Bonny Starr And The Riddles Of Time

By Gwen Grant

When Bonny inadvertently finds the object which the stranger so desperately wants, she is drawn into a mysterious and terrifying struggle between the Dazzling Clown and the kindly Black Monk. Suddenly, the whole fate of Time and Eternity, good and evil, lies in the hands of Bonny Starr...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gwen Grant
• Release date: May 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476488042

Gwen Grant

I have been writing for over 40 years and have loved every minute. I started writing poetry, then radio short stories, then books. My first novel, PRIVATE-KEEP OUT has been called 'the funniest children's book ever written' by Lucy Mangan of The Guardian newspaper. I've won the ACORN AWARD for picture books and have been short-listed for many other awards.At present, I am working on a new children's novel and have just finished the first draft of an adult novel.

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BONNY STARR

And the riddles of Time

by

GWEN GRANT

Copyright © Gwen Grant 2011

Published by gwengrantbooks

Smashwords Edition

www. gwengrant. co. uk

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Bonny was suddenly wide awake.

With a catch of fear in her throat, she saw the same white shadow that had followed her in the graveyard begin to appear.

Who are you? she cried. What do you want? The dazzling white figure smiled, a narrow brilliant evil smile.

You know what I’ve come for, he said.

You can’t escape me.

When Bonny inadvertently finds the object which the stranger so desperately wants, she is drawn into a mysterious and terrifying struggle between the Dazzling Clown and the kindly Black Monk. Suddenly, the whole fate of Time and Eternity, good and evil, lies in the hands of Bonny Starr. . .

Back to the beginning:

TIME FLIES

FOREVER

CHAPTER ONE

It was that time of year when the lamplighter was on the streets by four o’clock, walking up and down, lighting the lamps so that the soft light flooded out into the darkening afternoon.

Bonny Starr opened the front door to watch as the lamp that stood outside their house was lit.

‘The lamp’s been lit, Mam,’ she shouted over her shoulder, as the gas flared into life. ‘Can I go?’

Her mother hurried through from the kitchen, wiping her hands on the rough sacking tied around her waist.

‘Did you ought to go yet?’ she asked anxiously. ‘It seems a bit early. ’

‘They’ve got a matinee,’ Bonny cried. ‘It’s cheaper and I don’t want to miss any of it. ’

Mrs. Starr glanced out into the dark street. It was strange how once the lamps were lit, the daylight vanished, as if night walked on the lamplighter’s heels.

‘Where are the others?’ she asked. ‘Shouldn’t they be here by now?’

Bonny shrugged.

‘Oh, they’ll catch me up,’ she said impatiently.

She could almost hear the circus in her head. The brassy

music, the instruments in the band catching the light, flicking gold from one end of the tent to the other, the roars of the animals, the little tapping feet of the ponies, the trumpeting of the elephants.

Oh, she could almost taste it.

She hugged herself with delight. The circus!The circus!

The circus had come to town!

‘I’m off,’ she said. ‘Honest, they’ll catch me up before I get to the bottom of the street. ’And her mother, looking

at Bonny’s wild excited face, said smiling, ‘Go on, then.

But mind when you cross the roads and don’t walk back on your own. Wait for Alan or your pals. ’

Bonny nodded and with a last quick hug, was gone.

Walking down the street, turning the corner, she jingled the coins in her coat pocket, hardly able to believe she’d actually raised the money after all.

It had taken her four days. Four days of collecting jam

jars and taking them to the rag and bone man to exchange for pennies. Four days of running errands, asking for rags.

‘You don’t happen to have any woollen rags, do you, Missis?’‘If I had woollen rags, my lass, I’d be wearing them. ’ and then sorting out woollens from cottons, cottons into whites and coloureds, and finally taking them to the rag shop.

‘Two and a half parnd ‘ere,’ Banker, the rag and bone man, said meanly.

‘My Mam said they weighed four pounds. ’

‘Well, your Mam’s wrong!’ he shouted and flung the rags onto the floor. ‘Get out of here. Go on. I don’t need you telling me what they weigh. ’

Bonny had picked the bundles up.

Swallowing hard, she whispered, ‘I daresay my Mam made a mistake, Mister. ’

‘Yes, and you nearly made a mistake as well,’ Banker sneered, hurling the bundles into a corner. ‘’Ere’s your money,’ he went on, bouncing the coins off the end of his old table.

Scrabbling about the floor on her hands and knees, searching for the precious money, Bonny felt such a wave of hatred for the man that she felt faint.

When she got to her feet, her hands touched his old brass scales.

‘Well, go on then,’ he’d snarled. ‘What you waiting for?Get out. ’

Her fingers had curled round the heavy iron weights lying at the side of the scales and Baker had stared at her, a hateful little smile playing around his lips.

‘If only you dared,’ he spat, lurching at her.

Bonny turned and ran, racing out into the cold street with her heart thumping. Behind her, she could hear the rag and bone man’s scornful laughter.

‘I hate him. I hate him!’ she’d sobbed, clattering along the pavement in her heavy shoes.

Once home, she’d boiled a kettle of water and scrubbed his touch off the coins. Then she’d scrubbed her hands to rid herself of the coldness of the iron weights.

‘I nearly hit him with them,’ she told Alan.

Her brother shrugged.

‘You wouldn’t have got close enough,’ he said. ‘He’s always like that. I don’t know why you mind so much. You shouldn’t go if you’re going to be like this about him. ’

Bonny shivered, the glowing kitchen fire doing nothing to make her warm.

‘He’s…. ’ she stumbled, looking for the right word.

‘He’s …. odd. Strange. ’

‘No odder than the rest of them,’ Alan retorted and started counting his money. ‘I’ve got enough,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Have you?’

Bonny put all her coins together, the rag and bone man’s coins shining brighter than the others, then counted up her money.

‘Yes,’ she said, looking at her brother, her face alight with happiness, ‘I’ve got enough as well. ’

‘Then it was worth it,’ Alan said and Bonny, her smile fading, nodded.

Striding down the street now, Bonny shuddered at the memory of Banker. She had to pass his yard and she went carefully, quietly, trying not to make a sound.

The double gates were open and beyond them Bonny could see Banker and his black dog roaming up and down the alleys of rubbish and junk.

The rag and bone man glanced up and his glittering eyes pinned themselves on Bonny.

‘You back again,’ his hard voice came sailing through the air. ‘Told you to get off, didn’t I?’ and he started towards her, the huge dog padding by his side, its eyes red and mean.

Bonny hurried on.

Take no notice of him, she thought. You don’t have to go back there for a bit and you don’t have to go back at all if you don’t want to.

She tried to put the rag and bone man out of her mind but, just before she turned the corner, she looked back along the dark road.

The last thing she saw was Banker staring after her, his dog pulling on its leash.

And then, in the excitement of thinking about the circus, she forgot Banker and the rags and everything else.

There were crowds of people in the streets and Bonny was caught up in the bright holiday atmosphere. Soon she was walking faster and faster and then she was running, the cool air streaming past her hot face.

By the time she reached the field where the circus had set up, she was so hot she had to take off her coat. She got into the long queue and started to look round for Alan and her friends.

Once she thought she saw them and waved but it wasn’t them at all and she had to pretend she was waving at someone else.

The queue moved slowly, but at long last Bonny was inside the big tent and the show began.

It was everything she had thought it would be. There were real lions sloping down a wire tunnel, just inches away from her, their dark honey-coloured bodies hugging the ground. They padded into the ring, snarling and looking dangerous. The trainer cracked his whip and the lions jumped from one box to another, swishing their tails and waiting their chance.

Bonny found herself wishing they were free.

After the lions came the clowns; then a fire-eater who terrified everyone with his clouds of hot orange flame. There were crocodiles whose faces reminded her of Banker and snakes that curled around a man’s neck and snuggled up to a young woman’s white-skirted body.

Bonny flinched as the flat-headed snakes flickered their tongues and twisted their long bodies to the music of a flute.

There were jugglers who dropped three plates in a row.

‘Give us back our money!’ the crowd yelled at this, roaring with good humour.

There were trapeze artistes, dicing with death above the heads of the audience, swinging from rope to rope like monkeys. There were people balancing on huge coloured balls, rolling round and round the ring.

There was everything.

And then, right at the end, came a clown dressed in

white, who dazzled and shimmered in the circus ring, his white face pushing his sparkling sequinned eyes at the crowds, his thin painted lips making a tiny black hole of his mouth.

Up at the back, in the cheap seats, Bonny felt the clown’s gaze on her.

It seemed there were eyes everywhere tonight.

She ducked down behind the man in front and peered round his solid shoulders but the clown’s eyes seemed to penetrate everything to reach her.

‘Oh, isn’t he horrible,’ she said to the girl next to her. ‘He’s horrible. Horrible!’But the girl didn’t hear her. She was too busy laughing at the clown’s tricks.

Bonny looked over at the circus ring again. The white clown wasn’t looking at her at all. She felt silly. That’s what came of having too vivid an imagination. She was glad the girl at her side hadn’t heard her.

Then, all of a sudden, it was