The Road to Gundagai Read Online Free Page A

note.
    ‘A shilling seat then.’ The man stared at the note, making no pretence now. ‘Blimey. Ain’t seen one of them for a while. I ain’t got change for ten quid, not yet anyhow.’
    Blue calculated quickly. She couldn’t carry a hundred and ninety-nine shilling pieces without a handbag. ‘Could you give me five shillings now, and the rest of the change after the show?’
    The man looked at her strangely. ‘You’d trust me to give it back then?’
    ‘Yes.’ Blue didn’t care if he was trustworthy or not. She had nothing else to spend the money on. ‘Never, if you’re going to die,’ said a whisper. Blue ignored it. She peered into the shadows behind the tent lights, trying to see the elephant.
    The man seemed to come to a decision. ‘Here.’ He poured a small pile of sixpences and a couple of shillings into her hand. ‘That’s enough to see the sideshows and buy yourself some peanuts. Sit in the front row and someone’ll bring the rest of your change after the show.’
    ‘I’d rather sit at the back.’
    ‘Suit yourself, girlie. At the back then.’ He hesitated. ‘You from the big house, ain’t you?’
    She nodded. ‘Please, where is the elephant?’
    ‘The Queen of Sheba? You missed the feeding.’ He grinned at her, showing missing teeth on either side. ‘A penny a carrot for the elephant. But she’s resting before the performance. She’s an old girl now.’ His voice gentled. ‘Too old to be jostled all day by strangers.’
    Blue swallowed her disappointment. She’d hoped to pat the elephant, even perhaps have a ride on it.
    ‘Tell you what,’ said the man suddenly. ‘After the show’s over, I’ll introduce you. How’s that? You can give her a carrot.’
    It felt like a birthday present, her only real one, more real than the box of chocolates. ‘Wonderful.’
    The man with the moustache laughed. ‘You enjoy the show then. Don’t forget the House of Horrors.’
    She’d had enough horrors of her own. But she grinned at him anyway. How long had it been since she grinned?
    She stepped into the paddock that had become the circus.

Chapter 3
    The crowd milled around the three sideshows, men in farmer’s hats and long-wearing Laurence’s Jumbuck boots, women in ankle-skimming pre-war dresses or slim flapper tunics with long loops of beads pretending to be pearls bouncing on bosoms too rounded and uncorseted to be truly fashionable. Boys with bare feet and cut-down shorts and shirts made from well-washed flour sacks wriggled and laughed between the adults.
    A small queue still waited outside the fortune-teller’s tent. Muffled shrieks came from inside the House of Horrors.
    The hunchbacked dwarf still yelled the Freak Show’s wonders at the crowd. His feet were bare too, small and grubby. ‘Step right up! See the bearded tattooed lady! All the way from the South Seas! See the world’s biggest grizzly bear!’
    The dwarf leered down at two girls in straw hats. ‘Biggest claws you’ve ever seen! And teeth! Teeth like this!’ His small hands gestured about a yard wide. ‘That bear terrified the village back in the old country, till me grandpa captured it. Now you can see it for sixpence!’
    The girls giggled. One nudged the young man beside them. He hesitated. Sixpence was a lot of money in times like these, especially after paying a shilling to enter. The girl nudged him again. He handed over six threepenny bit pieces. He followed the girls, still giggling, into the tent.
    Blue didn’t want to see either the bear or a bearded lady. I’m a freak too, now, she thought. A shadow of something large moved, over behind the Big Top. The elephant. Blue looked around. The circus people all seemed occupied. She shuffled away from the crowd, towards the shadow.
    Then, suddenly, there was the elephant, in a small courtyard made by three circling caravans, two rounded and with peeling paint, the third of carved wood, just like a gipsy caravan in books. A big truck and one side of the Big