George was an excellent artist.
"I am," the Ringmaster replied, still smiling.
"We've seen no circus," said another girl, Angela Lee, from the right-hand side of the classroom.
"No," the man replied, "I don't imagine you have." Then he asked, "But have you been looking?" With that, he waved his hand in front of the classroom window; the circus parade promptly passed before it.
"How, how did you do that?" asked Barmy Bernard, scratching his head, mightily impressed.
"Yes, how did you do that?" asked Tinkering Tommy.
Laughing nonchalantly, dismissing their concerns with another wave of his hand, the man said, "Come, come to the Circus of Grotesques, it will change your life forever..."
"The Circus of Grotesques?" Horrible Horace asked. "I've never heard of it!"
Twirling his cloak around him, the man repeated his last sentence, "Come, come to the Circus of Grotesques, it will change your life forever." In a huge puff of smoke, he disappeared from sight.
Getting up from his seat, Tinkering Tommy searched, but in vain, to see where he had gone.
"Look!" said Barmy Bernard, pointing out the window. "The circus parade has also disappeared!" He was right; there was no sign of the circus parade to be seen - anywhere.
"Well I never!" said Tinkering Tommy, thinking he had now seen everything.
Returning to his seat, Barmy Bernard (despite having absolutely no idea how the Ringmaster had actually down it) said, "It's a trick - it has to be!"
Just then, far less dramatically than the Ringmaster's entrance - and departure - Mr Lowe entered the classroom.
"Books out," he ordered. "Turn to page one hundred and forty-one."
Forgetting about the Ringmaster, Barmy Bernard whispered, "One hundred and forty-one, isn't that the page we were on, yesterday, when he asked what the capital of Australia was?"
Yes, it is," replied Horrible Horace, recalling it all too clearly.
Throwing a piece of chalk at the two talkative boys, Mr Lowe secured their attention. "If you will be so good," he said sarcastically, "as to allow me to continue?"
Horrible Horace and Barmy Bernard, knowing only too well what he was capable of doing, remained perfectly still, as silent as the grave.
"Hmm," said the crazy-mad teacher, "I suppose that will do - but if I hear the slightest peep from either of you..." He threw another piece of chalk at them. It missed by a wide margin, striking Tommy Tilbert's head, instead.
"OW! That hurt!" said the unfortunate child. Placing a hand over his mouth, he prayed that Mr Lowe had not heard him.
Mr Lowe did not hear Tommy Tilbert. You see, having turned over the page of his geography book, from Australia to the Pacific Ocean, he was lost, distracted by the myriad islands therein.
When Mr Lowe resumed speaking, it was about the war, when he was still in the army, fighting the Japanese, in Burma. "They had it bad in some of these islands," he said pounding the book with a fist. "Hawaii, the New Hebrides - or whatever they now call it -, the Philippians and a whole lot more besides. Dirty rotten Japanese!" He slammed his fist into the book, so hard he dropped it.
A few children laughed nervously when this happened.
"Ah, so you think it's funny?" he said, his eyes scanning the classroom to locate the culprits, those who had dared laugh at so serious a subject. "Was it you, John Morris?" he asked, pointing a bony finger at him.
"Me? No! No sir!" the poor boy replied. "I never said anything, not even one word!"
For a moment Mr Lowe honed in on Vomituos Veronica, then remembering what she had done the previous day, how she had vomited all over the place, he thought better of it. Turning his attention to another pupil, also a girl, the crazy-mad teacher asked, "How about you, Marilyn Walters? Was it you I heard laughing?"
The poor girl almost died of fright when he said this. She was so scared she was unable to answer.
Thinking he had found the culprit, Mr Lowe zeroed in on her. Storming down the aisle, he arrived at the terrified girl's desk. "So," he said, "what have you to say for yourself, huh?"
"The girl, however, frightened for her life, said nothing.
"Has the cat got your tongue?" he asked, tapping the top of her head with a piece of chalk.
"Leave her alone, you big bully!" a voice suddenly rang out.
Ask me a Question!
Turning round, wondering who had dared say such a thing, Mr Lowe saw Horrible Horace standing defiantly at his desk.
"So, it's you again!" he snarled. "Perhaps we should give you another test?" he said, retracing his steps until he arrived at the Horrible pupil's desk. "With the same rules as before," he said threateningly, "a good caning for every answer you get wrong."
"You can give me any test you like, about anywhere in the world," Horrible Horace replied, "especially about Australia, because I know all the answers for that country."
"Tut-tutting, the old man said, "Yesterday I asked you a question about that large and rugged country, and you were unable to answer it correctly. What makes you such an expert on it, now?"
"My answer was correct!" the Horrible pupil retorted, "and well you know it!"
"I have no intention of reopening that debate," the old man replied, without an semblance of stress in his voice.
"Ask me a question, another one, if you are so sure of yourself!" Horrible Horace barked. "Any question you like!"
After picking up the fallen geography book, Mr Lowe returned to his desk, where he thought about Horrible Horace's request. He firmly believed the errant child needed another good caning, so he said, "Very well, I will ask you about Australia - but three questions, not one!"
The children gasped when they heard this, worried for Horrible Horace's bottom.
"One, two, three, it makes no difference how many you ask," Horrible Horace replied. Then he added, "I also have a condition, though, two of them to be precise."
Lifting his head up from his book, Mr Lowe replied, "You are in no position to be making demands, no position at all." Grasping his cane (the children had no idea where it had come from, because it had not been on his desk, seconds earlier) the crazy-mad teacher began flexing and stretching it, and then swinging it through the air, for practice.
Standing his ground, Horrible Horace waited for the old man to accept his proposal, the two conditions.
The atmosphere in the classroom became decidedly chilly, with Mr Lowe eyeballing the errant boy, and the boy brazening it out, staring right back at him.
After what seemed like an eternity, Mr Lowe spoke, he said, "What are they, your conditions?"
Grinning, Horrible Horace replied, "The first condition is this; for each question about Australia that I answer correctly, I will be allowed to ask you one."
Seeing no harm in this, Mr Lowe readily agreed to this condition. "And the second one?" he asked, bemused by the child's antics.
"The second one is this; in the same way that I will be caned for every incorrect answer I furnish, you will have to take a forfeit for each one that you answer incorrectly."
It took Mr Lowe some considerable time to reply to this condition. While they were waiting for him to answer, the children watched, entranced by three veins in his temple, pulsing, dancing a merry jig to the tune of his brain's troubled workings.
Coughing, clearing his throat (Barmy Bernard was sure one of Mr Lowe's eyes twitched nervously when he did this), the crazy-mad teacher parking his cane on top of his desk accepted the second condition. "I agree," he said, coughing again.
Every child in the classroom let out a cheer for Horrible Horace.
Holding up his hands, calming the children's exuberance, Mr Lowe said, "Master Horace, since it was your idea, our little test, I think it only right that I ask the first question."
Gasps, there were gasps of dread when the children heard this, because they truly believed Mr Lowe was capable of anything, including cheating.
"Okay," he replied, without the slightest hesitation. "It makes no di
fference to me."
Rubbing his hands, like Scrooge when counting his money, Mr Lowe, enjoying the moment, thinking he was on a winner, racked his brains for the most difficult question he could think of.
"The first question," he said, smiling uncannily like the Ringmaster whom he had not even seen, "is this. What is the nickname that Queenslanders' have given to Grass Trees?"
"Grass Trees, you say?" asked the Horrible pupil, teasing him out.
Mr Lowe, however, not intending to give anything away, made no reply, not a word passed his wrinkly old lips.
There was another long pause. The children wondered if their Horrible classmate had bitten off more than he could chew.
When he replied, smiling impishly, Horrible Horace said, "Black Boys, they are called Black Boys."
Mr Lowe was flabbergasted that a child might know such a thing, especially since this information was not in the class geography book. "How, how did you know that?" he asked, thereby admitting the child was right.
On hearing these words, every child in the classroom let out a cheer for Horrible Horace.
With another impish smile, Horrible Horace said, "Geography is my favourite lesson. I have read ever book there is on the subject."
"It is? You have?" the old teacher asked, sideswiped by this revelation.
"Yes, everyone knows that," he replied.
"In that case," said the crazy-mad teacher, "the next question will have to be harder, much harder..."
"Hold your horses," said the Horrible pupil. "Haven't you forgotten something?"
"I don't think so," the old man replied in all honesty, having forgotten all about his part of the bargain.
"It's my