Tennis Shoes (12 page)

‘Suction, silly.'

David was building a house out of the Lexicon cards.

‘I've some 'formation.'

Nicky was drawing a picture on the window with lick.

‘What do you mean?'

‘The little fathead means he thinks he knows something,' Jim explained; ‘but I bet he doesn't.'

David carefully put another card on his house.

‘I'm going to sing at a concert——'

‘Stale news,' Nicky interrupted.

‘An' when I was practisin' with Pinny this mornin' daddy came in and told mummy somethin'.'

‘Well, what?' Jim asked. ‘Do get on.'

David put another card on to his house.

‘I only heard part because I was singin'.'

Nicky turned round.

‘Nobody wants to know about your singing. What did daddy say?'

‘I like talking about my singin'.' David's house fell down. He carefully collected the cards and began rebuilding. ‘At the concert I'm going to sing
The Camel's Hump
, and Pinny says
Firs
'
Frien
' as an encore.'

‘You probably won't get an encore,' Susan told him severely. ‘It's very conceited to think you will. Tell us what daddy said.'

David stopped building.

‘He said he'd jus' seen Annie and she'd had a letter from her father. I didn't ac'ually hear what he said next. Then he said somethin' about tickets.'

‘Tickets!' They all spoke at once. They came and sat round David.

‘Didn't you hear any more?'

‘Do you think they were for us?'

‘Do you think they were for Annie's father's circus?'

They were in the middle of trying to find out more when Mrs. Heath came in.

‘Hallo, darlings! Just a minute while I take off my hat and coat. I've got a surprise for you all.'

Susan jumped up and put her arms round her mother's waist.

‘Don't take off your things. Tell us now.'

Nicky caught hold of her hand.

‘Mummy, is it a circus?'

Mrs. Heath looked at the eight eyes staring up at her. Then she just looked at David.

‘So you did hear. I wondered.' She turned back to the others. ‘Yes, a circus. It's Annie's party. You're going to Southend to see it. Her father's invited you.'

They had a most wonderful day at Southend. They went quite early and spent the morning on the beach. They paddled. They took with them a picnic lunch which they ate on the beach. They had it early because, although the circus did not begin until two, Annie wanted to get them up to the ground before, so that they could see something of the fair.

Susan stood gaping at all the stalls and merry-go-rounds.

‘Oh, Annie, it's lovely!'

‘Ah, you should see it at night,' said Annie. ‘Lit up. You're talking then.'

They had only a few pennies with them. The most exciting things cost sixpence to do. Luckily Annie knew the man who had the merry-go-round. She must have known him well, because she called him Alf.

‘Let's have a ride, Alf.'

Alf proved to be an awfully nice man. He let them all ride. They each chose an animal. David a lion. Jim a horse. Susan an ostrich. Nicky rode on what she said was a rabbit. The others thought it was a sort of leopard.

After the first feeling of it being odd to keep going round had worn off, they enjoyed themselves tremendously. The organ in the middle screamed cheerful tunes. They screamed at each other. They had to scream or they could not hear. Just at first they waved at Annie and Alf each time they passed them. Then, as they went faster, they needed both hands to hold on and, anyhow, they were going so fast that Annie and Alf got blurred and looked almost like one person. Just as it seemed as if all the world were spinning, and if only they could spin a little faster they would go into a new world, the animals slowed down. Then they stopped. They got off very regretfully, if rather giddily. They found Annie and Alf.

‘Oh, thank you,' they all gasped. ‘It was lovely.'

Alf grinned.

‘Enjoyed it? Then why did you get off?'

‘Do you mean'—Nicky caught hold of his hand—‘that you'd let us ride again?'

‘That's right. Scram. They've just started.'

The second ride seemed almost better than the first. David expressed how they all felt when he said:

‘I didn't feel I was me any more.'

The circus was quite perfect. There were all the things in it there ought to be at a circus. A very grand procession at the beginning. First the artists, then a whole collection of little dogs, who wore coats and trousers. Then the sea-lions, three of them carrying balls on their noses. Then the horses, six greys, six chestnuts, and a little piebald pony pulling a cart. Then came a chimpanzee riding a bicycle. Last of all, the clowns.

All circuses are exciting, but your first is your best, because you do not compare it with anything. The Heaths sat right in the front with their mouths dropping open with excitement. All the circus people either knew Annie, or knew who she was. So when the clowns came into the ring they directed most of their tricks at the children. They threw balls at them. One, who was dressed as a cat, came and stroked Susan's face. Another one pretended he was going to throw a bucket of water at them, which made them all shrink back and the audience laugh. Nicky and David thought this the best part of the circus. They roared with laughter. David could not get over the goodness of the clowns in condescending to play with them.

‘He throwed that ball at me, Annie, delibra'ly.'

‘Yes, dear,' Annie agreed. ‘It's like George's sauce to do a thing like that.'

Jim and Susan did not care for the clowns. They would have liked them, but they thought it was dreadful, the rest of the audience looking at them.

‘Annie, do tell the clowns to go away,' Susan begged. ‘Everybody is looking at us.'

‘Well, it won't make them blind,' said Annie. ‘We aren't doing anything we need be ashamed of, are we?'

From the twins' point of view Nicky brought more shame on them than the clowns. One of them, dressed as a baby, was pushed by another, dressed as a nurse, in what looked like a pram, round the edge of the ring. Just before they reached the children the nurse tripped, and the baby was thrown out. Quick as lightning Nicky was out of her seat and helping to pick him up.

‘Goodness!' she said when she reached him. ‘You're a man!' She looked so surprised that the audience laughed. The clown took Nicky's hand and made her bow with him. Everybody clapped.

Jim and Susan attacked Nicky the moment she got back to her seat.

‘What a show you made of yourself,' Jim growled.

‘Nicky, how could you,' said Susan. ‘People must have thought it terribly queer.'

‘I don't see why they should,' Nicky objected. ‘I thought he was a real baby. If he was we'd have had to pick him up.'

‘You couldn't have thought him a real baby,' Jim argued. ‘It was a man in a baby's bonnet. Any fool could see that.'

Nicky grinned.

‘Any fool, yes, but not Nicky Heath.'

‘But don't you see——' Susan broke in.

‘Ssh!' said Nicky. ‘Don't talk. Here come the sea-lions.'

The big moment for all of them was the appearance of Annie's father. Having always been used to Annie in a cap and apron they were not prepared for the magnificence of her father. His face was perhaps rather lined, but a lot of pink and white paint hid it. The rest of him was very grand indeed. He wore pink tights all over, and with them silver-spangled shorts. On the programme he was not put down as George Smith, which was his name, but as ‘The Great Godolphin, the Flying Wonder.' And in small letters underneath: ‘Assisted by Mademoiselle Leticia.'

Mademoiselle Leticia strained the children's allegiance to Annie. They had come to the circus convinced that if only she had both arms nobody would have been as good as her. But when Mademoiselle Leticia came in they wavered. She was small. She had golden hair and blue eyes. She, too, wore pink fleshings, but instead of the spangled shorts she wore fluffy pink skirts. David was the only one to express what they all felt. He said in tones of frank disbelief:

‘Annie, did you ever look like that?'

Annie snorted contemptuously.

‘And better. That's Lily Briggs. Known her since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. Her father was handy-man with an elephant we once had. Sniffy, peaky little thing she was.'

‘Was she?' Susan tried not to sound too surprised. It looked as though she were doubting if Annie was speaking the truth.

While they were talking Annie's father and Mademoiselle Leticia climbed up swinging ladders on to trapezes hung from the roof. The band played a waltz.

Unless it is an old-fashioned turn, such as seeing a ballerina jump off a horse's back through a paper hoop, there is no more beautiful act of the circus than trapeze work. Actually Annie's father was nowhere near first-class. Most of what he did was done in a hundred other circuses all over the world.

Naturally, as it was their first circus, the children did not know this. They thought what they saw was marvellous. They could only gasp. Owing to their tennis training they had just sufficient knowledge to appreciate what perfection of timing and control of the body even the simplest movement meant. When at last the two figures climbed to the ground and bowed, they clapped till they were almost black in the face.

Because the children knew that before she had broken her arm, whether she looked as nice as Mademoiselle Leticia or not, Annie had actually done this act, they could never look upon her quite the same again. It was all very well for Annie to pull out a strand of toffee and show how a flying trapeze worked. Then it had all been part of a fairy story. Now they knew.

They met the Great Godolphin for a moment afterwards. In the air he had seemed like a god. In a dressing-gown he did not seem very important.

‘Well, Annie, my girl,' he said. ‘Got good seats, I saw.'

‘These are the Masters and Miss Heaths, dad. This is Jim. Here's his twin, Susan. This is Nicky. This here's David.'

Annie's father shook hands all round. Then he turned to Nicky.

‘It was you that went to pick old George up. Thought he was a baby, didn't you? Said he laughed fit to bust.'

Annie nodded. Then she gave her father a wink.

‘We're not backwards in coming forwards. Not this one.'

They had to go after that to catch the train back to London. All the way up in the train they asked Annie about trapezes. How she learnt. How much time she practised. If she earned much money. Annie answered all the questions.

‘It must have been a lovely life,' said Susan enviously. ‘It does seem mean you have to live with us instead.'

‘Wonderful luck to have anywhere to live,' Annie pointed out philosophically.

Jim sighed.

‘It seems such a waste after all the training you've done.'

‘There never could be no waste in training,' Annie said firmly. ‘Makes me handy in getting about even now.'

David leant against her.

‘Annie, do you suppose that if he worked and worked Agag could be good enough for a circus?'

Annie laughed.

‘I don't quite see him putting his back into it.'

‘I don't see why not,' David objected. ‘He's got a lot of back.'

Nicky half lay down, so that her feet would reach the seat opposite.

‘I think I'd rather like to go into a circus.'

‘You'd be a fat lot of good,' said Jim scornfully. ‘You'd never bother to learn anything.'

‘I wouldn't be so sure of that, Jim.' Annie collected the lunch-basket from the rack. ‘Many surprises in this world.'

Annie saying this amazed the twins. They had no time to answer, though, for at that moment they ran into Liverpool Street.

CHAPTER VIII

ACTING ‘CINDERELLA'

The Christmas of that year Jim and Susan played in their club tournament. They had no chance as it was open and drew first-class children from all over the country. It started on the Monday after Christmas and went on for a week. This, they thought, was a splendid week to have a tournament in, as it prevented that ‘nothing-nice-will-ever-happen-again' feeling on Christmas night. The twins entered for the singles and the mixed doubles.

The tennis tournament was not the only thing of importance happening that holiday. There was as well to be a play in aid of the hospital. They were all acting. It was
Cinderella
, and rehearsals began immediately after Christmas. The twins felt very important when they explained that during the tournament week they could not promise to come to rehearsals until after six o'clock. They spoke as if they expected to remain in for round after round. Actually, of course, they were not likely to get through one round.

Nicky was jealous about the tournament.

‘It's mean, you know, all the things you two get. First the club, and now playing in the tournament. I don't ever seem to get anything at all.'

‘But you will,' Jim argued. ‘When I'm out working you'll still be lolling about at school and playing at the club. If it comes to that, it must seem very mean to David too. He's got longer to wait than you have.'

David looked up from a new section of farm that he had for Christmas.

‘I'm perfec'ly sa'sfied.'

Nicky picked up one of his cows and turned it over.

‘Then you shouldn't be. We haven't even got as good parts in the play as they have. I can't see why Susan had to be Cinderella as well as play in a tournament.'

‘Well, you couldn't expect to be it yourself,' Jim pointed out. ‘You haven't got the hair for it.'

Nicky looked sadly at Susan's plaits. It was an odd world. What luck Susan had! Fancy being born with hair that made it perfectly certain that you would play Cinderella.