Chapter 17
Several of the labourers in singlets and dirty blue jeans began erecting the big top, which could easily hold four hundred people, though it rarely did. Others started assembling sideshow alley, setting up the Laughing Clowns, the Coconut Shy, and other amusements. A handful worked on Freak Alley. Within half an hour two young girls were busy spinning sugar for fairy floss and making toffee for the apples they’d already skewered with sticks. The smell of hot dogs and hamburgers filled the air.
Pasha had tethered the three elephants to pegs in an out of the way patch of grass, while Gianni, the lion tamer, fed the big cats.
Karl, with his obvious talents, helped with the big top, and Nathan, who hadn’t been allocated any particular task, fed and watered Floss. When he’d finished, he walked around helping out wherever he could and in the process got to know everyone he worked with a little better.