Chapter 2
Oops! Riel has seen me scribbling in this notebook, and it is my turn next. I must concentrate now, before he tells me off properly.
That was some performance! I am writing this in my bed, at nine o’clock at night, and I am so tired (bedtime is eight, but sometimes half eight). Only a few more minutes.
Anyway, the performance tonight was to a really high standard, with Rosy turning perfect round-off back tucks, and impressing everyone by her usual energy, running around and flipping through the air regularly, even running up the aisle in the middle and curtseying to all the clapping audience.
Riel was very pleased at the end, ordering sponge cake with icing and purple sprinkles. We all ate the delicious frosted cake and drank pink lemonade, which was donated to Rosy and Diamond for their fabulous performance by a rich lady and her snooty daughter.
But it wasn’t tiny Rosy who surprised us the most. It was Emerald and Topaz, who had been secretly practising a new routine with Gem and Marble. We had all been bursting with curiosity, and we were really eager to find out what they had chosen to do. We soon found out!
They had been practising a series of big tumbles and sequences that would link together to various snatches of song, while they changed their actions and moves depending on the type of music they were performing to. If the music was slow and dreamy, they would twirl gracefully or roll steadily. If the music was fast and had an irregular beat, they’d perform flicks and somersaults and handsprings. It was so exciting to watch, because we never knew what would happen next.
So Gem did her first big tumble: two round-offs and a somersault finished off with a triple flick, and she landed well, her legs planted widely apart. Marble used a trampette to bounce her stockier body in a double backward somersault, and she landed the right way around on Gem’s shoulders. Topaz ran up, somersaulted twice, sprang off the springboard, and landed on Marble’s shoulders, on her hands! We gaped at her, thinking that she’d fall. But she happily flicked over back on to her feet, stood there for around ten seconds, and then climbed down, over Marble and Gem. This looked so funny that we would have burst out laughing, but we couldn’t help clapping instead. Another human tower, but so much more interesting!
I felt useless, standing there when someone two years younger could pull that off. Topaz is such a slim, clever, dainty teenager – with exceptional balance and brilliant bravery!
Marble jumped and accidentally landed on the unsuspecting trampette lying there. She was bounced about five feet up into the air, but took charge of the situation and turned a neat side-flip (a flip that is twisted sideways and very hard to perform) that only she could do. We clapped her and she turned beetroot red.
All the other acts were brilliant tonight as well: Amelia, the tightrope walker, managed to turn a neat cartwheel on the tightrope, skipping and dancing across with her usual grace and elegance.
Alex and Rose, the two clowns, were fantastically funny, the crowd laughing uproariously at all their antics and being showered with gingerbread shapes.
Madame Lilia rode each of her beautiful horses (Midnight, a shiny black Shetland; Rosie, a palomino; Moonbeam, a Lipizzaner; Thunderbolt, a powerful black hunter; Chestnut, a brown Welsh Mountain pony; Chocolate, an American Thoroughbred; Maple, a brown Exmoor pony with paler mane and tail; and, finally, Orchard, a brown New Forest pony) while smiling and waving and even throwing rainbow drops wrapped in pink paper to the screaming children.
Even Robbie the Snake Handler had improved his act, with a huge green anaconda slithering around all over his shoulders, three tiny milk snakes being held by three willing volunteers, and an African rock python in a glass cage.
After the show, a small group of girls waited for me, Diamond and little Rosy. We grinned obediently at them, posing in handstands and smiling radiantly for our photo, and then they gave us a small red box each. We thanked them and skipped back to the wagons, opening the boxes with bated breath. I pulled mine open, and then tipped it out over the patchwork quilt.
I stared in excitement – what a thoughtful gift! A bag of green, yellow and orange fizzers was stuffed in a corner, two red oblong wrappers with cola bottles and strawberry laces were put in, a massive bag of toffee popcorn and a gorgeous pink fountain pen, together with ten purple envelopes and ten sheets on lilac patterned paper. We all had the same, but different-coloured stationery, and Rosy had sherbet suckers instead of fizzers, which was a good choice because she loved them.
After we’d tried out our fountain pens, shared the smallest bag of strawberry laces and chatted, we saw a rather odd-looking envelope at the side, which contained three pound coins and a folded piece of paper. On it were a scribbled phone number, address and names: Ellie, Jade and Olivia.
I woke up this morning to a flash of jagged lightning just outside the wagons. I turned over lazily and tried to get back to sleep, but a loud clap of thunder startled me. I reached out and threw a small cushion at Diamond, who was fast asleep, lying on her side. She mumbled in her sleep and shifted restlessly.
BANG! There came an even louder clap of thunder, waking Rosy and scaring me. Diamond fell out of bed with a thump, and immediately woke up too. Rosy giggled, seeing Diamond lying on the hard wooden floor in her pink onesie. Diamond, being her own cheeky carefree self, opened her box again, taking out the bumper bag of popcorn. She ripped it open, and popped some in her mouth saying brightly, “Yummy – food always tastes better when you eat it at night!”
Rosy looked on anxiously, waiting for Riel to appear out of thin air and tell us off. But he didn’t. No one came. It was all deadly silent, apart from the sound of Diamond munching popcorn and the rumbling thunder. Soon, Rosy and I joined in, for we were all hungry. We might have been sitting there crunching popcorn for an hour, maybe a few minutes, maybe two hours. Suddenly, I saw an angry white face at the wagon window. My jaw dropped open. I stared, too scared to even scream. He saw me looking and scarpered, but I still watched, transfixed. Diamond seemed to have seen it too; her face went ghostly white and she shivered all over.
“Arrghhhhhh!” screamed Rose Quartz. We all knew why.
A man was in our wagon, standing there. It wasn’t Riel or the other tumblers, it wasn’t Robbie, it wasn’t Madame Lilia. Oh no. It was someone much, much scarier.
He stood there, eyes glittering, teeth gleaming, knife glistening. We all screamed this time. And there was no mistaking it. He was real.