The Carnival

One day Elsie awoke to the sound of a big drum booming outside her window and, pulling her curtains wide, she looked out and saw that a carnival had come to town.

Getting hurriedly dressed, she ran down stairs and out of her house to see the carnival, giggling with excitement.

But it was a strange sort of a carnival, she thought; like walking into the middle of a hazy sort of daydream and everything seemed to glow like magic.

And the people who worked in the carnival looked strange too; more like animals and birds and flowers than people.

“Would you like to ride on my carousel, little girl?”, said a tall man who looked rather like a rabbit only wearing a stripy waistcoat and a straw boater on his head.

“12 horses for the 12 months of the year, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and, ofcourse, December. I think that April would be just right for a young girl like you”.

Then, astonishingly, one of the painted carousel horses; the one called April who was a green dappled horse with pink and yellow roses in her mane, said in a soft, quiet sort of whinny, “Why don’t you climb up upon my back, little girl and I will take you for a whirl”.

“Maybe later”, said Elsie, who wanted to see what other strange things were at the carnival.

But then, suddenly, she felt her hand being seized by someone and, turning round, she noticed an old gypsy woman in a shawl and turban that were red with black spots,

“Would you like Madam Ladybird to read your fortune, little girl?”, she asked, her old fingers searching the surface of Elsie’s palm as she studied the lines upon it, “I see wonderful things in your future; travel; money; romance and adventure”.

“Really?”, asked Elsie, “You can see all that just by looking at my palm?”.

“Oh yes”, said the gypsy woman, “One only has to open one’s eyes and one can see so many things”.

But, just then, something else caught Elsie’s eye, bumper cars but they all had faces and rams horns or stags antlers on the front of them and were making odd bleating noises just like animals.

“Why do they have those ram horns on their head?”, asked Elsie, talking to the man who owned the bumper cars; a frog with a curly black moustache, stripy trousers and a bright green bowler hat.

“Oh, that’s because its head butting season, miss”, said the frog, smiling a big broad smile and curling his moustache , “But I wouldn’t go on this ride if I were you. It’s a little too rough for a young girl like you”.

Elsie was annoyed that the frog had said this but, just then, one of the bumper cars got butted so hard that it flew through the air and landed beside her on the ground with a loud thump.

“Where am I?”, said the bumper car, its head reeling.

“You’re in the fair ground, silly”, said Elsie.

“Oh yes”, said the bumper car, picking itself up and dusting itself off before re-entering the strange bumper car arena.

But then Elsie saw a man selling candy floss; a clown with a flapping, butterfly bowtie; a rainbow for a smile and two daisies for eyes.

“Can I have some candyfloss please, Mr Clown?”, she asked.

The clown handed her a big cloud of sunset pink candyfloss on a stick.

“But just be careful that you don’t float away, little girl”, he said.

Elsie thought this was a very odd thing to say but then, as she was eating the candy floss, she suddenly started to feel quite light headed and, before she knew it, she was floating high in the air.

“Help!”, she cried, “Help, I’m floating away!”.

Fortunately, the gypsy woman; Madam Ladybird, her spotted shawl turning into a pair of wings, flew up into the air and grabbed hold of her, pulling her back down to earth.

But then, just as she was thanking Madam Ladybird for saving her, Elsie saw something else; a kind of ghost train, she thought, run by a man with a red waistcoat on who looked like a robin redbreast.

“All aboard the Winterland express”, he said, raising his boater hat high in the air.

“Winter land?”, asked Elsie.

The robin picked her up in its strong wings and put her down inside one of the cars of the train and then, all of a sudden, the train started to move and Elsie saw that she was entering a dark tunnel.

But, inside the tunnel, it wasn’t like any sort of Ghost train she had ever seen before; there were no ghosts or scary monsters although it did make her shiver but not with fright; with cold because suddenly it started to get very chilly and there were snowflakes dancing about everywhere but, looking closely at them, she saw that they were tiny ballerinas in white tutu’s pirouetting through the air and then, to her amazement, she heard sleigh bells jingle and noticed that the ghost train had turned into a sleigh and, looking to see who was driving the sleigh, she saw that it was a snowman with a top hat on and a long, stripy woollen scarf.

Then a bright white light flashed into Elsies eyes and, shading her eyes with her hand, she suddenly realized that it was the moon and that they were flying through the air and, looking down below, she saw hundreds and thousands of snow covered fields and trees and houses with smoking chimneys.

But then, when she looked up ahead now, she saw a big rainbow appear in the night sky that became the entrance to a tunnel and then, as the train sped through it, she realized that she was coming out of the other end of the ghost train ride.

“Wow!”, said Elsie as she re-emerged into the light of day and saw the fairground round about her again and the robin lifted her out of the ghost train car, “That was amazing”.

“Ahh, there are so many amazing things in the world for a young girl to discover”, said the Robin.

But, just then, Elsie remembered her mother at home.

“I’ve got to show her this place”, she said, “Otherwise she’ll never believe me when I tell her about it”.

Then she ran all the way back to her house and, running into the kitchen, grabbed hold of the arm of her mother who was washing dishes.

“You’ve got to see this”, she said, “It’s the most amazing carnival ever”.

But, when Elsie had dragged her mother to the spot where the carnival had been, it was gone. There was no trace of it at all; not even a wisp of candyfloss; just a big green field full of bright flowers with the sound of chirping birds all around.

“It was here mummy, it was”, said Elsie, “The greatest carnival you’ve ever seen”.

“I believe you, darling”, said her mother, “I saw a carnival once too, just like your one, when I was your age”.

“But where has it gone to?”, asked the little girl sadly.

“I think it’s still there”, said her mother, “Perhaps you just have to look very carefully and you’ll see it”.

Elsie picked a dandelion from the tall grass nearby and blew upon it and all the seeds went flying up into the air but then, to her and her mother’s total astonishment, when the seeds fell down upon the ground each of them turned into a fairground tent or a ride and suddenly she heard the whirling music of a fairground organ and a ladybird settling upon the tip of her finger looked up at her and said, “Back again, my dear. I thought you would be. I read it in your palm”.

“See Mummy”, said Elsie, as the ladybird flew away and she ran after it in the direction of the carnival, “I told you it was here”.

“Oh yes”, said her mother, smiling, her eyes starting to glow as if she was remembering some childhood dream, “I see it now”.