Skycircus

by Peter Bunzl

  Three short blasts sounded on a whistle.

  “Scran’s up!” Dimitri said.

  “That’s lunch, flattie,” Silva explained.

  Everyone abandoned the half-constructed tent, downing tools and heading for the main hatch door on the port side of the Skycircus gondola. The Lunk stood in the doorway, his metal jaw grinding up and down, silently counting them all in.

  As Robert, Dimitri and Silva joined the queue on the ramp, Robert spotted something over the treetops: a gigantic spiked tower of iron. Zeps bobbed around it like bees on a flower. A few were even moored to it by anchor ropes.

  “What’s that?” he asked the other two, pointing the tower out to them.

  “The Eiffel Tower Airstation,” Silva whispered. “Flights arriving into Paris take off and land there.”

  “How far away is it?” Robert said quietly.

  “Miles,” Silva replied under her breath. “This is the Bois de Boulogne, which is a wood on the outskirts of the city.”

  “We’re prisoners anyway,” Dimitri muttered. “We’re not allowed near places like that, so you won’t get to see it.”

  “I will if we get out,” said Robert softly to himself.

  As their part of the queue reached the gondola and they trooped inside, a thousand and one plans flitted through his mind. First he had to save Lily and Malkin from Room Thirteen, then get a message to John in England, then get his locket back, and finally get them away from here in one piece. And he would start as soon as he’d recovered the laundry bag.

  SPLAT!

  A grey scoop of slop hit Robert’s plate. Lardy porridge peppered with onions. He peered grimly at it. A rancid, unappetizing steam rose from its depths. It seemed there was to be no more candyfloss or popcorn or peanuts.

  “Enjoy your lunch,” said the fellow ladling the stuff out from a large tureen. “Don’t eat it all at once, you useless bunch.” He spoke in rhyme, Robert realized – it was Joey the clown. Though he wasn’t wearing his make-up, he had the teardrop tattooed on his face – the one Robert had thought was only drawn on yesterday.

  “We call this sloup,” Silva whispered, as she and Dimitri led him away from the long queue of circus folk that meandered down the length of the mess hall. People in tired muddy work uniforms, with tired muddy faces. “Mainly because it’s a cross between slop and soup. Want some extra? You look like you need it.”

  Robert shook his head, but it was too late – she poured half her sloup onto his plate anyway. He tried not to spill it as she and Dimitri took him to a second table, where they each grabbed some cutlery and a tin cup from a box.

  “Keep your spowl and boon safe,” said the toady fellow with bright orange hair in charge of the water jug. He wasn’t wearing his make-up either, but Robert recognized him as Auggie the clown – with his habit of putting the wrong letters on the front of the wrong words.

  “Anyone who sposes his loon or can gets fed to the tions, liger and bear,” Auggie informed him, filling his tin can with greasy water.

  “He means if you lose a spoon or can, you get fed to the lions, tiger and bear,” Silva whispered.

  “Don’t be fraternizing with those clowns,” Dimitri admonished as they joined the line for seats. “They’re spies for Madame and Slimwood.”

  “I won’t,” Robert said. He felt glad to have Silva and Dimitri looking out for him. He hoped Lily and Malkin had made some friends too and glanced worriedly around the mess hall, searching for them.

  A few of the roustabouts who’d chased them last night were sitting at one long table, and the four-piece band at another. The rest of the benches were filled with jugglers, tumblers, plate-spinners and even the wizened old man, who looked to be enjoying his sloup far less than the crockery he’d eaten in last night’s show. But there was no sign of Lily or Malkin, nor of the other hybrids. What the clank had Madame and Slimwood done with them?

  “Each family or group sits at the table corresponding to their room number,” Silva explained when she saw him staring worriedly about. “Me and Dimitri and my folks, we’re in Room Six, so we sit at table six. There’s a space there, if you want to come with us.”

  Dimitri and Silva led him between the rows of grey people to the table nearest the door, which was indeed marked with a six.

  “Papi, Mami, this is Robert.” Silva said. Robert recognized the two older acrobats from the Bouncing Buttons act.

  A few feet behind them, the Lunk loomed, his swivel-eyes lurching from side to side as he took in everything and everyone in the room. Nothing escaped his beady gaze. Robert cowered away from him. “Good afternoon, Mr and Mrs Buttons,” he whispered, perching on the end of a bench opposite Silva and Dimitri.

  “Please, call me Gilda,” Mrs Buttons said. She was so petite that, except for the lines on her face, she might’ve been mistaken for a young girl.

  “And Bruno,” Mr Buttons added, shaking Robert’s hand. His grip was sure and strong, his arm as slender and solid as a tree branch, his shoulders broad and his head flat on top, as if he might have balanced on it too many times – which, possibly, he had.

  “How are your horses, Dimitri?” Mr Buttons asked.

  “Fine, thanks, Bruno,” Dimitri replied. “If there’s time after the tent’s up this afternoon, and Slimwood allows it, I’ll give them a quick trot around the ring.”

  Robert tried a mouthful of the sloup. It tasted disgusting, like dirty gravel in lukewarm water. He ate what little he could manage, enough to quell the groans of his stomach, then pushed the rest aside and looked around the room again, searching for his missing friends, but he still couldn’t see them anywhere. “Please,” he asked the others, “my friends were taken to Room Thirteen, but I can’t see them. Where’s table thirteen?”

  “There’s no table thirteen,” Gilda Buttons said. “So your friends are in there, with them? The freaks?”

  “You mean the hybrids?” Robert said.

  “Everyone eats in the canteen except those half- and-halfs,” Bruno Buttons explained, ignoring Robert’s correction. “You’ve seen them in the show – they’re different. The skills they have are built into them, not learned, like with us.”

  “Yeah.” Silva nodded. “They could get away easily with their freakish abilities. That’s why Madame and Slimwood keep them under lock and key at all times.”

  It was disturbing the way the Buttons spoke about the hybrids, almost as if they’d been brainwashed by Slimwood into thinking they weren’t truly human. Robert wondered if he should defend them, but then thought it best not to rock the boat. He needed their help after all. Nevertheless, he wondered if there was anything he could say to get them to change their minds…

  “Usually, they avoid snatching people during the show,” Gilda was saying, “because it draws attention to them and can be traced back easily, but in the case of your friend they seem to have broken their own rules.” She glanced at Madame and Slimwood, sitting at the head table at the end of the room. They were eating green beans and roast beef and looked like they were enjoying themselves far more than everyone else with their sloup. “She must be some sort of special freak for them to do something as risky as that.”

  Robert felt queasy. Gilda was right, Lily was special – but so were the other hybrids, and being different wasn’t bad.

  “I have to get her out of here,” he told them. “Malkin too. And I’ll need your help to do it.”

  Silva laughed. “Not a chance. There’s no escaping Slimwood’s, believe me. We tried. Twice.”

  “Once on horseback,” Dimitri added. “But the Lunk beat my horses at full pelt. He watches everything. Reports back to Slimwood and Madame. They’ll know if you try to do a bunk.”

  “And now we need to be careful,” Bruno Buttons advised. “A third failed attempt could see us end up nailed to their wall.”

  “Surely they can’t be watching constantly?” Robert asked. “What about at night?”

  “At night, Slimwood and Madame lock us in our bunks,” Si
lva said, “then the Lunk patrols the corridors to make sure nothing’s going on.”

  “The only good thing,” Dimitri said, “is he creaks so loud you hear him coming.”

  “Why does he creak so?” Robert asked.

  Silva shrugged. “Too much metal. He’s so big he can’t oil his whole body in one go, like human strongmen. So his parts go rusty, and every move he makes sounds like fingers being scraped down a blackboard.”

  “Don’t speak so loud,” Gilda Buttons admonished quietly. “He’ll hear us. Even when we’re permitted outside the gondola for work or a show he’s always watching. And we’re never let out of the compound itself. Try to skip away if you like, flattie, but you don’t stand a chance.”

  Robert wasn’t so sure about the Buttons’ and Dimitri’s pessimism. After all, he was the grandson of the world-famous escapologist, Jack Door. A man who, though thoroughly unpleasant, had broken out of Pentonville Prison – England’s toughest jail. Robert had seen a few of Jack’s tricks up close and learned from them. And he reckoned if anyone could pull off a great escape from the Skycircus then he, Robert Townsend, would be the one to do it. And he had to. For Lily.

  “What if everyone worked together?” he suggested. “Circus folk and the frea— I mean, hybrids? Couldn’t you escape then? Surely with their talents…”

  Bruno Buttons shook his head. “We don’t talk with them. They don’t talk with us.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, Madame and Slimwood don’t allow it. And for another…how can I put this…?” He leaned in closer, until Robert could see every hair in his neatly trimmed moustache. “They’re odd. More like mechanicals than humans. No, I think you’ll find it’s every man for himself in here, flattie, and that’s the way it has to be.”

  Robert was certain he was wrong. Maybe if he spoke to the hybrids, or to Lily, he could find a way to get everyone working together, then perhaps, somehow, they’d stand a chance…

  It felt like the beginnings of a plan, but he needed to give it more thought and concentrate on making it happen. And, if that didn’t work, he hoped John would be here soon to rescue them.

  His stomach rumbled, but he quelled it with thoughts of Lily. Hopefully she was getting something to eat in Room Thirteen, that was more appetizing than his sloup.

  Lunch had been some sort of disgusting gruel on tin plates handed through the hatch in the door. The others had polished off their portions pretty quickly; only Lily’s lingered on her plate. She’d refused to finish it after Malkin had said it looked like cold cat sick. Now she slumped back in the rickety chair and hugged him for support, balancing him on her lap. His brush tickled her face, and she folded the tiger-striped scarf around them both. “I’ve something to tell you all,” she said at last.

  Deedee, Luca and Angelique gathered expectantly on the far side of the table. Luca rested his hands on its surface. Deedee fidgeted from side to side, stretching out her long legs. Angelique leaned on her cane, her wings open and draped behind her like a feather overcoat. All three waited for Lily to speak.

  Lily pursed her lips together. “There’s something different about me,” she said. “Different from people outside this room.” The words felt sharp and scary, but she wasn’t stopping, she knew what came next.

  “I’m a hybrid. I have a Cogheart – a heart made of clockwork.”

  She paused and looked at the others for their reactions.

  It was a relief to find that the news didn’t seem to surprise them. In fact, their faces had become more friendly.

  And so, feeling a little easier in herself, Lily decided to tell the rest of her tale. She told them how Papa had given her the Cogheart to save her life when she’d almost died. That the heart was a perpetual motion machine which meant she might live for ever. That an evil man called Professor Silverfish had tried to steal it, even enlisting the help of Madame when she’d been Papa’s housekeeper; and how, when Lily had met Robert under those terrible circumstances, he’d saved her life, and she his.

  “I, of course, have saved both of them many times during their adventures,” Malkin added, poking his snout from beneath the end of the scarf, not to be left out.

  “So now Madame has come back for me,” Lily said finally. “Partly for revenge, and partly…” She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, the thing is, I’d rather not wait to find out what the other part is. Me, Robert and Malkin need to break out of here as soon as possible, and we’ll need your help to make it happen.”

  “We’ll try our best,” Luca said. “But an escape won’t be easy – this place is on permanent lockdown. Most people only leave in a wooden box.”

  “Do you think the other circus performers would help?” Lily asked.

  “No,” Deedee said.

  “They don’t care for hybrids,” Angelique explained. “They’d betray us, like all humans. To them we’re nothing but freaks. But that’s all right. We don’t accept them, they don’t accept us. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it always will be. You don’t need their lies, Lily. If we help get you out, it will have to be us and only us who go.”

  “And Robert,” Lily said. “We can’t leave him behind. He might be in terrible trouble.”

  That thought made her feel queasy. But now that she had persuaded the hybrids to help her, she felt better about their chance of escape. It was time to take a proper look around.

  She stood and checked the room for any weak points, knocking on the walls and panels. They each sounded disconcertingly solid. She glanced over at the door.

  “It’s six inches of steel,” Angelique said, as if she could predict exactly what Lily was thinking. “Kept locked at all times. They open this hatch to bring us food, but otherwise it’s bolted shut from the outside.”

  “You must be let out sometimes,” Malkin said.

  “Only to wash in the bathroom and empty the bedpan,” Deedee said, pointing at the tin bucket in the corner.

  “Eww,” Malkin said.

  “Rehearsals too,” Luca added. “But we’re watched by Madame and Slimwood during those. And the Lunk guards us during the evening performance on show days.”

  “Then we’re locked back in here afterwards,” Angelique explained. “And it starts all over again the next morning.”

  “Unless it’s a move-and-set-up day, like today,” Luca added. “In which case we’re banged up for twenty-four hours.”

  “They treat you worse than animals,” Lily said. She approached the thick metal door. Something about it had caught her eye and given her the tiniest glimmer of hope.

  It was the hinges for the hatch. They were on the inside. She peered at them closer. The two halves of each hinge were set wider apart that usual, so that between the knuckles, you could see the pin that held them together. The pin was made of wire, and she guessed it was no thicker than a nail.

  She tapped it with a finger. “Do you think you could cut through this, Luca?”

  Luca came over. “Clanking clockwork! I’ve never noticed that before!” He peered closely at the hinges. “Sometimes the solution’s right under your nose.”

  “You still won’t be able to open the hatch,” Deedee said. “It’s locked with bolts on the other side of the door.”

  “When you cut the hinges it’ll pivot from the bolts in the middle,” Lily explained. “Then I can stick my hand through, undo them, and pull the whole hatch away, so I can get at the lock outside.”

  “Genius!” Luca smiled. “Why did we never see it?”

  “Perhaps you haven’t read enough penny dreadfuls?” Malkin suggested as Luca carefully used his claws to snip the pins in the hinges of the hatch.

  The flap opened, pivoting around the bolts as Lily had said it would.

  Lily put her hand through the gap, undoing each bolt before the entire hatch came away. She pulled it into the cell, leaving a hole in the centre of the door about twice the size of a letter box. Then she took one of the hairpins from her head, strai
ghtened it between her teeth, and thrust her hand through the gap.

  She turned her wrists until her fingers found the keyhole and thrust the hairpin into it, jiggling it about. The lock didn’t shift. There was no give in it. She tried again, but she could feel the hairpin bending. It was about to snap.

  She couldn’t let that happen, or someone would know what they were up to. She pulled the hairpin out and drew her hand back through the gap.

  “It’s no use,” she said. “I can’t open it without the lock picks.”

  “Do you want me to go get them from Robert?” Malkin suggested, nodding at the hole in the door. “I can probably fit through there.”

  Lily smiled. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you always want to do everything yourself,” Malkin replied.

  “We’ll have to put the hatch back when he’s gone,” Luca said. “In case someone comes to check on us while we’re waiting.”

  “I’ll scratch the bottom of the door with my claws,” Malkin said, “so you know to open it and let me back in.”

  Lily nodded. Then she picked up Malkin and kissed him on the top of the head. “Be safe,” she said and she stuffed him through the gap.

  “Don’t push so hard!” he cried softly as his fur rucked up against its sides. “I’m not the Royal Mail!” But he just about fitted through and he landed on all fours on the outside, light as a cat.

  Lily watched him through the gap. She caught one last glimpse of his red brush as he squeezed through the bars of the padlocked gate and slipped into the shadows along the far side of the corridor.

  When he was gone, she slotted the hatch back into place and threw the bolts back across, then she and Luca closed it and replaced the snipped hinges as best they could so no one would be able to tell it had been tampered with.

  Lily took a deep breath and tried to relax. It might be a long wait. She hoped Malkin would be all right sneaking around the sky-ship on his own. He’d have to keep as quite as a mouse – quieter than the dead one he’d brought her – if he didn’t want to get caught. She crossed her fingers and silently wished him luck.