by Laura Wood
“Well, if the school’s just been inspected all over, it can’t be much safer, can it?” I pointed out.
“I suppose not,” mused Miss Baxter. “You wouldn’t like to tell Mr Forthington-Smythe that, would you?”
“Ugh. No, thanks,” I said, then quickly added, “It’s just that, well … if you do decide to go ahead and not disappoint the whole school … I had a really good idea.”
“Really, Poppy? What idea was that?”
“Well, I was just wondering.” I felt suddenly shy, and stood, twisting my foot into the carpet. “Do you have any entertainment booked?”
“Entertainment?” said Miss Baxter faintly, obviously surprised by my question.
“Yes,” I said, looking up at her, feeling all the pleading shooting out of my eyes like laser beams. “Because I know this really great circus…”
Chapter Twenty-Three
A few days later I was standing outside Saint Smithen’s, dancing from foot to foot with excitement. A fully recovered Ingrid was standing next to me. Talk of the curse still rumbled around the school, largely because the curse had become shorthand among us students for any annoying event. (“I lost my shoe – the curse strikes again.” “Cabbage soup for dinner – must be the curse.” “Curse this curse, I haven’t grown a millimetre!” – I think you can guess who that was.) Kip, Ingrid and I had circus classes most days, and I was impressed by how quickly my star students picked things up. School was going well, the sun was shining, and any moment now, my mad, fab family was going to be tootling up the drive, ready for their big performance at the party tomorrow.
Suddenly, Kip arrived, running so fast his legs seemed to be spinning around like a cartoon character’s. “Are they … here yet?” he panted, his hands resting on his knees, his face as red as a boiled sweet.
“Does it look like they’re here yet?!” asked Ingrid, raising her eyebrows and waving her hands around at the totally empty scene.
I grinned. “Trust me,” I said, “you’ll know when they’re here!”
Kip was still breathing too hard to talk properly, but he squinted and gave me a big thumbs up, so I knew he was OK.
Then, in the distance, I heard the first faint sound of music, familiar music that made my toes tingle, the rolling oom-pah-pah of the circus.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” a strangled shout exploded from Kip, who was so excited he didn’t know what else to do.
And then, there they were, the convoy of trucks and trailers that carried my family. The huge blue truck at the front had a loudspeaker attached to the top, through which the music was blasting, and I knew it was also wired up to a microphone inside. Sure enough, a huge booming voice erupted, “ROLL UP, ROLL UP, COME ONE, COME ALL, TO MADAME PYM’S SPECTACULAR TRAVELLING CIRC— OUCH!” Then there was the sound of a kerfuffle, and some wincingly loud screeching feedback, before a new, distinctly female voice was heard.
“SHUT UP, BORIS. YOU KNOW IS MY TURN. RRRRRROLLLLLL UP, RRRROOOLLLL UP… OH, LOOK! IS TOMATO!!!!!” and as it came closer, through the front window of the truck I could see Fanella waving wildly while Boris sat next to her, his arms folded and his bottom lip sticking out like a big baby. As soon as he saw me, though, his face broke into an enormous smile and he started waving as well. Over the top of the huge wheel of the ginormous truck sprang the wildly curly hair and distinctive eyes of Pym, looking even tinier than usual in her great big seat.
With a loud groan the truck came to a halt just in front of us, all the other vehicles crunching up behind. And then everyone was there – Pym, Boris, Fanella, Luigi, Tina and Tawna, The Magnificent Marvin and Doris, Sharp-Eye Sheila, Chuckles and BoBo – and we were all hugging and laughing, and hugging some more. I introduced everyone to Ingrid and Kip, and it was only then that I noticed that the noisy arrival of my family had brought curious teachers and students alike out into the sunshine to see what was going on.
Always happy to see a crowd, everyone sprang into action. The Magnificent Marvin was moving from person to person, doing sleight-of-hand tricks, pulling lollipops and biscuits out of people’s noses. Chuckles was juggling ten juggling balls while asking people to throw in even more objects; so far that made ten juggling balls, a shoe, a watch, a watering can and a bacon sandwich that Chuckles kept taking bites out of every time it went around. BoBo was whipping up balloon models in every shape imaginable, including a pretty impressive balloon version of Mr Grant complete with explorer hat that the man himself seemed especially chuffed with. Madame Patrice had cornered Luigi and was smiling at him like he was the last chocolate in the box. Luigi was nervously running a finger around his collar and he had two bright red lipstick marks on each cheek.
I noticed that Miss Baxter was pushing her way through to the front of the crowds, smiling and laughing as she went, until she arrived where Pym was standing with her arm around my shoulder. Pym stuck her fingers in her mouth and gave a shrill whistle, and everyone fell silent.
“Thank you so much, and everyone please join me in welcoming Madame Pym’s Spectacular Travelling Circus,” cried Miss Baxter, the end of her words being eaten up by greedy, roaring applause, foot-stomping and wolf-whistling from the appreciative crowd. I glowed with pride.
“Now, Madame Pym,” continued Miss Baxter more quietly, “I’m sure you’d all like to get settled in before dinner. I’ll have Poppy take you around to where you can set up. Poppy, you can have the afternoon off to be with your family – it seems that your brilliant idea of inviting them is proving to be a big hit with your fellow students.”
I beamed up at her, and then said hurriedly, “Kip and Ingrid too?” I fixed her with one of my killer pleading looks. “… Please?!”
Miss Baxter laughed. “Yes, all right then, Kip and Ingrid too. I should have known better than to try and separate you three.” She turned to face the crowd. “Everyone else, back to lessons, please.”
A huge groan filled the air. Slowly and reluctantly, people started shuffling back to lessons.
Standing near the front of the crowd I saw Annabelle and her parents, who were visiting for the grand opening. They were filthy rich and donated a lot of money to the school, so I heard. (Mostly in a loud and obnoxious voice from Annabelle herself.) Annabelle’s parents were exactly as you might imagine them. Her father was a big man with a red face and a bristling grey moustache. He wore a fancy suit and a heavy, shining gold watch that he waved around a lot while he talked to make sure that you noticed it. Annabelle’s mother was a small lady with a red face (although no bristling moustache, as far as I could see!) and sharp blue eyes that looked down a long thin nose. She looked like a boiled sweet. As I walked past them, I heard Annabelle say loudly to her father, “That girl’s in my class, Daddy, and she’s a total FREAK.” My cheeks started to burn, and I turned around to say something to her, but Luigi had beaten me to it.
“Ahhh, Hallo!” said Luigi, smiling his most charming smile at the Forthington-Smythes. “I know you!” Annabelle preened and batted her eyes, happy to be the centre of attention. “I am Lord Reginald Felix Anthony Sylvester Lucas, fourteenth Earl of Burnshire,” continued Luigi with a little bow, and Mrs Forthington-Smythe certainly seemed to perk up a bit at that information.
“Of course,” boomed Annabelle’s father. “Must have met at one of Lady Burnshire’s shindigs. Splendid woman,” he added in an oily way.
“Yes, Great Aunt Hortence certainly knows how to throw a party,” said Luigi with a smirk. “And you are … no, don’t tell me, Mister … Fartington-Smith, isn’t it?” I let out a little snort of laughter, and I wasn’t the only one. Even Annabelle’s friends were trying to hide their sniggers.
“It’s Forthington-Smythe,” ground out Annabelle’s father, in a voice that sounded as cold and prickly as a frozen porcupine.
“Ahhh, yes,” said Luigi airily, waving his hand around. “Forgive me. For us, the aristocracy, it is so
hard to keep the little people straight in our minds – there are so many of you. Come, Poppy!” And with a flourish Luigi took my arm and we marched off behind Miss Baxter and Pym, leaving Annabelle and her parents gasping for air like goldfishes out of water.
“Brilliant!” I heard Ingrid hiss from behind me. Kip followed behind, walking with Boris. Kip looked up at Boris’s towering, muscly body and asked in an awed voice, “How on earth did you get to be so very tall?”
Then, in a very solemn voice, I heard Boris answer. “Sprouts.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
We made our way down to the dip in the grounds where the circus was to be nestled. In a very short amount of time it was all hustle and bustle down there, as Boris single-handedly put up the big-top tent, lugging tent poles over his shoulders as if they weighed no more than a sack of potatoes. Fanella and Luigi set out the stalls where, before the performance, they would be selling clouds of candyfloss as well as doughnuts, sugary sweets of every colour and size, and swirling lollipops as big as your face. I noticed that Kip was trailing around after Boris with a notepad and pen, asking loud questions like, “AND EXACTLY HOW MANY SPROUTS A DAY ARE WE TALKING HERE??”
Pym pulled me into an enormous and gloriously familiar hug and then stood back, her hands still on my shoulders, as she stared into my eyes with her scrunched-up look. “OK, lovey,” she said, “time to tell everyone why they’re here.”
I stood up in front of the group and started recounting the story from the beginning. I told them about the curse (there were gasps), I told them about the accidents (there were more gasps) and I told them about Miss Susan (there were threats. “You tell me where this Miss Susan sleeps,” muttered Fanella, darkly. “Maybe Otis has a little escape…”).
When I had finished my story, everyone sat very still, apart from The Magnificent Marvin, who jumped up from his seat with a loud, “Yaroooooo!” His eyes were glowing with excitement. “Oh, Poppy, it is just like a Dougie Valentine book!” he cried, accidentally disappearing and reappearing with a loud bang in his excitement.
“I know,” I said, nodding seriously, “but what we need to do is to find out for certain who the culprit is. We didn’t know what to do, but I was sure that if we all put our brains together we could come up with something. We don’t have any proof it was Miss Susan. I suppose we don’t even know that it’s not the curse after all.”
A shiver went around the room. “As to that,” said Pym slowly, “I am pretty sure someone just wants you to think that the curse is real. That symbol you described, Poppy, the one that looked like an eye. Well, it sounds to me like that’s the Eye of Horus, an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection. There’s no way that anyone who knew anything about hieroglyphs would draw it somewhere they were trying to cause an accident.”
“Yes,” said The Magnificent Marvin. “And the fact that someone was skulking around the room with the artefacts during the power cut, which is especially suspect when the ruby had just arrived. It sounds to me like someone’s definitely trying to get their hands on the ruby. If you think about it, this curse business is the perfect way to distract everyone.”
“But if someone’s after the ruby, how do we work out who?” I asked.
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“I don’t know, Poppy,” said Marvin slowly. “But Dougie Valentine always goes on a fact-finding mission when he’s getting stuck into a mystery.”
“You’re right!” I cried. “We need more information, and I know just where to gather it … at the big party tomorrow night. Everyone will be there, so it’s the perfect place for us to do a little spying!”
“But Poppy, you know we’re all supposed to be here setting up for the big show. How will we get in unnoticed?” Pym asked. “We’re not exactly … errr … unnoticeable.” And she gestured around at the ramshackle group.
There was a brief silence while this sank in.
“We go in disguise,” said Fanella majestically. “I wear the false mooostache and nobody know is me. I can talk fancy like Luigi.” She made her voice go all deep, “Tally-ho, pip pip, Jolly good show old pea.”
“It’s old bean, dear,” said Doris mildly.
“Pah!” said Fanella. “Peas and beans is all the same.”
“Well, we thought it was—”
“—pretty convincing,” Tina and Tawna chimed in.
“We could go in disguise too, as—”
“—waitresses. We can balance four trays at a time—”
“—each!” they added.
“Hang about, though,” cried Luigi. “If Fanella’s going as me, then who am I going as?”
“You can go as me!” burst in BoBo. “But we’ll have to dye your hair pink.” She nodded her bright pink head.
“Pink!” Luigi exclaimed. “Perish the thought.”
“Pink hair wouldn’t suit Luigi’s colouring,” boomed Boris, slowly and thoughtfully.
Sharp-Eye Sheila nodded briskly. “Orange is what he wants, and a close shave.” She brandished her knife. “I can have your face as smooth as a baby’s bum in no time.”
“I say,” said Luigi, looking a bit pale. “I don’t really like the sound of this at all.” He turned to me. “Love to help, Pops, but orange hair and no moustache … it simply won’t do.”
By this time, Kip and Ingrid had dissolved into giggles. I shot them a stern look.
“Don’t worry, Luigi, nobody is going to shave you. Nobody is going in disguise,” I said firmly.
There was an enormous groan from the group.
“Not fair,” muttered BoBo sulkily.
“I think Poppy’s right,” said Pym. “We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves and I think even in the excellent disguises you have suggested, it would be difficult to extinguish your” – she ran her eyes over the group assembled in front of her – “originality.”
“So it’s just us three who are doing the spying, then?” asked Kip, looking a bit daunted.
“Well,” I said, crinkling my nose up as I thought very hard. “There is a way to get at least one of you in … as a performer!”
“ME!” shouted Marvin. “Oh please, please! I could do a magic performance and try out my detective skills.”
“A magic performance would be the perfect cover,” chimed in Ingrid. “The Magnificent Marvin could move around the crowd, asking questions to the grown-ups that we can’t really get away with…”
“And Marvin, he can wear the moooostache,” said Fanella graciously.
“I’m not wearing that blimmin’ moustache, Fanella!” Marvin cut in.
“Bah!” scoffed Fanella.
“Anyway, it’s a plan!” I interrupted, clapping my hands triumphantly and stopping the argument before Fanella could really get going.
“And for my grand finale …” said Marvin dreamily, “I shall make the ruby DISAPPEAR!”
“Yes,” said Pym approvingly, “that ought to set the cat amongst the pigeons. Might ruffle the criminal enough that they betray themselves. You’ll have to keep a beady eye out, children,” she finished, fixing us with her own beady eye.
“But how will you make the ruby disappear?” asked Kip.
“A good magician never reveals his secrets,” said The Magnificent Marvin mysteriously, tapping a finger against the side of his nose. “You’ll just have to witness the magic for yourself.”
That night, dinner couldn’t go fast enough. All around me I saw everyone shovelling food into their faces as if they were in some sort of enormous and very competitive pie-eating contest, all crazy with excitement for the next day and the double whammy of the grand opening and a circus performance. This was especially impressive in Kip’s case, as he sat down with a massive plate of sprouts and bravely gulped them down. His eyes were glazed over, and you could tell that with every swallow he was imagining himself getting a tiny bit tall
er.
I went to bed with a great big smile on my face. Just knowing that my family was close by made me feel safe and happy. The curse, and Miss Susan, and the mystery – none of them mattered as my head hit the pillow. Instead I heard the circus music looping around and around, and dreamed of candyfloss and pretty white ponies.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next day my brain was buzzing noisily with thoughts about the plan we were going to put in action later that evening. I tried to unravel some of the things I was feeling: nervous about something going wrong; thrilled about finally seeing all the artefacts we had been learning about in our classes with Professor Tweep; excited about putting my detective skills to work; and just a little bit scared about seeing the ruby again. No matter how convinced I was that a human hand was at work behind the “accidents” that had been taking place in the school, the memory of the glowing, glittering ruby still gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Eventually, the sun drifted down in the sky like a slowly deflating balloon, and the light began to fade. Ingrid, Letty and I dashed around our room, getting ready for the big party. I was wearing a light green dress that Fanella had chosen for me, because it matched my eyes. I felt like a stick of celery. Ingrid looked nice in a purple, flowery dress, and Letty looked very dramatic in a long red velvet number with sleeves that drifted down to the floor.
“Wow, Letty, you look great!” I said admiringly.
“Thanks,” Letty said, tossing her head and squinting dramatically. “I borrowed it from the costume department. Lady Macbeth. I think I’ve got some fake blood somewhere,” she mused.
“No, no,” broke in Ingrid, “I think you look lovely just as you are. Both of you,” she added with a smile.