The seats filled up pretty quickly but Nadia and I definitely had the best ones. She was breathing fast, as if she’d been running, she was so excited.
I kept looking round to make sure there were no soldiers hanging around. They can go to anything they want to in Paris. Which isn’t fair because they have special free cinemas of their own, and eating places just for them where they can get all kinds of food. Even steaks. But there weren’t any soldiers there.
There were a couple of policemen patrolling the street behind the vans, but they didn’t come over. They’d probably seen the show a few times.
Signor Corrado set up a wire between two poles. Then he began to fit a lot of stripy poles together, one into another, so it made a really long pole. It looked even longer than the ones knights used to joust with from their horses.
When the pole was ready La Giaconda came out of the van holding a little accordion. She played a really sad song, just a few bars. Signor Corrado looked as if he was crying but that was because he had tears painted under his eyes. He was wearing the same Pierrot costume as he had on the day I saw him first.
Then she began a fast funny tune, and before we could even see him do it Signor Corrado had bounced up onto the wire and was walking on it, holding the long pole. It reached nearly as far as our seats.
First he walked, and then he ran because the music was getting faster and faster. In the end he was really sliding across, as if the wire was the skinniest piece of ice ever. Then he did the splits on it. Ouch!
We all clapped when he jumped down and rolled over in a somersault.
He bowed and said, “Welcome,” to everybody.
“One day, my good friends, my family will have our Big Top again and when you come you’ll see me and all the other artists working with a proper trapeze and a proper high wire, just like in the old days.” He pretended to wipe away his tears.
Then La Giaconda sat down in a velvet armchair. She said that she was La Giaconda, the muse of the great artist Leonardo da Vinci. Signor Corrado signalled for all of us to clap.
“I have special powers given to me by direct line from none other than the lovely Mona Lisa herself,” she said. “La Giaconda. Another Italian guest living in your beautiful city.”
“Not any more, she’s not!” someone shouted. “She’s run away, like you!”
La Giaconda got pink in her cheeks.
“Good French people are keeping her safe,” she said. “Thank you.”
Some people at the back began to laugh so I turned round and glared but they probably didn’t see me. Anyway, they stopped when La Giaconda said she could read people’s minds. She wagged her finger like a teacher.
“So all of you should be very careful what you’re thinking!”
And then, before I could see it coming, she pointed at Nadia and called her over. She patted her lap as if that was where Nadia should sit.
She said, “I’m going to test my powers on this lovely young girl. I swear to you I have never set eyes on her before this day.”
That was true, I knew, but still, I’d just told her about Nadia’s birthday. I really, really didn’t want La Giaconda to make my sister look silly in any way. Don’t forget, Nadia is deaf. And she can be shy with new people.
But guess what, Nadia didn’t mind! She just sprang out of her seat. I looked round to see if Mama and Papa were watching. I couldn’t see them but it was too late to do anything about it. There was my sister, right up there, sitting on La Giaconda’s lap.
La Giaconda put her hands on Nadia’s head.
“This is a very talented young lady,” she said. “Artistic too. I’ll bet she runs a theatrical establishment of her very own. Isn’t that right?”
I nearly whooped out loud. How could La Giaconda know about Nadia’s theatre? I hadn’t said anything about that.
But there was a problem. Nadia wasn’t facing La Giaconda, so she wasn’t able to read her lips. She probably didn’t even know there’d been a question. And she wasn’t looking at me, making mad signs at her to look behind.
Then something amazing happened. Nadia turned round and said to La Giaconda, “Will you say that again, please? I didn’t catch what you said.”
My sister was so smart! She’d said just the right thing, so La Giaconda asked her question about the theatre again.
Nadia blushed red. “Yes, I’ve got a puppet theatre, with kings and queens and a Puss in Boots.”
She forgot to say d’Artagnan.
Then La Giaconda said, “But you don’t have this one.”
She opened her hand. Everybody except those in the front row had to stretch their necks to see what she had in it. We could see it really well. It was a tiny wooden puppet, a marionette with yellow strings, wearing a beautiful Pierrot costume. It looked exactly like Signor Corrado.
La Giaconda made it walk in the air and do the splits just like him.
“This is for you, Nadia,” she said. She looked at the audience, row by row. “My muse, the famous lady in the painting, has just let me know that today is your birthday and you are eight years of age.”
That was another weird thing. I hadn’t told La Giaconda Nadia’s age so I don’t know how she got that right, as Nadia is so small. But she did.
One girl behind us started to cry, I suppose she was jealous about the puppet, but everybody else clapped and cheered. Then Signor Corrado made everybody sing “Happy Birthday” and he bowed Nadia back into her seat, clapping away himself. Her face was bright pink but really happy, you could see that, and she had the puppet held tight in her hands.
I was a bit jealous too, but I knew that puppet was the best present Nadia would ever get in her whole entire life.