Emerald Star (Hetty Feather) Read online

  ‘Oh yes I could! I know exactly what it feels like – and I know I can cope very well,’ I said. ‘I have learned a sizeable amount by being Emerald the Amazing Pocket-Sized Mermaid in a seaside carnival show. Oh, could I be a mermaid here? Perhaps I could be part of the sea-lion act?’

  Madame Adeline burst out laughing, but I was serious – until she took me to the tank where the sea lions were kept. They were alarming creatures close up, great blubbery beasts with fierce whiskers, swimming in murky grey water that smelled very bad.

  Madame Adeline introduced me to Neptune, King of the sea lions. He was rather grey and blubbery himself, with his own full set of whiskers.

  ‘I think little Hetty hankers to be part of your act,’ said Madame Adeline.

  ‘Does she now? Well, it’s hard work, very hard work, training these beasts. If you don’t put them through their paces regular, they forget all their tricks, and there’s times they go sulking on you out of sheer cussedness. They don’t take to just anyone, you know, even if you feed them right. Here, girlie, this is how you do it to make ’em willing to leap right up.’ He reached for a bucket brimming with dead fish, eyes all popping and mouths agape. I swallowed hard, not sure I could ever thrust my hand into that bucket now. I had developed a real phobia of fish since living in Monksby.

  Then I gasped as Neptune ran up the steps to the top of the tank, leaned out over the water, opened his mouth wide, and put the fish between his own lips!

  The sea lions all started barking, swam rapidly towards him and then leaped up with one accord to snatch their supper.

  ‘See! That’s the way to do it,’ said Neptune, grinning. ‘Want to give it a try?’

  ‘No thank you, Mr Neptune. I’m not sure I’ve got the stomach for it after all,’ I said weakly.

  I begged Madame Adeline to show me round the animal cages, but the lions all roared at me, their golden eyes narrowing as they contemplated a tempting snack of girl-meat. The bears looked less savage, poor tethered creatures, and for a few moments I saw myself as Goldilocks while my three bears lumbered about me. However, Bruno, their trainer, snarled contemptuously at me, looking as if he’d happily use his cruel whip on me as well as his unfortunate animals.

  I was charmed by the monkeys. When I talked to them through the bars of their cage, they stuck their little hands out, trying to take hold of me, and chattered excitedly.

  ‘Oh look, Madame Adeline, the monkeys like me!’

  ‘They’re just hoping you’re going to feed them, dear,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, you can give them a bite to eat if you want,’ said Marvel, the monkey man, smiling at me.

  ‘What do they like to eat?’ I asked, a little nervously.

  ‘I give them a little handful of fruit and nuts just now. I don’t want them too full or they won’t perform proper,’ said Marvel, chopping oranges and apples into several dishes.

  ‘Oh, monkey food is delicious – and they’re so sweet,’ I said.

  Marvel unlocked their cage door. ‘In you go, then, missy,’ he said, giving me the bowls.

  ‘Careful, Hetty,’ said Madame Adeline. She looked at Marvel anxiously. ‘They won’t bite her, will they?’

  ‘They’re not carnivores. They might just give her a little nibble, but she’ll come to no harm,’ he said.

  They swarmed around me eagerly as I crawled into the cage. I hoped they’d sit down neatly in a row and take it in turns to eat, but they scrabbled here and there and fought each other for titbits and mistook me for a tree and climbed all over me. I wasn’t sure if I liked all these little paws clinging here and there to me.

  I squealed a little when the baby monkey squirmed out of my arms and scrabbled up my body, stepping on my nose, and then squatted right on the top of my head. He seemingly mistook me for a privy while I shrieked my head off!

  Madame Adeline was very kind (though she laughed a little) and let me wash my hair in her wagon. She rubbed it dry with a towel and then gently brushed it for a hundred strokes to make it gleam. I lay back against her knees, feeling such a deep sense of peace, wishing I could stay there for ever. The only other person who had ever treated me so tenderly was Mama, and it made me miss her terribly. I cried a little and told Madame Adeline some of the very sad things that happened last summer. She bent forward and put her arms around me and held me close. I knew she could never replace Mama – but I also knew she was incredibly dear to me. I had longed to live with her when I was five and when I was ten. I couldn’t bear to wait another five years to see her again.

  ‘Could I join the circus and live with you, Madame Adeline?’ I whispered. ‘I know you keep telling me it’s a hard life, but I don’t mind at all, just so long as I’m with you.’

  ‘You have a proper home now, Hetty, and your brother clearly thinks the world of you,’ she said.

  ‘I know, and I love dear Jem – but not in quite the way he wants. I love Mother too, but she’s far happier with Gideon. He’s clearly her favourite. I’m fond of Gideon too, for all he’s so strange, and I’m very attached to my friend Janet, but I don’t feel I belong with them. My days are so . . . restricted. I cook the same meals, wash the same sheets, see the same folk, even talk the very same talk, over and over again. I can’t stay because I know I’m starting to make Jem unhappy – and I’m unhappy too.’

  ‘You might be making yourself unhappier still if you run away,’ said Madame Adeline.

  ‘But at least I will be experiencing new things, living an exciting life, going to a new village every week. Oh, Madame Adeline, please don’t be so discouraging! Don’t you want me to join the circus? Please be truthful!’

  ‘Of course I want you to travel with me. I’ve met thousands of eager girls in my time but you’re the only one I’ve wanted to be with. You seem like a daughter to me already, Hetty. But I want to do what’s best for you.’

  ‘Then that’s easy!’

  ‘You’re not necessarily the best judge of that. Besides, as you rightly perceive, you would have to earn your keep or Tanglefield won’t let you stay.’

  ‘I’ll find a way! I certainly can’t be a monkey trainer – or work with the sea lions. I’m no good at tumbling, and we both agree I’ll never make a bareback rider, but there must be something I can do. If I find it – and if Mr Tanglefield says yes – may I live with you in your wagon?’

  ‘These are very big ifs, Hetty, but yes, of course you can live with me. I can’t think of anything I’d like better.’

  I watched the circus performance that afternoon with beady eyes. I went home and strung the washing line low down between two trees, pulling it taut, and then balanced along it, clutching Mother’s old broom handle as a balancing pole. I tried to dance along in my stockinged feet – and fell.

  Little Phil was playing nearby with a couple of grubby friends. They all screamed with laughter to see me sprawling. Then Phil infuriated me by jumping up onto the washing line and managing several steady steps before losing his balance. It was hopeless. Even a four-year-old had better circus skills than me.

  I’d hurt my ankle again too. If I carried on like this it would soon snap right off.

  Jem saw my long face when he came home from work. ‘Cheer up, Hetty,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t feel cheerful,’ I muttered.

  ‘Look, I tell you what, I’ll take you to your precious circus again tonight,’ said Jem.

  ‘I thought you disapproved of the circus and all its performers,’ I said sulkily.

  ‘I do, but I’d do anything to put a smile back on that little face,’ said Jem, cupping my chin and trying to make my lips curve with his other hand.

  ‘Oh stop it!’ I protested ungratefully, but I accepted his offer all the same.

  Mr Tanglefield stepped into the ring and announced the first act in his shrill tones.

  ‘Who is that chap – and what’s he saying?’ said Jem.

  ‘He’s Mr Tanglefield himself, and he’s a terrible ringmaster,’ I said. Then a thrill went th