Skycircus

by Peter Bunzl

  “We have to scarper,” Lily said, pointing along the hedgerow. “That way.”

  They made a dash for it under cover of the chaos. Now the tent was down, the anchored Skycircus balloon seemed to loom even larger. The silhouette of the gondola’s big wooden hull was like a beached wooden whale.

  “If they’ve caught Malkin,” Lily said, pointing at it, “he’ll be in there. We have to sneak aboard and get him. We can look for Angelique too.”

  “Definitely,” Tolly said, squeezing in beside her. “She’s a good person. She ain’t involved in all this. We can’t leave her behind.”

  “They’re after you, Lily,” Robert said, staring despairingly at the gondola. “Going aboard might be exactly what they want you to do.”

  “Or,” Lily said, “it could be the last place they’d expect to find us.”

  “Let’s do it!” Tolly said, but his eyes looked wide with fright.

  They hunkered low so their shapes wouldn’t be spotted in the fog and ran in short bursts along the hedge. When they reached the hot-air balloon, they stopped a few feet away and crouched in the tall grass.

  Robert glanced back to where they’d just been, and his heart jumped. A few of the men were searching that very spot. Best not to think about it. They had to keep moving; find Malkin and Angelique and get away.

  A great carved figurehead loomed above them – an angel with chiselled wings thrust back, the wooden feathers spreading out along either side of the three-deck gondola, lit portholes streaming behind her, making pinpoints in the fog like sparkling stars.

  Skirting round the hull, they passed a gangplank and platform on the far side leading to a hatch locked with a large padlock. Further on, at the stern of the ship, the loading bay was open and the rear ramp was down.

  As they reached it, Tolly almost tripped, but he righted himself before he fell in the mud. A rudder and large propeller blade stretched above him.

  The mist cleared for a second and, beyond them, Robert glimpsed the collapsed Big Top. Figures crossed the tent’s striped surface or crouched low to the ground, pulling apart the seams. The Top was being stripped, picked apart, the pieces folded up and forced into waiting bags.

  “We probably don’t have much time to get in and out before they stow the last of their stuff,” he said to the others.

  Tolly looked like he was about to reply when a harsh whine echoed down the cargo-bay ramp. For a second Robert thought it might be the scream of a human child, but there was a rough edge to it that could only mean one thing: it was Malkin.

  “D’you hear that?” he whispered to them both.

  “It was coming from inside,” Lily said.

  The three of them slunk up the ramp and peered carefully in.

  The cargo bay looked empty of people, but the noises and the sour scents of the animals cut through the air. A cacophony of growls, snarls, roars, huffs, grunts and whinnies that made Robert shiver.

  “What an awful earful!” Tolly said. “If they don’t simmer down they’ll have those men on us again. And they’d best not bite. I’ll tell you, I’m not a fan of biters.”

  “Me neither,” Robert said. “Just don’t get too close to the cages. Malkin!” he called out quietly into the dark. He worried that they might not find the fox at all – at least not before the circus folk arrived to load up the last of their stuff. What if their friend had been imprisoned elsewhere?

  Something large in the oversized cage in the centre of the bay shifted. Forgetting his own warning, Robert peered in to see what it was.

  With a ROAR! a tiger threw itself against the bars.

  A spike of terror soared in Robert’s chest. He jumped back, almost leaving his skin behind, while Tolly yelped and stepped on Lily’s foot as she stumbled aside.

  The tiger paced restlessly, uncurling its long tail and shaking its huge fearsome head. Two lions and a bear lurked behind it, but of the four of them, the tiger seemed to be the leader. It arched its back and licked its chops, scratching in the sawdust with its claws and making jagged lines in the boarded floor of its cage. If they’d been any closer it surely would’ve got its teeth into them. It was a wonder they hadn’t eaten each other.

  Robert was about to say as much to Lily and Tolly when they heard the noisy clump of boots outside.

  They ducked quickly behind a stack of boxes. Robert held his breath as a long line of men brought in bags of canvas and piled them against the far walls.

  Some of them looked like the group who’d chased them.

  “This is the last of it,” one said.

  “We’ll be off soon,” another added.

  “After we find those kids.”

  “Forget about them. They’re one of Slimwood’s stupid ideas.”

  “Hardly worth it.”

  “Nor for all that running about,” said another. “Still, best do as he says if we don’t want to get a beating from that creaking metal monster of his. Let’s try outside again.”

  When they were gone, Robert let out a sigh. “That was close!”

  “Too close,” Tolly whispered. “We can’t take any more chances. Why don’t I wait by the door? I’ll whistle if they return.”

  “All right,” Lily said quietly. “But if we get caught now you’re to run home and fetch Papa at once.”

  “Right you are.” Tolly disappeared along the length of the cargo bay, taking up a position just outside the doorway.

  Robert heard a faint yelping coming from behind a nearby stack of shelves.

  Hrrmmm. Hrrmmm. Hrrmmm.

  It was accompanied by a low and persistent scritchy-scratching noise that seemed to match his own heartbeat. He tapped Lily on the shoulder and they stepped towards the noise. It was coming from a small cage, about the size of a doghouse, inside which a thin, red, angry thing was scrabbling about.

  “Malkin!” Lily cried, and Robert’s chest flooded with relief at the sight of him.

  “Mmmm!” Malkin whined from inside the cage. “Mmmm.” He stepped towards them, thrusting his face between the bars.

  A muzzle strapped around his snout was stopping him speaking properly.

  “Mmmm,” Malkin said again.

  “Don’t worry,” Lily said, stroking him through the straps. “We’ll have that off and you out of there in a jiffy.”

  The fox’s big black eyes rolled worriedly up at her as she pulled at the muzzle, but she couldn’t reach far enough into the cage to get her fingers around to the back of it.

  “Keep him still,” she told Robert.

  Robert grasped Malkin’s snout. The fox’s dry tongue darted through a small gap in the leather muzzle and licked his palm with a sandpapery slurp. It felt warm against his skin, a balm of relief.

  Lily drew her hand back through the bars. “I can’t undo the strap like this; I still can’t reach. We’ll have to try the cage door first instead.” She pulled out the lock-picking kit Tolly had given her. “Hold out your hands,” she said.

  Robert held both palms out in front of him and she unrolled the leather scroll onto them. “Will these get it open?” he asked, staring at the tiny lock picks in their pockets.

  “I don’t know yet. The lock looks rather complicated.” Lily selected a pick from the set and stuck it into the keyhole. Then slowly, steadily, she flicked the pick to the side.

  There was a grinding noise as the lock’s cylinder began to turn.

  The animals in the other cage, and the horses in their stalls, shifted restlessly, whinnying, growling and snapping. Robert clasped the leather wallet and tried to quiet the unease rushing through him as he watched Lily fiddle with her pick, peering at the lock.

  She jiggled the pick one last time, and the lock rattled loosely.

  Then, with a click, everything dropped into place.

  “You did it!” Robert whispered, the tension easing from his face.

  Lily opened the cage and Malkin leaped into her arms. “MMMM!” he whined in alarm as she pulled on the muzzle strap at the back of his h
ead. Finally she got the buckle undone.

  “It’s a trap!” Malkin barked. “They haven’t given up on you! They know you’re here!”

  But it was too late. Tolly gave a desperate warning whistle and then a worried yelp from outside as the cargo-bay door clanged shut. Then, with a horrible grinding clank, they heard the bolts being slipped across the door hatch, securing it in place. They were trapped!

  Robert stuffed the lock-pick set into his pocket and ran to a porthole along the side of the ship. The men were releasing the anchor chains that kept the ship secured to the ground. With a whirr, the prop started up, clearing the ground fog. The last of the men ran up a gangplank and through the hatch in the fore of the ship, the hum of the engines began and the animals growled and complained as the entire vessel lifted slowly off the ground.

  They were already ten feet in the air when Lily stuck her face into the porthole beside Robert’s. “Where’s Tolly?” she shouted over the noise. “I can’t see him.”

  As if on cue, Tolly jumped up from behind a clod of grass, sidelit by the ship’s headlights. He was the only thing left in the empty field; everything else was gone. It was as if the ticket booth, the canvas outhouses, the Big Top, all of it had never existed. The Skycircus had been awaiting their capture, waiting to skyjack them, and now it was taking off with them aboard.

  “TOLLY!” Lily screamed through the glass. “Don’t let them take us!”

  Tolly waved his arms above his head and shouted something in return, but they couldn’t hear it above the engine’s roar. They tried to make out the words he was mouthing, but the sky-ship was rising fast now, and his little face was getting smaller and smaller as they lifted higher into the sky. Soon he’d diminished to the size of a matchstick, then a pin, and then, as the glow from the sky-ship dissipated from the field, he disappeared altogether.

  A terrible dread crept over Robert at the thought of what might lie ahead, and when he looked to Lily and Malkin, standing beside him in the cargo bay full of wild animals, he knew they felt the same.

  The very last they saw of Brackenbridge and their home were the five lamp posts illuminating the tiny fog-shrouded village green. But soon those shrank away too, becoming no more than one part of the patchwork of darkness as they were spirited into the night sky by the enormous red-and-white striped circus air balloon.

  Lily clasped Malkin in her lap and huddled close to Robert. The cargo bay was remarkably chilly. She looped her scarf twice more around her neck, then handed the other end of it to Robert to wind around his. She was grateful now that Mrs Rust had not been able to stop knitting, for the scarf was easily long enough for both of them to wear.

  A dim light set in the ceiling glowed at regular intervals, revealing brief glimpses of the wild beasts now cowering in their cage and the horses shifting in their stalls. The groan of the engines as the sky-ship chugged along, full steam ahead, mingled with the animals’ intermittent yelps and cries.

  Lily felt like crying too. Some birthday this had turned out to be. Madame Lyons-Mane, Slimwood and their accomplices had used Mama’s notebook, the birthday poem and the tickets to entice her to the show, then caught her unawares and snatched her away like a prize, along with Robert and Malkin.

  But why? And what dreadful scheme did they have in store for her and the Cogheart? For she felt sure now that it was the very reason they’d kidnapped her. She racked her brains, trying to think of what use it might be to them, but could come up with nothing. Instead, she kept circling back to how idiotic she’d been to fall for their tricks in the first place. And to get Robert and Malkin kidnapped too. She chided herself for such blatant stupidity. Would she never learn? She seemed to repeat her mistakes endlessly, like the hours on a clock face. Only Robert’s chattering teeth interrupted her self-recrimination.

  “I hope Tolly makes it back to Brackenbridge,” he muttered. “And tells everyone what’s going on.”

  “Me too.” Lily pulled her coat tight around her.

  “And please let help come before we die of hypothermia.” Robert rubbed his hands together, and pulled down the brim of his cap. “My face is froze. My bones are froze. My nose is froze. Even my toes are froze. I feel like I’ve got icicles in my hair!”

  “I’m not surprised,” Malkin replied darkly. “I swear, by Noah himself, there’s no heating on this ridiculous, balloonatic flying ark.” His eyes were practically slits. He stood and shook out his fur. “We should’ve stayed at the party, Lily.”

  “Stop complaining, both of you!” Lily snapped. “I need to think.”

  She closed her eyes, searching once more for a solution… Even if she were able to pick the lock on the cargo-bay door, they were miles in the air – too high to jump. Besides, hadn’t they heard the sound of bolts on the outside being pulled across? She’d never get through those. And when they’d first taken off she’d probed the rest of the room to find there was no other way out.

  It was no use. Any plan she made would have to factor in those problems and right now the worry of where they were going, or what might happen when they got there, was busily worming its way inside her, taking up all her brainpower.

  “I suppose being kidnapped on your birthday is marginally better than being ignored,” she said at last, more to try and cheer herself up than for any other reason. “You shouldn’t have come with me, either of you. I’ve been far too foolish. Got you both abducted, and Tolly in trouble to boot.”

  “Nonsense,” Malkin yapped. “Now you’re clanking well grousing.”

  “It’s true.” She stroked his ears. “If I hadn’t brought us on this wild goose chase to meet Angelique, we’d be at home with the fires lit and the rooms bright and cheerful…” She felt like she might burst into tears. “What do these people even want from me?”

  “You weren’t to know it was a trap.” Malkin nuzzled his nose into her hand.

  “Whatever they want,” Robert said, “we won’t let them have it. We’ll fight them together, like we always do. In the meantime, Tolly’ll get home and explain everything to your father.”

  “And if anyone knows how to find us it’ll be John,” Malkin added.

  “I hope you’re right,” Lily replied. “Papa’s probably worried sick. I wish I hadn’t been so difficult with him.”

  “I’ve something to tell you on that account.” Robert leaned in towards her. “I wasn’t meant to, but I reckon it doesn’t matter now, all things considered. The thing is…your da, he was planning a surprise. He’d a present he was going to give to you at the end of the party after he’d made a special speech.”

  “And Mrs Rust was going to bring out a cake with fourteen candles,” Malkin added. “She baked it yesterday and hid it in the larder.”

  Even Robert was surprised by this news. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

  Malkin licked his nose proudly. “I sniffed it out this morning.”

  “Why didn’t either of you say?” Lily asked. “Half the reason I suggested we skip out this evening was because I thought he’d forgotten my birthday.”

  “John made us promise not to,” Robert said. “It was a secret.”

  Lily felt a sudden flush of guilt. Papa ignoring her birthday had been nothing but a ruse. By now everyone was probably wondering where they’d got to, if a panicked Tolly hadn’t already rushed in with the bad news. Then perhaps Papa and the police could pick up their trail before the Skycircus flew too far away?

  That thought faded and her chest convulsed as, with an uneasy flurry of fear, she realized they’d probably already passed the point where they could be tracked. They truly were in trouble and it was all her fault. She glanced at the faces of the others, cold and miserable, and hoped that the three of them would be all right. Home was a long way off.

  Half an hour passed and the silence was only interrupted by the odd sputter of the engines, or the occasional snarl and shriek of the animals, while each of them remained lost in their thoughts.

  “We’ll take it in
turns to rest,” Malkin suggested. “One of us needs to keep watch at the porthole, in case we pass a clue to where we’re headed.”

  Robert shook his head. “It’s pitch-black outside, Malkin. We won’t see a thing. It’s more important to cheer ourselves up.” He squeezed Lily’s shoulder. “What time is it?”

  Lily consulted her pocket watch. “Eleven twenty-five.”

  “Then it’s still your birthday – let’s do something to celebrate. I, for one, am starving.” Robert took out the box of chocolates and opened it. Twelve truffles in frilly white paper cups nestled in the box. Each was topped with a coloured jewel of candied fruit – they reminded Lily of the costumes of the circus performers.

  She picked one and popped it in her mouth. It had a soft praline centre.

  “Mmmm!” she mumbled through her mouthful.

  Robert ate one too. It was nougat-y and stuck to his teeth in chewy chocolate lumps.

  Lily chose another – candied ginger, and another – rose cream. She was relieved to find that none of them tasted of stickerish licks, or any of the odd flavours Auggie the clown had bandied about when he gave them to her.

  In fact, the chocolates tasted so good, and they were so hungry, soon they were gorging their way through the whole box. When they finished the first layer, they discovered a whole extra one underneath and ate those too, smushing them together into glorious sugary lumps in their mouths and stuffing the empty paper wrappers into their pockets.

  Malkin didn’t partake. He was a mechanimal after all, and mechanimals never ate, not even in dire circumstances, and certainly not chocolate.

  Lily took out the notebook and read from it to cheer them up. Reading aloud reminded her of the bedtime stories Mama used to tell her.

  Thursday 21st September 1867,

  Histon College

  I am one of the first female students to declare my intention to become a mechanist. I’m attending classes in science, engineering and mathematics. If I can complete those courses, I may be able to work at the Mechanists’ Guild in London. Not as a mechanist, of course – those jobs are only available to men currently, so my professor, Dr Droz, tells me. Although I intend to see about that.