The Palace of Laughter (4 page)

“Of course not,” said Miles. “She lives up a tree.”

Little gave a sudden gasp as she twisted her ankle on a loose stone. She sat down on a tussock and grimaced with the pain. Miles pulled up some cold dock leaves and wrapped them around her ankle. “We're nearly at the barrel,” he said. “You can rest there for a few minutes before we move on.”

He helped her hop up the last part of the slope. She winced with each hop.

“It's a pity you don't have those circus wings on,” said Miles. “You could fly the rest of the way.”

Little laughed her musical giggle. “You're funny!” she said.

Once inside the barrel he took his pocketknife from under the mattress and cut the rope binding her wrists. “They weren't taking any chances with you, were they?” he said.

“They never tied me up like this before,” she said. “I think something bad would have happened tonight, if you hadn't helped me escape.”

Miles wrapped her in the overcoat, and she watched him silently as he coiled the rope and put it in his pocket, along with his last apple and his pocketknife. He went to the door of the barrel and looked down the hill to see what was going on below.

“Are they looking for us?” asked Little.

“I don't think so,” said Miles. Darkness stole over the field as a cloud covered the moon, leaving the swaying strings of colored bulbs to cast a dim light over the scurrying circus people as they rounded up the last of the reluctant llamas. When the moon emerged again, Miles noticed a knot of people gathered around the red wagon in which The Null was housed. Two boys carried lanterns, and there were several strongmen holding long poles and heavy chains. Two of them held up what appeared to be a net. Genghis stood to one side of the wagon door. It looked as if he were removing the padlocks.

Miles felt the floor of his stomach fall away. “Oh no,” he whispered.

“Oh no what?” asked Little.

“It's The Null,” said Miles. “I think they're letting it out.”

“Oh
no
oh no,” said Little. “We have to go now, at once. Far away.”

“You can't walk, and I can't go fast enough carrying you,” said Miles. “You'll have to stay hidden here, and I'll draw them off.”

Little shook her head. “But I…” She paused, looking uncertain. “Are you sure I'll be safe here?”

Miles covered her completely with the overcoat. “You'll be fine,” he said. “Just keep out of sight, and whatever you do, don't make a sound until I come back for you.”

“Be careful,” came a muffled voice from under the overcoat.

“Don't worry,” said Miles. “I know this hill inside out, and they're strangers, even if they do have a monster with them.” He wished he felt as confident as he sounded.

He slipped back down the way they had come, peering through the shifting darkness for any sign of the circus men and their beast. The moon was hidden behind another cloud, and the wind gusted up the hill, flattening the grass and stealing the breath from his mouth. A strong odor like rotten bananas reached his nose, mixed with the stale cigar smell that surrounded Genghis like an invisible fog, and he heard the clink of chains and the
nervous shouts of the strongmen. An eerie barking laugh made the hair stand up on his scalp.

He left the path and pushed through the bushes, heading directly away from the barrel. As he half ran, half slithered down the side of the hill, he strained his ears for any sign that the circus men and their beast were following him. He remembered the smaller children he had tried to bring with him on his failed escapes from Pinchbucket House, and the beating they would all receive from Fowler Pinchbucket on their return. Miles had a feeling that Little's fate, if his diversion should fail, would be something far worse. The men's shouts were getting closer now, and he could see the lanterns swinging crazily as the boys who held them clambered over the rocky ground. They had picked up his trail all right, and they were gaining on him.

Deep beneath the town of Larde, an ancient stream flowed through a dark tunnel before emerging through a stone arch below Beggar's Gate. Miles had used this underground stream in two of his failed escape attempts, and it was to the stone mouth of the tunnel that he was headed now, along the slippery bank of the stream. He knew his footprints in the mud would make him easy to follow.

The moon came out again as he reached the tunnel mouth, and as he ducked down into the darkness, he risked a glance over his shoulder. The Null was no more than twenty yards behind him, a hideous shadow that seemed to suck the moonlight into itself like a black hole. It had shaken off the strongmen, and its three stout chains dragged loose behind it from its iron collar. The creature's red mouth opened wide in the blackness and its manic laugh followed Miles into the tunnel.

The tunnel was clammy and pitch black, and cold water soaked Miles as he ran through the shallow stream. The faint moonlight from behind was blocked by the huge beast that splashed through the water on all fours, almost at his heels. A little way up the tunnel was an iron gate, and he knew from his Pinchbucket House escapes numbers three and five that he could just about squeeze himself between the bars. He was struck by the awful thought that he may have grown too big since the last time he tried this, and a moment later he was struck by the bars themselves as he ran full tilt into them in the inky darkness. His head met the iron gate with a loud clang, and he almost fell backward under the feet of his pursuer. With stars exploding in front of his eyes, he stumbled to one side and
began to wedge himself into the narrow space between the bars. He breathed in, and turned his head sideways, but it was no good. He was stuck fast.

 

In the cold darkness, deep below the sleeping town of Larde, The Null hit the center of the gate like a giant hairy cannonball, almost wrenching it free of the crumbling stone walls. The impact buckled the gate, pulling the bars apart slightly and releasing Miles from its rusty grip. He fell through the gate and onto his knees, and began to crawl through the water, his head throbbing. The Null was rattling the bars and screeching with rage. Between its shouts he could hear Genghis's wheezy voice echoing up the tunnel.

“You, Knoblauch and Kartoffel, get in there and see what's going on.”

“Not me, sir, I ain't going into the dark with that thing.”

“You'd better get in there, you haddock-brained half-wits, or I'll have you boiled in vinegar,” shouted Genghis.

“You'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 his
way 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 could
smell 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.

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 handker
chief 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.

“Wasn't our fault, sir,” said Knoblauch, his white hair standing up from his scalp like a yard broom. “Monster was 'ungry.”

“It hunts better when it's hungry, you bonehead,” said Genghis. “But it's supposed to be hunting runaway brats, not flocks of sheep.”

“It only ate two, sir.”

“Ought to have the beast put down,” muttered Kartoffel. “Gives me nightmares, it does.”

“Course it does,” said Knoblauch. “It's meant to. That's why the boss keeps it, innit? Keep everyone in line.”

“Stop flapping your gums and get moving,” barked Genghis. “We have to get The Null back into its wagon before the Lardespeople roll out of their beds and find something's been snacking on their mutton.”

The strongmen yanked on the chains, and The Null whipped around in the remains of the mattress and gave a cackle that made the hair stand up on Miles's neck. Two of the strongmen pulled it
after the retreating figure of Genghis, while another couple hauled from behind, stumbling and slipping as they struggled to keep the creature from mauling the men in front.

Miles waited behind the rock a few minutes more, shivering in his wet clothes. He stared at the bones that lay scattered in the grass. If The Null had been eating sheep, he thought, perhaps it had not devoured Little after all. But if not, where was she? She could not have run away with her twisted ankle. Perhaps she was under what remained of the mattress, squashed flat by the weight of the monster. He crept forward and stood before the mattress, summoning up the courage to look underneath. He bent and flipped it over. It was lighter than before, having lost most of its stuffing, and there was nothing underneath but splintered wood and his old biscuit tin, entirely flattened. The overcoat lay in the grass where it had been tossed aside.

Miles flopped down on the disemboweled mattress and put his head in his hands. “This is what happens,” he muttered to Tangerine, “when we meddle in things that aren't our business. Now the girl is missing, and we have nowhere to live.” There was no answer from Tangerine.

A pinecone fell from the tree above and bounced
off the back of his neck. Another one hit the top of his head. Miles looked up at the tree. “That's right, drop your cones on me,” he shouted. “Do I look like I don't have enough troubles already?”

“I'm sorry,” said the tree in a familiar voice. “I just wanted to make sure it was safe.”

“Little?” said Miles.

A pale face appeared in the darkness between the branches. “Have they gone away?” asked Little.

“They've gone away,” said Miles. A wave of relief rose from his frozen feet and swept through him like laughter. “You can come down now.”

Little scrambled down the twisted trunk. Her skin was scratched by the bark. Miles shook out the overcoat and wrapped it around her. It trailed on the ground like a royal train.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “I know you told me to stay out of sight, but I heard someone coming, and I knew it wasn't you. You don't smell
that
bad. So I hid up the tree.”

“You're lucky you got up there before they saw you,” said Miles. He looked at the small girl, who reached no more than halfway to the tree's lowest branches, and wondered how she had managed to get up there at all.

“Let's go,” said Miles. “I'll carry you on my back.”

Little did not seem as light as before, but Miles suspected that his old overcoat counted for much of the weight. He followed a familiar path between the rocks and gorse bushes, over the brow of the hill and down into the small wood on the other side. Dry leaves whispered under his feet, and overhead the wind rustled through the treetops, making the branches creak. Out of sight of his smashed home he could imagine that it was still there, warm and dry, waiting for him to return. To push the picture of the demented beast out of his mind he thought about the tiger who had visited him the night before.

“Little, is there a tiger at the Circus Oscuro?”

“I've never seen one,” said Little. “Why?”

“I dreamed about one last night. At least I think it was a dream, but it seemed almost more real than real life. I was sitting in my barrel and a tiger came and sat near me. He looked like an ordinary tiger, but he spoke to me. He told me that he could smell the circus in me, but I've never been to a circus until tonight.”

“If a tiger said it, it must be true.”

“But it was only a dream,” said Miles.

“Tigers don't lie,” said Little. “Not even in dreams.”

They came to a high stone wall, ivy bearded and crumbling with neglect. Miles made his way along the wall to a place where it had collapsed, leaving a gap like a missing tooth, and clambered across the tumbled stones.

Once inside the wall, he let Little down gently. They stood waist-deep in a swaying sea of weeds, among old trees of various shapes, some twisted and wild, others tall and dark like pillars holding up the night sky. The hulk of a derelict mansion stood with its back to them, empty windows staring blackly across the overgrown garden.

In the center of the garden stood an enormous beech tree. It was a strange tree, with two trunks growing from the mighty roots, joined together by a web of branches that clasped each other like the arms of wrestling giants. Perched among these branches was the dark jumbled shape of a tree house. It was made from an assortment of old furniture, floorboards, and tea chests, as though it had been washed up into the tree by a freak tidal wave. Little saw a cat stalk along one of the branches, and as her eyes became accustomed to the dark mass of the tree, she saw there were others—three, five, twenty and more cats, staring down at them, or washing their paws and pretending not to notice them.

Miles grabbed the lowest rung of the rope ladder that dangled from a hole in the tree house floor, and called up the tree. “Lady Partridge! It's me. I've brought a friend.”

“So they tell me,” called a voice from above. “Bring her up, my boy.”

He lifted Little to the ladder and she hopped up it on one foot. Miles followed behind.

The inside of the tree house was unlike anything you've ever seen, unless you live in a curiosity shop with branches growing up through the floor. A large Persian rug covered the uneven floorboards, and a fire glowed in an ornate iron fireplace that was set into the crooked walls. The walls themselves consisted largely of a jumble of bookcases, kitchen dressers, and chests of drawers, stuffed to overflowing with books, fat candle stubs, prickly cacti, and jars filled with herbs, polished stones, old coins, dried fruit, broken jewelry, boiled sweets, nuts and bolts, dried petals, hairpins, seashells, and a thousand other strange things whose use could only be guessed at. There were so many books that they flowed from the lower shelves and piled themselves around the edges of the floor, among the umbrella stands, snake baskets, ships in bottles, milking stools, chopped logs, hookah pipes, china elephants, brass divers'
helmets, ornate vases, butter churns, whalebones, sewing machines and parrot cages, not to mention a large stuffed crocodile that stared with a glassy eye from a dark corner by the potbellied stove.

A broad hammock was strung between the two trunks, where they passed through the tree house on their way to the sky. A large woman sat in the hammock, peering at Little over her crooked spectacles. In her lap sat a heavy book. She wore a black silk Chinese dressing gown decorated with red dragons, and her gray hair was piled up on her head with the help of several tortoiseshell combs that seemed on the verge of falling out.

“Well well,” she said. “And who do we have here?”

“I'm Little,” said Little.

“And I'm a great deal Larger than I ought to be,” said Lady Partridge, and she burst into a great guffaw of laughter. Little glanced at Miles, who grimaced back.

“Well sit down, my dears,” said Lady Partridge, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “If you can find a space.”

Finding a space on the floor was not as easy as it sounds. The room was almost completely carpeted with cats. Tabbies, tortoiseshells, Siamese and Persians, cats as black as coal at night and as white
as sugar in a china bowl. They swarmed over the tumbling piles of books, perched on every shelf and draped themselves across Lady Partridge's hammock. A small orange cat sat squarely in the middle of her book, smoothing his ears with licked paws. The whole tree house purred.

Little picked her way around the edges of the room, keeping her weight on her good foot. She peered into every nook and cranny, lifting things from shelves to look at them more closely. She listened to the ocean's call from the seashell, and held up a jar of amber nuggets to let the light pour through. On the shelf behind the jar was an old photograph with curling edges, in which a young man with a freshly scrubbed face stood by a large and fabulous contraption of wheels and pistons and jagged teeth. “Who is this?” asked Little, picking it up as she replaced the jar. She held out the photograph to Lady Partridge.

“That,” said Lady Partridge, peering down through the spectacles balanced on the end of her nose, “is my late husband, Lord Partridge. He was a handsome chap, as you can see, with a head full of bright ideas. At least that's what I believed.”

“Is that one of his ideas behind him?” asked Little.

“I'm afraid so. That was his all-in-one tree converter. If you fed it enough coal and ink it could chop down a forty-foot tree, chew it up and convert it into fourteen school desks, eight hundred triple-column accounting ledgers, and enough matches to keep fifty stevedores chain-smoking for a year and a half. By the time he had perfected the machine it could get through half an acre of trees in just over an hour. He called it Geraldine, although I was never quite sure why.”

“It says ‘Geraldine XIV' on the side,” said Miles, looking at the photograph over Little's shoulder.

“Yes, they were all called Geraldine. There was a fleet of twenty-four of them at one stage, and no timber merchant could hold up his head unless he had at least two. It all came to an end when they realized they had made a dozen school desks for every man, woman and child in the land, and that the ledgers they had produced would not be used up before the middle of the next millennium. But by that time Dartforth—that was my husband's name—was very wealthy indeed. He had set up several other businesses and seemed to have completely forgotten about Geraldine.”

“Did you live in the big house then?” asked Little.

“We did, my dear, and we had a butler and two
cooks and a team of gardeners. We had swans on the pond and peacocks on the lawn, and for many years I never bothered my head about Dartforth's businesses and what they might be making. Not until he was killed by an exploding pudding in one of his factories did I think to look at them more closely, I'm afraid.”

“An exploding pudding?” said Miles, looking at the photograph with renewed interest. There was nothing in the young Lord Partridge's bearing or his cheerful face to suggest that he might be on course for such a sticky end.

“An exploding pudding,” said Lady Partridge. “It was a prototype they were developing in secret for the army. It was cunningly disguised as an enemy ration tin, and was designed to be sneaked behind enemy lines by undercover cooks. They tried to keep the accident quiet of course, and offered me a pension that would have kept me in luxury for the rest of my days, but all I wanted was to find out the truth about how Dartforth had died. I hired an investigator, and little by little he discovered what kinds of businesses my husband had been involved in.”

She sighed. “He was not a bad man, Dartforth. I believe he really thought that everything he did was for the best, but he was always in such a hurry
to get on with the next brilliant idea that he had no time to see the consequences of the last one. He invented a cereal that was supposed to make children grow big and strong, but some rats broke into the storeroom and feasted on it for a week. Soon there were rats the size of sheep rampaging around the countryside and a team of python handlers had to be brought up from the south to hunt them all down. Then there was the Saltifier, for making lakes more like the sea so people didn't have to travel far to the beach, and the Jumbo-sized Cocktail Sausages that made people's fingers and toes swell up. Everything he turned his hand to seemed to produce poisonous gases, or terrible nocturnal noises, or two-headed chickens. After Dartforth died, there was only one thing to be done. I spent most of the money he had made over the years putting right the damage that he had done. I had some factories converted to making things that people really did need. Others, I'm afraid, simply had to be dynamited, in the hope that someday the grass will be able to grow over them.”