“Which zoo? Tell me which zoo!”
Aunt Candy raises her eyebrows. “What’s it called now? Let me think… Ah, I remember. It’s The Zoo for Nosy Parkers.”
It doesn’t take an expert in body language to know that Aunt Candy is lying. Sam feels like kicking her feet out from under her, but she doesn’t; she’s not a violent person.
“Why did you get rid of her? Just to hurt me?”
Aunt Candy looks mortally offended. “I got rid of her because she’s been teaching you tricks – I hate tricks. I’ve asked you not to do them, but you carry on behind my back and I won’t have it.”
“But why do you hate magic so much?”
Aunt Candy won’t answer, so Sam decides to risk everything and mentions the F-word.
“Is it to do with my father, the magician?”
She guesses it is, because suddenly Aunt Candy’s knees buckle. She collapses, cracks her head on the floor and lies there cackling hysterically.
“Magician? Your father isn’t a magician. No, no, no. Whatever gave you that idea? He’s Bingo Hall. He’s an explorer. A murderer. A vicar … a postman.”
“No, he isn’t; he’s the Dark Prince of Tabuh.”
At the mention of his name, Aunt Candy starts frothing at the mouth. “No, no! He’s a grave digger, a dustman, a donkey!” She flips onto her stomach and lashes out like a serpent. “How d’you know he’s the Dark Prince? Who told you, WHO TOLD YOU?”
It would be so easy for Sam to admit that she’s found the witch doctor’s notebook and seen her father’s photo, but she wants to keep that to herself.
“I’m psychic,” she says. “I dreamt about my father. He has a blond streak, just like mine, doesn’t he, Aunt Candy? I know I’m right. Now, where’s Lola? If you lie to me, I’ll know. My dreams will tell me where she is.” Sam is exaggerating about her dreams. They won’t tell her where Lola is but she wants Aunt Candy to think they will, to freak her out. She hopes it will make her confess and it does.
“All right, you meddling little runt!” she snaps. “I didn’t put your stupid ginger friend in a zoo. I sent her to a laboratory where she will help the nice scientists with their experiments.”
“But they’ll put her in a cage – they’ll hurt her! How could you, Aunt Candy?”
“Easy! I phoned the laboratory and a man collected her in an armoured van.”
Lola would never go anywhere with a stranger, but unfortunately Aunt Candy knew that. “I slipped a tablet into her banana,” she confesses. “She was taken away on a stretcher. Looked ever so peaceful.”
Sam is not a violent person but she’s so upset about Lola, she grabs Aunt Candy by the ears and tries to shake the truth out of her.
“Which laboratory. Where is it?!”
Aunt Candy’s chins wobble like a turkey wattle. She seizes Sam’s lapels and wrestles her to the ground. There’s a lot of slapping and kicking, and in the struggle, her wig slips off and a strand of her real hair ravels round one of Sam’s blazer buttons. As Sam struggles to her knees, the trapped hair is ripped out of Aunt Candy’s scalp. She clutches her head, screams; then, in a pincer movement, snatches hold of Sam’s ponytail and drags her towards the boxroom.
“So you like hair-pulling, do you Spam? I like hair-pulling. Come, brat! Into your poky room and stay there!” She pulls the door shut and shoves a chair under the handle so Sam can’t escape. “Your cheeky, chimpy chum can’t save you now! You can stay there until you are a good brat, which will be … never!”
Sam hammers on the door. “Let me out! Let me out!” But it’s useless. Aunt Candy storms off, slumps on the sofa and sips gin through a straw the width of a hosepipe.
Never one to sit there doing nothing, Sam has opened the witch doctor’s notebook and is reading how to make a doll in the shape of her worst enemy. According to the pictures, the doll can be used to inflict anything from measles to murder on the person it represents. Mercifully, all Sam wants to do is prevent Aunt Candy from following her; she’s decided to run away. She must rescue Lola, then find her father. She wants to ask him why he abandoned her as a baby. If he had good reason and is a good man, she hopes he’ll give her a home. If he is bad or dead, she will mourn him and move on; perhaps she’ll find some other relative willing to adopt her.
She’s made a scary model of Aunt Candy from sticky putty scraped out of the window. For the spell to work, the book says she must incorporate her enemy’s nails or hair into the doll. Aunt Candy’s nails are false but she’s unwillingly donated some hair. Sam unwinds it from her blazer button and uses it to make a topknot which she pins to the doll’s head. To stop Aunt Candy following her, she follows the instructions to the letter and binds the doll’s ankles together with cotton. Then she sits the doll on the sill and packs her rucksack.
Before packing the goatskin pouch, Sam takes out the locket and smiles at the photo of the woman carrying the baby boy on her hip. If the boy is the Dark Prince, she must be his mother – which means she’s Sam’s grandmother. She ties the locket around her neck and says a final goodbye to her home in St Peter’s Square. There’s nothing to keep her here, but even so it’s a wrench – it’s all she’s ever known. Sometimes, no matter how bad things are, we stick with what we know because it’s less frightening than what we don’t. But there’s no hope for her or Lola if she stays.
She puts on the ringmaster’s hat and gathers a few tricks. If she needs money, she can always perform illusions on a street corner somewhere. People will pay to see magic. Then she opens her bedroom window and climbs out. As she runs across the roof, some of the tiles clatter and smash on the pavement below. Aunt Candy tries to go after Sam, but she can’t move her feet; her ankles appear to be glued together and she falls face down on the rug.
Is her temporary paralysis the effect of the witch doctor’s doll or is it the first symptoms of a frozen cartilage, something many contortionists suffer from in their later years? It is not for me to say, but by the time it wears off – if it wears off – it will be too late for her to follow Sam. She has lost her and she is too insane, too drunk, to try and find her.
Aunt Candy bursts into tears; it wasn’t meant to be like this. If only Sam had been her child, she could have loved her, would have loved her. She did have a heart once.
By now, Sam is at Stamford Brook tube station. She’s dumped Aunt Candy’s bike and she’s looking at the map, trying to figure out how to get to St Pancras so that she can catch the overground train to St Albans. Why does she want to go there? To visit a certain Mrs Reafy.
Sam has never met Mrs Reafy, but while she was locked in her room, she studied the witch doctor’s list again, wondering idly if any of the people on it could help her find Lola or her father. The more she studied it, the more Mrs Reafy’s name leapt off the page. As Sam touched it, her hand was thrown aside. It gave her an electric shock and when, for some reason, the room filled with the smell of boiling jam, she felt certain the witch doctor was trying to tell her something and found herself talking to him out loud.
“So, Grandpa, I take it I should visit this lady? I wish your handwriting was clearer. Does she live in St Aubins or St Albans? Oh, well, I’ll just have to look her up in a phone book.”
Returning to his list, she’d noticed a portrait next to Mrs Reafy’s name, depicting a wild-haired woman swinging a potato – or possibly a pendulum – over a diamond buried in the sand. From this drawing, Sam guessed that Mrs Reafy was skilled at locating missing objects, in which case she might be able to find lost apes and absent fathers. It was a long shot, but as she didn’t have a shorter one, she planned to go and see her.
Back to now. Sam is on the tube and she’s been passing the time by practising coin tricks, making them appear and disappear. Now she must change onto the Piccadilly Line which she does with no trouble at all. She’s travelling without a ticket but it’s easy to fool the inspector with an old one she found on the floor; she’s been taught sleight of hand by a gifted orang-utan after all.
Sam sits on the only seat available in the carriage, opposite an old lady who keeps staring at her hat. Sam smiles briefly then averts her eyes, hoping to be left alone; but the old lady pokes her with a walking stick and pipes up.
“Don’t I know you, dear? You look so familiar.”
Sam doesn’t know the woman but she recognizes her walking stick. Where had she seen it before? The handle has a monkey’s head carved into it.
“It was my grandfather’s,” says the old lady. “Monkeys aren’t to everybody’s taste, but I’ve always had a soft spot for our close relatives.”
“Me too,” says Sam. “I had a pet orang-utan. She was like a mother to me.”
The old lady purses her lips. “Really? You don’t look like you were brought up by an orang-utan. You have quite nice manners for a child.”
“Lola had perfect manners,” says Sam, wistfully.
The old lady puts her head on one side. “Had? Don’t you have her any more? What happened, did she pass away?”
Who knows why it’s so easy to pour out your life story to strangers on trains, but it is. In less time than it takes to write down, Sam tells the woman that she’s run away from home to look for Lola and that she’s off to St Albans to see if Mrs Reafy can find her.
“You won’t get to St Albans today,” says the old lady. “No trains until tomorrow. There’s a strike.” She suggests that Sam goes home to her parents. Sam tells her that’s out of the question.
“My mother’s dead and my father’s done a disappearing act; he’s a magician, you know.”
“A magician?” The old lady rolls the word around in her mouth like a humbug. “I thought your father might have been a ringmaster, judging by your hat. There again, only a fool would judge a person by their hat. It’s what goes on under it that’s important.” She prods Sam’s seat with her stick.
“I sat opposite a magician once on this train, in this same compartment. I’ll never forget him. His magician’s outfit was far too big, but he was so fit and young and handsome, he took my breath away; either that or I was allergic to his rabbit.”
“He had a rabbit?”
The old lady shrugs. “Rabbits, doves…? I’m guessing. Whatever he had in his trunk, it was alive and fidgeting.” She sighs deeply. “He spoke to me, my magician. He had a voice like melting chocolate. All the men on the train hated him; he made their shoulders look narrow and their hair look thin.”
“Did he mention his name?” asks Sam.
“No, dear. He just said it was his first time in London and asked if I knew a good place for a penniless magician to perform. I suggested Covent Garden.”
“Why?”
“Have you never been? There are fire-eaters, mime artists, all manner of entertainers; it’s famous for them. He took my advice and went there. I often wonder what happened to him.”
Covent Garden is the next stop. Given that there’s no chance of making it to Mrs Reafy’s today, Sam decides to get out. Maybe one of the street performers knows her father. The old lady nods and smiles. “Even if no one’s heard of him, you’ll while away a pleasant afternoon.”
Sam shakes her hand. “Thanks, Mrs…? I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“That’s because I didn’t tell it to you, Sam. But since you ask, it’s Effie Ray. Quickly or you’ll miss your stop.”
Sam waves goodbye. It’s only when she’s in the lift that she realizes Effie Ray knew her name – but how? She’s sure she didn’t tell her. But it’s so easy to forget exactly what we’ve said to complete strangers.
THE MAGIC SUGAR CUBE
The masked magician asks a volunteer to pick a number between 1 and 10 and write it on a sugar cube.
The cube is dropped into a glass of water and the volunteer’s hand is held over it.
When the volunteer’s hand is turned over – hey presto – the number is written on it. How?
THE SECRET
You need: a pencil, a sugar cube and a glass of water
1. Ask the volunteer to pick a number. Write it onto the sugar cube. (Press hard!)
2. Hold the cube between your thumb and finger and say, “Now I will put the cube in the glass!”
3. Press the cube as hard as possible so the number transfers onto your thumb.
4. Drop the cube into the water and hold the volunteer’s hand above it, making sure your thumb is in their palm so the number from your finger transfers onto their hand.
BART HAYFUE
Covent Garden isn’t disappointing. It has a market, interesting shops and a large, cobbled square. There’s a man selling jumping beans from a suitcase, a Chinese girl on a unicycle, and a fire-eater. As a ribbon of roaring flames shoots from his mouth, there is loud applause, and he hands his hat around.
Sam has run away with no money. She watches the fire-eater as he juggles three flaming torches for a fresh audience. She daren’t interrupt him to ask if he’s ever met the Dark Prince of Tabuh in case he burns himself; she’ll wait for him to finish. Meanwhile, she will try to earn some cash of her own.
Normally, she’s self-conscious about her clothes but in Covent Garden the combination of sparkly red jacket, shiny green flares and a ringmaster’s hat doesn’t look out of place at all. Everyone simply assumes that Sam is another street entertainer, so when she pulls out a pack of cards and shuffles them in a flying arc, several tourists wander over to see what she is up to.
“Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing up my sleeves … except my arms!”
She performs several basic tricks – the kind she mastered when she was six – but the tourists are genuinely amazed when she finds the Queen of Hearts whilst blindfolded. They’re confounded when she produces the missing Ace of Spades from inside a small boy’s wellington boot, and delighted when she turns a grey pigeon into a white one. They drop money into her hat. Some are pennies, but most are pounds. Perhaps the tourists are being generous because she’s so young. Whatever the reason, she makes eight pounds in as many minutes; it’s the richest she’s ever been.
Sam is hungry for more. She hasn’t eaten since she left home, so she puts her hat back on and pulls out her cards again. She’s about to shuffle them when she hears an angry voice.
“Oi, dilly, dilly! Get off my pitch or you shan’t be Queen!”
She can’t work out who’s speaking. The nearest person is the Jumping Bean Man and he has a Mexican accent; this one’s definitely cockney.
“Yeah, you. Off you go to Banbury Cross. Clear off!”
The voice appears to be coming from a statue of a Victorian pie-seller. It wasn’t there a moment ago, or had she been too engrossed in her magic to notice it? She stares at the figure; it can’t have spoken – it’s made from stone.
Then suddenly the statue blinks. Sam leaps back, cracks her head against a lamppost and sits down hard on her hat. The pie-seller rushes forward to help her up, shedding clouds of grey powder.
“Sorry, Jumping Joan. This is what happens when Simple Simon meets a pieman.”
Sam dusts herself down and punches her hat back into shape.
“I’m fine, really. You made me jump, that’s all.”
The statue laughs, but not unkindly. The pink of his mouth looks luminous and fleshy against his flinty face.
“I made you jump? Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. S’wot I do for a living.” He reaches inside his concrete-coated apron and shows her his business card.
Sam is impressed. “How do you manage to stand so still, Mr Hayfue?”
“Practice, love. Been doing this since the Stone Age. The trick is to wriggle your toes to keep the blood circulating, otherwise you pass out.”
“I want to have a go,” says Sam. “Tell me if I blink.”
Bart gives her his tray of stone pies. She fixes her face and her limbs, stands as still as she can and holds her breath. After a few seconds, he snaps his fingers near her nose.
“Ha, you blinked! You gotta be prepared or all the Contrary Marys will see straight
through your disguise. They’ll pinch you, tickle you; anything to get a reaction. But if you can ignore it, you’ll fool them as easy as three blind mice.”
Sam tries again and this time Bart is full of encouragement.
“Pretty good, Polly Flinders. You’ll be warming your pretty little toes on my pitch next, only please don’t. This spot used to be a good ’un but now I can’t move for fire-eaters, jugglers and magicians – not that I’m supposed to move, of course.”
Sam assures him he can have his pitch back right now. She didn’t realize she was standing in his spot. She just needed the money for food.
“You could do with fattening up,” he grins. “Fancy a pie, Lucy Locket?”
The ones on his tray look decidedly inedible. Sam pokes one and wrinkles her nose.
“Not those. I meant a real pie from the caff. They do a nice one with four and twenty blackbirds and there’s Tuppenny Rice for pudding. They bung half a pound of treacle on it, but it’s too much for one person, you’ll go pop. We’ll ask for two spoons and share, all right?”
Sam asks why he keeps quoting nursery rhymes and he explains that when he was a baby, he had a terrible accident. His mother put his cradle at the top of a tree but unfortunately it had been a particularly windy day and the bough broke. Sam smiles. “And down you came, cradle and all, I suppose?”
“You heard about it then?” says Bart. “I bumped my head, you know. Wrapped it in vinegar and brown paper and went to bed, but the damage was done. I’ve been stuck in nursery rhyme mode ever since. Mother wasn’t one to sit on her tuffet. She called Doctor Foster but there was heavy flooding where he lived – Gloucester as I recall – and the poor bloke stepped in a massive puddle and never turned up. So much for the National Health Service, eh?”
Sam has never heard such a load of nonsense. “You’re just making all this up aren’t you, Bart?”
“Am I? Who are you to say what’s fact and what’s fiction? For all you know, you’re just a character in a book.”
Shamanka Page 4
