Gina wondered why no one was moving the big red removal van that was taking up almost half the road. She could hear the ompah-pah of the circus band approaching. She was sure the clowns and the elephants would not want to squeeze past the removal van. But no one seemed to be concerned about it. Eventually a policeman went up to the van and peered into the cab. He tried the door handle but it was locked. For several minutes he stood there looking around for a possible driver, but no one appeared and the van stayed where it was.

Addleham was a small market town and there was no good reason why a circus should want to visit the place. Gina supposed that the circus people had come there for a rest, and to try out new tricks. They had to try them out somewhere and they could not do it in front of large, city audiences. Suppose someone fell off a trapeze or the clowns were not funny enough? A girl went by rattling a blue tin in front of people and inviting them to contribute to the local fund for the blind. That was what the circus march was in aid of: raising money for the blind. Gina thought this a very good idea since blind people would not really be able to enjoy a circus – except perhaps by listening to the band. So she put some money in the tin. She did not contribute much because her father only gave her a little pocket money each week. If he was there he would have put in far more but he was at the butcher’s buying some sausages for her mother. Gina had gone on ahead. He was going to catch up with her later. But if he did not hurry the circus march would have gone right past. There were a lot of people watching the march because circuses did not often come to a town as small as Addleham.

First came the ring master in a tall hat and tails and a very smart pink bow tie that looked as if it had been painted on his shirt. Then came the circus children, twirling batons if they were old enough and, if they were not, looking cold in short tunics. Most of them seemed to be about ten, Gina’s age. She smiled at a girl who smiled back, promptly failing to catch her baton which she had sent flying in the air. The baton landed at Gina’s feet and she picked it up and gave it back. The girl was taller than Gina who had always been told that she was rather small for her age. The fact that her face was round and she was short made her look fatter than she actually was. At school she was often teased about this, especially as her name was Gina Tuckertyme. Her proper name was Georgina but no one could be bothered to say it all. She thought her fringe made her face look even rounder but she preferred it to pigtails which were pulled.

There were only eight people in the circus band but they made up for any shortage in noise and energy. It seemed as if each man must be playing at least two instruments. The band wore white uniforms which were wither too tight and too short or too long and too loose – and on the man with the big drum they seemed to be both these things at once.

Following the band came the clowns in a funny sort of car that was propelled by their feet instead of wheels. They squirted water at the children watching and threatened to throw bags of flour and soot – which they then threw at each other instead. One clown had faces on the back of his head and on the front; Gina could not tell which was the real one.

Then came the elephants. The first elephant seemed very big, but that may have been because Gina was nearer to it than the ones she had seen in the zoo. The elephant was led by a smartly dressed boy in a white turban and a red sash who led the elephant by holding on to its trunk.

Suddenly there was a loud bang and a cloud of sweet-smelling pink smoke filled the street. It was so sudden that Gina did not have time to be frightened. No one else seemed frightened either. Everyone stood just where they were and waited for the smoke to go away. Everyone supposed that the clowns were up to some trick or other.

After what seemed to be a long time the smoke began to clear. Everything appeared to be just as it had been before, but the elephant boy was running backwards and forwards as if he were looking for something. Running up to the clowns, he shouted, “What have you done with my elephant?” Hearing this the onlookers began laughing and clapping because the elephant had indeed vanished. And making an elephant vanish is clearly much more difficult than making a whit rabbit disappear into a top hat. Gina clapped, too, because it really was a surprising trick.

But it was not a trick. The elephant really had vanished. The clowns denied having anything to do with it. The ringmaster and the circus owner asked the people watching if they had seen what had happened. Gina wondered whether the red removal van had anything to do with it. The van was certainly large enough to take an elephant. Where else could the elephant have gone? She watched two circus people trying to open the back of the van but it was obviously locked. Perhaps the elephant was inside.

If the elephant really is inside the van, thought Gina, there would be some noise or movement. So she put her ear to the side of the van to listen. But there was nothing to be heard. Perhaps the elephant had been drugged with one of those darts that she had seen explorers use on television to catch rhinoceroses. The dart is fired at the beast which then quickly falls over paralysed: so that it can be safely handled. So Gina walked round to the back of the van, standing a few paces behind it. She looked at the van. It did not tilt over to either side. If the elephant had been drugged or was asleep, the van would probably have leant to one side or the other.

Gina went off to look for her father to tell him about the case of the disappearing elephant. Her father, Harry Tuckertyme, was a detective sergeant in the police. He was on a month’s holiday, but she was sure that he would be able to find out where the elephant had disappeared to and how it had got there.