Read Online The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis by Michael de Larrabeiti - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Michael de Larrabeiti
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic
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and trailers that carried the tons of equipment that Buffoni’s circus and fairground needed when it was on the road: tents and guy ropes; generators and miles and miles of heavy, all-weather cable; cages for the animals; containers for their food and of course all the huge four-wheeled caravans where the circus people lived when they travelled.
The noise of diesel engines was overpowering. Burly men in torn and dirty jeans and sweaters were testing the generators and a deep throbbing roar came from everywhere. Voices bawled from several loudspeakers at once; riggers were hammering nails and sawing bits of noggin. It was all chaos; it was all urgency and bustle.
At the centre of all this activity was the big top. Around it, in a semicircle, were arranged the sideshows and the cages of the menagerie, forming rows like the spokes of a wheel so that people could stroll up and down and see all there was to see and enjoy all there was to enjoy.
‘It’s only a little big top,’ explained Ninch as they stood before it, ‘but it’s big enough for us. We can get four hundred people into it.’
Napoleon sniffed the air as if it smelt of coppers, as suspicious in the morning as he had been the night before. ‘All the fairground people,’ he said, ‘adults, ain’t they? Wouldn’t they shop you to the SBG if they found out you were Borribles?’
Ninch laughed his laugh, rough like gravel. ‘No,’ he said. ‘First off travellers aren’t in love with Woollies, it’s a thing that’s bred into them.’
‘And second?’ asked Knocker. He looked up to the roof of the big top and watched a banner unfurling on the tallest flagpole. He read the words on it: BUFFONI’S—THE GREATEST LITTLE CIRCUS IN THE WORLD.
‘Second,’ said Ninch, ‘well, they think we’re ordinary dwarfs; that’s what we’re billed as, that’s what it says on the side of our caravan: BUFFONI’S FLYING DWARFS—THE AMAZING ACROBATS. We do trapeze work, slack wire stuff.’
‘Then you must be paid money,’ said Chalotte. ‘That’s not Borrible, is it? How do you square that?’
‘That’s a good ’un,‘Ninch said. ‘If we had any money, which we haven’t, we’d have to give it to Ronaldo Buffoni; he’s the guv’nor. It’s only because hardly anyone in the circus takes any wages that the whole thing keeps going. All that food to pay for, the animals, vets, costumes, lorries and trailers. Poor old Buffoni.’
‘Yes,’ said Scooter. ‘When Ninch and me first met we just used to follow this circus around. It was as good a way of keeping out the way of the Woollies as any other. There was always food and a place to sleep. Gradually we picked up the other Borribles, became friends with the Buffonis, learnt some circus tricks along the way—years ago that was. Then one day old Ronaldo said we could have our own sideshow as long as we didn’t cost him anything. He gave us the tent and the caravan.’
‘Working in exchange for food is the thin end of the wedge,’ said Chalotte, ‘however you look at it.’
Ninch shrugged his shoulders. ‘Depends really, doesn’t it? Nicking is work too. You have to go out and do it, don’t yer? Fruit of the barrow.’
The conversation was ended there and Ninch and Scooter now took the Borribles between the rows of small tents and stalls that housed the sideshows. There was fishing by numbers; a rifle range where moving metal birds and pipes were the targets; a Fat Lady’s tent; a Thin Man; a Bearded Lady who, according to Ninch, was really a man; a Siamese Sword Swallower; a One-Man Band who walked round and round the nearby streets and attracted customers with his music. There was Wanda, the One-Wheeled Witch, who performed juggling tricks on a monocycle; a fire-eater; Tanka the Tiger, a maneater from Bengal with
his keeper, Amurishi Patadi; a couple of chimpanzees and the only white rhinoceros in captivity. And at the end of it all there were two roundabouts: a slow one for children and a
The noise of diesel engines was overpowering. Burly men in torn and dirty jeans and sweaters were testing the generators and a deep throbbing roar came from everywhere. Voices bawled from several loudspeakers at once; riggers were hammering nails and sawing bits of noggin. It was all chaos; it was all urgency and bustle.
At the centre of all this activity was the big top. Around it, in a semicircle, were arranged the sideshows and the cages of the menagerie, forming rows like the spokes of a wheel so that people could stroll up and down and see all there was to see and enjoy all there was to enjoy.
‘It’s only a little big top,’ explained Ninch as they stood before it, ‘but it’s big enough for us. We can get four hundred people into it.’
Napoleon sniffed the air as if it smelt of coppers, as suspicious in the morning as he had been the night before. ‘All the fairground people,’ he said, ‘adults, ain’t they? Wouldn’t they shop you to the SBG if they found out you were Borribles?’
Ninch laughed his laugh, rough like gravel. ‘No,’ he said. ‘First off travellers aren’t in love with Woollies, it’s a thing that’s bred into them.’
‘And second?’ asked Knocker. He looked up to the roof of the big top and watched a banner unfurling on the tallest flagpole. He read the words on it: BUFFONI’S—THE GREATEST LITTLE CIRCUS IN THE WORLD.
‘Second,’ said Ninch, ‘well, they think we’re ordinary dwarfs; that’s what we’re billed as, that’s what it says on the side of our caravan: BUFFONI’S FLYING DWARFS—THE AMAZING ACROBATS. We do trapeze work, slack wire stuff.’
‘Then you must be paid money,’ said Chalotte. ‘That’s not Borrible, is it? How do you square that?’
‘That’s a good ’un,‘Ninch said. ‘If we had any money, which we haven’t, we’d have to give it to Ronaldo Buffoni; he’s the guv’nor. It’s only because hardly anyone in the circus takes any wages that the whole thing keeps going. All that food to pay for, the animals, vets, costumes, lorries and trailers. Poor old Buffoni.’
‘Yes,’ said Scooter. ‘When Ninch and me first met we just used to follow this circus around. It was as good a way of keeping out the way of the Woollies as any other. There was always food and a place to sleep. Gradually we picked up the other Borribles, became friends with the Buffonis, learnt some circus tricks along the way—years ago that was. Then one day old Ronaldo said we could have our own sideshow as long as we didn’t cost him anything. He gave us the tent and the caravan.’
‘Working in exchange for food is the thin end of the wedge,’ said Chalotte, ‘however you look at it.’
Ninch shrugged his shoulders. ‘Depends really, doesn’t it? Nicking is work too. You have to go out and do it, don’t yer? Fruit of the barrow.’
The conversation was ended there and Ninch and Scooter now took the Borribles between the rows of small tents and stalls that housed the sideshows. There was fishing by numbers; a rifle range where moving metal birds and pipes were the targets; a Fat Lady’s tent; a Thin Man; a Bearded Lady who, according to Ninch, was really a man; a Siamese Sword Swallower; a One-Man Band who walked round and round the nearby streets and attracted customers with his music. There was Wanda, the One-Wheeled Witch, who performed juggling tricks on a monocycle; a fire-eater; Tanka the Tiger, a maneater from Bengal with
his keeper, Amurishi Patadi; a couple of chimpanzees and the only white rhinoceros in captivity. And at the end of it all there were two roundabouts: a slow one for children and a
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