Maddigan's Fantasia Read Online Free PDF Page B

them with silence, uncertain just who was calling in on them – uncertain if it was the same Fantasia that had visited them the last time around or some treacherous imitation. People were curious but guarded, waiting to see what would happen next. Yves now jumped from the front of the leading van and began to beckon the Fantasia around him, shouting and waving his arms. ‘Here we are! Here we are again! The show of wonders ! The amazement of the world.’ The acrobats cartwheeled beside him. Tane the clown passed his saxophone to a young man called Lattin, then leapt and tumbled and somersaulted. Bannister reluctantly slipped a book into his belt and began showing off his muscles. Children from the crowd and even some of the men tried lifting the weight at his feet. Bannister let them try, watching and smiling, then lifted that weight high, almost casually, using only one arm. Wonder began to work on the watchers as it always did. The blank and sometimes challenging faces began to soften and change. The head man came forward. Maddie moved to Yves’s side. They were going to bargain . The Fantasia would perform, but the Milton must pay for a show of wonders … pay with food this time … pay with goats’ milk, bread and cheese. Pay with apples? Maybe, though perhaps there were not many apples left at this time of the year. However Milton could afford a ham or two and some fresh greens. And they had eggs to spare.
    ‘Not the whole show,’ Maddie said, reporting back to the Fantasia people. ‘The tumblers, the horses, the clowns and the dogs. They remember the magician … they’ve asked for him.’ And then she stopped because Ferdy had been their magician and he had vanished as magicians do – but this time he was gone forever. ‘They’re almost demanding a magician,’ she said helplessly.
    ‘I know a few tricks,’ Garland reminded her.
    ‘Right! We’ll try you,’ Maddie said, but looking very doubtful. ‘No choice.’
    ‘I’ll go and practise,’ Garland cried.
I remember the tricks Ferdy taught me
, she was thinking.
And now I’m actually going to be Ferdy. He’ll come alive again through me
. Even though it was only a small show this time, the Fantasia began its usual seething … partly with its own people, partly with Milton people wandering around and wondering, staring at the vans … at the coloured tents, unfolding and rising. Garland drew away from the crowd and set up her father’s magician’s table, laid out the boxes and the scarves, the coins in an orderly fashion. The cabinet of vanishment had been unloaded and stood, slightly tilted, beside her, but she did not know its secrets well enough as yet to make people disappear. (‘How do you do it?’ she had nagged Ferdy, but he had only laughed and had told her he must keep a few mysteries to himself.)
    ‘You telling me you’re going to be a magician?’ someone asked behind her. ‘That’s a boy’s thing to do.’ Garland did not need to turn her head to know who it was. Boomer! There he was, fair, freckled, winking at the world with those bright green eyes as if he was trying to work out just what was driving it along. But Boomer was always trying to work out how things worked … clocks and watches … his noisy little motorbike … and of course the Fantasia vans. When something went wrong with one of them and Tane had to bend into them or slide under them Boomer was always beside him, sometimes being helpful but quite often simply getting in the way.
    ‘Go and practise your drum,’ Garland told him. ‘It’s simple just
hitting
something – boom, boom, boom! A ten-year-old can do it. Even
you
can do it. Right now I need to concentrate.’
    ‘I’m
eleven
,’ said Boomer indignantly. He hated it when Garland pretended to think he was only ten. ‘I can almost do magictricks. Hey, I’ll help you,’ he offered. ‘Maddie helps Ferdy – she used to help Ferdy that is …’ his voice trailed away.
    ‘Get out!’ cried