My heart was in my throat and as I watched the blindfolded lady trapeze artist swoop down from the top of the circus tent. An audible gasp from the audience as she did a double somersault and a collective aah as the catcher expertly caught her. I turned to my brother. His eyes were as large as saucers and I glimpsed my own shining eyes in his.
‘Wow,’ I said.
John just nodded unable to speak. It was my first visit to an actual real live circus and something I would never forget.

When we got home John was thoughtful and suddenly disappeared under the house, Dad’s plane tucked under his arm. Sounds of sawing and scraping drifted out of the garage. A few hours later he emerged with a grin and a skinny round wooden pole.
‘I have an idea for our trapeze act,’ he whispered to me conspiringly.
‘What trapeze act?’ I whispered back.
‘You’ll see.’

What was my brother up to now? It might have something to do with our swing. It did look rather like a trapeze, now that I had actually seen a real one. The swing / trapeze in question was made out of a steel pole, the right size for small hands, attached by ropes to a branch in the neighbour’s oak tree that bordered on our place.
‘You’d better start practicing some flips, John warned me. I’ll need you nice and fit for our act.’

It was 1958. My eleven year old brother was a great inventor of games usually of the adventurous kind and sometimes bordering on dangerous. At seven years old, I idolised him and would follow his lead without question and with total blind trust. I was often the one who did the nicking of fruit off the neighbour’s loquat tree. John would be the lookout man. Being small I was less easily seen, he would reason.

That night I dreamed of the Flying Fernandos from the circus with me as the star. The crowd roared as I flew by in my star-spangled leotard as my double, no, triple somersault awed them.

Sunday morning, and I could hardly wait to get home from Sunday school. The morning dragged but finally we were allowed to go and we rushed home keen to start on our act, for now I knew what John had been talking about. We were going to be the Flying Fernandos.

After lunch, we practiced at being trapeze artists. I had been going to gymnastics for nearly six months now and had already passed my bronze medal. I showed my brother some stunts.
‘That’s good, but can you do a somersault?’ He asked.
‘No, but I can do a backward walkover. It’s almost a somersault.’
I bent over backward, went into a handstand and landed on my feet.
‘I can go forwards too,’ I said.
I did a handstand and flipped over onto my feet.
John was impressed.
‘There would be no ground, he declared. In the air, that would be just like a somersault. Can you do two of them?’
 I shook my head.
‘Well, we will just have to start with one.’

Relieved, I went to put on my leotard and John, being the catcher in our act, tied some rope to the pole he’d made and fixed it to a lower branch in the tree. He had on a white singlet and his white soccer shorts. When I returned he was busy trimming some branches with Dad’s secateurs.
To give you room to swing, he explained. We don’t want you hitting anything.
I gave him my biggest smile, pleased with his concern for my safety. John looked me over.
‘We’ve forgotten something,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right back.’

John disappeared into the house and ran back waving a handkerchief.
‘For the blindfold of course.’
I’d forgotten about that part of the Flying Fernandos act and felt the stirring of butterflies in my tummy.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to catch you,’ John reassured me as he tied the handkerchief firmly around my head. I practised my forward walkover and then my backward one and found to my delight I could do them just as easily blindfolded.
‘See,’ he said. ‘You don’t even need eyes to do the trick.’
 
He tested the wooden pole, making sure it held his weight, while I tentatively climbed up the tree. My hands felt around for the low branches while my bare feet scrabbled for purchase on the rough bark. I had climbed this tree many times and before long felt the familiar shape of the wide limb that we used as a platform to stand on. The trapeze was just above my head, the pole tethered by string to a nail on the trunk.

‘Just reach above and grab the pole,’ I heard John call from below.
Feeling along the broad trunk with my right hand, I found the string and unhooked it. I reached up with my left and the pole slid into my hand. I gripped it, leaned back and braced myself.

‘Jump Jenny jump,’ yelled my brother as I prepared to leap into the black void.
‘No John, Jenny. STOP,’ screamed a voice.

It was our mother. Just in the nick of time.

'Don’t talk to me about hats,' I moaned to my best friend Donna as we rode our horses into town one Saturday morning. I was on Kiri, my gentle, well mannered bay mare and Donna was on Noble, a chestnut gelding who was well known as a bit of a character with a tendency to get into trouble.

‘I don’t even like hats. I’d be quite happy if I never saw another one.’
‘You’re wearing one,’ Donna pointed out.
‘Riding hats are different. They serve a purpose.’

 It was the summer of 1968. I was seventeen and my friend was sixteen. We had just left school and the future stretched uncertainly before us. I had a temporary job working in Mum’s hat shop and all week had been stuck in the back room sorting out the mountain of boxes containing last season’s hats. Mum, a talented milliner, kept the ladies of Dargaville in the latest fashion with her creations. An outfit is not complete without a hat, she would often say.

My mood lifted as we cantered along the wide grass verge toward town and in no time it seemed, entered the main street. We crossed the road and headed towards the traffic. Noble tossed his head as the brief exercise had warmed him up for more.

‘Excuse me girls,’ called a voice.
Just ahead we noticed a car parked at the side of the road. The first thing we saw through the passenger window was a very large hat swathed in blue chiffon with, of all things, a bunch of fake purple grapes nestled on the brim. Under the hat sat an enormous lady, waving a white gloved hand. The driver, an equally large man, was studying a map.
           
‘Could you tell me where the Presbyterian Church is? It’s our son's wedding,’ she
added, nodding her head and causing the grapes to wobble.
‘Yes, it’s just…..’ I started to say, but my attention was diverted by Noble. He had stretched forward to investigate the blue hat, nostrils flaring with anticipation. Noble’s love of grapes, and the way they quivered enticingly, proved irresistible as he lowered his head and delicately bit into what he thought were plump and juicy treats.  

‘Um, just..…’ I faltered.
Donna and I stared in horror as the hat lifted high in the air and fell to the ground, followed by the fake grapes spat out in disgust. Then, for added effect, Noble planted his hoof squarely on the crown of the hat. For a moment we all stared mutely at the trampled hat. With hand in mouth I watched mortified as the lady’s large face become an angry mottled red, eyes bulging, her many chins quivering and mouth opening and shutting; a face like thunder. I held my breath for the gathering storm. Donna was struggling to move her stubborn horse off the hat but he wouldn’t budge. The lady then opened her mouth and we braced ourselves.

‘Oooooh,’ she screamed. ‘Get off my hat you wicked beast.’
Donna quickly dismounted and Noble obligingly backed off.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be all right.’
‘How can it be all right you stupid girl. My hat is ruined. RUINED.’
‘No really,’ I persisted, my mind leaping ahead to a possible solution.
 ‘My mother has a hat shop. She’s a milliner,’ I said and, warming to my
idea, I added brightly. ‘This has to be your lucky day as she just happens to be working in the shop this morning and I bet she will be able to fix it.’

Donna looked dubiously at me as the lady said,
‘She would have to be a miracle worker to fix this.’
‘She is,’ I said proudly. ‘She’s the best in Dargaville.’
I didn’t add that Mum was the only milliner in Dargaville.

Jumping off Kiri, I threw her reins to Donna and gingerly picked up the hat. I stuck what was left of the grapes into the brim and hopped in the back seat.

I’ll be back soon, I mouthed to Donna as the man put away the map and asked where Mums shop was. Was that a smile on his face? I gave directions and hoped like anything Mum was still at work.

Thank goodness, her car was outside. I banged on the shop window for attention and Mum came hurrying out from the back room. She looked quizzically at me when she saw the ruined hat and I explained how Noble had thought it was a snack.

‘Can you fix it?’ The lady asked.
‘Well,’ said Mum. ‘I can only try, then winking at me, it may take a few minutes though and its goodbye to the grapes I’m afraid.’

When the woman left to wait in the car, Mum said, once we’d stopped laughing.
‘What an awful hat. I think Noble did her a favour. Why would anyone decorate a hat with grapes for heavens sake?’

Mum measured the mangled hat then stuffed it in the rubbish bin. She rummaged through a box of last year’s hat shapes and promptly produced an identical hat. Some blue chiffon followed deftly draped around the shape, and to top off the ensemble, a spray of lily of the valley and two pretty blue carnations where the grapes had been. A couple of stitches in the right places completed the work. I called the lady in.

‘Finished already? Oh my word, it looks better than ever,’ she cried.
‘You have a very clever mother young lady.’
‘I know.’ I smiled gratefully at mum. ‘She’s a magician.’

The idea of my running away came about after my older brother and sister had told me yet again to go away. “I’ll show them,” was forefront in my mind as I planned my escape. Going to my Nana’s in Auckland was quickly dismissed with the discovery of my empty piggy bank. What my family needed was a shock. What if I just pretended to run away? Now there’s a thought.

I had contemplated several good hiding places before deciding on the perfect one. It was in the old oak tree that grew next door by the road, a collection of gnarly planks nailed between the branches, called “The Tree House”. This hiding place would have a great view of any unfolding drama. With a jumper, drink and sandwich in my school satchel, I was up that tree as fast as my agile 9 year old body could climb.

Invisible to the world below, I watched my brother and sister walk up our drive; Mr McQuin, from across the road, getting a thorough licking from Dick, his German Shepherd, as he got home and there was Dad’s brand new '59 Hillman Minx turning into our street. It must be 6 o’clock, tea-time. Dad pulled up. He looked up briefly and I ducked down. He didn’t see me, did he? I was pretty sure he hadn’t. 

I settled down to wait. In an hour the police would be here; then I would casually come down the tree looking confused. I’d fallen asleep I’d say. I heard Mum call me in for tea. This was it then. Here comes the drama.

I waited. A second call, louder, insistent pierced my ears; still I waited, listening in the darkened evening for sounds of grief, of wailing from my mother, the general uproar of a family when the youngest is found to be missing. Any moment now I will see the police car pull up. The neighbours wondering what drama could have happened on their quiet uneventful street in their quiet uneventful town.

I waited. The sun had all but gone when I finally clambered down the tree and peered into the kitchen window. There was my family happily eating and talking. I strained my ears for snippets concerning me. Dad could be saying that any time now the police would have found her…she can’t have got far. But all I heard him say was ‘Pass the salt please someone’. I opened the door, rubbing my eyes and yawning and Mum looked at me and said, ‘It’s about time you came down from that tree Jenny. Your tea will be cold.’