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too sure, but, thinking it over, he may well be right. We’ll try it tonight, at any rate, and see how it goes.’
    ‘But what about when the new teeth come through?’ Lottie asked rather apprehensively. ‘Baz said some people’s teeth come through huge, which isn’t pretty. And you let Merle go because she stopped being sweet.’
    ‘They won’t be huge, because you’re very like me and I’ve always had small, even teeth,’ Louella said. ‘But I didn’t let Merle go because of her teeth, queen. It was because she didn’t sing too well. Truth to tell, sweetheart, I only employed her because she was related to Max. And it’s always a mistake to employ someone you don’t know yourself.’
    ‘Related to Max?’ Lottie squeaked. ‘I never knew that, Mammy. What sort of relation?’
    ‘She’s his niece,’ Louella said briefly, helping herself to another slice of cake.
    ‘Well, I’m blowed,’ Lottie said. ‘Baz never told me that! So that makes Merle his cousin, don’t it, Mammy? No wonder they were such big friends, her and Baz. It did seem odd because she were only with you for a couple of months, weren’t she? While I were in hospital, I mean. But I reckon her and Baz had probably known each other for ages. An’ if she’s his cousin, where is she now?’
    ‘With her parents, of course,’ Louella said. ‘Her pa is Max’s brother and he’s a conjurer like Max, only he’s with the circus. Well, Max started off with the circus too, but he soon realised he could do a deal better for himself on the stage. So you see I took Merle on as a favour to Max, really.’
    ‘But she was only a kid, so why did they let her come to you?’ Lottie asked. ‘Mammies don’t usually leave their kids, norreven with an uncle, do they?’
    ‘Sometimes they do,’ Louella said. For some reason a faint pink blush stole up her neck and invaded her cheeks. ‘But Max’s brother knew poor Merle couldn’t read or write because they never stayed in the same place long enough for her to get any schooling. They thought if she lived with us for, say, a year, she might catch up. Only it’s no good denying she couldn’t sing, and when I knew you were coming out of hospital we sent her back to the circus. And since she sagged off school whenever she could and was dreadfully cocky to the teachers, they weren’t sorry to see her go, I can tell you.’
    ‘I see,’ Lottie said slowly. She felt greatly relieved. All her worries over losing her teeth had been completely groundless. I should have guessed that Baz was only trying to frighten me, she thought, helping herself to cold mutton. But I wonder why he never told me Merle was his cousin? I’ll ask him sometime, if I can catch him when he’s in a good mood, that is. And how odd that I never knew Max had a brother, either. I wish we were in a circus! If we were, I shouldn’t have to go to school and I could learn to be a tightrope walker and swing on a trapeze in spangled tights and a frilly top. Just wait till I tell Kenny that I’m as good as related to a circus conjurer!

Chapter Two
    1922
    It was July and this was the last day of term. Lottie, cleaning her teeth vigorously and spitting into the slop bucket, remembered how frightened she had been a year ago that her second teeth would turn out to be large and yellowy, and prevent her from performing on stage with her mother. How things had changed in that year! Her teeth had come through as Louella had predicted, small and even. And she had grown a little as well, only a couple of inches, but enough to make her mother eye her thoughtfully. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if Max is right and you should go to proper ballet lessons,’ she had said, only a few days earlier. ‘In a couple of years we shan’t be able to call you little Miss Lottie any more and the management may want you to do an act of your own. What would you think of that, eh?’
    Lottie had stared at her mother, round-eyed. ‘I’d hate it,’ she said