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Bing
IT DON’T MEAN A THING IF YOU AINT GOT THAT SWING!!! (NG)
The swing seat of the trapeze creaked slowly back and forth; Bing the Flying Swing King (or Gordon Pringle according to his birth certificate), gave a snort of frustration as he bounced and floundered around in a most unseemly manner in the safety net.
He had just 24 hours to perfect his flying trapeze act before his audition with Billy Sing – Master of the Ring, who owned the Ringling Circus. The way that he was going, he would be lucky to make it to the audition without breaking anything .
He was desperate to get this job – he had been a top attraction in America until the little incident with the lion tamer………..well, anyway, that was in the past, and no-one in England had ever heard anything about him.
Saturday morning dawned grey, it was drizzling and the smell of damp canvas mingled in Bing’s nostrils, along with the usual animal smells associated with the big top, and the strong pong of Bing’s sweaty armpits as his panic increased.
At last, after a very long wait Billy Sing arrived, cast a critical glance over Bing and nodded, almost imperceptively, towards the trapeze.
Up Bing climbed, humming quietly to himself to calm his jangling nerves. Bing unclipped the trapeze and took a deep breath – his entire future career in the big top hung on this audition.
Bing grasped the bar of the trapeze and swung back and forth, confidence growing with each swing until Bing decided to attempt his triple swing fling flip thing, whilst wearing a thong and singing a song, in the hope of impressing Mr. Sing and – PING! Bing realized what had happened almost before Mr. Sing did. Bing’s glass eye had popped out in mid flip and was hurtling, like a small glass meteorite, straight for Mr. Sing’s head. As Bing opened his mouth to call a warning to Mr.Sing, his false teeth flew out, clattering and chattering as they flew on their macabre mission, directly at Mr. Sing’s ample nether region (as he bent down to retrieve the glass eye which was rolling around on the sawdust floor with a glazed expression).
Bing could bear it no longer, he swung back, still upside down, to dismount with as much dignity as he could muster, when there was a frightening snapping noise, and his wooden leg sailed gracefully through the air.
Bing was at a loss for words, he just dangled by one leg, grinning gummily at Mr. Sing.
The expression on Mr. Sing’s face as Bing’s leg flew towards him defies description.
Suddenly, he appeared to come to a decision; as Bing dangled in an embarrassed fashion Mr. Sing’s voice rang out “you’re hired – I have just the thing for you – we have an apprentice knife thrower joining us – if he misses you won’t see it coming, and, so what if he does, you wont feel it anyway”!
1. What was Bing the Flying Swing King's real name?
2. What was the name of the Circus?
3. What was Bing trying to attempt when everything started to go wrong?
4. In what order did all the bits start to fall out and off Bing?
5. An incident with a lion tamer is mentioned in the story - what do you think this could have been?
