4 Who is Claudine?

Professor Snot’s car was parked in front of the house. It was an ugly shade of mustard orange and it  had a personalized number plate that read JeanYiz.

David rolled his eyes at Debbie.

“You sneak in the back and stick the balloon in our bedroom,” he whispered.

“He won’t know where we got it,” objected Debbie.

“I think it would still be better if he didn’t see we had a balloon,” said David. “It might set him off.”

When Debbie had put the helium ladybug in their room, she went down the staircase into the hall. Uncle Octavius and Professor Snot were looking at David disapprovingly.

“And your parents never made you read the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus?” Professor Snot was demanding sternly. “Try and look intelligent boy. You do know what the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus is, don’t you?”

“No,” mumbled David.

Uncle Octavius muttered something rude sounding in Latin. “I quite agree,” said Professor Snot. “Ah, here is the sister, maybe she is less inebriated with stupidity than her brother. Tell me, young woman, what is the definition of a hypotenuse?”

“An animal in the zoo?” asked Debbie innocently. “Uncle, I found this flyer about the circus on the upstairs hall table. Are we going?”

Uncle Octavius gazed frostily at Debbie. “That is just some junk mail I forgot to throw away. I don’t think you or your brother would benefit from any more empty frivolity in your lives. Professor Snot will be keeping you far too busy to think about circuses. Give me the pamphlet.”

Debbie handed it to him. It read:

Back from a European Tour! The Most Terrifying Circus of All Time! All The Traditional Magic of a Circus Mixed with the Terror of Your Worst Nightmares! Every Act Preformed with a MAN-EATING ANIMAL in close proximity! ALL NEW ACTS! Now including Madam Claudine. Her Prestigious Prestidigitations Will Wow You. Get Your Tickets With All the Haste of a Courier With Urgent News! It Will Put a Simile On Your Face!

Uncle Octavius read the pamphlet aloud with disgust. “Sensational garbage,” he remarked coldly. “And that last part doesn’t even make sense.”

Professor Snot had been listening to the pamphlet with an expression of distaste equal to Uncle Octavius’s. Right up to the point where Uncle Octavius started reading about Madam Claudine. Then a strange, nasty little light came into his eyes. And when Uncle Octavius read the line, “will put a simile on your face,” his eyes bulged.

“I really must go,” he said.

“But you only just got here!” Uncle Octavius sounded annoyed. “I thought you would start cultivating these hoodlums at once!”

“Well, their ignorance reaches unexpected depths,” snapped Professor Snot, practically running for the door. “I need books. Many more books than I expected. I will go and collect them now. Also, I wish you would get in a very good dinner. A colossal brain like mine needs a lot of nourishment. Get me a swordfish steak and something immensely delicious to go with it!”

And with that, he was gone. They could hear his car screeching down the road.

Uncle Octavius glared after him. “What a weird---” began Uncle Octavius, then observing David and Debbie hastily changed it to, “err, brilliant eccentric. I suppose we will have to go and find a swordfish steak. Presumably Audis in Bowral has one.”

Bowral was plastered all over with posters for the circus. Some of the posters had lions and tigers and clowns on them. But most of the posters had pictures of Madam Claudine, the great fortune teller.

Audi in Bowral didn’t have a swordfish steak. “Try Moss Vale,” said the girl in the shop.

“Really, this day is becoming worse and worse,” complained Uncle Octavius bitterly as he drove towards Moss Vale. “You two were meant to be getting an education and I was going to put the finishing touches on my clockwork car motor. It’s coming along beautifully. I’m hoping to have it ready for the Southern Hemisphere Clock Work Exhibition at Milton Park, next month. If my 1940s Daimler turns up in time from England of course. There is no ugly modernity about the body of a 1940s Daimler. And that, combined with the beauty of a clockwork motor, will be a wonderful statement against the modern ugliness of the internet, AI, and air conditioning.”

Moss Vale was also coated with circus posters. Again, most of them sported Madam Claudine.

Uncle Octavius pulled into the car park of the Moss Vale Audi. In the distance, the bright red and white stripes of a circus tent rose high into the air. Loud, cheerful music from the rides bellowed out in an enticing sort of way. “Oh look! The circus!” Said David. “Oh Uncle, can’t we please go and just look at the outside of the circus while you’re getting Professor Snot’s swordfish steak?”

Uncle Octavius started to say, “certainly not,” but Debbie and David were looking up at him with imploring eyes.

“Err, alright,” he said generously. “Only be quick about it.”

At the centre of the showground, an enormous stripy tent rose like a mountain. All about the stripy mountain, brightly coloured house trucks and fairground rides clustered around. A steady stream of people poured in at the gate.

“Lucky things,” said David to Debbie. “I wish we could go and see death defying feats with man-eating animals, don’t you?”

“I suppose so,” said Debbie slowly. “But I’d rather see Madam Claudine. She’s very beautiful, don’t you think?” Debbie pointed to one of the exciting posters hung on the wire fence that circled the circus. A blond (very blond) woman dressed in a swirling red cape with enormous black spots hovered above what was apparently meant to be a crystal ball. Actually, it looked more like an empty, upside-down goldfish bowl.

“She’s only a fake!” David was staring at a poster of a huge tiger with its mouth open very wide and a caption that read, will this be our brave performer’s final act? “A man-eating tiger is ever so much more real than a fortune teller. I bet her name isn’t even Claudine. She doesn’t look like a Claudine to me.”

It was an insightful comment. Behind the make-up and the blond curls and the fishbowl and the admittedly gorgeous costume, there was something about the woman’s face that was more suggestive of ‘Blind-Worm's Sting’ than a poetic name like ‘Claudine’.

Debbie was about to admit as much to David, but David had stopped staring at the poster and was now staring with rage and indignation at the line of people entering the fairground.

“That mean old Professor Snot! He said all those horrible things about us and then he rushed out to go to the circus himself!” David pointed angrily at the horrible long figure of Professor Snot as it slid through the gate. “Let’s go and tell Uncle Octavius! This will show him what sort of man Professor Snot really is!”

“He’ll say we’re making it up!”

“He won’t!” David was certain. “We’ll show him the professor’s car!” He pointed to the road where a familiar, mustard orange vehicle was parked. It was adorned with the striking number plate, JeanYiz.

Debbie pulled a face. “Uncle Octavius is so shortsighted he probably hasn’t noticed that’s Professor Snot’s car!”

David groaned. “You’re so right.” His eyes slid down the fence, away from the entrance gate. “Look Debbie, the fence bulges out at the other end of the fairground. We could probably squeeze under the wire. I’ve still got my phone. Uncle Octavius keeps forgetting to take it away, thank goodness. We could get a video of Professor Snot going into the circus and when we show it to Uncle Octavius, he’ll fire Professor Snot and that will save our summer!”

“It’s a good idea, David,” agreed Debbie. “But isn’t it wrong to go into a show without paying for it?”

David considered this carefully. “We won’t take any rides and we won’t look at anything. We’ll just follow Professor Snot until he goes into the tent and video it. Then we’ll leave straight away.”

“Alright,” said Debbie. “That doesn’t sound wrong.”

They crept down to the bulging bit in the fence. It was quite difficult to get through, but they managed it. “Now we have to find Professor Snot,” whispered Debbie.

“He’s probably at some food stall, getting nourishment for his ‘colossal brain,’” scowled David. “Let’s go to the candyfloss stand.

By luck, David was right. That was where they found Professor Snot, but he wasn’t buying candyfloss. He was hurrying past with great, galloping steps. Debbie and David had to run to keep up with him. David fished in his pocket and pulled out his phone to film Professor Snot going into the circus tent. But Professor Snot didn’t go into the circus tent. He kept hurrying past it until he came to a small house truck painted all red with black spots and bright yellow words that read, “Madam Claudine”.

Professor Snot glared at the house truck for a moment as if he found the paint job personally offensive.  Then he sprung up the little black steps and threw the door with the stained-glass window open. “Oooh! Caldron!” screeched a woman’s voice from inside.

“Shut up!” snapped Professor Snot. He slammed the door behind him. Debbie and David raced forward. The house truck was sat on high wheels and there was plenty of room to crawl under the house truck. The conversation boomed down through the wooden floor.

“You little fool!” snarled Professor Snot’s voice. “You wrote that circus pamphlet, didn’t you? I told you to keep a low profile. The balloons were working….why did you change the plan?”

“I didn’t change the plan,” snapped the woman’s voice. “But I don’t see that your career must always come first. I’m a great actress, Caldron, and I’ve been to Europe. I’ve seen things. I’ve become, cultivated.”

“You’re a fool,” Professor Snot was shouting now. “We agreed on Claudine for a reason. The Southern Highlands is a literary town! No one would think anything of Claudine popping up in a literary town! But now you’ve taken it and turned it into a complete rigmarole, and you’re bringing the whole thing far more attention than we want! Why did you have to start calling yourself Claudine? Why did you have to start misquoting Polish poetry in circus flyers?”

“If you’re going to be so disagreeable, I really must ask you to leave,” said the woman’s voice haughtily.

“If you don’t reel yourself in,” said Professor Snot, sinking his voice to an awful, low sound, “you may find yourself doing a better job of vanishing than you’ve ever done on the stage.”

“You don’t scare me at all,” sneered the woman’s voice. “Now, get out. I haven’t changed the plan, and you ought to be on the golf course, practicing your, err, game. You always end up in the gumtrees on the corner, don’t you?”

Debbie and David could hear Professor Snot stomping for the door. “By the way,” said Professor Snot, “it’s a smile you wear on your face, not a simile. That little slip up was all I needed to know who wrote that ridiculous pamphlet.”

“Quick,” David mouthed at Debbie. They scrambled out from under the house truck. The door flew open, and Professor Snot descended the steps.

David and Debbie began running for the fence. “Do you think he saw us?” panted Debbie as they slid under the wire. “I hope not!” gasped David. “But at least now we can prove to Uncle Octavius that Professor Snot isn’t all that he appears to be. Fancy his first name being Caldron! It’s an awful name.”

‘But it suits him,” said Debbie.

“Oh yes,” said David. “It suits him lovely.”

Uncle Octavius was patiently reading a newspaper in the car when David and Debbie came running up. The front of his newspaper read, “Great Works of Art Continue to Vanish Across the World,”. He folded it up as they scrambled into the car.

“Uncle, you must listen to this,” David said breathlessly. He thrust his phone in front of his uncle and hit the play button.

Uncle Octavius listened. “Hmm,” he said. ‘I do not understand this, and I do not approve of eavesdropping. But even I must admit that this does change my opinion of the man. Let us go home and I will release him from his responsibilities as your tutor.”

But when they arrived back at Burradoo, five police cars were parked in the drive. Policemen bustled about and one of them was carrying something large and wrapped in brown paper. Uncle Octavius threw open his door and demanded, “what’s going on?”

“Are you Octavius Montgomery?” asked a policeman.

“Yes!”

“We’re arresting you for receiving stolen property!”

“That’s outrageous!” shouted Uncle Octavius. “What stolen property?”

“The missing Picaso discovered in your greenhouse! Get into the police car quietly, please.”

“I can’t just leave my niece and nephew here, alone!” snapped Uncle Octavius.

“That will be quite alright, officer,” said a smooth, oily voice from the shadows. And Professor Snot loomed into view. “I have the paperwork to prove that I am the children’s live in summer tutor. They’ll be quite safe with me.”

 And he smiled a slow, terrifying smile.

 Come back next week to find out what happens next! Follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Ruth Marie Hamilton to never miss an instalment.

Library picture generously provided by Pixabay. All writing and graphic designs are copyright R.M. Hamilton.