Extraordinaires 1 Read Free

pelted by objects from above: rope, wire, a few sandbag counterweights thumping down far too close and what felt like a large – but fortunately not very heavy – scenery flat slowly collapsing on top of him.
    When this avalanche ceased, Kingsley let go of his nose and began to feel at ease. Being in the dark, wrapped up and contorted with both legs bent at awkward angles and one arm extended over his head, meant that he was actually in familiar territory – for an escapologist.
    He flexed his shoulders. Some impressively colourful language was nearly drowned out by a chorus of joyous barking. Taine’s Terriers, he hoped, were taking advantage of the chaos and heading for freedom. Kingsley cheered them on. Run your hardest, cousins , he thought, then grunted while he changed his position. Freedom is worth it .
    He took stock of his situation – one of his Basic Principles of Escapology. To an exponent of anti-incarceration, a trap is not a trap: it is a challenge. Breaking free of restraint gave him a feeling of exultation like no other, an almost dizzying sense of his own capabilities. To this end, he’d studied locks, he’d exercised, he’d sought insights from tradesmen and showmen. He’d practised, alone in the basement of the family Bayswater home, until he could open handcuffs in the dark, free himself from ropes and slip out of manacles and shackles, even – with the assistance of his foster father’s valet – when shut in trunks or sewn into mail bags or underwater. Such escapes often left him shaking, bruised and breathless, but with a soaring spirit.
    A heavy velvet curtain, tangled rope, wire and sundry theatre apparatus was, therefore, hardly a trap – it was a momentary inconvenience.
    The din about him receded as he concentrated. No handcuffs this time, no weighty chains. It was simply a matter of orientating himself just so , rotating his shoulders like that , arching his back thus , twisting a little this way then that , and he could see the line of light that announced where the edge of the curtain met the stage. A slow, shuffling crawl and, quite aware that he was bound to look like an exceptionally well-appointed turtle, he poked out his head, ready to apologise for the disaster.
    A slim white hand thrust at him. ‘Here. It’s best that we leave.’
    It was the juggler. The young female juggler. The young female juggler with the white hair, white skin and pink eyes. The startlingly beautiful young female juggler with her long white hair, white skin and pink eyes behind the spectacles she was looking at him over.
    All week, during run-throughs and rehearsals, he’d been careful not to stare at her, even when she was dressed in her stage costume, which was made of spangles and not much else. Crawling out from under a collapsed stage curtain, however, had discomposed him enough that he forgot his manners, even though she was wearing a demure ankle-length, midnight blue coat buttoned to her throat, and a smart Langtry toque on her head.
    This time, he stared.
    â€˜Yes.’ She glanced to either side. ‘I’m different from anyone you’ve ever met before and you don’t really know how to treat me. Let’s take that for granted, shall we? If we slip off right now and let everyone settle down, we might get away with it.’
    She had a surprisingly strong grip. He climbed to his feet as a wire-haired terrier scampered past, barking in the sheer berserk joy of liberation. ‘Get away with what?’
    â€˜Your bizarre performance and my dropping the curtain on you and . . .’ She waved a hand. Kingsley looked around to see that the safety curtain had indeed cut off the auditorium from the stage. In addition, most of the backdrops, sandbag counterweights and gaudy flats had fallen. Performers and stagehands were running around shouting and flinging their arms about, giving the impression of a bizarre folk dance.