The Palace of Laughter by Jon Berkeley Read Free Book Online Page A

going on.”
    â€œNot me, sir, I ain’t going into the dark with that thing.”
    â€œYou’d better get in there, you haddock-brained half-wits, or I’ll have you boiled in vinegar,” shouted Genghis.
    â€œYou’d best heat up the vinegar then, sir, ’cause I ain’t going in no tunnel with that devil-thing.”
    There was more shouting and cursing, mixed with The Null’s angry gibbering, as Miles felt hisway along the left-hand wall, looking for the rusting iron ladder that led up to the drain in Crooked Street. The ache in his head was subsiding, and he felt pleased with himself. The Null would keep them occupied for a while, leaving him to slip back to the barrel, collect Little and bring her to Lady Partridge. She would be safe there, and Lady Partridge would know what to do.
    Miles climbed the ladder and pushed at the heavy grating above his head. It was jammed shut with dirt, and he had to work at it with his pocketknife for some time before the grate would open. He clambered through the opening and crept through the winding alleys, shivering in his thin jacket. He had lost the heavy keys somewhere in the darkness. He kept to the shadows as he passed the circus, dark now except for the glow of lamplight from some of the trailer windows. Somewhere a concertina played a cheerful tune, and there was the sound of laughter and the clinking of bottles. There was no sign of The Null or its reluctant handlers. “It must be back in its wagon by now,” he whispered to Tangerine, who was cold and damp too, and not feeling talkative.
    When he came within shouting distance of his barrel, he stopped. Something was wrong. He couldsmell the rotten-banana smell again, and there was harsh laughter coming from the direction of his home. Miles sank down and began to crawl through the long grass, his heart thumping. As he neared the spot where the tiger had sat the night before, the moon emerged from behind a cloud and shone on a terrible scene.
    The Null had not been returned to its barred wagon at all. It sat among the smashed ribs of Miles’s barrel like the black heart of some ruined animal, tearing chunks from the mattress and stuffing them into its mouth. The strongmen had a tight grip on the chains again, and the boys with the lanterns leaned against the trunk of the pine tree, smoking the cigarette butts that the strongmen had thrown aside. Genghis kicked through the ashes of old campfires, a cigar glowing beneath his singed bowler hat. A handful of gnawed bones lay in the grass next to The Null, and there was no sign of Little anywhere.

CHAPTER SIX
LADY PARTRIDGE
    M iles Wednesday, homeless and headstruck, wormed through the long grass in a wide circle around his smashed barrel. His head throbbed from the impact of the iron gate, and fear crawled over his skin like a swarm of icy centipedes. He found a vantage point behind a small twisted bush, and tried to blank out the pictures that ran through his mind of what The Null might have done to Little. The beast had tired of chewing the mattress now and was beating it with a curved rib from the barrel. Tufts of white stuffing rolled up the hill before the breeze.
    Genghis blew his nose on a large gray handkerchief that he had pulled from his sleeve. “Knoblauch! Kartoffel! Get that creature to its feet and let’s get it back into its box,” he said. “And don’t let go of it this time.” He gave the ashes an angry kick.
    â€œWasn’t our fault, sir,” said Knoblauch, his white hair standing up from his scalp like a yard broom. “Monster was ’ungry.”
    â€œIt hunts better when it’s hungry, you bonehead,” said Genghis. “But it’s supposed to be hunting runaway brats, not flocks of sheep.”
    â€œIt only ate two, sir.”
    â€œOught to have the beast put down,” muttered Kartoffel. “Gives me nightmares, it does.”
    â€œCourse it does,” said