The Adventures of Stunt Boy and His Amazing Wonder Dog Blindfold by Lollie Barr

Author:Lollie Barr
Language: ara
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2014-02-12T05:00:00+00:00

The next morning, a huge black van with blacked-out windows and XYZ printed onto its side screamed into the circus as if it was attending a fire or some other emergency. It was the TV news crew, come to interview Jem and I about our plan to save the circus. It was Ginger’s idea, and I didn’t like it one bit. I tried to tell her I was too shy to talk on TV, but she didn’t listen.

Out stalked a lady with a black helmet haircut, wearing a white shirt and black suit and a pair of trainers, followed by a soundman and a cameraman, who unloaded a pile of gear in silver cases out of the back of the van.

I was feeling hot as well as nervous as I was wearing my bike leathers so they could film me doing some stunts. The sweat trickled down my back and into my bum crack, making this weird squelching sound as I walked. Jem was wearing her red catsuit. Her blonde hair was teased like a bird’s nest on top of her head and she had on more make-up than ever and I was used to seeing a lot of make-up on faces growing up in a circus. Once Benny found a couple of Jem’s false eyelashes in the shower and started screaming because he thought he was being attacked by a deadly spider.

Ginger introduced us to the TV crew. I shook everyone’s hand because my dad had told me that it was what you should do to be polite, and we went into the big top.

‘We want to see the girl set herself on fire,’ said the TV lady, whose name was Jennifer Pringle.

‘Sorry, we can’t do that. It takes a lot of preparation and it would spoil a big part of the show,’ said Ginger.

‘I need something more than a girl hula-hooping a hundred and twenty-three hoops,’ said Jennifer, unimpressed. ‘It’s not exactly news.’

‘Maybe they could film you setting yourself on fire and hooping,’ I said helpfully.

In the end Jem was filmed on the trapeze and on the silks, whilst I did some aerials with my bike. I did a few superman grabs, then Blindfold and I did a part of our act. The tricks were easy, but then came the hard bit. The words. My thoughts seem to come out all garbled even when I’m not nervous about being on TV. Somehow they’re clear in my head before I say them, then they get messed up between my brain and my mouth.

‘For the interview, I want the little kid sitting on his bike and the girl hanging upside down off the trapeze,’ said Jennifer Pringle.

I wished people would stop referring to me as ‘little’. I was two months shy of being thirteen.

‘But my face will be all red on the news if I’m talking upside down!’ protested Jem.

‘It will make great TV and that’s the important thing,’ said the camera guy, as Jem lowered herself down off the bar and wrapped her feet up the ropes that were holding the trapeze in place.

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