Free The Sequin Star by Belinda Murrell

felt like she might faint.
    Kit looked puzzled. ‘Are you all right? You look rather pale.’
    â€˜I’m . . . I’m . . .’ stuttered Claire.
    â€˜You had better sit down,’ suggested Rosina, steering Claire over towards a pile of benches that had just been unloaded from a lorry. Claire sat down gratefully.
    â€˜Claire was bowled over by one of the elephants yesterday and knocked her head,’ Rosina explained. ‘She was a bit woozy yesterday, but I thought she was better today or I would never have let her ride up on Empress.’
    Kit gestured towards the camp. ‘Can I fetch something for her?’ he offered. ‘Perhaps a glass of water or a wet cloth?’
    â€˜Please, don’t go to any trouble,’ begged Claire. ‘I’m fine now. I just felt a little faint.’
    Rosina jumped up, looking distracted. She glanced over towards the hive of activity. ‘Perhaps you could sit with her for a moment?’ she asked Kit. ‘I need to get changed and tend to the horses. The boss will bite my head off if he sees me here doing nothing.’
    Kit stood up and swept into a bow, holding his hat below his waist. His eyes sparkled.
    â€˜Of course,’ said Kit. ‘It would be my pleasure, Miss . . .?’
    Rosina examined Kit in his perfectly pressed suit of finest cloth. She tilted her head in a regal bow of her own, feathers bobbing. The jewelled clasp glinted in the sunlight.
    â€˜Princess Rosina of Romani,’ joked Rosina as she walked off. ‘But you can call me Rosina.’
    Claire didn’t know what to say. Questions crowded her mind. Is Kit really my grandfather? Where does he live? What is he doing here on a circus lot?
    Claire watched as a group of men unrolled the thick grey canvas tents out onto the grass where Alf directed. There, they laced the panels of canvas together. Heavy wooden poles were hauled up in the air. It took twelve men to carry just one of the centre tentpoles – and even more to haul it upright.
    â€˜Heave-ho!’ came the shouts of the overseer. ‘Up she goes. Easy does it. Slowly. Slowly. Now stop.’
    Teams of men used sledgehammers to pound the stout tent pegs into the ground, one by one, in a well-rehearsed rhythm. The men worked with their shirts off, wearing sweaty singlets, their braces hanging down around their knees.
    The elephants were now harnessed to ropes that were being used to help haul up the poles and rigging of the various tents. In no time at all, the vacant town lot was being transformed into a busy camp.
    Local boys, six to fourteen years old, were being paid with free passes to work on the lot – chopping wood, carrying buckets of water to animals and combing the ground for broken glass. The boys wore the ubiquitous flat caps of the working class, with fraying shirts and grubby shorts with braces. Most of them had filthy bare feet.
    â€˜Are you feeling better now?’ asked Kit.
    Claire snapped back to the present and searched his face. ‘Yes – thank you,’ she said. ‘I should go and help Rosina.’
    â€˜Let me escort you back then, to make sure you’re all right.’
    Claire and Kit strolled across the lot towards the caravans. Claire could see Rosina, now dressed in jodhpurs and knee-high boots, heading towards the horses, carrying a bucket.
    The three young Sterling children, still dressed in their clown suits, were playing chasing, dodging back and forth down the narrow spaces between the caravans. To the left, Flash Frank was escorting Elsie towards the Big Top.
    A young roustabout was reversing the truck that held the lions’ cage into position. The canvas sides of the truck had been rolled up for the parade to reveal the animals inside. The driver misjudged and backed into a lorry. The lion roared with furious indignation. Claire yelped.
    The driver rolled the truck forward again, but the welding on the rear of the