Sebastian Read online

  Just as I’d decided to play a game of imagining faces on all the eggs in the rack in front of me, I heard a terrible bellowing noise outside.

  “Fool! Idiot! Stupid kitchen plate-scraper! Son of a cabbage! You must have put him somewhere!”

  I could hear Franco mumbling apologies, and the chef whacking him with his spoon. Then all the cupboard doors in the kitchen started banging, one after the other. At last it was the turn of the refrigerator.

  “Santo Cielo!” said the chef when he saw me. “He has turned into a polar bear!” Tears ran down his cheeks. “We must thaw him out before my brothers come,” he said to Franco.

  Franco looked pained, and spread out both arms. “How we do it, chef? No fires, no heating.”

  The chef patted me on the head, causing a snow shower from my ears. “We think of something,” he said in a soothing voice.

  “Ah!” said Franco, suddenly looking intelligent. “The oven!”

  Oh dear, I thought, remembering the story of King Alfred and the burned cakes.

  “But what is the temperature for thawing a bear?” pondered the chef. “Puddings - number 1. Fruit cake - number 3. Roast lamb - number 5.”

  “I think pudding,” said Franco firmly. “We don’t want him to catch fire.”

  So I was put on a meat dish and carefully placed on the bottom shelf.

  “A little sugar and nutmeg?” said the chef with a broad smile, and then nodded at me and closed the door.

  Every so often they looked in to see if I was done. Franco even poked me with a fork - just in fun (I hoped).

  After fifteen minutes they agreed that I was thawed out and the chef fetched a brush and comb to tidy me up.

  His brothers arrived just as it was getting dark - all jolly men of different shapes and sizes with turned-down moustaches and broad-brimmed hats.

  “Magnifico! Magnifico!” they all agreed when the chef introduced me. He explained about the reward and how they would have to smuggle me out of the castle, and gave them the newspaper cutting about me.

  Luigi took charge of me - he was the eldest and strongest brother.

  “He is the weight-lifter,” said the chef proudly.

  Luigi picked up a marble-topped table in one hand with me in the other just to prove it.

  “Bravo, bravo!” shouted Franco.

  “And there is Sandro,” went on the chef. “He is the smallest and funniest, so he is the clown. Vittorio is the lion-tamer, Alberto and Enrico work the trapeze, Renato trains the horses, and Ugo plays the big drum.”

  They all bowed in turn and I felt quite honoured.

  “Now, my brothers,” said the chef, wiping a tear from his eye. “You will have to go. The Count is in a very bad temper and he is not in the mood for visitors.”

  They all nodded sympathetically and hugged the chef in turn and slapped Franco on the back.

  Outside on the castle drive the caravans were waiting - all brightly painted but no horses like the picture books, which was sad. They were really big lorries with trailers. There was a lot of shouting and waving and weeping as we moved off.

  Luigi put me beside him on the driving seat.

  “Well, Sebastino,” he said. “For three months you are going to be the mascot of my circus. You see, we don’t come back to Paris till the autumn, and we need somebody to bring the circus good luck.”

  We turned out of the drive and on to the open road.

  I felt a thrill of excitement trembling through all my stuffing as though it was going to come alive. Circus bear! How magnificent!

  If only Toots and Diddy could see me now.

  Chapter 6: The Open Road

  We roared down the long, straight roads, with tall silvery trees each side like soldiers in a row, and Luigi told me stories of the circus.

  “Last week Ludo the lion had to have all his teeth out - imagine it - a lion with no teeth. It was a tragedy. But Sandro - he’s very clever with his hands - managed to make him a new set in wood. But - Dio Mio! - they fell out just as Vittorio put his head in his mouth. You should have heard the crowd!”

  I tried to look understanding, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the lion. Still, false teeth were useful. Auntie Vi always used to say that she could leave her teeth to get on with the dinner on their own, but I never actually saw them do it.

  “And then there was Gertie the chimp. She was sitting, good as anything, when this tall lady comes along with a hat like a fruit basket, and swoop! - all the fruit disappears inside Gertie. Poor thing!”

  Did he mean the lady or the chimp? Very ill-mannered things I always thought - banging their mugs on the table when they had tea parties, and always using their fingers.

  “But the worst thing was the tent,” he went on. “Someone tied Sandro’s trick motor car to the big pole - you know, the one that holds up the tent - and when he moved off ...! It was hours before we found everybody. Aldo said he was sure we had rolled up some of the thin people when we packed that night. But they never came out again.”

  Luigi went on telling stories until they turned into dreams, and the next thing I knew was it morning and I was inside a real caravan. It had a shining brass oil lamp hanging from the roof, all sorts of cupboards and seats in dark wood, and a table spread for breakfast - bread and jam again.

  Outside was the sound of hammering and shouting and singing: and flapping noises like sails in the wind. Of course it was the tent. We must have arrived at the next stop of the circus.

  Perhaps they would have my name in lights (Diddy was always wanting his name in lights, but I can’t imagine D-I-D-D-Y looking very good all lit up). But I could just see

  SEBASTIAN THE WONDER BEAR

  Roll up! Roll up! See the most fantastic bear in all the world! Fantastic at what, though? I would have to think of what I could do best. Walking the tight-rope, perhaps. Or diving off a hundred-foot high pole into a dish with a wet sponge in it. Or jumping through a blazing hoop. Or being fired from a cannon.

  SEBASTIAN THE HUMAN CANNONBALL!

  Although I suppose I couldn’t very well be a human cannonball. I might even fly up to the moon and have to live for ever on green cheese. What could I be in the circus?

  “A clown,” said Sandro, looking in through the window. “I think you would be a good clown.”

  “No, no. The trapeze for him. SEBASTIAN THE FLYING BEAR,” said Alberto, coming in and grabbing a bread roll. Soon all the brothers had squeezed into the little caravan, all talking at the same time and pushing and jostling for the jam and more cups of coffee.

  “The mayor is coming to the performance tonight,” said Luigi. “We have to put on a good show. How is Ludo?”

  “Still on bread and milk,” said Vittorio sadly. “And the moths have been at his coat again.”

  Luigi shook his head. “We must have something different,” he said. “Every year we bring back the same lion, same chimp, same seal.”

  “Snoopy we don’t have any more,” said Alberto. “Last week he followed a little girl home, and when he found she had a swimming pool in her garden, he wouldn’t come away.”

  “Well, he could never balance a ball on the end of his nose anyway,” said Luigi. “Besides, he always ate enough fish for two seals.”

  Sandro picked me up and put me down in the middle of the table among the crumbs and coffee cups.

  “Here is something much different from seals or moth-eaten lions,” he said. “Here is the only stuffed bear in captivity.”

  Luigi was not impressed. “No, Sandro. He is only - well - only a toy.”

  Only a toy! What a thing to say about a stuffed bear! Didn’t he know that stuffed bears could think? And add things up, and do long division too if necessary.

  “Listen. You’ve heard of stuffed tigers and stuffed lions, no? Even stuf
fed elephants. Well, what were they doing before they were stuffed?” I’d never thought of that. “They were real tigers and elephants, of course,” went on

  Sandro, thumping the table with a bread roll. “So we put Sebastian in a cage and we say The only What-ever-it-is to be seen by mortal eyes.”

  “What’s a What-ever-it-is?” asked Vittorio, becoming interested.

  “Nothing, of course. It’s whatever we think it is. Whatever people will believe it is.”

  Ugo slapped Luigi on the back. “I got it. He can be an abdominal snowman. A Yeti. Those hairy things like bears that live in the Himalayan mountains in India, and leave big footprints and carry people off at dead of night.”

  “Abominable snowman, you mean,” corrected Luigi. “But that’s ridiculous. The Yetis are enormous. At least everybody says they must be at least eight feet tall.”

  What a pity. I liked the idea of being a Yeti.

  “He can still be a Yeti,” said Sandro triumphantly. “He can be a baby Yeti!”

  All the brothers looked in admiration at Sandro.

  “Right,” said Luigi in a businesslike way. “Ugo, you can make the cage. Sandro, you do his make-up. Aldo, you paint a signboard for him - and Vittorio, you can be his keeper.”

  He clapped his hands smartly and everybody leapt up to go about their various tasks. Sandro popped me under one arm and off we went.

  The circus wagons were all ranged round in a big circle and in the centre was the tent pole, with the ropes and bundles of canvas ready to be put up. I could see some of the menagerie wagons, all painted in red with fancy gold lettering. One of them said:

  LUDO - THE FIERCEST LION IN ALL AFRICA

  We went over to look at him. Vittorio was inside trying to get Ludo to drink his bread and milk.

  “Please, you got to eat something,” said Vittorio in a despairing voice. “You’ll be fit for nothing but an old rug.”

  Ludo yawned, showing all his wooden teeth, and then rolled over and went to sleep. A moth fluttered out of one ear.

  Well, he wasn’t much use, I thought.

  We toured round the other cages. There were some monkeys, Gertie the chimp, six performing dogs, six white horses, some funny-looking birds and a camel. No bears. And certainly no Yetis. I wondered what a Yeti really looked like. Since nobody had seen one ...

  “Now then, Yettino,” said Sandro. We were in his little make-up tent. “What does a Yeti look like I wonder? What you think?”

  Well, I was about to say that they must be very handsome creatures, but Sandro went on ... “Yetis must first be very strong. Then they also very fierce. And have sharp teeth. And have black fur ...” He thought a bit. “Black. Now what we got to make you black?”

  Oh dear, I thought. I didn’t mind being fierce, strong and having sharp teeth, but being black. How would anyone know me again? And my passport said GOLD.

  “Don’t worry,” said Sandro, noticing my expression. “I got just the thing. Brushes off as easy as walking a tightrope.” He got a little round box full of black powder, and went on sprinkling it over me until I’d nearly turned into a shadow. “Now - fierce,” he said, setting me on his make-up table. “Hmm, I think it’s your nose. It’s not quite fierce enough. It’s got to be longer and sharper. So ... I make you a new nose.”

  He got some cardboard from a drawer and a pair of enormous scissors.

  “For cutting off people’s noses,” he said cheerfully, and went on shaping, snipping off bits here and there, and then he folded it round and round, and there was a new nose. Very wicked looking, I thought. I would have to be careful not to bump into people. He smeared it all over with black grease paint, threaded some elastic on to it and clipped it on. It was very hollow- sounding inside the nose, and smelt queer, but I supposed it made a difference.

  “Now, what we got left?” wondered Sandro. “Ah, yes - teeth. Teeth I am very good at. Very good. Ludo is very pleased with his. Pity he was not a sabre-toothed tiger though. Never mind, for you I make something special - I make fangs!”

  He rummaged about in the drawer, found some old wooden clothes pegs and started to carve them up with his penknife. Soon there were two fearsome-looking white fangs, curved and pointed.

  “A drop of red grease paint,” he said, “and ecco finite!”

  He fixed them with some sticky tape, and then turned me round to look in the mirror.

  What terrible creature was it? My squeaker nearly failed with fright. Hideous it was, with dripping fangs and beaked nose.

  Sandro waved my right paw, and the vision waved its left paw. He tweaked my left ear, and the vision had its right ear tweaked.

  “It’s all right, don’t worry,” said Sandro, feeling my stuffing trembling. “It’s you really. Yes, you’re the best baby Yeti I’ve ever seen.”

  Chapter 7: Spaghetti Yeti Baby

  All that afternoon I sat in the make-up tent - with my back to the mirror - while everybody was getting ready for the performance that night. Aldo had gone into the village all dressed up in red and gold, with a flute and the big drum painted on one side:

  SPAGHETTI’S WORLD CIRCUS

  And on the other side:

  SEE THE BABY YETI

  I could hear him faintly banging and playing. The scent of grass was everywhere and inside the tent it was a kind of green twilight. I had never been so excited for as long as I could remember - not since I had been taken to the theatre to see the pantomime.

  There was a squeaking noise outside like rusty iron and Vittorio came in carrying his whip.

  “Roll up, roll up! Yettino,” he shouted. “Time to go in your cage.”

  He carried me out carefully to avoid knocking off my nose and fangs, and outside was a little menagerie wagon, newly painted in red and blue with squirly gold lettering saying:

  THE ONLY STUFFED BABY YETI IN CAPTIVITY

  “How you like it, eh?” he said, locking me up inside.

  Well, they had been very busy, I could see that. Inside, the cage was covered with what looked like snow, but it wasn’t cold to sit on. And at the back was a painting of icy mountains.

  “It’s where you live - the Himalayas in India,” explained Vittorio. “Don’t forget, don’t say a thing. And try to look as fierce as you can.”

  I was wheeled along next to the big tent where all the performers waited to go on for their acts. The horses had already been lined up, and there was Sandro’s trick motor car painted like a rainbow. Gertie the chimp was in her cage ready for her tea.

  Alberto and Enrico were practising for their trapeze act, shouting “Hup!”, turning somersaults, standing on their heads and leaping on each other’s shoulders. It made me quite dizzy. Through a gap in the canvas I could see all the people coming into the big tent. There was the ring at the centre, covered in sawdust, and the pole disappearing high overhead. Opposite me on the other side of the ring was a group of gilt chairs with red velvet draped along the barrier in front of them.

  “It’s where the mayor sits,” explained Alberto, stopping to take a rest. “He’s very important. If he doesn’t like the show he may not let us come again next year.”

  Well, that was something - having a real mayor to look at me. As long as he didn’t look too closely, and the glue didn’t come off my fangs in the heat. Just then I saw Aldo coming back, carrying the drum. He looked agitated. “Where’s Luigi? Quick - something terrible is going to happen,” he said, coming in and sitting on the drum. “We shall be ruined, ruined!”

  Luigi appeared suddenly with some dumb-bells on his shoulders. “What’s wrong? You broken the drum again?”

  “No, no. Worse, worse,” sobbed Aldo. “We shall be found out, disgraced. What’s Mamma going to say?”

  Luigi sighed and put down his dumb-bells, avoiding Aldo’s big feet. “Tell Luigi what happened.
”

  “Sebastian’s not a real Yeti, that’s the trouble.”

  “Of course he’s not a real Yeti - but who knows the difference?” said Luigi irritably.

  “Alexander Gregorovitch Topolovsky, that’s who. The great Russian explorer.”

  Luigi went pale and thought a bit. “He couldn’t really have seen a Yeti, could he?”

  “He says so,” nodded Aldo, wiping his nose with a big yellow handkerchief. “He says they have lots of them in Siberia. He says ... ‘If your Yeti isn’t a real Yeti, I’ll ...’And Aldo went off into sobs.

  “He’ll what?” asked Luigi.

  “Tear him to pieces with his bare hands,” completed Aldo.

  It was my turn to go pale. Nobody noticed of course, under all the black powder and grease paint. I imagined what it would be like to be torn to shreds by a Russian explorer and fainted quite away.

  When I recovered, Luigi was packing me up with some extra snow. “It’s no good, this false nose won’t do at all,” he was saying. “Topolovsky would spot it in a minute. Quick, fetch Sandro and tell him to bring his make-up.”

  Sandro came back, weeping at the news. “Don’t worry, Sebastino. I won’t let him touch you,” he said, but he didn’t convince me.

  Between them they took off my nose and wooden teeth, and left me just as I was except for the black powder and some extra grease-paint.

  “Think as though you’re a real Yeti,” urged Luigi. “We’re all with you!”

  Amanda used to say that the worst thing of all was going to the dentist’s, but being torn to shreds was different. Through the gap in the tent I could see the mayor with his gold chain. There was a roll from the drum and Luigi stepped out, all dressed up with a shining top hat.

  “Tonight the Spaghetti brothers welcome their guests of honour - Monsieur Roger Poltron, the mayor of Trucville!” There was a burst of applause. “And his companion, the world-famous Russian explorer, Alexander Gregorovitch Topolovsky.”