The Journey by John Marsden Page B

never been able to explain it and I’ve never met anyone else who’s able to either.’
    â€˜What were you doing around elephants?’ Temora hazarded.
    â€˜I was brought up around them,’ Tiresias answered simply. ‘I lived in a village where every night baboons raided our garden and butterflies bigger than my hand filled the morning air. My baby brother was put out in his cot in the sun one day, for some fresh air, and his nurse left him for a few moments while she finished washing the clothes, and that was the last anyone saw of him. He had disappeared, and even the widest searches failed to reveal any traces. Then, when I was eight, I was taken too, but I was taken by men and I think he was taken by animals. I was smuggled across the seas, and have never seen my family or village since.’
    There was a long pause, broken by Ruth, who gave a loud sniff and blew her nose into a handkerchief. ‘Oh dear, that’s so sad,’ she said. ‘I feel so lucky. I was such a happy little girl, and I do feel awful when I hear a story like that. We don’t know when we’re well off, and that’s a fact.’
    â€˜How did you get into this way of life?’ Delta asked her.
    â€˜Well, dear, my parents died when I was young, about fifteen. They caught an illness that went right through the valley where we lived. Lots of people caught it, and they all died. No-one knew what caused it, and I don’t know even now, but one day they were well and happy, and the next day they were both dead. So I buried them and then went to stay with my uncle and his family who lived up in the mountains. But they were too stern and strict for me. I liked my bit of fun. And I was already pretty big. I just seemed to put weight on quickly — in a year or two I went from average plump to not much less than you see now. Well, as soon as I saw the fair I knew it was for me. It was the only way I could be looked after comfortably and enjoy the kind of life I wanted. And I must say I’ve never regretted it. It was Felder, the father of Jud and Mayon, who ran it in those days, and he was the one who hired me, and he always took very good care of me.’
    â€˜Haven’t you ever wanted to do anything different?’ Temora asked.
    â€˜Oh my dear!’ Ruth chuckled. ‘Yes of course I have my dreams. Don’t we all? I’d love to be a dancer or a poet or a shepherd. But I’m in a very nice groove with the fair now, and I don’t want to have to make a whole lot of changes.’
    â€˜The wanderer’s danger is to find comfort,’ Mayon quoted softly, so that only Argus and Temora could hear. Temora looked at him long and thoughtfully, then got to her feet and strolled off in the direction of her tent. The conversation around the fire switched to the favourite topic of the human oddities who peopled the fair: illness. They could discuss their health for hours, each willing to pay the price of listening to the others’ medical histories on the understanding that the others in turn would listen to theirs. Argus, quickly tiring of the tedious subject, quit for the evening and went to bed.

Chapter Fifteen
    T wo days later Temora left the fair to begin her journey home. Though she did not mention it, Argus felt that Mayon’s muttered aside at the fire had helped her to make her decision.
    Although she was travelling in the general direction of her home, she was leaving the fair when it was furthest away from Batlin, and the route she planned appeared to be a particularly arduous one. But she was adamant that it was time for her to move on, and she would not discuss the decision with Argus. Indeed, she seemed preoccupied, as though she had already closed Argus out of her life, and the boy’s depression as he moped around the campsite had so little apparent effect on her that Argus started to grow angry.
    But when the time came for her to go she became once more,