Maddigan's Fantasia

Maddigan's Fantasia Read Online Free PDF

Book: Maddigan's Fantasia Read Online Free PDF
Author: Margaret Mahy
the road again.’
    ‘I saw her again. And I saw them,’ Garland cried back, knowing as she heard her own words that what she was saying sounded like nonsense. ‘I mean …’
    ‘You’re not to wander away,’ yelled Maddie, taking no notice whatever of what Garland was saying. But then she grabbed her and hugged her, yelling all the time. ‘Back then … back then … just for a moment or two I thought I’d lost you too. I thought … oh my darling girl. You’ll have to give up on your runaway habits. Don’t keep
vanishing
! It makes me feel that someone somewhere has pulled out a black plug in the world, and all the precious things in my life are draining away into nowhere. It makes me feel I’m losing everything.’
    ‘Let’s get going,’ Yves was calling impatiently. ‘It’s just down the road – not a town so much as a crossroads. But it’ll still take time to get there. And if we are going to trade we’ll have to perform . And you …’ he pointed his finger at Garland … ‘you might have to be one of the performers. We mightn’t be able to rig the tightrope or the trapeze, so we’ll probably need a magician. Your dad taught you a few tricks, didn’t he?’
    ‘But I’m really a tightrope walker!’ cried Garland.
    ‘Tonight you might have to be a magician as well as an acrobat,’ Yves said. ‘We’re going to have to do the best we can.’
    Garland looked up at her mother. Maddie nodded.
    ‘The best we can,’ she repeated. ‘It’s what Ferdy would have wanted. Right?’
    And hearing her mother talk about Ferdy in the past tense suddenly made Garland feel she was losing him all over again.
    It did not take long for the Fantasia to get going once more. After all, they had not even turned the horses and dogs loose. Mounted on her own white horse Samala, Garland rode beside the leading van, feeling that she was the one who was guarding it.
    The road they now followed was nothing more than a line ofdirt with weeds and grass growing down the middle of it, and potholes so large it seemed as if the whole Fantasia might tumble into one of them and be lost forever. They crept on, wheels turning as, little by little, the dirt track vanished under mats of wet grass. Every now and then Samala put her head down trying to snatch a mouthful.
    ‘Keep on!’ cried Bannister, who was also riding on horseback beside Maddie’s van, frowning as he peered down at the unfolded map, trying to read it and ride at the same time. ‘Keep on … I think.’ Which was something Bailey would never have said. But, after a mile or so of grass and tussock, with forest closing in around them, the road came to life again, shrugging off the grass and looking suddenly much more sure of itself, crossed with wheel marks and edged with footprints. Within another mile they had arrived at a crossroads very much where Maddie had told them it would be. Here was the timber town of Milton. Houses and huts rose nervously over the scrub. Gardens, little straggling orchards and small fields of sheep and goats spread out between the four roads. Green sheds, filled with long racks of timber, linked houses and roads together.
    ‘Get the band going,’ Garland heard Yves commanding. ‘A bit of music sets a good mood.’
    And it seemed strange to see Bannister flourishing his trombone , Tane getting out his saxophone, Nye his pipe and Boomer struggling into the shoulder straps of his great drum when Ferdy was not there to hear them. It was almost as if the music would never be complete again without Ferdy as a leader and listener. Nevertheless the old songs began and they marched along, singing those songs just as they had always done.
    The Fantasia found it was expected. Someone had seen them and had run on ahead to tell the crossroads people, and the crossroads people had all turned out to see them arrive.Whenever it came to a big town the Fantasia was always greeted with cheers and cries of welcome but places like Milton often greeted
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