THE MANOEUVRE didn’t exactly go to plan, what with Hannah landing backwards on top of the boy’s head, flattening him and wedging his face into a camel hump with her bum on his right ear. As Hannah tried to squirm herself into position, she heard a muffled voice say, ‘The thing you’re sitting on isn’t a saddle. It’s my head.’
Eventually, she got herself up onto the rear hump and the boy, looking only slightly squashed-faced, congratulated her on her inventiveness.
‘Thanks,’ she replied. ‘Sorry I sat on you.’
‘That’s OK. Hold on tight,’ he said, advice which wasn’t strictly necessary, since riding this animal was like sitting on a seesaw strapped to a supermarket trolley rolling around the deck of a boat on a stormy day in the middle of the Atlantic.
‘Just feel the motion with your legs, and go with it,’ said the boy, whose body swayed gently from side to side, while Hannah’s flipped and flopped and lurched and jounced, like a puppet in a washing machine.
‘You getting the hang of it?’
‘Oh, yeah. No sweat,’ said Hannah, relieved that he was staring calmly ahead, rather than looking back at her, in which case he might have noticed that she was now upside down, doing the splits, clinging on to a lump of camel hair for dear life, with her legs in the air and her nose in a far smellier part of the camel than any sane person would normally approach without a face mask.
‘Fun, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Yeah. Great.’
Without turning round, the boy reached backwards, grabbed one of Hannah’s ankles, and gave her leg a flick which sent her body spinning upwards, back onto the rear hump.
‘I’d work on your stunt moves later if I were you,’ he said.
‘Good idea,’ Hannah replied, enjoying the feeling of right-way-upness, a delicious sensation which she now realised was far too often taken for granted.
‘I’m Billy,’ said the boy. ‘Billy Shank. Junior member of Shank’s Impossible Circus, heir to the Shank Entertainment Empire.’
‘I’m Hannah,’ said Hannah. ‘Like Anna, but hiding between two “H”s.’
‘I like you,’ said Billy.
‘Oh,’ said Hannah.
For a moment she couldn’t think how to reply to this strange comment, and she knew ‘Oh’ was not a sufficient response. Then she heard herself say, ‘I like you, too.’
Only as these words came out of her mouth did she realise this was a perfect description of how she felt. It seemed odd to say this kind of thing out loud when you’ve only known someone for a few minutes, but also kind of exciting, like finding a good short cut, or skipping the main course and going straight to dessert. Using somebody’s head as a camel saddle, she reflected, was clearly a quick way to form a friendship.5
‘Narcissus is a good judge of character, and he thinks you’re OK, so you must be,’ said Billy.
‘How can you tell he thinks I’m OK?’
‘Because he only spat on your wellies. If he didn’t like you it wouldn’t have been your wellies. That’s about as affectionate as he gets.’
‘Wow. I’m flattered.’
‘You’re not a wimp like all the others.’
‘All what others?’
‘Civilians.’
‘Who?’
‘Civilians. People who aren’t in the circus.’
‘Oh. I see,’ replied Hannah, feeling a rush of pride tingle in her chest at Billy’s assessment of her character. ‘Not a wimp’ was the exact thing Hannah wanted to be more than anything else in the world.
‘I think Fizzer likes you,’ said Hannah, more out of a desire to return his friendliness than from any real evidence.
‘I know,’ said Billy.
‘How do you know?’ said Hannah, slightly affronted.
‘Because it’s obvious.’
Hannah looked down at Fizzer, who was trotting companionably alongside Narcissus. He looked back up at her and said, ‘Nyumnyapupupu,’ with a subtle but definite nod. There was no doubting that this meant, ‘He’s right. I like him.’
Now Hannah was really impressed.6
‘Are you going to come tonight?’ asked Billy.
‘Where?’
‘To the show. We’ll be on this evening.’
‘Er . . . I hope so. I mean, I’d love to, but I didn’t know anything about it.’
‘Nobody knows. We never announce our shows in advance.’
‘Why not?’
‘That’s not our style.’
‘But wouldn’t it be better if people knew you were coming?’
‘It would be a disaster.’
‘How could that be a disaster?’
‘Nobody can know where we are.’
‘Nobody?’
‘Nobody official.’
‘Official? What does that mean? Who’s official? Am I official?’
‘Are you?’ Billy span round to face Hannah and eyeballed her fiercely.
‘Am I what?’
‘Official.’
‘I don’t know. What’s official?’
‘Police.’
‘Police!?’ shrieked Hannah.
‘SHHHHH!’
Hannah lowered her voice. ‘Of course I’m not police. I’m a child.’
‘Hmm,’ said Billy. ‘I suppose you are.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Billy leaned towards Hannah and whispered, ‘Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but we’re on the run.’
‘From who?’
‘Everyone.’
‘Are you serious?’
Billy shifted on the hump, his rump taking a bump from the jump and pump of the lump. ‘Sort of.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, nothing! I’m only joking. Just messing about. Winding you up.’ Billy slapped himself on the thigh, like a dodgy panto actor let out an unconvincing laugh and turned back to face the road.
Hannah who was good at sensing the subtle meanings that sometimes sneak out between the words people actually speak detected something strange in Billy’s tone of voice. She had an odd feeling that just as air pushes against the sides of a balloon that’s about to pop, Billy was struggling to hold in something important. His sort-of joke felt like a tiny leak of a secret that wanted to burst out of him. Hannah decided to take what is often a wise course of action when the person you’re talking to isn’t being entirely honest: she said nothing.
‘You shouldn’t take everything so seriously,’ said Billy, who happened to be good at sensing the subtle meanings that can be expressed by a few seconds of silence. He knew that Hannah suspected the true meaning behind his sort-of joke. Billy had never told any civilian about the secret of Shank’s Impossible Circus, and now, after knowing her for only a few minutes, he had already almost let it slip to Hannah, but he was surprised to find that he didn’t care.
He’d never befriended a civilian before. It was a strange, exciting and slightly dizzy-making feeling.
‘So how do you get an audience if you never announce the show?’ Hannah asked.
‘You’ll see.’
‘Will I?’
‘Yup. Just keep your eyes and ears open, and if you hear anything that sounds like applause, follow the noise. But if you see me, and I look like I’m working, don’t come and speak to me.’
‘OK.’
‘And when I am working, it may look as if I’m not working, but I probably am. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Hannah, though if she was being honest she would have said something more along the lines of, ‘No.’
‘I’m just saying I’ll find you. Don’t you find me.’
‘Are you trying extra hard to be mysterious, or does it come naturally?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I practise in the mirror every morning. Do you want to see my mysterious face?’
‘OK.’
‘I have several, but I think this is the best one.’
Billy swivelled on his hump to face her so he was now riding backwards. His mouth was half open, one eye was shut and his nostrils were flaring in and out. Hannah told him he looked like he was being attacked by a jellyfish, and he let out a big, throaty laugh. Or, rather, he let out half a big, throaty laugh, because in the middle of it he suddenly stopped and a look of terror overtook his face. This wasn’t fake terror, either. This was the real thing.
Billy stared behind Hannah, his eyes wide and his mouth clamped shut.
Hannah turned to see what had changed his mood so suddenly, and was immediately blinded by the headlights of the enormous lorry. These weren’t just ordinary lights, the kind that sit down near the bumper. The entire front of the vehicle, below, above and around the windscreen, was covered with huge lamps, and every single one was flashing, shooting dazzling beams into Billy and Hannah’s eyes. Even from a distance, even in daylight, this felt to Hannah almost like staring into the sun. She couldn’t see who was in the cab, but she could certainly hear, because from a pair of loudhailers on the roof, a voice so cold and steely you could have used it to slice a pumpkin boomed out.
‘WHO IS THAT . . . PERSON . . . ON MY CAMEL?’
‘Sorry,’ said Billy, in Hannah’s ear. ‘You’d better go.’
‘OK . . . er . . . how do I get down?’
‘Like this.’
Billy lifted her off Narcissus’s hump and dropped her onto the road. She landed like a sack of potatoes, that is if a sack of potatoes was capable of twisting its ankle but immediately standing up again and smiling bravely as if nothing was wrong.7
With the driver of the lorry watching, Billy seemed like a different person. All the sparkiness and humour on his face disappeared. As he nudged Narcissus back into motion with a click of his tongue, Hannah stared up at him, wondering why he was so scared of the man driving the lorry. It was as if just by looking at him, this person could make the real Billy disappear.
Just before he slipped away around the corner of the narrow road, heading towards town, Billy turned and gave her a quick secret wink.
‘See you later,’ he called. ‘And don’t forget what I told you.’
Hannah was not in the habit of forgetting anything (unless it was something boring, in which case she didn’t so much forget it as just go deaf while it was being said) but she didn’t understand what Billy’s instructions meant.
While the caravan of caravans trundled past, before the lorry could get near, Hannah and Fizzer jumped over a hedge and skedaddled at top speed. (Well, Hannah’s top speed. Fizzer was somewhere between a stroll and an amble.)