The Lampo Circus (17 page)

‘We mean no harm,’ Fennel said.

‘I believe you,’ the winged beast answered quietly. ‘But the game must make the final
decision. If what you speak is true, you will be safe and nothing will harm you. Good luck.’

A rush of air hit them as his wings, humming as if with electricity, spread out and lifted him high into the air. Miserably, the children watched the bull return gracefully to his post. They peered down the steep steps and were met by only silence. With no other option before them, Milli took the lead and the four tiptoed apprehensively down into the unknown.

‘New players, new players!’ a mysterious voice boomed enthusiastically as the children emerged into a square which, despite being underground, was as bright as day. They found themselves standing on a surface so highly waxed it was difficult to keep their footing. The shiny floor was the colour of pistachio nuts and covered in markings in the shape of arrows, coloured grids and lines not dissimilar to those on a road map. Around the perimeter of the square were street signs pointing in multiple directions and various cardboard edifices that looked like they had been borrowed from a movie set. It all seemed strangely familiar to
Milli and Ernest. Was it a location they knew from a story, they wondered.

In one corner of the square was an enormous, antiquated birdcage. Inside stood an unshaven, shaggy-haired man in what appeared to be striped pyjamas. He rattled the bars and shook his uncombed locks but the children thought he looked more comical than frightening. In another corner stood a uniformed officer frozen in the position of blowing a whistle and pointing a finger as if directing unseen traffic. In the centre of the square were some giant letters in a curly script that spelled a word they could not immediately make out. On a rectangular-shaped mat on the ground, questions marks squirmed and wriggled like a gaggle of geese as they tried to find a comfortable position, then settled down together like spoons in a drawer. Metallic bells began to sound and a pair of boom gates were lowered to allow a cardboard cut-out steam train to pass. A wooden chest painted brightly in blue and white sat with its lid open, its contents—sacks of gold—invitingly displayed.

The letter O in the word on the ground turned out to be a man-hole. They knew this
when a tubby man in a top hat and tuxedo popped out of it and raised his cane in salutation. With his appearance the penny finally dropped for Milli and Ernest. How could they not have recognised the board game that had consumed so many rainy afternoons and at which Ernest prided himself on being unrivalled champion? For reasons obscure, they had stepped straight into a life-sized game of Monopoly.

Milli and Ernest navigated their way across the board, trying not to slip, until they were face to face with the chubby man who was still half-stuck in the hole like a jack-in-the-box. Never having played Monopoly in their lives, Finn and Fennel followed cautiously, looking completely baffled.

With a heave and a grunt, the pint-sized man extricated himself from the hole and brushed himself down before speaking.

‘Welcome, children. You are just in time to join the game. I am Mr Banker.’

He threw down a handful of trinkets which Milli and Ernest recognised immediately: an iron that had seen better days, a top hat, an old boot and a tiny silver car.

‘If you would be so kind as to choose a token, we can begin.’

Finn, eyes shining, pointed to the car the size of his thumbnail. The man waved his cane and the token expanded to a sleek convertible just the right size for four small children.

‘It probably goes at a snail’s pace,’ Milli observed as she beat the others into the driver’s seat.

When they were comfortably installed, and Ernest was deliberating whether to mention recent statistics on motorcar fatalities, Mr Banker raised his cane and the car did a lap of the board at breakneck speed to warm up. When it screeched to a halt and the children waited for their pulses to return to normal, they found Mr Banker propped behind a marble counter such as one might see in an old-fashioned bank. Money in the form of crisp bills was stacked around him in columns according to value.

For those of you who have never played Monopoly, the aim is to buy up expensive locations and develop them by erecting as many homes and hotels as possible. This allows you to charge exorbitant rent each time a player is
unlucky enough to land on one of your properties. The objective is to monopolise the game and force your opponents into humiliating bankruptcy. I’m sorry to say that it is each player for him- or herself in Monopoly. It is most certainly not conducive to teamwork.

There were two other players waiting in the wings, easily distinguished by the cut-throat looks they were casting in the children’s direction. The first was an angry-looking goblin in green tights with assorted tools strapped to his belt, including daggers and hammers. He sat astride a shaggy dog, and a wad of bills bulged from a bum-bag. The dog snarled at the children, foam spraying from its jaws. He seemed especially ferocious (for a terrier). The second opponent was a fluffy cat in a bonnet carrying a parasol. She stood in an upside-down thimble as if it were a chariot and she an Egyptian queen.

A polite cough from Mr Banker quickly brought the children’s observations to a halt.

‘Concentration is essential for success,’ he advised. ‘Before we begin, I would like to remind you of the main rules of this game in case we
have any first-timers. Dishonesty is actively encouraged if not essential, and bankruptcy is synonymous with extinction. Any questions?’

He winked at the openly confused children.

‘The player who rolls the highest number on the dice will move first. On the count of three: one…’

The children looked around for dice but could not find any.

‘Two…’

Ernest opened the car’s glove compartment in search of a rule book while Milli waved a hand in the air as if in a classroom.

‘Yes?’ Mr Banker snapped.

‘Sorry to be a bother, but we don’t seem to have any dice.’

Mr Banker looked at her as though she were a time-wasting ninny. ‘Have you got a head?’ he asked.

‘Well, obviously,’ she retorted.

‘Then you have dice! Close your eyes and let your mind roll a number.’

‘I rolled ten,’ piped the fluffy cat with a cunning look. She had really visualised two but was determined to move first.

‘And I,’ shouted the goblin, his ears flapping (always an indication that a goblin is telling a fib), ‘have eight.’

Milli, who did not like to be untruthful unless someone’s life depended upon it, closed her eyes and waited for a number to pop into her head.

‘We rolled four,’ she said, ignoring the goblin’s sniggers and the cat’s arched eyebrows.

‘Very well,’ Mr Banker announced. ‘Miss Pawpaw will move first, then Goblin Grouse and lastly you four. Let the game begin!’

W
hen the children’s turn came, Milli rolled a five. She attempted steering the motorcar ineffectually for a moment or two before it took matters into its own hands. The children were thrown back against their seats as it pivoted at a dangerous angle and hurtled down the street before Ernest could work out how to buckle his seatbelt. Various properties whizzed by in a colourful blur before the car delivered its four nauseated passengers outside a place called Squatters’ Swamp. The other properties had equally strange titles, none of which Milli and Ernest recognised from the game they knew so well.

Squatters’ Swamp must have been the lowest-valued property on the board as it was more of a grimy millpond than valuable real estate. But valuable or not, our protagonists knew that business acumen was always rewarded in the game of Monopoly. Besides, judging by the speed with which Miss Pawpaw and Goblin Grouse were netting properties, the children would need to buy everything they landed on in order to keep up.

‘We’ll take it,’ Milli said.

‘That will be fifty pounds,’ said Mr Banker, looking up from reading his newspaper.

‘Fifty pounds for a scummy pond?’ Ernest objected.

‘Worst pond in the best street—think of the capital growth,’ Mr Banker replied with a shrewd grin. ‘Remember the first three rules of real estate: location, location, location.’

Whilst Ernest considered this, Finn and Fennel were already extracting the correct sum of money and depositing it onto the glossy counter.

‘You are the first people to purchase Squatters’ Swamp in over thirty years,’ said Mr Banker.
‘You must be as mad as my Aunt Midge, but congratulations all the same. Swamps are vastly underrated in my opinion.’

As the game progressed, the children quickly came to understand which properties to purchase and how to maintain a plump money bag. They landed on a square labelled Chance, which entitled them to whatever was written behind one of the squirming question marks in the middle of the board, and earned themselves ten pounds for winning a best hair contest. The fact that they had not entered a best hair contest, nor indeed altered their appearance since their arrival, confused them, but they were glad for the money nonetheless.

When they landed on the Community Chest square, they found that the game took this quite literally and presented them with tasks that served the community. The children had to brush Miss Pawpaw’s fur (which, beneath its silky façade, was rife with knots), clean Goblin Grouse’s ears (a job for which they were issued large cotton-tipped spoons) and repair breakages for any of the landlords who requested it. Despite this, it would not be an exaggeration to
say that the children were doing rather well and stood a fair chance of reigning unchallenged as Monopoly experts.

Alas, their luck changed when they rolled a six and landed directly on the doorstep of a place called Notables’ Nest.

In contrast to Squatters’ Swamp, Notables’ Nest was one of the most prestigious and expensive parcels of real estate on the entire board. If you are a well-versed Monopoly player you might liken it to such properties as Mayfair or Park Lane, which encourage you to mortgage all your assets in order to call yourself their proprietor. They may hardly ever be landed on by other players, but you feel satisfied simply to have such a place in your investment portfolio. Even if you are beaten miserably, acquisitions like these remain a small triumph and help to soothe your wounded pride. I know this from many a game lost to my ruthless cousin, Thomas, who claims to have infallible strategies and always hotly denies that his control of the bank has anything to do with his success.

Notables’ Nest was nothing like a nest and, despite being constructed from cardboard, was
as imposing as if it boasted real marble pillars and a genuine crystal-studded letterbox. Miss Pawpaw clawed at her thimble in dismay when the motorcar skidded to a halt outside it. Grouse, who was less subtle, stomped his stockinged feet in rage.

The rule book informed Ernest that it was exceptionally rare to land on Notables’ Nest so early in the game. It cost a grand total of five hundred pounds to purchase but its proud owner would be the envy of all the neighbours. Ernest, who had become caught up in the game, looked down at their money bags which were still rather full.

‘We can afford it,’ he said excitedly to the others.

The children were counting out their notes and discussing the benefits of owning Notables’ Nest when they heard a howl. They glanced up to see a procession of black-uniformed jail wardens with handkerchiefs covering most of their faces marching across the square. Miss Pawpaw was cowering inside her thimble but the jail wardens plucked her out by her fluffy tail.

‘Stop that!’ Milli shouted. ‘What do you want with her?’

Mr Banker looked up in surprise.

‘Pawpaw has been declared bankrupt,’ he answered. ‘Bankruptcy is synonymous with extinction. The rules are the rules.’

‘Surely there must be some way she can be helped,’ Milli said.

‘If she pays her debt of five hundred pounds she goes free. But as she has not managed her funds carefully, she can’t. The matter will now be dealt with by the judge.’

‘What happens if she can’t pay?’ Finn asked.

‘She will be shipped immediately to the remote and uninhabited island of Burr Burr where she will live out her days scrounging for food, friendless and ungroomed.’

‘No!’ wailed the cat. ‘Not banishment. Pawpaw will never survive on Burr Burr! Will no one help me?’

The children glanced at one another and then up at Notables’ Nest. It was such a magnificent property and they longed to see their names on the title. But how could they
justify such an indulgent purchase when the survival of an innocent (if admittedly conceited) cat hung in the balance? One by one they tore their eyes away from the elegant doorway—all except Ernest. He was gazing at the house with such craving that Milli became quite concerned and shook his shoulder.

‘We’re paying to stop Miss Pawpaw being exiled,’ she said. ‘We’re going to have to leave Notables’ Nest behind. Perhaps next time round.’

‘Would she do the same for us?’ Ernest murmured.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Would Miss Pawpaw make that kind of sacrifice for us?’

‘I don’t know but it doesn’t matter,’ said Milli firmly. ‘We have to help her. Come on, Ernest, we have our swamp.’

Finn and Fennel, accustomed to frugality, agreed wholeheartedly with Milli’s decision, but Ernest’s face twisted into a scowl such as they had never seen on him before.

‘That swamp is the dumpiest place on the entire square,’ he fumed. ‘I want an impressive
address like this one. I can hardly be expected to have my friends over at the swamp.’

Ernest himself was surprised to hear such words come out of his mouth. He had never in his life been pretentious, but inside the game he seemed to be a different person. He tried to control himself but, like hiccups, he simply could not stop the words from coming.

‘I want it!’ he insisted, tooting the car horn for emphasis. ‘I don’t care what it costs. In fact, that’s just why I like it. I vote we pay up. It’ll be worth squillions in a few years. I want to eat off silver platters and be the envy of people for miles around. If we help that fluffy nincompoop then we can’t win.’