The Circus of Adventure

  ‘Like puffs of cotton wool,’ said Dinah. ‘I hope it’s going to be like this all the hols.’

  ‘I’m going to get the car,’ said Bill. ‘When I hoot I shall expect you all to be ready. Allie, you can sit in front with me, and Lucy-Ann must squeeze there too, somehow. The other four can go at the back. Luggage in the boot. And if anyone wants to be dumped on the road and left to walk, he or she has only got to behave badly, and I’ll dump them with pleasure.’

  ‘I really believe you would too, Bill,’ said Lucy-Ann.

  ‘Oh, not a doubt of it,’ said Bill, putting on such a grim face that poor Gussy was really alarmed. He made up his mind that he would behave superlatively well, and he immediately put on his finest manners. He opened doors for everyone. He bowed. He tried to take whatever Mrs Cunningham was carrying, and carry it for her. When he got into anyone’s way, which he did almost every minute, he sprang aside, bowed, and said:

  ‘Excuse, plizz. I pollygize.’

  ‘Polly put the kettle on,’ said Kiki, at once. ‘Polly, Polly-Polly-gize.’ Then she went off into an alarming cackle of laughter.

  ‘How’s your finger, Gus?’ asked Jack, politely.

  ‘It has stopped blidding,’ said Gus.

  ‘Well, I warn you – don’t try and play tricks with old Kiki,’ said Jack, ‘or she’ll go for you – make you blid again – much, much blid!’

  ‘Ah, wicket,’ said Gus. ‘I think that bird is not nice.’

  ‘I bet Kiki thinks the same of you!’ said Jack. ‘You’re standing in my way. You’d better move unless you want this suitcase biffing you in the middle.’

  ‘Excuse, plizz. I pollygize,’ said Gussy, hurriedly, and skipped out of the way.

  At last everything was ready. Mrs Cunningham’s cleaner came to see them off, promising to lock up after them, and come in every day to clean and dust. Bill was hooting loudly. Gussy was so terribly afraid of being left behind that he shot down the front path at top speed.

  Bill, Mrs Cunningham and Lucy-Ann squeezed themselves into the long front seat. The other four got into the back. Gussy shrank back when he saw that Kiki was going with them, apparently on Jack’s shoulder, next to him.

  Kiki made a noise like a cork being pulled out of a bottle – POP! Gussy jumped.

  Kiki cackled, and then popped another cork. ‘POP! Pop goes the weasel. Gussy. Fussy-Gussy Gussy-Fussy POP!

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, Gussy?’ said Jack, seeing the boy slipping from the seat down to the floor.

  ‘Excuse, plizz. I pollygize. The Kiki-bird, he spits in my ear – he goes POP!’ explained Gussy, from his seat on the floor.

  Everyone roared. ‘Don’t be an ass, Gussy,’ said Jack. ‘Come on up to the seat. Squeeze in at the other end if you like, next to Dinah. But I warn you – Kiki will wander all over the car when she’s tired of sitting on my shoulder.’

  ‘Blow your nose,’ said Kiki sternly, looking down at the surprised Gussy.

  ‘All ready, behind?’ called Bill, putting in the clutch. He pressed down the accelerator, the engine roared a little and the car moved off down the road.

  ‘Heavy load we’ve got,’ said Bill. ‘What a family! This car is going to grunt and groan up every hill!’

  It did, though it was a powerful car, and one that Bill used in his work. It swallowed up the miles easily, and Mrs Cunningham was pleased to think they would arrive at their destination before dark.

  ‘What is the name of the place we are going to, Aunt Allie?’ asked Lucy-Ann. ‘Oh yes, I remember – Little Brockleton. Are we having a cottage, or what?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aunt Allie. ‘It’s called Quarry Cottage, because an old quarry is nearby. It’s about a mile from the village, and I believe only a farmhouse is near. We can get eggs and butter and milk and bread from there, which is lucky.’

  ‘I shall ask about badgers as soon as I get there,’ said Philip, from the back. ‘I wish I could get a young badger. I’ve heard they make wonderful pets.’

  ‘There! I knew you’d start hunting out pets of some kind,’ said Dinah. ‘We never can have a holiday without your bringing in mice or birds or insects or even worse creatures.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of studying spiders these hols,’ said Philip, seriously. ‘Amazing creatures, spiders. Those great big ones, with hairy legs, are …’

  Dinah shivered at once. ‘Let’s change the subject,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why, but whenever anyone even mentions spiders I seem to feel one crawling down my back.’

  ‘Oh, gosh – don’t say my spider’s escaped!’ said Philip at once, and pretended to look through his pockets. Gussy watched him in alarm. He didn’t like spiders either.

  Dinah gave a small shriek. ‘Don’t be mean, Philip – please, please. You haven’t really got a big spider, have you?’

  ‘Philip!’ called his mother warningly. ‘You’ll be dumped in the road. Remember what Bill said.’

  ‘All right. I haven’t got a spider,’ said Philip, regretfully. ‘You can sit in safety, Di. I say, Gus, aren’t you uncomfortable down there, on the floor, among our feet? I keep forgetting you’re there. I hope I haven’t wiped my feet on you yet.’

  ‘That is not a nice thing to spik,’ said Gussy, with dignity. ‘I will be angry to have your feets wiped on me.’

  ‘Let’s play a game,’ said Jack, seeing an argument developing. ‘We’ll look out for black dogs – white cats – piebald horses – red bicycles – and ice cream vans. The one who is last to reach a hundred must stop at the next ice cream van and buy ices for us all!’

  This sounded exciting to Gussy. He scrambled up from the floor at once, and squeezed himself beside Dinah. Bill and Mrs Cunningham heaved a sigh of relief. Now there would be quite a bit of peace – everyone would be looking out and counting hard.

  Gussy was not at all good at this game. He missed any amount of black dogs and white cats, and kept counting ordinary horses instead of piebald ones. He looked very miserable when he was told that he couldn’t put all the brown and white horses he had seen into his score.

  ‘He’s going to cry!’ said Philip. ‘Wait, Gus, wait. Take my hanky.’

  And he pulled out one of the kitchen tablecloths, which he had neatly purloined just before coming away, in spite of his mother’s threats.

  Gussy found the tablecloth pushed into his hands. He looked at in astonishment – and then he began to laugh!

  ‘Ha ha! Ho ho! This is cloth, not hanky! I will not weep in this. I will laugh!’

  ‘Good for you, Gussy!’ said Jack, giving him a pat on the back. ‘Laugh away. We like that!’

  It was quite a surprise to everyone to find that Gussy could actually laugh at a joke against himself. They began to think he might not be so bad after all. He stopped playing the counting game after that, but displayed even more surprising behaviour at the end of the game.

  Lucy-Ann was last to reach a hundred. She felt in her little purse for her money, knowing that she must buy ice creams for everyone, because she had lost the game.

  ‘Please, Bill, will you stop at the next ice cream van?’ she said. So Bill obligingly stopped.

  But before Lucy-Ann could get out, Gussy had opened the door at the back, shot out and raced to the ice cream van. ‘Seven, plizz,’ he said.

  ‘Wait! I lost, not you!’ shouted Lucy-Ann, half indignant. Then she stared. Gussy had taken a wallet out of his pocket – a wallet, not a purse! And from it he took a wad of notes – good gracious, however many had he got? He peeled off the top one and gave it to the ice cream man, who was as surprised as anyone else.

  ‘You come into a fortune, mate?’ asked the ice cream man. ‘Or is your dad a millionaire?’

  Gussy didn’t understand. He took his change and put it into his pocket. Then he carried the ice creams back to the car, and handed round one each, beaming all over his face.

  ‘Thanks, Gus,’ said Bill, accepting his. ‘But look here, old chap – you can’t carry all that money about with yo
u, you know.’

  ‘I can,’ said Gussy ‘All the term I had it here in my pocket. It is my pocket money, I think. They said I could have pocket money.’

  ‘Hm, yes. But a hundred pounds or so in notes is hardly pocket money,’ began Bill. ‘Yes, yes – I know you kept it in your pocket, but real pocket money is – is – oh, you explain, boys.’

  It proved to be very difficult to explain that all those pound notes were not pocket money merely because Gussy kept them in his pocket. ‘You ought to have handed them in at your school,’ said Philip.

  ‘They said I could have pocket money,’ said Gussy, obstinately. ‘My uncle gave it to me. It is mine.’

  Your people must be jolly rich,’ said Jack. ‘I bet even Bill doesn’t wander round with as many notes as that. Is Gus a millionaire or something, Bill?’

  ‘Well – his people are well off,’ said Bill. He slipped in the clutch again and the car slid off. ‘All the same, he’ll have to hand over those notes to me. He’ll be robbed sooner or later.’

  ‘He’s going to cry,’ reported Dinah. ‘Philip, quick – where’s that tablecloth?’

  ‘I am not going to weep,’ said Gussy, with dignity. ‘I am going to be sick. Always I am sick in a car. I was yesterday. Plizz, Mr Cunningham, may I be sick?’

  ‘Good gracious!’ said Bill, stopping very suddenly indeed. ‘Get out of the car, then, quick! Push him out, Dinah. Why, oh, why did I let him have that ice cream? He told me yesterday he was always carsick.’

  Mrs Cunningham got out to comfort poor Gussy, who was now green in the face. ‘He would be carsick!’ said Dinah. ‘Just the kind of thing he’d have – carsickness.’

  ‘He can’t help it,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘Anyway, it’s all over now. He looks fine.’

  ‘Plizz, I am better,’ announced Gussy, climbing back in the car.

  ‘Keep the cloth,’ said Philip, pushing it at him. ‘It might come in useful if you feel ill again.’

  ‘Everyone ready?’ called Bill. ‘Well, off we go again. We’ll stop for lunch at one o’clock, and then we’ll be at Little Brockleton by tea time, I hope. Gussy, yell if you feel queer again.’

  ‘I am only sick once,’ said Gussy. ‘Plizz, I have lost my ice cream. Will you stop for another?’

  ‘I will not,’ said Bill, firmly. ‘You’re not having any more ice creams in the car. Doesn’t anyone want a nap? It would be so nice for me to drive in peace and quietness! Well, next stop, lunch!’

  5

  Quarry Cottage

  Little Brockleton was a dear little village. The car ran through it, scattering hens and a line of quacking ducks. Bill stopped at a little post office.

  ‘Must just send off a message,’ he said. ‘Won’t be a minute. Then we’ll go and call at the farmhouse to ask the way to Quarry Cottage, and to pick up eggs and things, and order milk.’

  He reappeared again after a moment. The children knew that Bill had to report where he was each day, because urgent jobs might come his way at any moment – secret tasks that only he could do.

  They went off to the farmhouse. The farmer’s wife was delighted to see them. ‘Now, you come away in,’ she said. ‘I’ve been expecting you this last half-hour, and I’ve got tea for you. You won’t find anything ready at the cottage, I know, and a good tea will help you along.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Mrs Cunningham, gratefully. ‘My goodness – what a spread!’

  It certainly was. It wasn’t an ordinary afternoon tea, it was a high tea. A fresh ham, glistening pink. A veal and ham pie smothered in green parsley, like the ham. Yellow butter in glass dishes. A blue jug of thick yellow cream. Honey. Home-made strawberry jam. Hot scones. A large fruitcake as black as a plum pudding inside. Egg sandwiches. Tea, cocoa and creamy milk.

  ‘I’m absolutely determined to live on a farm when I’m grown up,’ said Jack, looking approvingly at all the food on the big round table. ‘I never saw such food as farm houses have. I say, isn’t this smashing?’

  Gussy felt glad that Mrs Cunningham had insisted that he should eat very little at lunch time. He felt sure he had an appetite three times bigger than anyone else’s.

  ‘What will you have?’ asked the farmer’s wife, kindly, seeing his hungry look.

  ‘I will have some – some pig meat,’ said Gussy. ‘And some pie meat with it. And I will have some cream with it, and …’

  ‘He’s a little comedian isn’t he?’ said the farmer’s wife, with a laugh. ‘Pig meat! Does he mean ham? And surely he’ll be sick if I pour cream over it all?’

  ‘Cut him a little ham, if you will,’ said Mrs Cunningham. ‘No pie. He can’t possibly eat both. And of course not the cream!’

  ‘I have ordered my meal,’ said Gustavus, in a very haughty voice, staring at the surprised farmer’s wife. ‘I will have what I say. Plizz,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘Shut up, Gus,’ said Bill. ‘You’ll do as you’re told. You’re forgetting yourself.’

  ‘I have not forgot myself,’ said Gus, puzzled. ‘I have remembered myself, and I want…’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Bill, and Gus shut up.

  The others grinned. It was nice to see Bill squashing Gussy Gussy was very angry. He glared at Bill, and seemed about to say something. But Bill looked across at him, and he didn’t say it. Bill winked at the others, and they winked back.

  ‘Fussy-Gussy,’ remarked Kiki, from Jack’s left shoulder. ‘Ding-dong-bell, Gussy’s in the well.’

  ‘Pussy’s in the well, not Gussy,’ corrected Jack. ‘Oh, you pest – you’ve nabbed a strawberry out of the jam!’

  The farmer’s wife took Kiki in her stride, and was not unduly surprised at her, nor annoyed. ‘My old aunt had a parrot once,’ she said. ‘One like yours here. She didn’t talk as well as yours though.’

  ‘Is she alive?’ asked Jack, thinking that it would be fun to put the two parrots together and see them eyeing one another. What kind of conversation would they have?

  ‘Is who alive? My aunt or her parrot?’ asked the famer’s wife, pouring out cups of creamy milk. ‘The parrot’s dead. It was supposed to be over a hundred years old when it died. My old aunt is still alive, though. There she is, sitting by the fire over in the corner. She’s my great-aunt really, and she’ll be more than a hundred if she lives another ten years.’

  The five children stared in awe at the old woman in the corner. She looked rather like a witch to them, but her eyes were faded blue, instead of green. She smiled a dim smile at them, and then bent her white head to her knitting again.

  ‘She’s a real worry sometimes,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘She wanders round and falls about, you know. And the doctor’s off on a week’s holiday soon, and what I shall do if old Aunt Naomi falls and hurts herself then, I don’t know! There’s no neighbours near but you – and you’re a good bit away!’

  ‘You send a message to us if you want us at any time,’ said Mrs Cunningham at once. ‘I’ll certainly come. I am quite good at first-aid and nursing. So don’t worry about the doctor going. Send a message if you want us.’

  ‘Ah, yes – I could do that,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘Thank you kindly. Now – who wants a bit of that fruitcake? It’s good, though I shouldn’t say it, seeing that I made it myself

  ‘If I eat any more I shan’t be able to move a step,’ said Bill, at last. ‘Will you kindly make up your minds to finish, you kids? We’ll get along to Quarry Cottage, and settle in. Did you manage to send someone in to clean up the place for us, Mrs Ellis?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘And she took eggs, milk, a pie, some home-made cheese, ham and butter and new bread for you. Oh yes, and a side of bacon. You won’t do too badly down there! Come along to me when you want anything. I hope you have a good, restful holiday.’

  They left the cosy farmhouse reluctantly. Jack eyed Gussy suspiciously as the got into the car. ‘You look a bit green,’ he said. ‘Sure you’ll be all right in the car?’

  ‘He’ll be
all right,’ said Mrs Cunningham, hurriedly. ‘It’s not very far – he’ll be quite all right.’

  ‘Wishful thinking, Aunt Allie!’ said Jack. ‘Kiki’s very quiet. Kiki, you’ve made a pig of yourself too – a little pig, eating such a big tea!’

  Kiki gave a big hiccup. Nobody ever knew if her hiccups were real or put on. Mrs Cunningham always felt quite certain that they were put on.

  ‘Kiki!’ said Jack, severely. ‘Manners, manners!’

  ‘Pardon,’ said Kiki. Gussy stared at her in amazement. It was surprising enough for a parrot to hiccup, but even more surprising that she should apologize! He quite forgot to feel sick because of his astonishment at Kiki.

  Down a winding lane – up a little hill – down another lane whose hedges were so high that the children felt they were in a green tunnel. Round a sharp bend, and then there was Quarry Cottage, standing a little way back from the lane.

  It was a pretty place, its garden full of primroses, wallflowers and daffodils. The people who owned it had gone to the South of France for a holiday, and had been pleased to let it to Bill.

  The windows were rather small, as they always are in old cottages. The door was stout, made of oak darkened by the years, and was protected by a small porch, thatched with straw like the sloping roof of the cottage.

  ‘A thatched cottage – how lovely!’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘I don’t know why, but thatched houses always look as if they belong to fairy-tales, not to real life. It’s a dear little place.’

  They went up the path. Bill had the key and unlocked the door. In they all went, exclaiming over everything.

  ‘I need hardly remind you that this house, and everything in it, belongs to someone else,’ said Mrs Cunningham. ‘So that we’ll have to be extra careful – but as you will probably be out of doors most of the day you won’t have time to do much damage!’

  ‘We shouldn’t anyway,’ said Jack. ‘Not with Bill here ready to jump on us!’

  The cottage was just as pretty inside as out, and very cosy and comfortable. The three boys had a big attic, the two girls had a small bedroom over the sitting room, and Bill and his wife had a larger one next to it.