Free Circus Shoes by Noel Streatfeild Page A

feeling inside. Nobody could want to write three letters the first day they came to live in a circus. She made a “must we? “ face.
    “We’d have more to tell him tomorrow.”
    Peter was just as glad of an excuse as she was.
    “That’s true.” He threw an envelope across to Santa. With his tongue out ready to lick. “Doesn’t it seem funny how important they seemed. They don’t matter a bit now.”
    Santa was licking, so she could only say “Um.” But now she came to think, it was very odd. Mr. Stibbings with his slowness and fusiness. Mrs. Ford and all her tears. Madame Tranchot with her black-bordered handkerchief and her hands thrown into the air. Miss Fane and her violin. All suddenly just gone away. It was as though they had been packed up and put in a box like the old ivory set of spillikins that had belonged to the duchess.
    Peter had put Mrs. Ford’s envelope on the table. Suddenly he pounced on it.
    “I say, we are fools. We never said where the things are to be sent to.”
    Santa looked blank. Circuses seemed very come and go affairs, not at all the kind of places where one sent luggage.
    “Well, where shall she send it? We’d better wait and ask Gus.” Peter had managed to reopen the envelope without tearing it. He frowned at it.
    “I’d much rather not ask him. I think it’s the sort of thing he’d think we ought to know. I’d much rather find out for myself.”
    “How?” said Santa.
    Peter got up and went to the door. He was not exactly cross, but somehow since they had run away people were making him feel that they thought him stupid. Nobody ever had before. In fact Aunt Rebecca, Mr. Stibbings, Mrs. Ford, and Madame Tranchot had all in their way given him the idea he was rather bright. He knew that he was not stupid really. In fact, he suspected that he was better educated than anybody attached to the circus. All the same, the way Gus said things made him feel a fool, which was just as bad as being one. If possible he did not mean to give him the chance to make him feel like that again.
    Santa looked at him anxiously. She knew just what he meant about Gus. He was the kind of man who expected you to know everything without being told. She joined Peter at the door.
    “I can’t think why we didn’t tell Mr. Stibbings we had an uncle.”
    Peter gave an angry jerk of his shoulders.
    “You thought it was a good idea to run away. You said so.”
    Santa sat on the caravan step.
    “Of course I did. What I mean is, it is funny we both thought running away was the only thing to do.
    It would have been more sensible to say we had an uncle.”
    Peter kicked at the caravan door.
    “I can’t think why Aunt Rebecca never told us about our family. Why didn’t she say she was just maid to the duchess?”
    Santa puzzled the question over in her mind.
    “As a matter of fact she never said she wasn’t. I mean she never said why she knew that awful duchess. Anyhow, I’m glad. I’ve always hated Lady Moira, Lady Marigold, and the Manliston girls. Now I needn’t be like them any more.”
    Peter felt surprised and pleased.
    “And I needn’t do things like Lord Bronedin.”
    Santa stretched out her legs.
    “We needn’t do anything like anybody. We’re just us.” Suddenly she leaned forward and gripped her knees excitedly. “I can cut off my hair.”
    Peter was doubtful. Of course he knew Santa’s hair was a nuisance to her. All the same he was not sure he thought it a good idea to cut it off. It looked rather nice sometimes.
    “I shouldn’t. You’d probably look awful with it short.” He stepped through the door onto the step where Santa was sitting. “Look, there’s Alexsis. Let’s ask him about how luggage comes.”
    Alexsis came and sat on the steps with them. It took him a rather long time to grasp what it was they wanted to know. Peter and Santa kept prompting each other, and they spoke too fast for his bad English.
    When he did grasp what they were talking about he got up and ran