Read The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis Online
Authors: Michael de Larrabeiti
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic
The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis (6 page)
BOOK: The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis
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They found themselves in a space about thirty yards long by twenty wide. Along the shorter side, opposite the entrance, was a plank stage which the acrobats had nearly finished setting up. The Borribles hesitated. These circus people might be small but they were still adults, and Borribles do not like being in an enclosed space with adults.
Scooter had followed them into the tent and he chuckled at their discomfiture. ‘You can spend the rest of the night under the stage if you like,’ he said, ‘the horse as well. Have a good rest. Then you can march along with us when we go. It’ll be easier than skulking across the streets at night and less dangerous.’
‘Have you got any proper animal food,’ asked Sydney, ‘for Sam, the horse?’
‘Sam, eh?’ said Scooter. ‘Oh yes, we’ll have oats or some’at. What’s yer names?’
The Borribles looked at one another, hesitated, and then told him.
As each name was given so Scooter’s face showed more and more surprise. At the end of the list he smiled hugely. ‘My name’s Scooter,’ he said, ‘but I like your names …’ His eyes narrowed and he looked at Knocker intently. ‘I would like to hear the story of them, some day.’
As each name was given so Scooter’s face showed more and more surprise. At the end of the list he smiled hugely. ‘My name’s Scooter,’ he said, ‘but I like your names …’ His eyes narrowed and he looked at Knocker intently. ‘I would like to hear the story of them, some day.’
Knocker touched the catapult in his back pocket. Scooter had just spoken the most friendly of Borrible greetings. He looked sideways at the stage. The six or seven of Scooter’s companions, who up till then had been working hard, were now silent and still, raised hammers motionless in their hands. They had heard the special words and were waiting for the reply.
The silence continued and then Chalotte said, ‘We will tell the stories certainly, and your name is good too, Scooter. There must be a fine tale behind it, you must tell us how you won it before we leave.’
At this a great noise came from the stage as the acrobats threw down their tools and laughed and cheered and jumped to the ground. Scooter smiled again and lifted a hand to his hair, slowly pushing it back to reveal pointed ears, Borrible ears. And the other acrobats approached from the stage and they too showed their ears, all of them Borrible.
Knocker shook his head in amazement. He peered closely at Scooter’s ears; they seemed all right.
‘You can’t be Borrible,’ said Napoleon. ‘You don’t look right.’
Ninch tapped the Wendle on the shoulder. ‘Don’t look right, what do you mean, don’t look right? These are my friends: two girls here, Matzo and Lobda, and then there’s Flapjack, Sinbad, Duster and Frisby.’
‘They’re good names,’ said Knocker, ‘really, but what Napoleon means is, well, you don’t look like Borribles, I mean the ears do but …’
‘You look too strong,’ said Chalotte, ‘a bit like short adults.’
Ninch laughed and looked round at his friends. ‘Of course we do,’ he said, ‘it’s the circus that does that. The acrobatics, the swinging on ropes, putting up this tent, hauling cages into position. Clowning, you have to be fit for clowning.’
‘Anyway,’ said Scooter, ‘not all Borribles look the same, not by a long chalk. You’ve got two black ones with you, Napoleon looks green and him, Stonks, he looks more like one of us, doesn’t he?’
Stonks gave one of his rare smiles, pleased that his strength had been noticed.
Ninch put his arm round Knocker’s shoulders. ‘Don’t worry so much. Remember we are all Borribles together. We will eat and then you will feel better. Frisby has been doing the cooking in the caravan and he’ll be fetching it over in a minute. We’ll have a feast, and there’s oats for the horse as well.’
And so it was decided. The acrobats made a table with planks from the stage and they improvised a bench too. The Borribles took their places, a huge cauldron of stew was carried across from the caravan by Ninch and Frisby, and soup plates and spoons were placed before each person. Generous portions were ladled into the plates and the Adventurers lost no time in devouring all the food they’d been given, so hungry were they for a hot meal.
Towards the end of it Knocker looked across the table and raised his glass of beer at Chalotte. She returned the glance but her face was serious, expressing doubt. She angled her head at Ninch and shrugged, wondering. Was he a leader or was he just the most forceful personality in the group? The main thing she noticed about him was his strength. Perhaps only Stonks in the band of Adventurers could take him on in a fair fight and stand a chance of winning. All right then, as the proverb said, ‘If they won’t let you fight a fair fight then don’t fight ’em fair.’
Chalotte studied the acrobat carefully, searching his physical appearance for some clue to his personality. His hair was ginger and stuck out sideways like bristles on a chimney sweep’s brush. He had a round face, broad as a cabbage, with muscular cheeks and a big adult mouth; one of his eyes seemed wider than the other. His hands were broad and strong; fingers like coach bolts with hexagon nuts for knuckles. He wore a striped jersey of thick wool, cut off jaggedly at the elbows, and his fawn trousers were stained with oil. He made you think of a burglar who’d fallen on hard times. Chalotte shrugged; Borribles were burglars, after all was said and done.
She next turned her attention to Scooter. He was different. He was not so strongly built as Ninch, though he was still broad in the shoulder and beefy in the arm for a Borrible. He looked as tough as a bag of nails but somehow his face was more careless, more open. His black hair shone like tarmac in rain and touched his shoulders. His chin was
pointed, his eyes brown and although his expression, like Ninch’s, had a touch of the adult, it was not troubled or preoccupied but clear and spontaneous.
pointed, his eyes brown and although his expression, like Ninch’s, had a touch of the adult, it was not troubled or preoccupied but clear and spontaneous.
Chalotte wiped some stew off her plate with a piece of bread. Something wasn’t quite right, but whatever it was eluded her. She looked at all the acrobats in turn. They were all talking and smiling; telling the stories of their names in true Borrible fashion, asking questions about the Great Rumble Hunt and scratching their pointed ears. It must be all right.
And so the eating and talking went on and the acrobats and the Adventurers warmed to each other’s company and suspicious fell away. As with all Borribles the stories flew thick and fast. The acrobats told tale after tale of their travels and the strange people they had met in other circuses and fairgrounds. The Adventurers told stories too, of Rumbledom and Flinthead’s mine, but they did not reveal what they were doing crossing Clapham Common at night and why Sam the horse was one of their number.
At last, after every person there had taken his or her part in the story-telling, heads began to droop and the acrobats went to their caravan and the Adventurers crept under the stage, taking Sam with them. Safe and warm in their sleeping bags, their stomachs full, they soon fell asleep and the night was dark and silent all around save only for the sound of a car now and then as it zipped along the rainy road which crossed the common just a hundred yards from where the vagabonds slept.
Only Napoleon Boot was wakeful, his knife under his hand, his catapult by his side. He was puzzled. He and Knocker and Chalotte and all the others had taken a good look at the ears of the acrobats to check that they were what they said they were, but the circus people had not inspected the ears of the Adventurers, and that wasn’t Borrible, not a bit Borrible. This thought nagged at Napoleon’s mind all night, but then Napoleon Boot had always found it difficult to trust anyone, especially if they were being friendly.
Whatever Napoleon’s suspicions the night passed without incident. In the morning, at the moment of daybreak, Scooter and Ninch woke the
Adventurers with handfuls of fruit and fresh bread rolls and mugs of tea. When this meal was over Ninch went to the back of the tent and, making sure the coast was clear, he lifted the canvas over Sam’s head and the horse went out into the open, happy to find there the company of other horses and soft green grass to stand on under the trees. The Adventurers hesitated to follow.
Adventurers with handfuls of fruit and fresh bread rolls and mugs of tea. When this meal was over Ninch went to the back of the tent and, making sure the coast was clear, he lifted the canvas over Sam’s head and the horse went out into the open, happy to find there the company of other horses and soft green grass to stand on under the trees. The Adventurers hesitated to follow.
‘Won’t it be dangerous?’ asked Chalotte.
‘Swipe me!’ answered Ninch. ‘No one will have time to notice you. Besides, there’s always loads of kids hanging round a circus, a few more won’t make any difference.’ And so, reassured, the Borribles followed the horse and saw what they had been unable to see the previous evening.
All round them were the trucks and trailers that carried the tons of equipment that Buffoni’s circus and fairground needed when it was on the road: tents and guy ropes; generators and miles and miles of heavy, all-weather cable; cages for the animals; containers for their food and of course all the huge four-wheeled caravans where the circus people lived when they travelled.
The noise of diesel engines was overpowering. Burly men in torn and dirty jeans and sweaters were testing the generators and a deep throbbing roar came from everywhere. Voices bawled from several loudspeakers at once; riggers were hammering nails and sawing bits of noggin. It was all chaos; it was all urgency and bustle.
At the centre of all this activity was the big top. Around it, in a semicircle, were arranged the sideshows and the cages of the menagerie, forming rows like the spokes of a wheel so that people could stroll up and down and see all there was to see and enjoy all there was to enjoy.
‘It’s only a little big top,’ explained Ninch as they stood before it, ‘but it’s big enough for us. We can get four hundred people into it.’
Napoleon sniffed the air as if it smelt of coppers, as suspicious in the morning as he had been the night before. ‘All the fairground people,’ he said, ‘adults, ain’t they? Wouldn’t they shop you to the SBG if they found out you were Borribles?’
Ninch laughed his laugh, rough like gravel. ‘No,’ he said. ‘First off travellers aren’t in love with Woollies, it’s a thing that’s bred into them.’
‘And second?’ asked Knocker. He looked up to the roof of the big top and watched a banner unfurling on the tallest flagpole. He read the words on it: BUFFONI’S—THE GREATEST LITTLE CIRCUS IN THE WORLD.
‘Second,’ said Ninch, ‘well, they think we’re ordinary dwarfs; that’s what we’re billed as, that’s what it says on the side of our caravan: BUFFONI’S FLYING DWARFS—THE AMAZING ACROBATS. We do trapeze work, slack wire stuff.’
‘Then you must be paid money,’ said Chalotte. ‘That’s not Borrible, is it? How do you square that?’
‘That’s a good ’un,‘Ninch said. ‘If we had any money, which we haven’t, we’d have to give it to Ronaldo Buffoni; he’s the guv’nor. It’s only because hardly anyone in the circus takes any wages that the whole thing keeps going. All that food to pay for, the animals, vets, costumes, lorries and trailers. Poor old Buffoni.’
‘Yes,’ said Scooter. ‘When Ninch and me first met we just used to follow this circus around. It was as good a way of keeping out the way of the Woollies as any other. There was always food and a place to sleep. Gradually we picked up the other Borribles, became friends with the Buffonis, learnt some circus tricks along the way—years ago that was. Then one day old Ronaldo said we could have our own sideshow as long as we didn’t cost him anything. He gave us the tent and the caravan.’
‘Working in exchange for food is the thin end of the wedge,’ said Chalotte, ‘however you look at it.’
Ninch shrugged his shoulders. ‘Depends really, doesn’t it? Nicking is work too. You have to go out and do it, don’t yer? Fruit of the barrow.’
The conversation was ended there and Ninch and Scooter now took the Borribles between the rows of small tents and stalls that housed the sideshows. There was fishing by numbers; a rifle range where moving metal birds and pipes were the targets; a Fat Lady’s tent; a Thin Man; a Bearded Lady who, according to Ninch, was really a man; a Siamese Sword Swallower; a One-Man Band who walked round and round the nearby streets and attracted customers with his music. There was Wanda, the One-Wheeled Witch, who performed juggling tricks on a monocycle; a fire-eater; Tanka the Tiger, a maneater from Bengal with
his keeper, Amurishi Patadi; a couple of chimpanzees and the only white rhinoceros in captivity. And at the end of it all there were two roundabouts: a slow one for children and a fast one for adults that was called a switchback.
his keeper, Amurishi Patadi; a couple of chimpanzees and the only white rhinoceros in captivity. And at the end of it all there were two roundabouts: a slow one for children and a fast one for adults that was called a switchback.
‘But where do all these people come from?’ asked Torreycanyon, his face creased with puzzlement. ‘I mean what with all these riggers and drivers and performers, there can’t be room in the caravans.’
Scooter grinned. ‘They’re all one and the same,’ he said. ‘They drive the lorries, put up the tents, feed the animals, make the ice creams and popcorn, do the shows and mend the machinery when it breaks down.
‘That’s right,’ added Ninch, ‘and then they’ll all change into spangles and cloaks this evening and pretend to have those marvellous names. In fact they’re nearly all related to each other, all Buffonis: uncles, aunties, brothers, sisters, cousins. They double up as clowns and all sorts. So do we.’
Vulge shook his head. ‘What about that tiger? He looks pretty fierce.’
‘Oh he’s harmless. He’s so well fed that Arthur can hardly get him to climb on a chair.’
‘Arthur! I thought he was from Bengal.’
‘Bengal,’ Ninch hooted. ‘He’s Arthur Buffoni; that’s him over there in the overalls, banging a spike into the ground. He has to black up every night and put a turban on. These Buffonis all come from the Hackney Road, cockneys they are, never mind the name.’
As the Borribles turned away from their contemplation of Arthur Buffoni they came face to face with a well built tubby character dressed in a cloth cap of bright check, a tweed jacket and polished gaiters. He was only a short man but he looked strong and his skin blazed with health and his body looked as if it were bursting with energy and enthusiasm. His cheeks were very round and very red; his honey-coloured moustache bristled and his long and bushy side whiskers spread down the length of his face and nearly reached to his chin. He carried a stick under his arm and walked like a soldier. This was Signor Ronaldo Buffoni and it was obvious to anyone who took the trouble to look at him that he loved his circus with all the strength of a
generous heart. His fairground, his sideshows and the people who worked with him were his life. He smiled delightedly when he saw the Adventurers.
generous heart. His fairground, his sideshows and the people who worked with him were his life. He smiled delightedly when he saw the Adventurers.
BOOK: The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis
2.45Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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