No Stars at the Circus by Mary Finn Read Free Book Online Page A

coloured flags flying. There were vans parked in a line, stretching down the avenue. But since nobody in a fair gets up early in the morning all the van doors were closed.
    Except one.

HOW I MET SIGNOR CORRADO AND LA GIACONDA
    Papa was just about to lift me back onto the crossbar when I left him standing there. I just had to.
    “I’ll only be a minute!” I shouted back at him. “Just wait!” I didn’t stop to hear if he said anything. I had to see IT close up before it broke up.
    IT = THEM.
    Outside the big yellow van whose door was open there were two people on a bright green deckchair, as if it was summer. The two of them were on the same chair. One was sitting the ordinary way people sit. He was a man dressed in a Pierrot costume with a big red bow at the neck and he was smoking a cigarette. The other person was standing upside down on his head.
    Actually, I don’t know whether you can say “standing” if the person is upside down. Maybe there’s another word.
    The upside down one was a woman and she was wearing a long black striped costume with legs, a bit like an old-fashioned bathing suit. She had lots of black curly hair but it was spread out on top of his, like a wig. Like him, she was smoking, only not a cigarette – a big fat cigar.
    They both looked really comfortable.
    I could hear Papa calling me back but now that I’d got up close I wasn’t going to go away without a proper look. Besides, it would do his wheezing good if he took a rest.
    “Hello, boy,” said the woman. She could see me coming even though we were upside down to each other. “Are you useful?”
    “Yes,” I said. What else could I say?
    “Then please go inside the caravan and fetch me my mirror,” she said. “You’ll find it on the table in the kitchen.”
    I did what she asked. The van had a set of little wooden steps with flowers painted on them. It was quite roomy inside, and whoever lived in it had made different rooms by hanging curtains from one side to the other. They were printed with stars.
    I knew the room I’d walked into was the kitchen because there was a small fat stove with a frying pan on it, and a small dresser with cups and plates, all in bright colours. There was a round table opposite the door with a beautiful silver hand mirror on it.
    I brought it out to the woman. She took it and held it by the handle with the right side up. Of course, for her that would have been the wrong side. The man said nothing, just puffed on his cigarette, but he had a nice smiling kind of face. He was very dark-skinned.
    I looked around for Papa but he was just standing by the footpath, holding his bike.
    “I was right, Luigi,” the woman said, after a minute or two. “I
do
look like our very own Mona Lisa when I am upside down. It’s the way my mouth goes. I can’t think why you haven’t noticed before now.”
    Then she suddenly did a flip. Or maybe there’s another word for what she did, some word that only circus people know. I’ve never asked. Anyway, she managed to knock herself off the man’s head. She ended up standing on her feet beside me, with the cigar still burning away, like the ones cowboys in the pictures have.
    She held out her left hand to me and I took it. I could see that she was not as young as she had looked when she was upside down. She was probably around Mama’s age. But who could imagine Mama upside down on top of Papa’s head, smoking a cigar?
    “You have the honour of meeting La Giaconda, boy,” she said. “Mona Lisa, if you prefer. Yesterday I was plain Lucia, but now the whole of Paris lies at my feet.”
    “Never plain,” said the man. “That, never.”
    “I’m Jonas,” I said to the woman, because she was still holding my hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
    Out by the roadside Papa gave a roar so I knew I had to go.
    “Your father?” asked the man. I nodded. “Well, Jonas,” he said. “Since you were here to witness the magical transformation of my wife into La