Rabbits or Elephants? — A Night at the Circus
When the circus came to Leicester, the circus people stabled the elephants under the railway arches on Lane. Cousin John was there soon after they arrived. He almost broke his neck to brag to me about it but promised to take me to see them on Friday night if I wanted. I was over the moon at the prospect of seeing my first live elephants. I raced home and told Mum. She was all for it, but Dad had other ideas. His workmate, Jack Elson, had promised to give him two baby rabbits, a buck, and a doe from different litters, if we fetched them on Friday night after five. Dad said, "That's your job, you know, and I want no arguments. My rabbits are far more important than a couple of bloody elephants." Setting off straight from school on Friday night, I reached Glenfield in record time. Usually, when Keith and I went, we liked to make the job last a bit longer, but this time every second was important if my dreams were to come true.
I grabbed the buck in the sack Mrs. Elson had ready and gently placed it over my shoulder, said a quick 'Thank you,' and ran, hardly stopping all the way home. When I arrived home, the rabbits looked to be in a state of shock after the bouncing they received on the way home. Dad warned me before I went that if my rabbits weren't handled properly, they often died of fright, but I didn't have time to worry about such things. Thinking I'd given the rabbits the 'kid glove' treatment as he told me to, Dad reckoned Jack had slipped him a couple of 'duffins,' being able to argue the point without giving the game away. I shot off down Swan Street, getting there just before 6:30, done in but happy to have made it in time. John cheered me up no end when he described the little job he'd got for us. No pay, just three tickets to the circus and a free bottle of Coke. The elephants and their keeper were performing at the Granby Halls but would be coming back anytime, so he went down to wait until they turned up an hour later. John took me back; our task simply giving the Keeper a hand didn't sound too brilliant, but the free tickets made it hard to refuse. Their keeper, a little wizard-like brown-skinned chap in a grand white turban, fascinated me. He was the first coloured person I'd ever seen.
At first sight, the stables resembled something out of a nightmare. The smell alone was enough to choke you. When our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we saw two huge elephants towering over us with this little dark chap pushing and pulling them all over the place. I got ready to run, but the thought of the free tickets kept me there, wondering what the job might be. But with John in charge, anything could happen. Peering through the gloom, we tentatively asked what he wanted us to do. The little fellow turned around laughing and in a broad Cockney accent said, "Mate, muck these elephants out, of course!" Halfway through the task, I was glad I hadn't run.
As he went through the door, I heard him saying he was only kidding. He had to borrow the muck away. Why? He had to clean the stalls out an hour later. We held our hands out for the tickets, which he gave to us without argument; they were already in his pocket. Grabbing them before he changed his mind, we ran back to Gran's, clutching our precious tickets as proud as peacocks. By Tuesday, the day of the performance, I'd saved my transfer, but nothing else. Dad refused to give me anything, and Mum said she was stony broke and had no sweet coupons left anyway, so I wouldn't be taking any sweets.
Arriving outside the Granby Halls with plenty of time to spare, we found a big, ugly doorman barring our way, saying our tickets were useless. Arguing didn't help; they still gave us the same answer. Free tickets were for seats left empty after the show started. If all the seats were sold, tough, come back tomorrow. Twenty minutes later, he let us in without a free coke. We weren't having that, and when we started arguing, they gradually agreed to give us one each. We thought we'd won when they let us in halfway through the performance, but should have known better. No one ever gets the better of circus or fairground people.
Our seats were on the back row, so far back, the performers and animals all looked like midgets. Settling down to watch the rest of the show and enjoy our coke, we soon realised the stench wasn't only coming from the menagerie behind us. Our bottles of coke smelt clearly of cold cocoa mix mixed with the stench from the menagerie. Our stomachs turned over; we weren't fussy kids, but that's saying something. The rubbish finished up on the floor where it belonged. Who would believe the crooks would try to pass cold, unsweetened cocoa off as coke? Whose grubby hands had made it? Where did the water come from and how many miles had it already been round the neck of that possibly unwashed bottle? Fifty odd years later, thinking about it still makes me shudder.
The trapeze artist was a disappointment, as was the circus as a whole. It turned out to be a poor reward for the 'city job' we did to get the tickets. We even missed the elephants; they were on first while we were still struggling to get in. In life, it's like that sometimes: hold on to your dreams, they're often much better than reality. My own disappointment was so intense that I've never been to a circus from that day to this. My mum brought me down to earth with a bump when she said I should have known better. Coke was only made in America at that time, and the powers that be wouldn't waste precious shipping space bringing it over, except for the GIs, of course. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that children obeyed without question everything their elders said. If an adult told you to jump, you jumped. If they said black was white, you believed it, unless you fancied bells ringing in your ears for a day or two.
The End.
The above story is just one in a collection of four books of short stories by George E. Miles.
More than 60 stories have been lovingly transcribed into a Digital e-Book (PDF Format).