We’d tried being smart about Mum’s idea that was going to make us laugh on the other side of our faces; in fact, we were really worried. Only Kate didn’t seem to care; I looked at her and tried to act the same; Jimmy and Betty kept asking Mum about her idea.
“You’re the ones who thought you were so smart, mocking your poor old mother who waits on you hand and foot from first thing in the morning till last thing at night,” Mum told them. “Well, the worm’s turned. You’ll have to to wait and see what my idea is.”
“Aw, Mu-um!”
At last Mum got sick of their moaning and said, “I heard that the circus is coming to Waharoa on Saturday.”
“True? The circus! On Saturday? Are we going?”
Mum nodded and smiled grimly. “And I’ve made up my mind about it. Why should I spend my life cutting bread crooked for children who laugh at me behind my back?”
“We don’t laugh at your behind, Mum. We laugh in front of your face.” Jimmy thought he was hugely funny.
“Don’t you try to be smart with me, young man,” Mum told him. “I still know a trick or two you don’t!”
“What about the circus, Mum? Are we going?”
“Of course you’re going to the circus. And you’re going to stay there, the lot of you!”
“Stay there?”
“What do you mean, Mum?”
“I mean I’m going to sell you to the circus!”
We stared. “What would we have to do?” asked Betty.
“I thought that would take the smile off your faces,” Mum said. “I suppose they’ll make you clean out the lion’s cage, and the tiger’s. And follow the elephant with a wheelbarrow and shovel.”
“Poo!” said Jimmy, and Betty pulled a face.
“Circuses are always looking for children,” Mum nodded. “If they can’t buy them, the clowns sneak out at night and steal them. Perhaps they’ll put you in cages and show you off, poke you with sticks, and make you roar.
“They could charge people to watch you feeding. That’d bring a good crowd.
“I’ll be able to live in comfort on the money I get for you. I won’t have to work in the garden and grow vegetables, and spend my time working my fingers to the bone cooking and cleaning, and going round the lambs, and shifting the steers for a houseful of ungrateful children.”
“We’re grateful, Mum!” we all shouted.
“On the other hand,” said Mum, “I know the circus is always looking for food for the animals.” She smiled at us, and Jimmy and Betty smiled back trustingly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, “the circus might feed you to their wild animals! I imagine the lion and the tiger would enjoy eating a fat child who’s been fed on well-cooked vegies out of my garden all his life.”
Jimmy and Betty looked at Kate. “It’s all right,” she told them, “Mum’s just making it up. The circus buys old dead cows and horses for the lion.”
“Are you sure?” Mum asked.
“You wouldn’t sell us; you’re our mother,” Betty said and looked at Jimmy who was grinning and nodding.
“We know what!” they said together. “We’ll sell you to the circus for lion tucker!” And they both roared and showed their terrible claws and pretended to eat Mum.
“You wouldn’t sell your old Mum to the circus?” she asked. “You wouldn’t want the wild animals to eat me, would you?”
“Yes!” they cried. “We would so!” And Jimmy said, “You were going to sell us.”
“Unnatural children,” Mum said. “After all I’ve done for you. Digging the garden, growing the vegies, cooking for you, cleaning the house, sewing, washing, darning.”
“Working my fingers to the bone!” we all chanted together before she could say it.
“Are we going to the circus, Mum?” asked Jimmy.
“We’ll see,” said Mum, and she wouldn’t say any more.
When she was putting Jimmy and Betty to bed, and I was getting into my pyjamas, they asked Mum to tell them a story, and she said, “I’ll tell you one, but only if you promise you won’t sell me to the circus.”
“We won’t sell you to the circus,” Betty told her. And Jimmy said, “We wouldn’t let them feed you to the wild animals, Mum!”
“Just as well,” she said. “All right, then, lie down and be quiet, and I’ll tell you the story of “Dr Dolittle and the Wild Animals of Waharoa”. Betty and Jimmy lay down and listened. It was one of Mum’s best stories. Jimmy and Betty both watched Mum’s face and her hands as she told it to us. They looked as if they’d forgotten all about her saying she was going to sell us to the circus. But I remembered it, and I knew Kate would. Kate never forgot a thing.
Saturday came. We put Old Pomp into the buggy and climbed on. Kate took the reins. Mum sang loudly all the way into Waharoa and told everybody along the road that we were going to the circus.
Billy Kemp came galloping along on Hiccup and attacked us, pretending to be a Red Indian, and we were a covered wagon. But Mum took the buggy whip and cracked it so loud that Hiccup propped and pig-jumped sideways down the road, and Billy was too busy hanging on to bother us again.
They’d put up the circus near the hall. The road had never been properly formed there, just two wheel tracks, so there was plenty of room on the grass for the big tent. People were parking their cars and trucks in front of the hall. Those who’d come in their buggies and gigs, to save benzine and tyres for the war effort, left them across the other side. As Kate took him out of the shafts and tied him to the fence, Old Pomp reared up, and Mum said it was because he smelled the lion.
But Kate had taken a nosebag of oats for Old Pomp, and he quietened down and started chewing once she put that on him. Our buggy stood with its shafts down, but a couple of gigs had theirs pointing up in the air. “Like anti-aircraft guns!” said Jimmy, and I knew he was thinking of the photos in the Weekly News of the Blitz in London.
Behind the big tent, there was a row of caravans and lorries, and some wagons that Mum said were the cages they’d keep us in. We wanted to have a look, but a man told us to clear off. “They can have a look at the wild animals after the circus,” he said to Mum. “Sixpence for kids, a bob for grownups.”
“Sixpence each for children?” said Mum. “And a bob for me! On top of what we’ve got to pay to get into the circus… You must think I’m made out of money if you think you’re going to charge me for a look at a few mangey old half-tame animals.”
“If you don’t like it, tough luck!” said the man, and Mum told him to keep a civil tongue in his head.
“I’ve a good mind to go back and knock his block off!” she told us, and she danced and shadow-boxed, and puffed through her nose like a boxer we’d once seen in a sideshow, the time Dad took us to the Waikato Show. Fortunately, nobody noticed Mum because people were hurrying to get into the circus.
“Gee!” Jimmy said, “I didn’t know you could box, Mum!”
“Come on,” Kate said, “we’d better get inside or all the good seats will be gone.” At once, Mum ran for the entry to the big tent. Kate always knew just what to say to her.
There was an old woman in a wheelchair, selling tickets at the entry. She had white whiskers growing out of a mole on her chin, and Kate pinched us which we knew meant we weren’t to stare. Mum said to us to hang on a bit, and she went along and tried to climb under the wall, but she’d just stuck her head under the canvas when she pulled it back with a bit of a yelp, and ran back to us.
The old woman in the wheelchair had disappeared inside the tent. She came back to the door, grinning to herself, and pushing the wheels around with her hands. It looked as if it was hard going, getting them to move on the muddy grass. She started selling tickets again. As we moved forward in the line, and Kate bought our tickets, the old woman eyed Mum very sharply, but she kept her head down, and we went inside. I didn’t like to look, but Jimmy and Betty had a good stare and followed.
Just inside, Mum put up her head and sniffed, and we all sniffed, too.