by Jack Lasenby
“Sometimes I wonder if you ever think of anything else but food!” Mum got the bread out of the bin. Whenever she got excited, she used to cut the loaf crooked. Then she’d try to cut it straight, and we’d finish up with slices all thick at one end and thin at the other.
“Stop it, Kate!” Mum said. “I can feel you standing there looking at me. Cut it yourself, if you’re so clever.” Kate took the breadknife and cut the loaf in very even slices.
“I don’t know why I can’t cut the bread straight,” Mum muttered. “I hold the knife the same, and I cut the same, and it comes out crooked every time.
“Now!” she turned on us. “What do you want on it?”
“Jam and butter! Honey and butter! Cheese and butter! Marmalade and butter!” we all shouted because we knew that would make Mum roar.
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, you can have butter, or you can have jam, but you can’t have both. I’m not made of money, you know!”
“Jam! Honey! Cheese! Marmalade!” we said quickly.
“Why can’t you all just have the same thing?” Mum groaned. “I seem to spend half my life cutting bread and spreading jam on it, and they want honey, and cheese, and marmalade as well.”
“Poor old Mum!” we said.
“Poor old Mum, indeed! I know you’re laughing at me. Well, I’ll make you laugh on the other side of your faces.”
“How will you make us laugh on the other side of our faces, Mum?” asked Jimmy with his mouth full of bread and jam. “This side, or that side?”
“Upside or inside?” Betty spoke through a mouthful of bread and honey. “Or sideways?” she laughed, and Jimmy laughed with her. They spluttered bits of bread.
“Very funny, indeed!” Mum said. She looked at us and said, “This afternoon, I had an idea about you lot. One that’s going to take the grin off your faces.”
“What’s your idea, Mum?” we asked, but she just shook her head and wouldn’t say.
9
Smelling the Lion
We’d tried being smart about Mum’s idea that was going to make us laugh on the other side of our faces; in fact, we were really worried. Only Kate didn’t seem to care; I looked at her and tried to act the same; Jimmy and Betty kept asking Mum about her idea.
“You’re the ones who thought you were so smart, mocking your poor old mother who waits on you hand and foot from first thing in the morning till last thing at night,” Mum told them. “Well, the worm’s turned. You’ll have to to wait and see what my idea is.”
“Aw, Mu-um!”
At last Mum got sick of their moaning and said, “I heard that the circus is coming to Waharoa on Saturday.”
“True? The circus! On Saturday? Are we going?”
Mum nodded and smiled grimly. “And I’ve made up my mind about it. Why should I spend my life cutting bread crooked for children who laugh at me behind my back?”
“We don’t laugh at your behind, Mum. We laugh in front of your face.” Jimmy thought he was hugely funny.
“Don’t you try to be smart with me, young man,” Mum told him. “I still know a trick or two you don’t!”
“What about the circus, Mum? Are we going?”
“Of course you’re going to the circus. And you’re going to stay there, the lot of you!”
“Stay there?”
“What do you mean, Mum?”
“I mean I’m going to sell you to the circus!”
We stared. “What would we have to do?” asked Betty.
“I thought that would take the smile off your faces,” Mum said. “I suppose they’ll make you clean out the lion’s cage, and the tiger’s. And follow the elephant with a wheelbarrow and shovel.”
“Poo!” said Jimmy, and Betty pulled a face.
“Circuses are always looking for children,” Mum nodded. “If they can’t buy them, the clowns sneak out at night and steal them. Perhaps they’ll put you in cages and show you off, poke you with sticks, and make you roar.
“They could charge people to watch you feeding. That’d bring a good crowd.
“I’ll be able to live in comfort on the money I get for you. I won’t have to work in the garden and grow vegetables, and spend my time working my fingers to the bone cooking and cleaning, and going round the lambs, and shifting the steers for a houseful of ungrateful children.”
“We’re grateful, Mum!” we all shouted.
“On the other hand,” said Mum, “I know the circus is always looking for food for the animals.” She smiled at us, and Jimmy and Betty smiled back trustingly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, “the circus might feed you to their wild animals! I imagine the lion and the tiger would enjoy eating a fat child who’s been fed on well-cooked vegies out of my garden all his life.”
Jimmy and Betty looked at Kate. “It’s all right,” she told them, “Mum’s just making it up. The circus buys old dead cows and horses for the lion.”
“Are you sure?” Mum asked.
“You wouldn’t sell us; you’re our mother,” Betty said and looked at Jimmy who was grinning and nodding.
“We know what!” they said together. “We’ll sell you to the circus for lion tucker!” And they both roared and showed their terrible claws and pretended to eat Mum.
“You wouldn’t sell your old Mum to the circus?” she asked. “You wouldn’t want the wild animals to eat me, would you?”
“Yes!” they cried. “We would so!” And Jimmy said, “You were going to sell us.”
“Unnatural children,” Mum said. “After all I’ve done for you. Digging the garden, growing the vegies, cooking for you, cleaning the house, sewing, washing, darning.”
“Working my fingers to the bone!” we all chanted together before she could say it.
“Are we going to the circus, Mum?” asked Jimmy.
“We’ll see,” said Mum, and she wouldn’t say any more.
When she was putting Jimmy and Betty to bed, and I was getting into my pyjamas, they asked Mum to tell them a story, and she said, “I’ll tell you one, but only if you promise you won’t sell me to the circus.”
“We won’t sell you to the circus,” Betty told her. And Jimmy said, “We wouldn’t let them feed you to the wild animals, Mum!”
“Just as well,” she said. “All right, then, lie down and be quiet, and I’ll tell you the story of “Dr Dolittle and the Wild Animals of Waharoa”. Betty and Jimmy lay down and listened. It was one of Mum’s best stories. Jimmy and Betty both watched Mum’s face and her hands as she told it to us. They looked as if they’d forgotten all about her saying she was going to sell us to the circus. But I remembered it, and I knew Kate would. Kate never forgot a thing.
Saturday came. We put Old Pomp into the buggy and climbed on. Kate took the reins. Mum sang loudly all the way into Waharoa and told everybody along the road that we were going to the circus.
Billy Kemp came galloping along on Hiccup and attacked us, pretending to be a Red Indian, and we were a covered wagon. But Mum took the buggy whip and cracked it so loud that Hiccup propped and pig-jumped sideways down the road, and Billy was too busy hanging on to bother us again.
They’d put up the circus near the hall. The road had never been properly formed there, just two wheel tracks, so there was plenty of room on the grass for the big tent. People were parking their cars and trucks in front of the hall. Those who’d come in their buggies and gigs, to save benzine and tyres for the war effort, left them across the other side. As Kate took him out of the shafts and tied him to the fence, Old Pomp reared up, and Mum said it was because he smelled the lion.
But Kate had taken a nosebag of oats for Old Pomp, and he quietened down and started chewing once she put that on him. Our buggy stood with its shafts down, but a couple of gigs had theirs pointing up in the air. “Like anti-aircraft guns!” said Jimmy, and I knew he was thinking of the photos in the Weekly News of the Blitz in London.
Behind the big tent,
there was a row of caravans and lorries, and some wagons that Mum said were the cages they’d keep us in. We wanted to have a look, but a man told us to clear off. “They can have a look at the wild animals after the circus,” he said to Mum. “Sixpence for kids, a bob for grownups.”
“Sixpence each for children?” said Mum. “And a bob for me! On top of what we’ve got to pay to get into the circus… You must think I’m made out of money if you think you’re going to charge me for a look at a few mangey old half-tame animals.”
“If you don’t like it, tough luck!” said the man, and Mum told him to keep a civil tongue in his head.
“I’ve a good mind to go back and knock his block off!” she told us, and she danced and shadow-boxed, and puffed through her nose like a boxer we’d once seen in a sideshow, the time Dad took us to the Waikato Show. Fortunately, nobody noticed Mum because people were hurrying to get into the circus.
“Gee!” Jimmy said, “I didn’t know you could box, Mum!”
“Come on,” Kate said, “we’d better get inside or all the good seats will be gone.” At once, Mum ran for the entry to the big tent. Kate always knew just what to say to her.
There was an old woman in a wheelchair, selling tickets at the entry. She had white whiskers growing out of a mole on her chin, and Kate pinched us which we knew meant we weren’t to stare. Mum said to us to hang on a bit, and she went along and tried to climb under the wall, but she’d just stuck her head under the canvas when she pulled it back with a bit of a yelp, and ran back to us.
The old woman in the wheelchair had disappeared inside the tent. She came back to the door, grinning to herself, and pushing the wheels around with her hands. It looked as if it was hard going, getting them to move on the muddy grass. She started selling tickets again. As we moved forward in the line, and Kate bought our tickets, the old woman eyed Mum very sharply, but she kept her head down, and we went inside. I didn’t like to look, but Jimmy and Betty had a good stare and followed.
Just inside, Mum put up her head and sniffed, and we all sniffed, too.
10
The Stink of the Circus
The inside of the tent stunk of horses, sawdust and canvas, and of something spooky. Like a mixture of Mum’s Johnson’s Baby Powder, stale beer, and something wild. A bit like the smell of the big wooden block in the butcher’s shop.
There were huge poles that held up the tent, ropes zigzagging this way and that, and a swing – what Mum called the high trapeze – right up near the roof. Around the ring, there was a little canvas wall only a couple of feet high.
“The lion could just step over that wall, no trouble,” Kate whispered. Jimmy and Betty gave a little jump and squeezed closer to Mum.
We wanted to sit in the top row of the seats, because we thought we might be safer from the lion up there, but Mum beat some kids for the last seats in the front. “Plenty of room here!” she shouted, and we had to sit with her. Billy Kemp and his family sat just along from us, and Mum looked at Billy and went “Ka! Ka! Ka!” at him, like a machine gun, and he pointed his finger and went “Ka! Ka! Ka!” back. Mrs Kemp hadn’t seen Mum, but she saw Billy and cuffed him and said, “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“You wait!” Billy hissed at me, but just then two clowns rushed into the ring, tripping and squirting water at each other, and the Ringmaster strode in wearing a top hat, riding boots, and a big moustache. He yelled and cracked a whip as a white horse galloped round the ring with a beautiful lady standing on one foot on its back. Mum tutted at her dress which was tight, shiny, and glittering, and Kate told us she was wearing spangles.
Spotlights shone away up into the dark under the canvas roof and criss-crossed on a man and a girl swinging from ropes. I thought they looked like Lancaster bombers caught in German searchlights, and held my breath. The Ringmaster cracked his whip. “The Amazing Macaronis, Father and Daughter! Defying Death on the High Trapeze Without a Safety Net! If They Fall, They Die!”
The crowd gasped, and the Amazing Macaronis put some powder on their hands and swooped, let go, turned somersaults in midair, and caught each other by their feet. Once, Mr Macaroni almost dropped his daughter and we screamed, “Ohhhhh!” but he caught her just in time, and they slid down ropes to the floor, smiled, and bowed, and we all clapped and yelled. Mum yelled loudest of all.
But the best were the clowns and a clever little dog that rushed in and played with them, tripping them over, barking, and walking on his hind legs.
“That little dog’s got more brains than the pair of you put together!” Mum shouted. “Grown men behaving like that!”
The clowns dived through big paper hoops and landed in baths of water; they stood on rakes that sprang up and donged them on their long red noses; they hit each other with rubber hammers. Jimmy laughed so much, he said he was going to fart. Luckily, none of the ladies heard him, or if they did they pretended not to, but I saw Mr Kemp give a grin.
We could hear Old Pomp tugging at the fence outside, so Kate and I slipped out and filled his nosebag again. As the old woman on the door let us back in, she said, “Some kids try to crawl under the canvas walls, but I fix them!” She ran her wheelchair back and forth to show how. Kate grabbed my hand and towed me back to our seats, but I thought of Mum’s head, when she stuck it under the wall, and her yelp.
“Look!” said Jimmy and Betty. The white horse was pulling an iron cage into the middle of the ring. The Ringmaster took off his top hat, and a couple of men stood by with shiny steel spears. Something huge moved in the back of the cage. There was silence, then a booming cough and roar. Everybody looked up because the sound seemed to come from the top of the tent.
“Ladies and Gents!” said the Ringmaster. “This Dangerous Performance Has Never Ever Been Tried Before in the Southern Hemisphere. At Immense Personal Risk to My Life, I am About to Enter the Savage Lion’s Cage – Bare-Handed and Unarmed!”
Everybody shrieked.
“I Shall Attempt to Control the Lion with Only My Hypnotic Stare!”
We gasped and wriggled. A drum rolled, and the clowns ran up and tried to talk the Ringmaster out of getting in with the lion. Everyone was silent, as they burst out crying real tears, and everybody in the tent heard Jimmy’s voice saying, “Please don’t go in there!” Everyone laughed, and the Ringmaster seemed angry.
“How would you like to be fed to the lion?” he hissed at Jimmy, who hid behind Kate.
The drum beat louder. The men opened the door, and the Ringmaster climbed inside the cage. We could see a huge shape in the back of the cage. Another angry roar came from somewhere above our heads again.
A moment later, I opened my eyes, peeped between my fingers, and saw the Ringmaster leap out, and the clowns slam the door shut. Just in time, because the lion rushed and shook the bars with its claws and would have eaten him, the Ringmaster said in his loud voice. They started dragging the cage outside again.
“That’s not a lion,” Mum said in a loud voice. “It’s somebody dressed up in a piece of old carpet!” We tried to hold her back, but she climbed into the ring. “I’m going to get into the lion’s cage!” she said. “I want to put my head in his mouth.”
But the Ringmaster cracked his whip at Mum’s feet, the horse dragged the cage out the door into the darkness, the drum beat, a trumpet blew, the trapeze artists swung above our heads, and the clowns tripped Mum and sooled the little dog on to her.
As she climbed back over the low wall, the Ringmaster cracked his whip and announced that the lion had told him he was scared Mum was going to tell him to put his head into her mouth, and everybody laughed.
Kate got the giggles. Jimmy and Betty hung on to Mum’s hands and looked proud of her, but I felt a bit embarrassed till I saw Billy Kemp staring at her, and knew he was thinking she was pretty brave, so I felt better then.
There was a Grand Parade with all the clowns and the Ringmaster, and the old woman in the wheelchair, and the Amazing Macaronis, and some kids younger than Jimmy
and Betty, and a zebra who looked like Old Pomp painted with black and white stripes. And then, best of all, there was a funny, squeaky, trumpety noise.
One minute the big door was empty; the next, an elephant swayed there. It must have tip-toed in, but it didn’t have proper toes, just big round feet like drums. It had tusks, though Mum reckoned they were false ones strapped on with a harness, but you couldn’t see because he wore hangings “like big tablecloths” as Jimmy said.
On top of the elephant’s head rode a dark-skinned boy about my age. He wore a turban with a huge red stone in it that Mum said was a ruby. His teeth shone white, he carried a gold staff that had a spear and a hook at one end, and he prodded the elephant so it curled up its trunk and trumpeted right in front of where we were sitting.
It lumbered around the ring, its backside covered with loose skin like grey pyjamas miles too big. It trumpeted once more, and swayed into the dark.
“That made up for the mangey old lion!” Mum exclaimed.
Then, suddenly, the circus was over, and the Ringmaster was telling everyone they could go and look around the wild animals’ cages, “Children sixpence, grownups a shilling.”
“They must think that money grows on trees,” Mum said, but she gave us sixpence each to have a look, and it wasn’t much, you couldn’t see the lion properly, though his cage stunk like the men’s dunny round the back of the hall.
Most people stood around the elephant, where she was chained by her stubby feet to a couple of big stakes, and they bought stale buns for threepence each. The elephant waved her trunk around, picked the buns off people’s hands with a bit like a finger at the end, and put them into her mouth.
“I felt her touch my hand!” somebody shrieked. And Jimmy nudged me and asked, “Why don’t elephants have any chin?”
Music played, a brass band it sounded like, but we couldn’t see anyone blowing the instruments, then we were harnessing Old Pomp into the shafts again, and trotting home, our carbide lamps lighting the telegraph posts coming towards us out of the dark, Mum trumpeting like the elephant, and saying she’d have bitten the head off the lion if they’d let her into his cage.