When Mum Went Funny by Jack Lasenby Read Free Book Online Page A

swayed into the dark.
    “That made up for the mangey old lion!” Mum exclaimed.
    Then, suddenly, the circus was over, and the Ringmaster was telling everyone they could go and look around the wild animals’ cages, “Children sixpence, grownups a shilling.”
    “They must think that money grows on trees,” Mum said, but she gave us sixpence each to have a look, and it wasn’t much, you couldn’t see the lion properly, though his cage stunk like the men’s dunny round the back of the hall.
    Most people stood around the elephant, where she was chained by her stubby feet to a couple of big stakes, and they bought stale buns for threepence each. The elephant waved her trunk around, picked the buns off people’s hands with a bit like a finger at the end, and put them into her mouth.
    “I felt her touch my hand!” somebody shrieked. And Jimmy nudged me and asked, “Why don’t elephants have any chin?”
    Music played, a brass band it sounded like, but we couldn’t see anyone blowing the instruments, then we were harnessing Old Pomp into the shafts again, and trotting home, our carbide lamps lighting the telegraph posts coming towards us out of the dark, Mum trumpeting like the elephant, and saying she’d have bitten the head off the lion if they’d let her into his cage.
    Halfway home, Billy Kemp came galloping up behind us. “Ka! Ka! Ka!” he went, pointing at Mum.
    “Ka! Ka! Ka!” she fired back. He circled our buggy, going “Whahhh-rowwww!” which meant he was the captured Spitfire banking. And Mum sprayed the belly of his plane with bullets, “Ka! Ka! Ka!” as he turned to peel off and shoot us down.
    “I gotcha!” Mum shouted. She stood up and shouted, “I gotcha through the tank with a tracer. Ya goin’ down on fire, Billy Kemp, and ya gonna explode!”
    Billy disappeared into the dark, his engine stuttering , roaring, and coughing. We listened and heard an explosion as he crashed, then silence. “Sit down,” said Kate, “or you’ll have us over,” and she held Old Pomp in. We heard the crunch of wheels rolling along the metalled road, looked back and saw gig lamps.
    “Somebody’s coming!” Kate shook the reins, and Old Pomp trotted. He didn’t like being passed either.
    The rest of the way, we kept a lookout for Billy Kemp, but he must have gone down with his plane.Jimmy and Betty went to sleep, but woke as we piggy-backed them inside and wanted Mum to roar for them again, so she gave a couple of groans and trumpeted as well. It was corker fun, the Saturday night we went to the circus! I’ve never forgotten the stink.

11
Riding in Circles, and the Immelmann Turn
    “
T
here’s the ring.” From Old Pomp’s back, we stared down at the worn grass where the white horse had galloped, and the clowns had chased Mum. There was no sign of the elephant’s footprints. Where the wild animals’ cages had stood there were patches of yellow grass and wheel tracks.
    “Why’s the grass dead?” asked Betty.
    “No sun,” Jimmy told her.
    “The wild animals peed on it,” said Kate. Old Pomp snorted and backed away, so we had to hang on. “Steady!” Kate leaned forward and patted his neck. “He’s smelling the lion,” she told us.
    There wasn’t much else to show that the circus had been there: a couple of empty beer bottles in the drain, some tickets in the grass, and a few flies hanging around a heap of dung.
    “That’s not horse poop,” said Jimmy. “It’s different .”
    “It must be the zebra’s,” said Betty. “See, it’s got straw in it. What’s that stuff?”
    “They must have had a bear,” said Jimmy. “Did any of you see it?” We all shook our heads, and he said, “Bear poo. Poo bear!”
    “Pooh Bear!” Betty squawked, and they laughed as if they’d never heard it before.
    “When I grow up, I’m going to run away and join the circus,” said Jimmy, and Betty said she’d go with him.
    “You sound like Mum.” Kate giddupped Old Pomp, and we rode along Ward