‘Chairs,’ said Olive.
‘Chairs,’ said Wordsworth. ‘For planting your bottom on.’
‘I know what they are,’ explained Olive. ‘I just don’t know why they are stacking them in the middle of the entrance hall. We are about to start our acrobatics lesson.’
Wordsworth shrugged, waved goodbye and went off in search of words. Words on strips of paper. Words on discarded letters, scrunched up in balls and tossed into rubbish bins. Words on pages that had fallen out of library books. Words on pages that could be torn out of library books.
Any kind of words he could get his paws on.
Words that might help to fill the aching void created when Pig McKenzie burnt his precious dictionary.
Words. Words. Words.
‘Good luck,’ Olive called after him and descended the grand staircase.
She gasped. Then she gaped. She could have caught a fly.
To be honest, she could have caught a fly, an entire swarm of bees and several sparrows, her mouth was open so wide and for so long.
From down at this level, she could see that the chairs were not piled up any which way, but balanced delicately, with only one chair at the base and each chair teeter-tottering on top of the next in a more astonishing and precarious manner than the one before. And just when she thought the whole lot might come toppling down, Alfonzo climbed the teeter-tottering pile and did a handstand on the back of the highest chair!
Eduardo tossed another chair up with perfect precision so that it landed on Alfonzo’s feet. Anastasia scrambled up and sat on it. She crossed her legs, put on a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses and began to write in a tiny notebook.
After a minute or two, Anastasia tossed the notebook, pencil and glasses to the floor and held onto her seat. Alfonzo kicked her chair upwards into the air, where it landed on the tightrope, balancing on just two legs. Slowly, carefully, Anastasia planted her own two feet on the wire and stood. She then trotted along the tightrope, the chair balancing on her fingertip, all the way to the safety of the first-floor landing.
Alfonzo walked down the chair tower on his hands, then proceeded to dismantle the whole, taking one chair at a time from the base and tossing it to Eduardo. When all that remained was one lonely chair standing on all four legs, Alfonzo sat, gave a theatrical yawn and pretended to fall asleep.
‘Bravo!’ cried Olive, hopping from foot to foot. ‘Bravo! That is the best balancing act I have ever seen!’
Anastasia slid down the bannister. ‘Too bad you missed being part of it,’ she sneered. ‘It could have been a clown’s performance had you turned up on time for once in your life.’
So nasty!
‘Roman ladders!’ the Ringmaster declared, clapping his hands.
Alfonzo leapt up from his chair and tossed it aside. He did three handsprings across the Persian rug and lifted a ridiculously long ladder upright, onto its end. Eduardo cartwheeled across the Persian rug, scrambled up to the top of the ladder and struck a pose, hands on hips, chin in the air.
The Ringmaster clapped again and nodded at Anastasia and Olive.
Anastasia stared back at him, tucked her long blonde hair behind her ears and shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘No way!’ she cried. ‘Remember the pyramids? My belly still hurts. I’m not going up there unless Olive is staying down here.’
Alfonzo sniggered between the rungs of the ladder.
‘Give her a chance,’ called Eduardo. ‘Olive’s learning really fast. You saw how well she did on the tightrope yesterday!’
‘Yes,’ said Anastasia grudgingly. ‘But tightrope is the easiest of all the acrobatic performances . . . and I didn’t have to go up there with her.’
The Ringmaster sighed. He shrugged at Olive.
‘Okay,’ said Olive, smiling. ‘I’ll do it alone. It’s as easy as . . . as . . . climbing a ladder!’
So she did.
Had she been a painter climbing the ladder with three paintbrushes, a long-armed roller and a giant can of paint in her hands, her ascent could not have looked more awkward. Furthermore, on reaching the top, she clung to Eduardo’s ankles and had a little panic attack. Finally, however, she clambered onto Eduardo’s shoulders, stood, stretched her arms out to the sides and sang a wobbly little ‘ta-da’.
‘Magnifico!’ cried the Ringmaster. ‘Determination and courage. We will turn you into a brilliant circus performer yet, young Olive!’
‘Oh, for Pete’s sake!’ cried Anastasia, suddenly jealous, and scrambled up the ladder and onto Olive’s shoulders. ‘Ta-da!’ She stretched her arms out wide and flashed her perfect pearly white teeth.
Anastasia simply had to be the centre of attention.
Always!
It was a very unattractive quality.
‘Splendido!’ cried the Ringmaster. ‘And now we will disembark!’
‘Bark?’ yipped Scruffy.
The brown and white dog leapt out from his napping nook beneath the staircase and sprinted across the entrance hall, panting, drooling and barking. He zipped in and out and around Alfonzo and the ladder, chasing his tail in circles, getting faster and faster with every lap. Olive became quite light-headed at the sight.
‘Uh-oh,’ she cried. ‘I’m getting dizzy!’
‘Emergency! Emergency!’ Bozo and Boffo crashed through the dining room door, carrying a giant cream pie between them. They stumbled over their long shoes, pushed and shoved the pie at each other and yelled, ‘Emergency! Emergency! Olive is dizzy!’ They ran back and forth beneath the ladder.
Bozo laughed and sang, ‘Dizzy, dizzy, dizzy!’
Boffo sobbed and howled, ‘Oh, woe is Olive! She is dizzy, dizzy, dizzy!’
Anastasia shouted, ‘I’m out of here!’ and leapt off Olive’s shoulders.
What she had planned was a delightfully graceful descent involving a triple aerial somersault followed by a soft two-footed landing on the Persian rug.
Unfortunately, Olive panicked.
Believing that Anastasia was falling, not leaping, Olive grabbed her by the ankle and cried, somewhat optimistically, ‘Don’t worry, Anastasia! I will save you!’
You know what happens next, dear reader.
Great height . . . precariously balanced acrobats . . . oversized cream pie . . . panicking, uncoordinated heroine . . .
Anastasia landed right in the middle of the enormous cream pie with a delightful SPLODGE!
Twice.
Once when she fell.
A second time when Olive fell on top of her, just as she was crawling out.
Anastasia was livid.
I don’t know why. Nothing was hurt – except for her dignity – and the whole incident really made a wonderful comic performance. Bozo and Boffo were thrilled and thought that, perhaps, they had been a bit hard on Olive. She obviously was quite the talent when it came to slapstick clowning.
Anastasia stomped towards the grand staircase, covered in whipped cream from head to toe, and would have made a magnificently melodramatic exit . . . except that Fumble just happened to walk past at that moment. He grabbed her by the shoulders, lifted her off the ground and began to lick her head.
‘Yum!’ he cried. ‘Supersized ice-cream. Moosies love ice-cream!’
It is funny how, once the worst has happened, all fear is removed from a situation. Olive spent the rest of the morning attempting new and adventurous balancing stunts using ladders, stacks of chairs, giant beach balls, unicycles, an umbrella and an assortment of juggling utensils. She failed, she fell, she picked herself up and tried again and again and again.
By the end of the lesson, Olive could juggle three wooden bowling pins while standing on a beach ball that was balancing on a ladder.
It just goes to show what determination and persistence can achieve!
Of course, the ladder was lying flat on the floor . . . and the beach ball was wedged firmly between two of the ladder’s rungs . . . and Olive’s feet were stuck to the beach ball by a thick layer of peanut butter and honey, courtesy of Reginald . . .
Still, she was juggling beautifully and it was a great personal achievement.
‘Go, Olive!’ cried Eduardo, clapping and jumping up and down.
‘Hooray for Olive!’ cried Alfonzo, clamping his hand over his mouth when he realised what he had said. Thank goodness Anastasia was not there. She would have been furious.
‘Whoopee for Olive!’ cried Bozo and stuck a pin in the beach ball.
Pop!
Bang!
Crash!
Donk-donk-donk!
Down came Olive, the deflated beach ball and, finally, three wooden bowling pins, one after the other, on top of her head.
Now most people see stars or little yellow canaries after a nasty bump.
But what Olive saw was far more disturbing.
The front door of Groves opened and in waltzed Pig McKenzie. He stopped, stared at Olive and blew her a kiss!
Now blowing a kiss can be a beautiful thing to do. It can send a wave of love, goodwill and devotion through the air to a distant friend, warming their heart, putting a spring in their step, filling their day with joy. But the pig, as we have already seen, was the Master of Nastiness. He had a Terrible Knack for Turning Innocent Gestures into Terrifying Threats.
In Olive’s dazed vision, Pig McKenzie blew a kiss loaded with Mockery, Scorn, Malice and Threat.
Olive closed her eyes, shook her head and rubbed the lumps caused by the bowling pins. She opened her eyes again and was relieved to see nothing more than five yellow canaries flying through the hole in the wall of Mrs Groves’ office.
‘Thank goodness for that!’ she cried.
But if only she had looked up, dear reader, she would have seen the pig disappearing up the staircase, his snotty snout and piggy little eyes filled with Evil Intent, his mouth curled into a Spiteful Grin.
And she might have cottoned on to his Dastardly Plan of Wickedness and Cunning before it was too late.