Circus Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

had met so were not ignorant. In fact, she thought they were cleverest people she had ever come across. But didn’t say so. She felt that anything she said would be wrong. Peter had the look of somebody who would answer, “I know that, you fool,” or, “That’s because you’re a girl.” Both very aggravating retorts. So she shrugged her shoulders in a who-cares-anyway manner, and suggested they should have a look at what was happening in the big top.
    The big top had changed again. The seating was going up. Circular wooden platforms had been erected and the seats stood on these. Santa was puzzled, but Peter grasped the system in a moment and explained it to her.
    “Don’t you see, the lions and things are going to show on that earth they’re digging up. They stay on the ground, but everybody else is raised up so they can see.”
    Santa looked at the place where he pointed. A large circular piece of ground had been dug up. Several men were at work raking it.
    “I wonder if we dare go and look,” she whispered.
    A man above her who was putting up seating heard what she said. He smiled cheerfully.
    “They won’t eat you. The worst they’ll do is turn you out. You go and have a look-see.”
    The man was in rather an awkward position to talk to. The children were standing on the ground at the entrance to the tent, and he was fixing some seats high up on their left. He looked down at them and only his head showed over some boarding. It meant talking with your chin up in the air, which was not comfortable; but he had a friendly face, and looked as if he might answer questions without being annoyed. Santa smiled at him.
    “Do you mind telling me if that”-she pointed to the ring of earth-“is where the lions and things will be?”
    “That’s right.” The man’s head nodded. “That’s the ring. They’re making it now.”
    “Making it?” Santa looked at him in surprise. “Our uncle, Mr. Gus Possit, said ‘build’ was the word. Don’t you belong to the circus, either?”
    “Me!” The man finished fixing a seat. “I’m a hand. That’s right, though, what Gus said. We call it build-up for the big top. But you ‘make’ the ring.”
    “How?” Peter and Santa asked at once.
    The man made a face at them.
    “You’ll have the tent-master after me. You go down and have a look for yourselves.”
    “Won’t anybody mind?” Santa asked anxiously. The man looked toward the ring. The ringside seats were already up. A number of people were sitting in them. He looked at their heads.
    “See that little fellow with the red hair?” There was one head of unmistakably flaming red, so they both nodded. “That’s Alexsis Petoff.” The man looked down at Peter. “He’ll be about your age. You ask him what you want to know.”
    “Alexsis!” Santa hopped because she was so pleased to hear somebody talked about that she knew. “The one who’s going into the act next winter?”
    The man turned away to see to another row of seats. “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. But you sit alongside him. Born in the ring young Alexsis was. He’ll tell you all you want to know.”
    Luckily there were two empty seats next to Alexsis. Peter and Santa sat in them. They sat rather nervously like people who are not sure they have come to the right party, because although they were very conscious of being Gus’s nephew and niece they were not a bit certain they would not be turned out. Santa dug her elbow into Peter.
    “Speak to him. Tell him we know Olga and Sasha.”
    Peter cleared his throat like a person who is going make a speech, but is not a bit sure what he is going to say. Luckily he did not have to bother. Alexsis turned and looked at them. Then beamed.
    “It will be Peter and Santa who was the nephew and niece of Gus.”
    Santa was so interested in his English being so bad she could not even shape her own words properly.
    “It will be. But why do you talk so much worse English than Olga and Sasha?”
    Alexsis had a