Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean Read Free Book Online Page B

bears, out of the wreathing mist, came a sixth shape, almost as tall, almost as shaggy. There was a crack like gunfire.
    ‘ Wet your whistles, cub-bages! ’ said the Great Ravello, coiling up his long, rawhide whip. The bears dropped down, long claws sinking like grappling irons into the soft sand, and lumbered down to the water’s edge to drink. ‘Gentlemen … ladies. I hope my little pets did not scare you.’
    ‘Fear is a stranger to me!’ declared Peter, hands on hips.
    ‘Two strangers met in one day, then, Peter Pan,’ said the circus-master. ‘Fear and Myself.’
    Peter was startled. ‘You know my name?’
    Ravello came closer, his woolly garment dragging, erasing his own light footprints. His voice was softer even than the sand. ‘Naturally I know you, Peter Pan. Who has not heard of the Marvellous Boy? The Boy from Treetops? The Fearless Avenger! The Wonder of Neverwood! The flame of your fame lights my every dull day. You are the stuff of legend!’
    The League of Pan gave a rousing cheer, except for Wendy, who thought so many compliments might go to Peter’s head. Sure enough, Pan gave a shrill crow of pleasure:

    The bears in the surf jerked upright and rocked from foot to foot, rattling their claws like dinner knives.
    ‘Ah, I must caution against loud noises,’ urged the circus-master, in tones so sweet that the bears, sniffing the air, scented honey. ‘My cub-bages are nervous of loud noises. They might run amok.’
    Curly, watching the bears with a mixture of terror and fascination, asked if they really ought to be drinking from the Lagoon. ‘I read somewhere: doesn’t drinking seawater make you go mad?’
    ‘Pray do not fret on their account, young man. They are all stark mad already.’ Seeing Wendy, the circus-master bowed deeply from the waist—‘We meet once more, Miss Wendy. Your servant, ma’am. Your most humble servant,’—then addressed himself again to Peter. ‘I might likewise ask if it is wise for people of tender age to be out so late. Please tell me you have the prospect of warm beds and a filling supper?’ When they said they did not, he at once invited them to return with him to the Circus Ravello. ‘In these lean and hungry times many of my cages are empty. They are clean and mattressed with soft, fresh hay. I would deem it an honour …’
    ‘We don’t go about with grown-up people,’ Peter interrupted, scuffing his foot in the sand.
    ‘Oh. Very well. But you will at least come to the Circus, won’t you?’ persisted Ravello. ‘I bring tickets for you, look! Tickets for the circus? Everyone loves an outing to the circus! Clowns and acrobats? Bears, tigers, lions! Jugglers! Escapologists? Illusionists. Bare-back riders! A flying trapeze …!’ And he pulled from somewhere a deck of scarlet tickets that he fanned out before flicking them high in the air to fall like autumn leaves over the children’s heads.
    ‘Oh yes, Peter! A circus!’ Tootles was not the only one whose face lit up at the thought.
    ‘Nor we don’t choose to sleep in cages neither!’ said Peter.
    ‘… thank you all the same,’ Wendy added hastily.
    Ravello did not seem to take offence. ‘Have you never dreamed … Has none of you ever dreamed of joining a circus—of running away to a five-ring life of gasps and laughter and cheering? Picture it! Dancing with the raggle-taggle gypsies to the quacking of trombones! Hearts thumping in time with the thud of hoofbeats on sawdust! The flash of lamplight on sequinned leotards?’ There was an awkward pause, during which Ravello looked from child to child with his oddly eager gaze.
    The puppy was the only one who moved towards him, and that was to sniff the curious frizz that wrapped the circus master from head to foot. It pounced on a trailing bundle of ravelled wool and was instantly tangled up, so that Curly had to hurry over and try to free it. His own fingers got embarrassingly snagged somewhere between the man’s knobbly, mottled boots.