not all bad! What else did he say to you?”

  “He said that people must never find out who we really were. He told me never to let anyone see my wings, and above all never ever to sing my real name.”

  “Isn’t Little your real name?” asked Miles.

  Little laughed, and her laugh itself was like music. “Of course not,” she said. “Little is just the name that Silverpoint gave to me, when the Great Cortado asked who we were. It’s far too short a name for a Song Angel!”

  “You must excuse our ignorance, my dear, but what exactly is a Song Angel?” asked Lady Partridge.

  “Song Angels are the voices of the One Song,” said Little.

  “And what is the One Song?” asked Lady Partridge.

  “It’s hard to put into words,” said Little. “I’ve never had to explain it before.” She stared into the fire for a minute, a small frown on her face.

  “The One Song is the music that runs at the heart of everything. It keeps the world spinning and the stars shining. Everything that exists, every insect and rock and river and flower, has a name in the One Song. Love and Sorrow, Laughter and Anger and Courage all have their places too, and they must be kept in harmony. When one of these strands is taken out from the rest, that is when bad things happen, like a rope beginning to unravel. Each Song Angel must learn a part of that song. We keep it alive and guard it, and in the end we must each add our own name to it so that the Song keeps growing and the world keeps moving along its path.”

  “But why can’t you use your real name, instead of Little?” asked Miles, who had not understood much of what she had just said.

  “If I sang my name here, its power would be spent. I would be bound to Earth, and would never be able to return home.” She laughed. “Besides, my real name would not come to life on the clumsy tongues of people.”

  “Is Silverpoint a made-up name as well?”

  “Well…yes and no. A Storm Angel’s
name is a different thing, and does not have the same power. Silverpoint is something like his real name, but shorter and simpler. It’s a name he uses when he visits Earth.”

  “And why did Silverpoint come down through the clouds, my dear?” asked Lady Partridge. She was trying to rebuild the unruly pile of gray hair on her head, and she held a tortoiseshell comb and several hairpins between her lips. Her question sounded more like, “Und fwoy did Filverfoint come down shoo du cloudsh, wy dear?”

  “I didn’t get the chance to ask him that, because the Great Cortado returned with our supper before we had finished our talk. He asked us many questions, but Silverpoint answered them cleverly and told him very little. Cortado’s voice was soothing and his eyes were kind, and after a while even Silverpoint seemed more at ease. At the end of our meal we had a hot, sweet drink that glowed like fire inside us, but this was the worst mistake of all. I saw Silverpoint’s head start to nod as he swallowed his last mouthful, and before I could even put down my own cup, I fell into a sleep without dreams.

  “When I woke up I didn’t know if it was night or day. I was in a small trailer, and a huge woman, as tall as a tree and with pictures on her skin, was wiping my face with a wet towel. She told me her name was Baumella, and that Silverpoint had sold me to the circus and gone away. I didn’t believe her, of course, but I said nothing. They gave me a sparkly costume to wear, and began to teach me to walk on a rope and to balance on things. When I wasn’t practicing or performing they kept me locked up all the time. Baumella treated me well enough, but she never let me out of her sight.

  “I tried to find out where Silverpoint was. He wasn’t anywhere in the circus. I asked the animals whenever I got the chance. One of the monkeys told me he heard the parrots say that Silverpoint had been taken to the Palace of Laughter, but none of them knew where that was. That was all I was able to find out.”

  Little fell silent for a while. In the firelight Miles could see tears shining in her eyes.

  “I haven’t seen Silverpoint since that night,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what’s become of him, but it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t followed him he never would have had to save me, and we would never have been captured. I have to find him, somehow.”

  Miles looked at the small girl sitting among the cats and the bric-a-brac. She had pulled the overcoat back around her, although it was warm in the tree house, and was wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Her skin still gave off that faint pearly glow, only visible in dim light. She looked lost and alone.

  He thought about his smashed barrel and his disemboweled mattress. There was really only one choice to make. Whatever the dangers of her search for Silverpoint, he would go with her. He could not let her face such a journey alone, even if she did have wings and was four hundred years old. Besides, he thought, it would surely be more exciting to set off into the unknown in search of a Storm Angel, than to look for a new barrel to crawl into.

  He knew what Tangerine would think. He put his hand into his inside pocket to check on the bear. Beside the familiar straggly fur his fingers felt something smooth and strangely cold. It was a card of some sort, and only when he had taken it from his pocket did he remember the silvery ticket he had picked up from the muddy grass beneath Little’s wagon at the Circus Oscuro.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE SILVER TICKET

  Miles Wednesday, soup-filled and fire-warmed, held the ticket up to catch the light from the candle flames that flapped lazily on the shelves. In the center of the ticket was the laughing clown’s face from the side of The Great Cortado’s wagon, and around it looped the words “The GREAT CORTADO PRESENTS FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT the FUNNIEST SHOW on EARTH. For ONE NIGHT ONLY at the PALACE OF LAUGHTER. As performed before the CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE. Admit two. Train leaves at dawn tomorrow.” The ticket sparkled in the light.

  “The Palace of Laughter,” said Miles. “Isn’t that where you said Silverpoint was taken?”

  “That’s what the monkeys told me, and they don’t miss much,” said Little. Miles handed her the ticket. She frowned at the writing, and turned it over in her hands. “I can’t read,” she said. “Does it tell you where to find it?”

  “No. It just says that the train leaves at dawn tomorrow.”

  “Then you shall have to try and catch the train if you are to find your friend,” said Lady Partridge. “We’ll find a way to disguise you, so you won’t be so easy to spot. Perhaps Miles will go with you.”

  Miles did not answer. He was trying to remember where he had heard of the Palace of Laughter before. Crouching by wooden steps, breathing the smell of cigar smoke. That was it! The Great Cortado had mentioned it in his conversation with Genghis. Miles pictured a rambling palace, the doors standing open and the sound of laughter flooding out on the warm firelight. The thought of it made him smile. Somewhere out in the distant night, this place really did exist. He began to look forward to the adventure that was unfolding before them.

  “You can’t come with me,” said Little. “This is trouble that I made for myself, and you’ve already done enough for me. The Great Cortado is a dangerous man, and he’ll be very angry with you for helping me to escape.”

  “Then I’d better keep out of his way,” said Miles. “But you can’t go on your own, and anyhow the Great Cortado owes me a new home. If I can’t ask him for one, I’ll find another way to make him repay me.”

  “Quite right,” said Lady Partridge, “but you shall both have to be very careful. I don’t like the sound of this Circus Oscuro at all. Giantesses. Bone-crunching beasts. It’s not my idea of a circus.”

  She sighed, stroking the ginger kitten on her lap. “I used to bring the orphans to Barty Fumble’s Big Top. Now that was a wonderful show. It used to pass through here every summer, and we never missed it. It was small and friendly, and you could see that everyone really enjoyed themselves, right from the prop hands to the ringmaster himself. Barty Fumble was a real gentleman. You could tell by the way he held himself. It was said that he looked after all his performers, whether on two legs or four, as though they were his own children. I remember his pride and joy was a tiger named Variloop…Voopilar…some foreign name that I never could pronounce. There were many wonderful acts but that magnificent tiger was always the highlight of the show.”

  “What happened to Barty Fumble’s Big Top?” asked Miles.

  “I’m not really sure, my dear. It merged somehow with a larger circus, but that was years ago now. Rumor had it that Barty Fumble disappeared shortly after that, and his tiger along with him. I’ve never heard anything more of them since, and no other circus has passed through here for years, not until this Circus Oscuro arrived.

  “Anyhow, that was all a long time ago,” said Lady Partridge, “and what you both need now is a good night’s sleep, or you won’t be going anywhere at the crack of dawn, not if I have anything to do with it.” She slipped into her purple slippers, which waited as usual below her hammock, and began to rummage in a wide drawer for bedclothes, muttering to herself as she did so. “Pillows, pillows, not in this one…nor that one. Now where did they go?…Shoo, you big furball…. Ah, here’s Great-aunt Boadicea’s embroidered cushion, that will do…. Now let me see…blankets…Don’t get many visitors these days, you see…. Where did I put the dratted blankets?”

  By the time she had found all that she needed, Little and Miles were asleep. She gently slipped pillows under their heads and covered them with warm blankets, then with a deep sigh she damped down the fire and shuffled through a purring sea of cats to her hammock.

  Now imagine for a moment that you are an owl, drifting silently over the garden of that deserted mansion in the middle of an October night. Your sharp hunter’s eyes would see the strange jumble of Lady Partridge’s tree house, nesting in the tree below you. A thin wisp of smoke is rising from the crooked pipe that serves as a chimney, before being pulled apart by the night breeze that rocks the tree house gently in the arms of the twin beech tree.

 
If you should perch on one of the higher branches, you would see through the single dusty window in the tree-house roof the outlines of three sleeping figures, and the twitching shapes of a hundred dozing cats. Inside every one of those sleeping heads is a world of dreams.

  The dreams of the cats are much as you would expect them to be. Insects buzz through the dry grass of a summer’s day, always just out of reach, and sometimes a whole fish will jump out of nowhere and land in a shower of sparkling droplets, right at the surprised dreamer’s feet.

  Curled up under a tartan blanket, Miles dreams of the basement laundry in Pinchbucket House. He is working with the other children, hauling damp sheets from a giant washing machine. On top of the machine sits the Bengal tiger, calmly cleaning his whiskers as though the laundry were his natural habitat, and not the jungles of Asia. Miles turns to drag his full basket over to the dryer, and sees to his horror that Fowler Pinchbucket is feeding his orphan brothers and sisters, two at a time, into the mouth of a huge machine in the corner. His mean face wears a grin of satisfaction. Miles turns to the tiger, who is paying not the slightest attention. He points at Fowler Pinchbucket and opens his mouth to shout, but no sound comes out. Two by two the children disappear, while the tiger licks his paws and the machines rumble on.

  From your perch in the branches you would see Miles turn over in his sleep, rubbing the arm he has been sleeping on, while Lady Partridge snores gently in her swaying hammock. She is dreaming of a hot summer afternoon, her hammock strung between the twin beech trunks, in the shade below the tree house. Her cats are swarming over her, rubbing their cheeks against her chin and mewing loudly. She feels groggy from the heat, and she brushes them off irritably. When she opens her eyes they have disappeared, every last one of them. She has an uneasy feeling that they were trying to tell her something important, but it is too late to ask. She groans in her sleep, and the dream slips away.