MALLORY

Prologue

I love the circus. It's absolutely wild. The colours are unimaginable, with bright blue and red tents made of the finest silk, and painted wooden caravans with the paint peeling off. Theres always incense burning, in every caravan and in every tent. I reckon some of the performers live off the musky scent, they're lighting it so much.

There's the smell of the tigers and lions too. You can smell their pride, you know they know they're majestic and they know they're the ones who are really in control of this whole circus crowd. O'Donovan, the one who looks after them, isn't even afraid of them. He treats them like dogs, like little house pets. Talks to them like they didn't even come from the jungle and they're not even wild beasts. O'Donovan is a strange man, there's no doubting it. Once I caught him at the clothesline with his shirt off, and I saw this great big scar all down his stomach and back. He wouldn't tell me what it was, but I reckon he'd been attacked by a tiger. Nothing human could make a scar like that one.

There's heaps of other performers, like the acrobatic twins, Jezebel and Honey, who can twirl the socks off anyone they meet. Half of the circus crowd come to see them. They wear the most beautiful costumes, all glittery and spangly. They love it. They think they're the bees knees. Talking of self obsession, there's also Jimmy. He isn't really good at anything, except his face. It's his pride and joy. He claims that he's the most beautiful and handsome man in the world, and he might just be. And hopefully he is, because it's really the only thing he's got going for him. He can't read or write, and I'm pretty sure the biggest number he's ever counted to is six. Even though he's stupidly pretty, he's also pretty stupid. I guess you can't have it all. Jez and Honey don't mind though, because they're absolutely smitten.

Then there's Old Ma, who has coloured jewels on her face and only wears lovely bright pink and purple material, that cascades down her body in huge waves that ripple like the ocean when she moves. She looks pretty old, at least a hundred, but her cheeks are still rosy, and her blue eyes still twinkle, and when she dances she looks like she could be a young girl. You don't grow old when you're in something as wild as a circus.

And then you've got me. I'm Jack, and I'm the knife thrower. I could probably strike a man dead a hundred feet away, I'm that good. No one believes me till they see it, because I'm only a kid. But being an underestimated kid is good sometimes. Easier to get my revenge.

I'm only kidding though, because I've never hit an actual human. I've come close, but that's only because it's my job. I get people to put apples or oranges on their head and get them to trust me enough to let me get the apple, and hopefully not their head. It always lands smack bang in the middle. Sometimes I do it a bit closer to their head, to give them a little scare. Once I nicked a persons ear and one man swore I got so close to his head I cut some of his hair off. To be fair, he didn't have much in the first place. Maybe that's why he was so sensitive about it.

But this is my life. It isn't much, I know. But it's fun, and that's what life's about, right? I mean, if there's one thing I've learnt from this life and the circus folk, it's to live in the moment. You never know when your life will be nipped in the bud, so live now. Optimism is always key.