Circus

A Creative Writing Project by Katie

Circus

By Katie Morton

 

“Mum!! I DO NOT WANT TO GO!!” came the whining voice of a pale, brunette, young girl. Her eyes were filled to brimming with anger as she ran down the hall in her ballet pink, silk nightdress. A tall, gangly looking brunette stomped down the hall after her with the skirts of her fine cotton sundress flying around behind her.

    “LEAH!!! PUT ON THE SCHOOL DRESS YOUR FATHER SENT YOU! RIGHT THIS INSTANT!” She shouted, and exhaled anger.

   The young girl, Leah, started began to cry, all the while jumping up and down in a tantrum.

   “I HATE SCHOOL! I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT!!” she screamed, clenching her fists and stamping her bare feet on the floorboards.

   Her mother fell backwards into an armchair and placed the back of her hand on her forehead, as if she was feverish.

   “Liesel!” She called. A short, teenaged girl with braided blonde hair and sapphire eyes scurried into the room. She was dressed in a long, tan dress covered by a white apron.

   “Yes, Lady August?” She asked. Her voice was bell-like, but laced with a thick foreign accent.

    “I simply can’t manage… tell Frederick to get me a brandy, and please! Deal with this insolent child!” August let out a huff, and pretended to sob into her arm.

   “Right away, milady.” Liesel answered with a bow. She turned quickly to urge Leah out of the room.

   “Junge Dame!” Liesel scolded, after entering the next room and closing the door. “Why do you act like that with your Mutter?” She asked, using her own language for a moment.

“She does nothing but love you!”

   Leah began to cry, but not in tantrum.

“Don’t you see, Liesel? She doesn’t love me at all!” She exclaimed, looking up at her Governess. Liesel hugged the child for a moment, and the held onto her shoulders.

“It may seem that way, but I assure you otherwise, dear one.” With a smile, Liesel stood up and walked out of the room. Leah began to think to herself, and eventually calmed down enough to get dressed. She wandered out of the room she was in, the pantry in fact, and out through the dining room to the den. Her dress was laid across the back of the armchair, and her mother’s whereabouts were quite unknown.  The dress was many layered, with chiffon as the three under skirts, and pure white French lace as the over skirt, and dress. There was a fair sized white silk ribbon at the waist, which could be tied into a beautiful bow, and around the collar, there were little flowers made from rare red lace, nested in white puffs of lace. The sleeves were short and bulbous, made with elastic and had a white lace detail.

Leah had many dresses of this sort… but she decided to just comply and wear this new one.

    With a sudden ecstatic outburst, August came rushing into Leah’s bedroom, clutching two letters in her hand, and strange pieces of cardstock in the other. One of the letters was unopened.

   “Oh dearest, dearest child!” August squealed, pieces of her hair falling from its up-done style. “Read what this letter says, dearest! It’s from your good Father!” She thrust the envelope unopened at Leah.

   “Mum…” Leah began, before opening it.

August’s face remained unbearably happy.

   “Go on, honey.” She urged.

With a sigh of discontent, Leah tore open the letter and began to read it out loud.

 

 “My Most Dear Daughter, Leah:

I write to you in a time of great importance, as I am due for a few more meetings before I can make my journey back home. I wish nothing more than for to see you, as I do indeed miss your smiling face. In apology, I give you permission to be absent from school in order to attend The Circus, a most prestigious entertainment for people of your age. Please go and spend good time with your Mother. Remember, I love you! –

     Daddy”

 

   “The Circus?” Leah asked, almost in mockery. August nodded and pushed the tickets into her face.

   “Oh I simply cannot wait!!” August exclaimed in glee, rushing out of the room.

   “Nor can I wait to get out of school!” Leah said under her breath. She turned and rummaged in the trunk at the end of her bed, finding a pair of red Mary Jane shoes to match her rare, red, lace flowers on her dress. She also found a red ribbon, and exchanged the white one discarded across her bedroom floor. In a mirror taller than herself, she fastened it into a lopsided, yet somehow beautiful bow. She smiled without showing her teeth, and her earthen brown eyes sparkled, matching her hair quite well.

   Moments later, Liesel appeared in her doorway, with a white long jacket, despite the fairly warm weather. In a flash, she had brushed through Leah’s hair, and set a midday hat about the crown of her head. It had a white silk ribbon on it, and it wasn’t one Leah particularly enjoyed.

   “I don’t approve of this missing school, dear one…” She said, “So please make it worth it for my eyes to see you go… be nice to your mother!” She begged, smoothing the collar down of Leah’s jacket.

   “If you insist, Governess.” Leah said, her voice laced slightly with false promise. Liesel smiled, and shooed her out of the door.

   “Go now, and enjoy it, dear one!” she called, waving as Leah crunched the shale in the driveway under her feet.

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   The circus was showy, indeed. Leah found herself uninterested in the clowns. The Lion Tamer was something boring now, as never would the lion eat his master. She yawned slightly, before staring over at her mother. August was sitting at the edge of her seat with a grin rivaling that of the most interested child. As the tightrope walker, Featherweight, as they called her, paraded across the stage on a line above several nets, August clenched her fists in the air, and held her breath like a statue would. Even as Featherweight caught a thrown, frilly, pink parasol, and opened it with all limbs but one foot, Leah yawned.

   “I need to visit the little ladies’ room, Mum.” She said, pulling at August’s sleeve.

August simply sucked in another deep breath and continued watching.

   “That’s nice dear…Mum is busy now.” She said, waving her hand in Leah’s face.

Leah shrugged, and got down from her seat to make her way out of the arena.

   “Now…where are those bathrooms?” she muttered, exiting the giant tent.

Wandering a bit, Leah noticed that the area was sort of desolate, save the glittering lot for cars away behind the tent. There was puddles everywhere, and mud as far as the eye could see. To her left, a sign taller than she pointed in the opposite direction, like a sort of beacon for the needy. It aptly read, “Restrooms”, and Leah seemed to think it appropriately obvious. Away she followed the beaten path in the spongy, moist earth.

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“Ella!” shouted a small boy. His hair was black as coal, and his eyes were bluer than the sky. He was chasing, rather unsuccessfully, after a baby elephant, bounding towards were the civilians required restrooms.

   “ELLA!” he shouted. The baby elephant skidded to a stop, slopping mud over herself and onto the door of the Ladies’ Room. She turned around, and looked proudly over at the boy. Her tail swished, and she flapped her ears to and fro happily. The door to the bathroom began to creak open slowly, and then….

 

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A sound unlike anything Leah had ever heard erupted from a tiny mass of grey muscle in the way of the bathroom door. Leah let out a yell unlike anything she had yelled yet.

The door softly plunked against the grey mass, who moved it with its trunk.

   “An….ELEPHA…!” Leah started, in a loud, high-pitched voice. “Elephant!!”

She backed up a little, frightened. The baby elephant swung its ears to and fro, waddling a little as it walked towards her.

   “She won’t bite.” Came an unfamiliar voice, the likes of which made Leah jump. A boy came into view, running at a slow pace, before catching up to the elephant.

   “This…troublemaker is the wonderful Ella.” He explained, as she wound her trunk around his waist, knocking her head against him.

   “And I’m…Elijah.” He said, holding out a dirt-stained hand.

   “Good to know.” Leah said codly,  pulling her hands away from Ella.

   “Don’t be scared.” Elijah said, petting Ella’s ear. “She’s a love.”

   “I don’t care.” Leah said, turning around. She began to walk away, before Ella made that aweful trumpeting sound once again.

   “Heavens! What does she want?” Leah exclaimed, whirling around again.

   “She wants you to stay.” The boy called Elijah called. He stood there, with his hand in the side pocket of his overalls. The other hand twisted his grey,  puffed hat to face to the front.

   Leah smiled a little as Ella’s trunk lifted like an S. She reached up and touched the tip of it, making the tail swish back and forth.

   “She’s too cute to leave here.” Leah decided. Ella seemed to smile a little as the words left Leah’s mouth.

   “I…am… Leah,” she said, not offering a hand, “And I guess I’m pleased to meet you.”

She shrugged, and swept off the fragments of dirt from her skirts before attempting to walk away.

   “Please don’t go, Leah.” Elijah said, in a pure voice. “I…I don’t have any friends ‘cept Ella here. It’s really nice to meet you.”

   “You should go to public school. I bet it’s thrilling being in a circus, you probably need such a change.” She said, scoffing.

   “I’ve been, but it isn’t for me. I’ve been all over with my Mum, we’ve been to…Asia, I guess that oriental place is called.”

   Leah’s ears sort of pricked as she heard him talk.

   “What’s Asia like?” she asked, walking a few steps closer to him. Ella plodded close behind her.

   “Well, the people there have queer eyes.” Elijah said, pulling at the corners of his. Leah couldn’t help but laugh at him.

   “They’re really nice, and they always give away rice or silk. The rich ones dress very nicely, with lots of colors. And, oh and there’s this great big wall there. It’s a sight to see, I’ll tell you!” He said, laughing.

   “Wow. My Father always said Asia is something else.” Leah said, smiling. She walked along side this Elijah, wanting to listen to his stories a little more.

   “Where else have you been?” She asked him. “I demand you tell me.” Ella nudged her from behind. “I mean, I’d enjoy another story, Sir.”

   Elijah nodded, scratching his chin.

   “Oh the time the whole circus got on a boat and visited Ireland. That was nice. The ocean was huge, and sometimes rough. But… without a doubt the most beautiful thing I remember, next to Ireland’s green. Everywhere!” He said, stretching his arms out to motion the size of the vast greenness.

   “Maybe I should go with you.” Leah said. “Nobody loves me here.”

   Elijah looked worried at her.

   “What do you mean, miss?” he asked. “You’re one from a rich family, wearing fine clothes, unlike me. My Mum loves me the best she can…yours…doesn’t?”

   Leah looked down and kicked a rock, absent-mindedly kicking a pebble, noticing they had arrived at the front entrance of the circus. People were pouring out, as the show seemed to have ended.

   “No… she only pretends. That’s all she does. My dad I haven’t seen since I was really too young to count.”

   Elijah took off his hat, and placed it over his heart.

   “As they say in France, Je t’aimerai.” He leaned over and kissed the air beside her cheek.

   Leah looked at him sideways.

   “My dad says that to me.” She said.

   “Before he left me Mum, my father said it to her, and she says it to me.” Elijah said, shrugging. “She said he wasn’t true to his word, that he had a family in England, too.”

   Leah stopped in her tracks, in the gravel of the path.

   “MY DARLING, DARLING DAUGHTER!!!” Came a shriek from behind her.

  August rushed up and kneeled, tears in her eyes.

   “I was sure I’d lost you, darling.” She gasped, hugging Leah tightly.

   “What have you been doing?”

   “I was wandering, when I met my new friend.” She said, pointing at Elijah.

   “I took good care of her, Ma’am. I wouldn’t let nobody take her away.” He said with a bow.

   “My…god…” August said, clasping a hand to her heart.

   “You look exactly like….my….” she said, fumbling in her purse for a wallet. She opened it to a picture of Edwin.

   “Exactly like my husband, Edwin.”

   “Mum said that was the name of my Dad too.” Elijah said, standing again after his bow.

   August held on to Leah’s hand and showed Elijah the photograph. Elijah produced one of the same from his jacket pocket.

   “He gave this to me Mum, promising to return one day…” He said, at a loss for words.

August began to feel feverish, and put her hand to her forehead.

   “So you…and my Leah are siblings…” she said. “And nor was he faithful to me…” She whispered, tearing up again.

   Leah leaned closer to Elijah.

   “I never expected to even find a friend here at The Circus… but a brother, too?” She said, and laughed, completely ignoring her mothers loud hysterics. She smiled, and meant it for the first time in her life, and hugged Elijah.

   “Shall we?” She asked, petting Ella’s head. People began gathering around them, watching August make a scene.

   “Sure!” Elijah answered. They linked arms, and walked down the gravel path away from all that didn’t matter, for they had found each other, and that was quite enough for one day.

Author's Note

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Reviews

[DansStories]

There so muuuch detail in this !! It's sooo visual! :D me likes