In this chapter we see the two Cirque du Freak performances. We start off with Alexander Ribs a contortionist who can play his own body like and instrument. Then we see Rhamus Twobellies who can eat a massive amount of food in under five minutes and do tricks with non-foods like knives and forks which he can also consume without worry.
Synopsis[]
After Mr. Tall leaves the stage the second freak Alexander Ribs comes up. And Darren sees the Little People cleaning up the blood. Alexander Ribs is so skinny he looks like a skeleton. But he isn't frightening due to his wide and friendly smile. Funny music starts playing and Alexander starts dancing around the stage in ballet clothes. He then shows off his contortionist skills by tilting his head fully back, then he bends down to put his head through his legs. He follows this up by twisting his body around five times, rolling himself up like a curly straw. Then he untwist himself and starts playing his bones like they are an instrument. He performs musical notes, TV tunes and The Beatles. He leaves the stage and refuses to come back. Then Rhamus Twobellies comes on, an extremely fat man who makes the floorboards creak as he walks onto the stage.
He walks to the edge of the stage and pretends a few times to almost fall, which slightly panics the people in the front row. He then introduces himself and explains he was born with two stomachs, just like certain animals. Then the two pretty women come on with several trolleys full of food. Hamburgers, Cakes, Sweets, Cabbages and many things Darren had never seen or tasted before fill the trolleys. Rhamus then asks the audience to guess how long it will take him to eat it all. The audience throws out guesses between 17 minutes and over two hours.Then as the guesses stop, a clock that was lowered onto stage starts ticking. At which point Rhamus starts eating faster then the wind. Finishing everything served to him within 4 minutes and 56 seconds. Rhamus then remarks he could have done with some dessert. The two women then come back with new trolleys, now full of glass statues, knives, spoons and assorted metal junk. He warns people not to copy him as he starts eating bolts and nuts which he regurgitates in order to proof he isn't keeping them in his mouth. He then consumes the glass statues with some water and he follows this up with the spoons and knives, and eventually a long metal chain. After some rumbling in his belly, he brings the chain back up with the spoons and knives wrapped around in it. He then leaves the stage, at which point Darren wrongly thinks that nobody could top that performance.
Characters in Order of Appearance[]
- Mr. Tall
- Darren Shan
- Steve Leonard
- Alexander Ribs
- Little People
- The Beatles (mentioned)
- Rhamus Twobellies
- Davina
- Shirley
- Wolf Man (mentioned)