Even his top hat was crooked and a thin scar ran down the left side of his face, giving the impression of a man part gypsy, part rogue. Was this who Rocky had meant by the boss? Was the Ringmaster Benissimo? He paced around the ring almost leering at the audience; this was clearly his ring and his circus. If anyone under the big top was going to help, Ned hoped that it was going to be him. That was, until he started to speak, and as he did so Ned noticed the strangest thing: the Ringmaster’s whip was moving on its own. It was hard to see at first, but it seemed to twist slightly, like a coiled snake writhing in his hand. Ned blinked and it stopped. Who were these people and why did his father trust them so much that he’d left Ned here alone with them?
“My Lords, Ladies and layabouts, welcome to the Circus of Marvels!” the great man barked. “I, Benissimo, am your Ringmaster and guide. From the mountains of China, the deserts of Africa and the jungles of South America, I have brought you the most miraculous and strange. Tonight you will see and hear things that will blind your ears and deafen your eyes! Let the show begin!”
The band burst into action and in strode seven of the cheeriest men Ned had ever seen, with ‘THE FLYING TORTELLINIS’ emblazoned on their shirts.
“Hey! How you doing, whad-a ya know, where ya been, whad-a ya say?” they chorused.
Boys with overprotective fathers have little in the world to be scared of, apart perhaps from homicidal clowns. But ever since he could remember, Ned had had an overwhelming fear of heights. He felt his stomach lurch as the Tortellinis flipped, lunged and somersaulted through the air. Up on the trapeze and high-wire they moved like mountain goats, as happy a hundred feet up as they were on the sawdust below.
The next act – ‘Mystero the Magnificent’ – came as a welcome relief to Ned. He wore a dinner jacket with a bow tie and was a slight, ill-looking man with pale, clammy skin and a serious disposition. How he managed to escape from the inside of a safe, without so much as a rattle, was completely beyond Ned. Ned knew more than most boys his age about how intricate a locking mechanism actually was. He pictured it in his mind, how the chained and padlocked escape artist might move in the cramped space of a safe, how he might try to unlock it. His father would have had an idea, Ned thought with a twinge. He always had an idea when it came to puzzles and plans. Again Ned felt restless in his seat, wishing he could talk to Benissimo.
But there was no time for that, as the next act took to the stage – a Frenchman who called himself Monsieur Couteau, and announced himself to be the finest blade in all of Europe. He was also wearing a blindfold. There were screams from the crowd as his razor-sharp sword cut a series of crossbow bolts from the air, each and every one of which had been aimed directly at his head. When the lights came up, only sawdust and matchsticks remained of his would-be assassins.
The acts went on and on. The Guffstavson brothers lit bulbs by placing them in their mouths. The Glimmerman walked through one mirror only to emerge through another, more than thirty feet away. Ned imagined an elaborate trap door and tunnel, hidden beneath the sawdust, but the Glimmerman had seemed to disappear and reappear in an instant.
As much as it made his head hurt, the final act was the strangest and most unsettling of all.
“Now,” announced Benissimo, “do not be alarmed. Though our next act has a terrifying aspect, I assure you, you are in no danger. Even so, our youngest members of the audience may wish to look away. Found as a small baby by my own hand, he is the largest gorilla in recorded history. I present to you, George the Mighty!”
Benissimo stepped back into the shadows. For a long time nothing happened. And then it came. A long drawn out wailing – a grunt – and then a deep thundering roar that silenced the big top. Curtains were pulled back to reveal a huge gorilla, at least twice the size of an ordinary ape. He snarled and bellowed at the audience, his mouth curling back over his gums angrily. Ned had never seen such real or ferocious rage.
There were several displays of George’s incredible strength. Metal pipes were bent, huge weights lifted and members of the audience duly terrified. And then it happened. As the ape snapped his last metal chair into countless broken pieces, he stopped moving, peered across the ring, and fixed his great dark eyes front row and centre, on Ned’s own. He grunted softly and then … smiled, a smile that seemed to be aimed directly at Ned.
Ned’s body tensed. He looked about him to see if he was mistaken and the giant gorilla was in fact looking at someone else, but at that moment the big top’s lights flared up. The crowd clapped and cheered. The show was over.
And then there it was again, that feeling, that from somewhere in the shadows, from way beyond the now empty stage, someone was watching him.
***
Outside the big top, the sky was a deep black. All the stalls had closed and just a few fairy lights pointed the way to the exit. Ned had no idea what he was supposed to do now. He had to find Benissimo, the Ringmaster was sure to be backstage somewhere and Ned’s head physically hurt with questions. When would he see his dad? Who were those clowns? What was the Circus of Marvels and was Ned really safe with them?
Happy Birthday, Ned, he thought to himself as the rest of the crowd walked off into the fog, chatting happily, back to their ordinary, clown-less homes. He turned back to the big top, ready to go and look for the Ringmaster, and came face to face with Rocky.
“Boy, come. Sleep,” announced his surly bodyguard.
“Erm, I … I still need to see Benissimo. It’s urgent. My dad sent me, Terry Waddlesworth, do you know him? Is he safe?”
“Niet niet. Now tomorrow you meet boss, mek questions.”
Ned protested as Rocky shepherded him towards a clearing surrounded by cages, with one large container at its centre. The cages were empty and around the entrance to the central container, which was apparently his new bedroom, were multiple signs – ‘NO ENTRY’, ‘KEEP OUT’ and ‘DANGER’, each one larger than the next.
“Are you sure this is right? This is where I’m sleeping?” asked Ned spinning round, but Rocky had gone. Ned’s sense of humour was beginning to wear thin. His phone still had half a bar of batteries; it was time to try Dad.
“Hello, Dad?” he blurted out as soon as the phone stopped ringing, “I’m not having a very good time here! This place is really weird and I still don’t know what’s going o—”
“The number you are calling is no longer in service.”
Ned’s heart skipped a beat, then another. What had happened to his dad’s phone?
“Just come and get me, Dad …” he whispered.
But the recording at the other end of the line had nothing left to say. It wasn’t fair. You couldn’t treat someone like a rare piece of china for years then abandon them to some freakshow without the slightest explanation. Ned had wanted to be free, but not like this.
He reached for the metal box in his pocket and was about to hurl it away angrily, when he heard what sounded like soft scratchy music being played on an old gramophone. He followed its trail to the door of the container and stepped through. What he found inside was something between a library and a home. In place of plain walls, were row after row of leather-bound books, with strange titles like, Tales from Beyond the Veil, What Hides from the Hidden, and From Shalazaar to Karakoum – A Traveller’s Compendium.
The back of the room was shrouded in shadows, but when Ned stepped further in he could make out a huge leather armchair, and, peering closer, to Ned’s horror, sat in the chair was … George the Mighty. And yet, the terrifying ape looked quite calm. He was chewing a banana and reading from an old book through delicate, steel-rimmed spectacles.
Ned blinked, and wondered for the millionth time that day if this could all still be a dream. At that moment the ape turned his head towards Ned, laid his book to one side and got up from the chair. Ned could feel his legs starting to tremble. George lumbered closer and closer, with each pace the container rocked back and forth, till they were only inches