He stroked Magdalen's head, then turned his gaze to the two-way mirror and started muttering again.

"Wo hairdresser nye papa, "Wo hairdresser nye papa, wo maame ye kwadu, wo gyime ye sononko, wo hwene kakraka."

(Loosely, "You have a very bad hairdresser, your clothes look as if they have been out dancing on their own all night, your mother is a banana, your nose is too big, your stupidity is so famous, they have statues of it in the city squares . . .") "Your nose is too big" sounded good, so he said it a few more times, rhythmically, getting louder and louder: "Wo hwene kakraka, "Wo hwene kakraka, wo hwene kakraka, WO HWENE KAKRAKA!"

"Stop it!" shouted a big fat voice over the intercom.

"I'd be glad to," said Aneba. "You know what you have to do." And he lowered his lids again, and stared, and muttered, and stared, and muttered, and stared.

CHAPTER 7.

About an hour later Charlie heard noises at the top of the ladder, and realized that someone was climbing down. He had no time to think what to do-even to decide whether or not to hide-before the person was standing in the c.o.c.kpit, staring at him out of big brown eyes and saying: "Francois! Regardez! Il y a un garcon ici-un pet.i.t Africain!" "Francois! Regardez! Il y a un garcon ici-un pet.i.t Africain!"

Charlie's French was pretty good-Brother Jerome was very keen on languages-so he understood that she was saying: "Francois! Look! There's a boy here-a little African!"

As for what she was, Charlie knew exactly. She was slender but muscular, wearing tights and a tight top with a short skirt, she had her dark hair pulled back in a bun so tight that it made her face look tight too-in fact, everything about her was tight, except her skirt, which flared out like the petals on a daisy. The tight hair even pulled all expression off her face, and she stood with her weight on one leg and her arms crossed. She was quite clearly a ballerina-except that she looked way too tough. And he didn't know why she was going on about him being African. She obviously had African blood too.

Francois appeared behind her: a black-haired young man in fringed ponyskin chaps, a waistcoat, and a hat. He had a red-tooled holster, fancy Cuban-heeled boots to match, and two shiny little guns, one of which he had pulled out and was aiming at Charlie.

Charlie was not at all sure about being held up by a tough African ballerina talking French and a cowboy in red boots.

"Bonjour," he said bravely. he said bravely.

"Salut," said the ballerina. Francois nodded. They didn't seem entirely unfriendly. said the ballerina. Francois nodded. They didn't seem entirely unfriendly.

"Er-could you put the gun down?" asked Charlie politely in French.

The ballerina looked over her shoulder and rolled her eyes to heaven in exasperation. She berated Francois in a swift and complicated French that Charlie couldn't follow, saying, it was obvious, "Put it away, don't be such a nincomp.o.o.p, it's only a kid," or words to that effect. Also, as Charlie looked more closely at the little gun, he suspected that it wasn't real. It was so small and shiny, and looked somehow too light. In fact, nothing about the cowboy looked real. He wasn't sunburned, for a start, and his clothes were too colorful. And there was a monkey on his shoulder. And the monkey was wearing fringed ponyskin chaps and a red gunbelt too. No, this was no ordinary cowboy.

Francois put the gun away and the ballerina said that she supposed they'd better take him up. Charlie, knowing that his only alternative was to try to jump overboard, be pulled out again, and taken up anyway, dripping wet and having annoyed everybody, pult his things into his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

"Come on," said the ballerina, and poked him up the ladder to the ship. Charlie didn't like being poked. She wasn't that much older than he anyway, to be bossing him around.

It was amazing, thought Charlie, how something crimson could look so tough. Because this was was a tough ship: the great flanks, the thick ropes coiled on the decks, huge fenders dripping salt water and weed over the side, the ma.s.sive masts and great industrial smokestacks, the brawny sailors with their sunburns and squinty eyes. The ship made a music of her own: a creaking and rumbling, of engines and furnaces, of ropes in the wind, of beams and joists surging through the water. Charlie, nervous as he was, felt a huge thrill at being aboard this great ship as she headed out to sea. a tough ship: the great flanks, the thick ropes coiled on the decks, huge fenders dripping salt water and weed over the side, the ma.s.sive masts and great industrial smokestacks, the brawny sailors with their sunburns and squinty eyes. The ship made a music of her own: a creaking and rumbling, of engines and furnaces, of ropes in the wind, of beams and joists surging through the water. Charlie, nervous as he was, felt a huge thrill at being aboard this great ship as she headed out to sea.

"Go on," said the ballerina. She prodded him along the deck until they came to a cabin door, carved with gold vines, which stood ajar.

"Maestro!" called the ballerina, knocking on the door. "Y'a quelque chose." "Y'a quelque chose." Charlie didn't quite like being introduced as "Here is something," but the ballerina prodded him again and he stumbled into the room, tripping over the little ledge that cabin doors always have at the bottom, to keep shallow floodwater out. Charlie didn't quite like being introduced as "Here is something," but the ballerina prodded him again and he stumbled into the room, tripping over the little ledge that cabin doors always have at the bottom, to keep shallow floodwater out.

The chamber was small but magnificent, and standing in the middle, leaning on a small desk, was a most magnificent person. He must have been six and a half feet tall, broad-shouldered in white breeches and a green velvet tailcoat, and his fine blond hair, almost as pale as ice, hung down his back in a thick ponytail. His eyes were piercing blue, his skin pale and dry, and he looked as if he stayed up far too late and had done so all his life. In one pale hand he had a gla.s.s of what looked like brandy, and before him on the desk was a pile of papers and a large metal box absolutely full of money: ma.s.ses of it.

Charlie stared. He had never seen a man who looked like this before.

"For Pete's sake," said the man, in French, but with an accent Charlie recognized to be southern Empire. "Now what?"

"I found this boy," said the ballerina, "in the policeguy's boat."

"Throw him overboard then," said the man.

"Okay," she said, and turning around, made to prod Charlie out of the door again. Charlie's heart leaped.

"No, wait a moment," the maestro said. "Bring him back. You speak French?"

"Yes," said Charlie in French. "My name's Charlie and I'm looking for my mum and dad, who have disappeared. I hitched a lift with the polishing machine." (He meant to say "policeguy" but he got the word wrong and said "polisseur" "polisseur" instead of instead of "policier" "policier"-an easy mistake.) "Really," said the man, unimpressed with this brief history. He looked at Charlie a moment, sizing him up. He took hold of Charlie's arm and squeezed it.

"Boy," he said, "are you strong?"

"Quite, sir," said Charlie. "But I'm more clever than strong."

"How clever?" said the magnificent man.

"I can speak English, French, Twi, Arabic, Latin, Greek, and Italian," he said. (He never told people that he could speak Cat. He had always known, without being told, that it was not something to brag about.) "And I can read and write, I'm quick at calculations, and I can play the piano and drive and I am an experienced sailor." He was thinking quickly of things that might make this strange pale man want to keep him on the ship rather than throw him overboard. "And I can climb, and ride a bicycle."

The man's elegant dark eyebrows rose up his white forehead as Charlie spoke, but he said nothing. So Charlie continued: "And I can cook, omelettes, fufu and soup, and flapjacks, and I can do handstands and cartwheels, and climb ropes, and I can swim, of course, and dive, and tie knots, I can do a sheepshank and clove hitch, and I'm quite used to computers . . ." Charlie faltered to a halt. The man was saying nothing on purpose, just to see how long Charlie would keep on talking.

"Most impressive," said the man, after a little gap just long enough to let Charlie know who was in charge-as if there were any doubt. "But you're not strong."

"Quite strong," said Charlie.

The man took a sip from his gla.s.s of brandy, never taking his eyes off Charlie.

"Now tell me," he said. "Of course all boys want to run away and join with us, but what precisely is your excuse?"

He thought Charlie had come to the ship on purpose. Oh, well. That didn't matter. What mattered was- A very important thought struck Charlie. All these people talking French. Were they going to France now?

"I intend to seek my fortune, sir," said Charlie. "And my parents. Are you headed to France?"

The man put his gla.s.s down. He seemed to have made his mind up about something.

"What's your name?" he said.

"Charlie Ashanti," said Charlie. Even as he said it, he thought: Oh. It might have been a good idea to give a fake name. What with Rafi out there, wherever he is . . .

"Charlie. I am Major Maurice Thibaudet." (He p.r.o.nounced it Tib-oh-day. Tib-oh-day.) "I am the Boss, the Leader, the Voice of All Authority around here. I am the ringmaster. You call me Major, Sir, or Maestro. You are Charlie, a little kid we've taken on. You'll do as you're told. Do me a handstand."

Since he was tiny, Charlie had been playing around with the cats in the ruins and he was as agile as a little monkey. A handstand was nothing to him. Now, too taken aback to wonder why the major wanted him to do it, Charlie swiftly upended himself. There wasn't much room, but he managed it without kicking anybody in the face. With his feet in the air and his head down by the floor he couldn't see Major Maurice's reaction, but he felt he shouldn't come down until he was told, so he just stayed there while Major Maurice did his trick of doing nothing to see how long a person would carry on.

"Okay," said Major Maurice eventually. "Come on down now. Could you do that on a lion's back?"

Charlie nearly fell as he brought himself down. What kind of a question was that?

"Yes, sir," he said, with a gulp at his own bravery. He had been doing some thinking, upside down. Ballerina. Cowboy. Music. Striped canvas. Ringmaster. And now lions. "Please, sir-are you a circus? And are you-" He was trying to ask again about France, but the major had started talking already.

"Are we a circus?" said Major Maurice. "Are we a circus? circus? We are not We are not a a circus, boy-we are circus, boy-we are He really did talk like that. His voice rose and rose and grew and grew, until the little cabin was full of it and it started to pour out onto the deck, and the blood suddenly came into his face, making him look pink and happy. Charlie could just imagine what he would be like in the ring, filling the big top with his rolling tones, crying out to the audience, shouting about how wonderful the show was, telling them to roll up, roll up for the Most Magnificent Show on Earth.

"We are Thibaudet's Royal Floating Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy," he said, more calmly, "known to those who can't p.r.o.nounce the ill.u.s.trious name of Thibaudet as Tib's Gallimaufry, and to those who can't p.r.o.nounce Gallimaufry as the Show. Play your cards right, young man, and you too will be in the Show. We need a young fella. Work hard, stick around. You can start with the monkeys. Pirouette will take you down. Good day to you."

The ballerina, Pirouette, gave Charlie a smile instead of a prod as she led him down a narrow companionway. It smelled of something Charlie could not identify. Something animal and dusty and musky-not a bad smell, but curious for a ship.

"You really want to be Circus, Charlie?" she said.

"Of course I do," said Charlie. "Of course I do. But listen-are we going to France?"

"Of course," she said, marching on ahead.

Charlie's face broke out in a grin as big as Paris.

The monkeys lived in the depths of the boat, in a smelly little chamber between the zebras and the Hungarian with the troupe of trained bees.

An Indian man-his name was Bikabhai-lived with the monkeys, in a hammock. Charlie could go in with the monkeys too, or he could sling a hammock in the feed hold, even farther down in the depths of the ship, where the smell wasn't quite so monkeyish but the air never changed, so it was still and thick and hard to breathe.

"Can't I sleep on deck?" he asked Bikabhai.

Bikabhai stretched his eyes. "Very cold," he said, slightly shocked. "And if sailorguys tread on you it might be unpleasant."

Charlie's duties were not too hard. He was to bring the monkeys' food, watch Bikabhai as he fed them, clean their quarters, and mend their clothes. Carrying the buckets of water was the worst part, once you got used to the monkey poo smell.

Several of the monkeys were called Dandy Jack.

"Why?" asked Charlie.

"Because they ride the ponies," said Bikabhai, as if that explained it.

"Where do we get dinner?" Charlie asked.

"I do not eat," said Bikabhai. So instead Charlie asked where in France they were headed.

"It matters not, so long as the journey is undertaken with a pure heart," said Bikabhai.

Charlie thought all this less than helpful, and set off to find somebody with a more practical outlook, and an opinion on where the dining room might be.

There were at least three decks that Charlie could make out. In the deep hold was the feed, and who knows what else-it was dark down there, and smelly, and dank, and Charlie found it quite impossible not to think of the deep, cold river water just on the other side of the thick clinkered struts and beams of the hull. The second deck, at the waterline, was where most of the animals lived: The cabins were small, and it seemed almost as if there was something huge in the middle of the ship and everything else had been stuffed in w.i.l.l.y-nilly around it, to fit in as best they could. But it was a bit warmer, and through the thick portholes you could see greenish daylight and sky, usually. Tonight, in the reasonably flat waters of the river, the waterline crossed right along the middle of the portholes in the monkeycabin, so you could see sky in the top semicircle, and dark water in the bottom half. The effect was peculiar, and made Charlie feel a bit ill.

The upper deck, where the humans lived, basked in full air and light. Pirouette had said she had a cabin here on the port side, near Major Thibaudet, which she shared with someone she called Madame Barbue. (Charlie thought that was the name. He was having a bit of trouble with the names, and was pretty sure he would be calling it Tib's Show, not Tiboddy's Floating Philharmonic What-have-you.) Charlie decided to go and see Pirouette. She would know about dinner. She had the air of a girl who knew things.

So how to find her cabin? He asked a sailor, got lost, asked another sailor, got lost, and asked another sailor-who directed him to the door in front of his nose.

His knock was answered by what could only be described as a beautiful lady with a large, fine, curling, silky black beard.

He gulped.

"Hallo," she said. She sounded French like Pirouette.

"Bonjour, madame," said Charlie politely, but still gawking. How could a lady have a beard like that? Was it real? If it were fake, why would she be wearing it off-duty? And goodness, what a fine beard it was. He could even smell it-a faint clean tinge of lavender pomade. said Charlie politely, but still gawking. How could a lady have a beard like that? Was it real? If it were fake, why would she be wearing it off-duty? And goodness, what a fine beard it was. He could even smell it-a faint clean tinge of lavender pomade.

"Are you looking for Pirouette?" she asked.

"Yes, madame," said Charlie. He couldn't stop staring. There were no strings that he could see, nor signs of glue.

Then quick as a bird, the lady took Charlie's hand in hers (which was cool and gentle) and put it to her cheek.

"You can stroke," she said, her smile curling up into the corner of her elegant mustache. "You like?"

Charlie couldn't tear his hand away. Her beard was beautifully soft and silky, like a very young goat's ears, or the curls between a calf's horns.

"We are about to eat," said the bearded lady. "You like to come with us?"

Charlie just nodded. Bearded lady. Okay. He could handle that.

Dinner took place in a long narrow chamber along the stern on the upper deck. Everybody took a dish up to the hatch and was given a dollop of food-tonight it was a stew with dumplings and green peas-and a piece of bread. Then they sat around eating and gossiping, and Charlie was able to see for the first time exactly whom he was heading out to sea with. There was a group of about ten tiny Italians, of all ages, with long noses and cheerful expressions, who Charlie guessed were acrobats of some kind. There was a rather fat woman with a squint, wearing overalls-"Snakes," said Madame Barbue mysteriously. A cross-looking gray-haired man sat reading all through the meal. ("Mr. Andrews," said Pirouette with a sniff. "He leads the bears.") An enormous young man came in a bit late, with an enormous dish, and had three helpings ("Hercule. Strong man," said Madame Barbue), and then a gang of energetic boys of about twenty, chatting loudly, playing around and talking about horses, with Francois the cowboy. ("The trick riders," said Pirouette.) There were various children around the place too, Charlie was pleased to see: a downtrodden-looking boy with mud on his face, a curly-haired boy who sat with two squabbling clowns, ignoring them, and two girls of about nine who had to be twins, wearing matching dresses and imitating each other's every move. They were interesting to watch, but they made Charlie feel seasick.

"What do you do?" Charlie asked Pirouette.

"I am trapeziorista volante, trapeziorista volante," she said with a proud little smile.

"Gosh," said Charlie, because he felt he ought to. He could tell by Pirouette's tone of voice that a trapeziorista volante trapeziorista volante was clearly fantastically cool, but he hadn't a clue what it meant. "Gosh," he said again politely. The bearded lady shot him a look and winked at him. was clearly fantastically cool, but he hadn't a clue what it meant. "Gosh," he said again politely. The bearded lady shot him a look and winked at him.

"You will see," she said, "when we do the Show."

"When will that be?" he asked eagerly.

"We go to Paris now," said Pirouette. "We have a date for the big show in just one week. The Imperial Amba.s.sador is having a big party, he invites all the eastern potentates, we are to be the fun for them. They all will come."

Paris! He tried to remember where Paris was. Sort of in the middle, but north. Certainly nowhere near the sea. So, when they got to land he could find a cat and get more information, and move on . . .

Charlie, to tell the truth, was having contradictory feelings. With the circus, he realized, he felt safe. All the activity, and so many people, would give him some protection if Rafi was was coming after him. So on the one hand, he was looking forward to snooping all over the ship, finding the animals and making friends, and above all seeing the Show, the real magic of the circus. He hoped (and hoped that this wasn't disloyal to his parents) that there'd be chances to see and do loads of things before they got to France. On the other hand, running through this cheerful prospect like an icy current was the constant, repeating knowledge of his parents' danger. And just behind that was the figure of Rafi: cool, unknown, frightening, challenging. coming after him. So on the one hand, he was looking forward to snooping all over the ship, finding the animals and making friends, and above all seeing the Show, the real magic of the circus. He hoped (and hoped that this wasn't disloyal to his parents) that there'd be chances to see and do loads of things before they got to France. On the other hand, running through this cheerful prospect like an icy current was the constant, repeating knowledge of his parents' danger. And just behind that was the figure of Rafi: cool, unknown, frightening, challenging.

But until they reached France, there was nothing much he could do. Okay. It was frustrating, but he could handle it.

Pirouette was still talking. "We can only make the Show in the big top. We travel to where the people are, then they come on board and we make the Show."