Read Online Circus of Thieves on the Rampage by William Sutcliffe and David Tazzyman - Free Book Online Page B

it was still a long walk to Hannah’s seat, which was
at the very front, in the very middle, with lots of legroom and even a cushion specially shaped for posh bottoms. This was the best seat in the house.
    But Hannah soon forgot how good her seat was, because once the show started she forgot everything about everything. She was, quite simply, mesmerised.

    Billy, only a minute or two after Hannah, also walked into the Oh, Wow! auditorium, and he, too, said the only thing you can say when you walk into the Oh, Wow!, except that for
him it was a very short walk from the entrance to his seat at the back, which had no legroom and no cushion and as much view of the stage as a birdwatcher might get of a migrating goose. This was
the worst seat in the house.
    But Billy soon forgot how bad his seat was, because once the show started he forgot everything about everything. He was, quite simply, mesmerised.

    First up was Cissy Noodles and her swimming poodles, though to call them swimming poodles is to seriously underplay their talents, because they also dived, leapt, danced, barked
amusing arrangements of popular songs, played underwater snooker and rode a motorised surfboard in an arrangement that is usually called a human pyramid, but in this case was a poodle pyramid.
    After that came the Aquabats of Arabia, seven of them, all of whom seemed to have only a loose acquaintance with the laws of gravity. They flew through the air, darted through the water, and
flung each other from one element to the other in a series of manoeuvres that made them seem weightless and amphibian and impossibly strong and perfectly balanced and essentially like a troupe of
exquisitely choreographed man-bird-fishes. They did this dressed in costumes so tight-fitting that it didn’t seem like they were wearing any costume at all, except for the fact that sometimes
it looked like skin, sometimes like glistening scales, sometimes like feathers.
    When they left the stage, to the sound of uproarious, roof-lifting applause, more than half the audience turned to the person next to them and asked, ‘Did that just happen? Were they
human?’
    Next up was Bunny Weasel and her synchronised otters. If you’ve never seen a synchronised otter show, the important thing to understand here is that it’s pretty much what it sounds
like. Otters. Synchronised. But you have to see this to know how incredibly cute it is. Because even otters out of synch are cute. In synch, the whole thing just goes off the top of the cuteness
chart. 32 The otters’ tea party with which Bunny finished her act usually resulted in several audience-member faintings. Tonight was no exception,
and ambulance crews were on hand at all the exits with cute-attack revival kits (i.e. buckets of cold water).
    After that was Ruggles Pynchon, who did such an extraordinary disappearing act that the collective gasp was so loud, it made a passing meteorologist send out a hurricane warning.
    I won’t go through the whole show, because that will just make you jealous that you missed it, but I must describe to you the final act, which was, of course, Queenie Bombazine
herself.
    Normal trapeze artists swing from a trapeze. Queenie didn’t seem to do this. The trapeze was there – it was part of the act – but she hardly needed it. She appeared to fly
through the air all of her own accord, backwards and forwards, twisting and flipping and somersaulting and swirling without ever seeming to need the trapeze to catch or propel her. And, of course,
there was also the diving and swimming, the way she moved through water like a dolphin, never using her arms, needing only ripples of movement through her torso and legs to zoom her wherever she
wanted to go. Everything she did looked at the same time utterly impossible and totally effortless.

    So breathtaking was her performance that some members of the audience literally forgot to breathe, leading to more faintings and emergency revivals.
    The whole