The Magnificent Lizzie Brown and the Mysterious Phantom Read Online Free

and done up in brightly colored ruffles — was shooing her toward the exit. The other visitors were already streaming out of the tent.
    â€œBut I just got in!’ Lizzie protested. “I haven’t seen it all!”
    â€œThen come back tomorrow,” the woman said. “Why don’t you pop along to the big tent? The last performance’ll be starting any moment. We’re closing up here. Poor Anita is exhausted.”
    â€œYou’re right about that, Flora. I’m worn to the bone.” In her miniature parlor, Anita slid forward in her tiny chair and began rubbing her feet with small, plump hands. “I’ve lost all feeling in my toes.” She hopped to the ground and began to limp toward her pint-sized fireplace.
    In the tall booth opposite, the Amazon Queen pulled off her feather-and-bone headdress and dusted down her skirt. She called to Anita. “Come for your dinner at my wagon, ’Nita. I’ll be makin’ stew.”
    Lizzie stared in surprise. The Amazon Queen — twice as tall as Lizzie and as exotic as a bird of paradise — spoke with a raucous East End accent. “I thought she was from Africa!” Lizzie said.
    â€œShe is.” Flora folded her hands and leaned back proudly. “I taught her English myself. Quick learner, she was.”
    The Amazon Queen gave a throaty laugh. “In Africa I speak like a queen. In England I speak like a washerwoman.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Flora threw up her arms. “Queen Victoria herself don’t speak no better than me.”
    The Amazon Queen ignored her and nodded regally to the old man, then the sword swallower. “Why don’t you both join us too? And if you’d be so kind as to bring a lil’ somethin’ to throw in the pot, we’ll have a proper meal.”
    Lizzie felt a nudge from behind. It was Flora again. “You still here? Go find your ma. She’ll be missin’ you.”
    Flora shooed her out with the rest of the visitors, and before she could argue, Lizzie found herself outside. Purple clouds streaked a pink sky. An evening chill was flooding Hyde Park, and Lizzie shivered in the cold. She lifted her wool skirt, pulling it tight around her shoulders like a shawl and leaving her tattered petticoats to flutter around her legs.
    The crowds were thinning as the last of the sideshow visitors filtered into the big tent. A top-hatted man in a patchwork waistcoat beckoned latecomers through the brightly lit entrance. “Last show! Last show!” He swapped their coins for tickets and waved them inside where flickering lights swallowed them.
    Lizzie’s shoulders drooped. Her purse was as empty as her belly. Heart heavy, she wandered across the grass while figures worked around her, closing up the sideshows and lighting lamps outside the caravans. Canvas flapped in the breeze, while music swelled inside the big tent, and a happy roar rose from the crowd. The show was about to begin.
    Lizzie stopped beside a flower bed thick with bushes and stared across the field. This would be a safe place to rest. She sank to the ground and crawled beneath one of the bushes. The bruise on her cheek ached as the cold jabbed at it. But she knew Pa would give her another if she went home.
    Curling up tight as a hedgehog, Lizzie listened to the ringmaster calling out the first act as stones grated against her bony arms. The crowd cheered while Lizzie snuggled deeper into her petticoats, trying to escape the cold and imagining what was happening inside the circus tent.
    Lizzie carried on sitting there long after the show had finished and the audience had gone home. An owl screeched overhead and made her gasp. Aching all over, she crept out from beneath the bush into a sleeping world. The big tent flapped eerily in the darkness, and here and there caravan windows showed lights, but no one stirred. The owl screeched again, and Lizzie’s teeth began to chatter. She had to