PUFFIN BOOKS
MR MAJEIKA JOINS THE CIRCUS
Humphrey Carpenter (1946–2005), the author and creator of Mr Majeika, was born and educated in Oxford. He went to a school called the Dragon School where exciting things often happened and there were some very odd teachers – you could even call it magical! He became a full-time writer in 1975 and was the author of many award-winning biographies. As well as the Mr Majeika titles, his children’s books also include Shakespeare Without the Boring Bits and More Shakespeare Without the Boring Bits. He wrote plays for radio and theatre and founded the children’s drama group The Mushy Pea Theatre Company. He played the tuba, double bass, bass saxophone and keyboard.
Humphrey once said, The nice thing about being a writer is that you can make magic happen without learning tricks. Words are the only tricks you need. I can write: “He floated up to the ceiling, and a baby rabbit came out of his pocket, grew wings, and flew away.” And you will believe that it really happened! That’s magic, isn’t it?’
Puffin books by Humphrey Carpenter
MR MAJEIKA
MR MAJEIKA AND THE DINNER LADY
MR MAJEIKA AND THE GHOST TRAIN
MR MAJEIKA AND THE HAUNTED HOTEL
MR MAJEIKA AND THE LOST SPELL BOOK
MR MAJEIKA AND THE MUSIC TEACHER
MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL BOOK WEEK
MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL CARETAKER
MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL INSPECTOR
MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL PLAY
MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL TRIP
MR MAJEIKA JOINS THE CIRCUS
MR MAJEIKA ON THE INTERNET
MR MAJEIKA VANISHES
THE PUFFIN BOOK OF CLASSIC CHILDREN’S STORIES (Ed.)
SHAKESPEARE WITHOUT THE BORING BITS
MORE SHAKESPEARE WITHOUT THE BORING BITS
Illustrated by Frank Rodgers
PUFFIN
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published 2006
7
Text copyright © Mari Prichard, 2006
Illustrations copyright © Frank Rodgers, 2006
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-14-193908-7
With thanks to Gifford’s Circus for inspiring this book with brilliant acts which are NOT old or tired…
To Ben, Ollie and Freddie for suggesting lots of it…
And to Caitlin and Anna for making it even better.
1. Billy’s Not So Bold
2. The Strongest Bigmore in the World
3. Billy’s Going to Fall
4. St Barty’s School Circus
5. Mr Majeika Says No
6. Two Jodys?
7. Circus Magic
8. Fly on the Wall
9. I’m a Celebrity
Billy Balance was frightened.
He knew there wasn’t a sensible reason to be frightened. But he couldn’t help it. His knees kept wobbling. And if they wobbled when he began to cross the rope, that would be it. He would fall.
Billy Balance was a slack-rope walker. You probably don’t know what a slack-rope walker is. Maybe you think I’m making a mistake and really mean a tightrope walker. Well, a slack-rope walker is like a tightrope walker. Up to a point. Both of them walk across a rope, which is stretched from one side of a circus tent to the other. Except a tightrope is tight and firm to stand on, and a slack rope isn’t. It just hangs loosely across the tent, in a gentle curve, and you can’t imagine that anyone could ever walk across it.
In fact there are very few people in the world who can. And one of them was Billy Balance. He didn’t just walk across it. He danced. When he reached the middle of the rope he would produce a violin from inside his coat. He would begin to play an Irish jig, a bouncy tune that soon had the audience clapping. He jumped up and down in time to the music. He waved his left leg, and then his right leg, so far in the air that you could see it was almost impossible to do that without falling off the rope. And he finished his act by jumping high, and then spinning round in mid-air.
Nobody else in the entire world has ever done that. And the audience went wild.
If you asked Billy how he did it, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. It was something he’d been taught when he was a tiny child. Maybe his teacher could do magic. Or maybe he was just very good at balancing. But whatever the explanation, Billy now had a different secret. He was losing his nerve.
Last night he had nearly fallen off the rope. Not just at the end of his act when he was jumping and spinning, but from the very beginning of his act he had felt his feet slipping. It was as if the air itself was trying to pull him down. And that was very frightening, because the air had always been his friend.