Barkbelly Page 3

  Down below, Barkbelly was spellbound.

  She shimmered.

  She shone.

  She danced like a snowflake.

  She was brave. She was wonderful.

  She was falling. …

  She fell like rain from the darkness above. A scrap of white, like a dove with a broken wing. People screamed, covered their mouths with their hands and stared in horror. Barkbelly jumped to his feet and yelled, “No-o-o-o-o-o-o!”

  … and she opened an umbrella and started to float down to earth. Light as thistledown, she landed on her feet without even disturbing the sawdust.

  The crowd went wild. The roar was so loud that the girl was almost blown over by it. Everyone shouted and screamed at once—in excitement, in relief, in sheer wonder at the brilliance of it all.

  Barkbelly glanced across the ring and saw Candy Pie. She was bouncing up and down in her seat, hugging herself in delight. And three rows behind her, Freckle Flannagan was in tears. Freckle Flannagan! In tears! It was unbelievable. Everyone thought Freckle was a boy. She had cropped hair, never wore dresses and could spit farther than Moth Williams. No one would have dreamed she could cry like a girl, but there she was, sitting in a daze, with tears shining on her cheeks.

  Barkbelly wondered how the show could possibly get any better, but it did. Carmenero's Circus was as sensational as its posters promised. Act followed act in an endlessly entertaining spectacle. There were acrobats, jugglers and fire-eaters. Trapeze artists who scythed the air like swallows. Shadow lions with ghost-gray coats and tasseled tails. A strong man who wrestled with iron bars, bending them into horseshoes round his neck while his veins bulged blue. A human cannonball who flew to the top of the tent and nose-dived down into a net. And there was a clown called Slippers who fired a bubble gun straight at Farmer Bunkum, soaking his pants, while everyone howled with laughter and said he couldn't have chosen a better target.

  All too soon, Carmenero strode into the ring and announced the finale. The band, dripping with sweat, played a circus march and all the performers stomped round the ring. They waved, smiled, blew kisses to the crowd. Then someone screamed. The performers scattered—and in ran ten skunks with blue ribbons round their necks.

  They charged across the ring in all directions, jumped up onto the little wooden wall that surrounded it, pointed their bottoms at the audience, lifted their tails and—pssss!— long streams of stink arced through the air and showered the crowd. Everyone squealed and squirmed in their seats. But the air was filled with the smell of roses! A warm, glorious scent, like a garden on a warm summer's evening. And everyone sighed, and laughed, and hugged each other, and the show was over.

  Chapter 6

  fterward—when the crowd had gone home, the costumes had been hung up, the makeup washed off, the popcorn swept up, the animals fed—Barkbelly sat on the steps of a wagon and listened to circus tales. Jewel, the storyteller, was the oldest woman he had ever seen. Her face was nothing but wrinkles. Her hair was as silver as the rings on her twisted fingers. But her eyes shone like a girl's as she told him about her days as a trapeze artist.

  “I performed with my sisters,” she said. “We were called the Dragonflies. We wore spangled costumes—dark purple, blue, green—and when we flew through the air, we were a beautiful sight. Have you ever watched dragonflies? You know the way they hang in the air? As if there's nothing holding them up except their own joy of flying? That's how we looked. Especially my little sister, Rain. When she flew, people forgot to breathe. She was so lovely.” The old woman smiled and sipped her tea. “You remember Gossamer—the girl who danced on the high wire tonight? She's Rain's great- granddaughter. She's got something of Rain's spirit in her, that's for sure.”

  Jewel paused and peered into the darkness. She beckoned. “Come! Come! Don't be shy. Everyone's welcome here.”

  Freckle Flannagan slid out of the shadows and joined them. Barkbelly saw a strange glow on her face that he'd never seen before. She looked quite different: suddenly grown up and yet very young, both at the same time.

  They sat outside the wagon until well past midnight, Barkbelly the wooden boy and Freckle the reluctant girl. Above them, the constellations grazed across the night sky. Beneath them, the grass grew damp with dew. But still they sat on, listening to Jewel's tales. They were stories she had told a hundred times before, but her smile suggested she'd happily tell them a hundred times more.

  Her words flowed like wild honey, and Barkbelly and Freckle feasted like forest bears. For three magical nights, when the show was over they came to listen. On the final night, Jewel talked about her love of the circus.

  “In this life,” she said, “I have been blessed. I have had the love of two families: my real family and my circus family—all the people you see around you now. The circus is a magical place to be. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from; you are what you are and that's all that matters. And if you want to be something else—well, you can! Circus folk are like caterpillars. Every night, we put on our glitter and our spangles. We paint our faces. We smile. And out we come like butterflies. And just for those few minutes when we're in the ring, with the lanterns shining down on us, we are whatever we want to be. That is an amazing thing.

  “There's a lot of love here. On the road, traveling around, we all work together. We have to. And sometimes it's hard work, and sometimes it rains and you're soaked to the skin, but you go on. Because you know there will be better times. Magical times. On the trapeze, when you see the faces looking up at you like daisies in a field. Or late at night, when the campfires are burning and you're sitting under the stars, and all the people you love are around you…. Oh, those are very special moments and I wouldn't have missed them for the world. Not for anything.”

  By morning, the camp had disappeared. Barkbelly saw an empty space where the great tent had been. Flattened grass where the wagons had stood. Flame-blackened circles where the cooking fires had glowed. All that remained of the circus was a forgotten poster, clinging damply to a tree. Everything seemed gray, forlorn and desperately ordinary.

  But Fish was still breathless with excitement.

  “Have you heard?” he gasped, running into the playground. “Someone's run off with the circus!”

  “No!” cried the gang in unison. “Who?”

  “I don't know,” said Fish, coughing as he tried to catch his breath. “But I do know it's a girl.”

  Barkbelly closed his eyes and saw Freckle, sitting on the wagon step beside him. He could remember the look on her face: her shining eyes, with that faraway, lost look; her glowing cheeks, pink with excitement; her teeth, biting her bottom lip as she dreamed of running away.

  “It's Freckle Flannagan,” he said.

  “Can't be,” said Log. “She's there—look.”

  Freckle was walking in through the playground gates, swinging her bag and singing one of the circus tunes.

  Barkbelly ran over to her.

  “I thought you'd run away with the circus!” he said.

  “Why?” asked Freckle.

  “Because someone has,” explained Barkbelly.

  “No—why me?” said Freckle. “Why did you think it was me?”

  “Because—” He stopped in a fluster, realizing that his reasons weren't entirely complimentary.

  “Because you think I'm a misfit?” pressed Freckle, reading his mind. “You think that speech about wanting to be someone else would appeal to me?”

  Barkbelly squirmed. Freckle smiled and went on, enjoying herself.

  “You think I want to be a boy? And if I ran away with the circus, I could pretend to be one? Listen. As much as I loved Jewel, as much as I loved the stories and the things she told us, I would never run off with the circus. Never. I want to be a doctor. I have to study. And I don't want to be a boy, I want to be an adult. But at the moment I'm not. And if I'm looking for company, well, I prefer boys. I don't really like girly things. I don't like dressing up, or fiddling with hair, or whispering i
n corners, or telling secrets. And let's face it, the world doesn't need another Candy Pie. Incidentally, she's the one who's run off with the circus.”

  “Candy Pie? Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” said Freckle. “I saw her mother leaving their house this morning. She's going after her.”

  The bell rang. Barkbelly and Freckle went into school and the day began. Life was back to normal. It was as if the circus had never been there at all. Except there was one empty chair in the classroom and one empty hook in the cloakroom. And there was silence when Miss Dillwater reached Candy Pie's name on the register.

  Chapter 7

  arkbelly sat on the fence outside the cottage, watching his father plant cabbages. School was over for summer. Ahead of him stretched the long, empty holidays, with nothing to do but laze and dream.

  “Son,” said Gable Gantry, “a big strapping lad like you can't sit in the sun all day for weeks, doing nothing. It'll addle your brain. You need a job. A proper job, working with men. And—” He paused dramatically. “I've got you one!”

  Barkbelly couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was terrible news.

  “You start tomorrow,” said Gable proudly. “Working for Farmer Muckledown. Helping with the urchins.”

  “What's an urchin?”

  “What's an urchin? Bless me, son, don't you know? What do they teach you at that school? It's a hedgehog! That's what an urchin is. But Farmer Muckledown doesn't keep ordinary ones, like you find in a hedgerow. Oh, no! His are much grander than that.”

  “What will I be doing?”

  “Oh, fetching and carrying. Cleaning the sheds. Things like that.”

  “Will he be paying me?”

  “Of course he'll be paying you! It's a proper job, like I said. Anyway, you'll find out all these things tomorrow.”

  Muckledown Farm lay on the far side of Ferny Wood, so Barkbelly had to start out early. The mist was still ribboning across the fields when he saw the sign:

  MUCKLEDOWN FARM

  ~ HOME OF CHAMPION URCHINS ~

  Proprietor: Farmer Mallet Muckledown

  Beyond the gates, a long gravel path led straight to a farmhouse surrounded by barns and sheds. But Barkbelly was more interested in the activity to the left of the path. A man was driving a herd of hedgehogs toward a small leafy copse and they were huge. As big as pigs! They were ambling along, snorting and snuffling, completely ignoring the farm dogs that snapped impatiently at their heels.

  The hedgehogs disappeared into the trees and the man waved at Barkbelly. “That's them settled,” he said, coming over. “Plenty of worms and such in there.”

  “I had no idea they were so big,” said Barkbelly. “They're enormous.”

  “Oh, they're not all that big,” said Farmer Muckledown. “They come in different sizes for different kinds of jobs. Some of them are no bigger than my thumb.”

  “But what do you use them for?” asked Barkbelly as they walked into the farmyard. “And why do you need different sizes?”

  Farmer Muckledown laughed out loud and slapped him on the back. “You've got a lot to learn, m'lad! But you couldn't ask for a better teacher. No one knows more about urchins than me and that's a fact! Here on this farm, I breed the best urchins in the whole of the country. It's true! Champion urchins, they are. You've heard of the Urchin Cup?”

  Barkbelly shook his head.

  “No? It's famous! Every year in Fieldhaven they hold the Urchin Show and people come from all over Lindenland, bringing the best animals they have. There are lots of prizes to be won, and I've won them all at one time or another, but the one that everyone wants to win is the Urchin Cup. Now, to win that you must have the finest urchin in the show. And, my young friend, I am proud to say that I have won that cup every year for the last ten years. And this beauty is the one I hope to win with this year.”

  Farmer Muckledown opened a barn door and the stiff smell of urchin punched Barkbelly in the face. As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he could see a peat-filled pen with a water dish, a bowl full of worms—and a huge pile of sleeping spikes.

  “Isn't she gorgeous?” whispered the farmer. “She's called Bramble.”

  Barkbelly nodded, slack-jawed.

  The urchin was massive. Her spikes were as long as arrows, glossy black and tipped with amber. She was fast asleep, curled up in a tight ball.

  Barkbelly sighed. “She's magnificent.”

  “Aye, she is,” said Farmer Muckledown, puffed up with pride. “Just wait till you see her face.”

  With that, he made a strange cooing sound and the urchin began to uncurl. Barkbelly saw a long furry snout with a glistening black nose, twitching whiskers and eyes as dark as destiny.

  “There now,” said the farmer. “Isn't she just fine?”

  Barkbelly nodded. But those eyes… Beautiful though they were, they were full of sadness. And just for a moment Barkbelly had a vision of a forest. Of trees and snow. Secret, silent spaces. Wild freedom. And suddenly he knew what the urchin had lost, because it was something he had lost too. But until that moment he hadn't known he had lost it.

  Farmer Muckledown took Barkbelly into other barns to show him more urchins. They came in all sizes and colors, from babies like little pink toothbrushes to boars as big as beer barrels.

  Behind the barns were the workshops, where a team of inventors worked on new designs and ideas—all made from urchin spikes. Barkbelly was drawn to the display cases. Inside there were all kinds of brushes and gadgets, and a machine for picking up fallen leaves. It was like a bicycle: pedal- powered, with a high seat, handlebars and extra-wide wheels studded with spikes. Beside the cabinets he found a strange contraption—a long brush attached lengthways to a post in the ground.

  “Cow scratcher,” said Farmer Muckledown. “We make all kinds of things here! But enough of this.” He slapped Barkbelly heavily on the back. “I'm sure you're wondering what you'll be doing, eh?”

  Barkbelly nodded.

  “Well,” he said, “when your father told me all about you— about how, er, special you are—I was mighty keen to have you. Mighty keen!”

  “Why?” said Barkbelly with a frown. “I have no experience working with urchins. I have no experience at all. This is my first job.”

  “But you are—how can I put this?—exceptionally qualified for the job. You're wooden, my lad! Wooden! You won't feel the spikes. You'll be able to handle urchins as if they were no more bother than fluffy chicks.”

  “So I'll be working with the urchins? I thought I would be cleaning dirty sheds.”

  “Bless me, no!” laughed Farmer Muckledown. “You won't be cleaning! I want you on Spike Extraction, first thing in the morning. In fact, you might as well run off home now. Get some rest before tomorrow. You'll need it.”

  Barkbelly went home. He spent the afternoon making a kite, but he had no desire to fly it. He had an early night, but he didn't sleep. His head was full of questions. What on earth was spike extraction? Obviously it meant getting the spikes out of the urchins, but how did they do it? Sometimes, in class, Fish would lean forward and pull a single hair from Pillow Anderson's head. She would cry out in pain, her eyes brimming with tears, and that was just one hair. How much more pain must there be for an urchin, having its prickles yanked out? It would be excruciating. Surely they didn't just sit there and take it? No. They would be furious. They would ram and butt, slash and tear. No wonder Farmer Muckledown was interested in him. He would probably be given the biggest boars on the farm and he would have to pull out all their spikes, one by one.

  Sleep finally came. A muddled sleep full of spikes, teeth and enormous metal tweezers. When he eventually woke up, exhausted and confused, the sun was already high. It was time to go.

  Chapter 8

  arkbelly heard the screams long before he entered the farmyard. Then he saw farmhands running back and forth with poles and pitchforks, their faces blanched with fear.

  The shed at the center of the commotion was a low, pi
ne- clad building with the words SPIKE EXTRACTION painted on a sign outside. He went in. The noise was deafening: a wild, animal wail and, beneath it, a muffled moan. Men were crowding round one of the pens. He edged closer, peered between shoulders and saw a nightmarish scene.

  In the pen was an immense black urchin. He was rubbing himself up against the shed wall, as if he were scratching an itch, and the moan was coming from the wall. Barkbelly suddenly realized why. The urchin had a man trapped against it and was driving his spikes into him. The farm workers were frantically pushing poles between man and beast, trying to pry them apart. They were succeeding but it was taking too long.

  “Aha!” cried a gruff voice, and Barkbelly found himself grabbed roughly by the shoulders. “Just the man!”

  Farmer Muckledown pulled Barkbelly behind him with one hand and opened a gate into the pen with the other. “You pull Brick out of there. Now, m'lad, now!”

  He pushed Barkbelly into the pen.

  Barkbelly had no time to think. Brains gave way to instinct. He grabbed hold of the injured farmhand and dragged him over to the far side of the pen, where waiting hands lifted him out, placed him on a makeshift stretcher and carried him away. For him, the drama was over. But not for Barkbelly.

  The urchin was furious. It squealed and spat and pushed against the restraining poles.

  “We can't hold him!” shouted one of the men. “Get out while you can!”

  Barkbelly tried to move but he couldn't. His legs wouldn't work.