Nadzieja( Polish for Hope)

Chapter 6: The Circus

On the 1st July 1872, a letter from queen Victoria was send to the Moad family. Rachel picks up the letter joins Vincent and Charles for breakfast. During breakfast Rachel tells them that it is a letter send from queen Victoria. Vincent then kindly asks Rachel read what was on the letter. Rachel then started reading the letter out loud. "Dear Moad family, I have come to inform that since December 1871 there have been many mysterious disappearances that have happened in many major cities in Britain like Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, and Liverpool. We suspect that "Circus Du Cirque" is behind these disappearances as they appeared in all the cities we have mentioned but we aren't sure if they are behind these disappearances, the circus is said to arrive here at London tomorrow, the manager of the circus is Cornelius Black, I would like for the family to solve this mystery for me please and brought the list of the know missing people" Behind the letter there was a list of missing and details describing their appearance, when they were last seen, where they were last seen and who last saw them. List featured 88 that so far have been documented to have gone missing from December 1871 to June 1872.

Rachel then puts the letter back into the envelope and says, "Looks like we are going to the circus tomorrow". A few seconds pass and Augustes McDougal the family butler enters the room to take the empty plates back to the kitchen, Rachel then ask Augustes whether he would like to go with to the circus tomorrow. Augustes agrees to come to the circus and on the next day Charles, Vincent, Rachel, and Augustes get well dressed for the circus and went to the circus.

The circus was in a very big purple tent with yellow stripes it looked very well made and prepared for its purposes. The tickets to enter the circus cost 18 pounds to enter and the person working at the cashier desk asked the family and Augustes to give them their birthdates. The family and Augustes enters the circus and find a nice place to sit down. The stage was dark for the moment, but it soon lit up and a man wearing black trousers, fine red coat with bit of yellow on it, black gloves and a black top hat. The man had brown hair and brown eyes. The man had a brown moustache and was holding a pair of golden scales in his left hand. The man starts talking in an enthusiastic and loud enough voice for everyone to hear with a proud smile on his face. "Hello everyone, my name is Cornelius Black, and is an hour to be here in London the capital of our wonderful and proud country, and thankful for the people like my parents and my friends Edward White, Samantha Thatcher, Thomas, and William Baker who helped throughout my life. I hope that I can deliver a great performance and stick around as me and my friends and have something special to show you at the end of the show".

   The performance began with the green robin hood looking archer Edward White who was doing amazing tricks with his brown bow like biting an apple and later throwing it 3 meters into the air and in a matter of seconds shooting 3 arrows at the apple with one swift shot, the audience was impressed with the performance. The next performance was acrobatic stunts performed by identical twin brothers Thomas and William Baker who performed excellent acrobatic tricks on the tight rope and trapeze, they also wore blue acrobatic suits. After that came Samantha Thatcher who wore a knee-length dress and oversaw the animal performance, animals that are performing for the circus were bulls, rams and lions. Thatcher was very good at controlling the animals making them do tricks like balancing on a ball and jumping through a flaming ring. The circus performances lasted for about 90 minutes after that. Cornelius Black the manager of the circus came back on stage. "Thank you for stay for the entire performance and now we want to show you something special." Behind Black, there was a giant object that was on wheels and hidden behind a green cover. The object was pulled by 2 bulls, later Black pulls the cover away reviling that it was a giant fish tank half was full of water. Inside the fish tank there were 3 goats all 3 of them had a tail of a mermaid instead of hind legs. Most of the audience except for Augustes McDougal and the Moads went in shock and aww at what they saw. "As you can all see these are sea goat which are the right the only 3 known in existence. I know some of you believe that these are fake, but I can ask some you our dear audience members to come close and prove to everyone that they are real sea goats" Many audience members stood up from their seats and when to see the sea goats up close. The Baker twins then pull 2 of the sea goats out of the tank so that everyone could touch them and to see if their tail is real and not a costume. Many people looked closely at the sea goats some even began touching the tail and a few of them pulled pain fully on the tail to see if is just a costume but of course, it wasn't a costume as its hart the sea goats when someone was painfully trying to pull off the tail the sea goats screeched in pain so people stop pulling their tails. After 20 minutes the sea goats were put back in the tank and the audience went back to their seats.

Black then made a final announcement to the audience. "Thank you everyone for coming we a special museum full of different animals for everyone to see scorpions, crabs and fish are all for you to look at we also have a gift shop that sells food, toys and merchandise like scales, yes you can get a fully functioning scale similar to the one I am holding in my hand at our gift shop for 20 pounds. Also, me and circus du Cirque will be staying here in London for about 2 weeks.". Everyone including Augustes and the Moads entered the circus' museum. Inside the museum there were dozens of crabs, scorpions and fish there were a few birds like crows, ravens, chickens' doves and sparrows and farm animals like pigs and horses in large storage tanks but that's about it. The museum also featured the lions, bulls and rams that were in the performance just like the birds, horses and pigs they were kept in big storage tanks. After the Moads have finished touring the museum they end up in the gift shop area of the circus, the gift shop sold mostly wooden toys, paper for writing, water bottles and golden scales. Vincent bought a pair golden which costed him £27 . Vincent took the scales as wanted to understand why the circus is selling them so freely. Augustes and the Moads later left the shop.

When they were 15 minutes away from the circus Augustes proposed an idea to go under cover with Charles as circus acts, Augustes promises to look after Charles as best as he can. The Moads were at first sceptical about the idea but they agreed to it. Augustes told that his undercover identity will be Robert Hawkins and Charles' under cover identity will be Andrew Hawkins as he will pretend to be his brother. The Moads agree to plan and they walk back home but Augustes decides to go back to the circus luckily Cornelius Black was standing outside the circus as he was standing outside smoking a cigar. Augustes meets up with him and ask him can he join the circus. Black was at first sceptical but then he takes Augustes into the circus. "show me what you got" said Black. Augustes starts preforming acrobatic stunts that impress Black. "what your name and how did you learn this". And Augustes replies "My name is Robert Hawking and I am simply one hell of a butler". "Well Robert it's great to have another great acrobat into our crew, you can join us tomorrow I will make sure that the rest of the crew knows about you", "Thank you, I will come tomorrow morning, I will also bring with me my brother James, I hope you are all right with this", "Of course I am, see you tomorrow."

Augustes returns home and tells the Moads that he and Charles have been approved for the circus. The Moads were very happy about the news. Augustes tells Charles that he needs to at least know one good trick. Charles decided that dagger throwing will be his trick for the circus, since Augustes is an expert in dagger throwing and the fact that wizards have slightly better reflexes and accuracy than humans. So, before Charles went to bed to prepare for the next day, Charles did some practice throwing for a few hours to improve his accuracy, Augustes helped Charles and gave him advice on how he should throw. The practice did help him a bit with mastering dagger throwing.