Fizzlebert Stump (11 page)

The car chugged to a halt and the Stumps leapt out.

‘Fizz!' they shouted.

‘'Ello?' said Fizz.

‘Thank goodness you're safe. You waited, you clever boy.'

Fizz nodded eagerly.

‘Are you OK, son?' Mrs Stump said, spitting on an enormous handkerchief and wiping the unprotesting boy's face.

‘OK? Yeah,' the boy said. ‘I was beginnin' to fink you weren't coming.'

‘Oh, poor boy,' Mrs Stump said, hugging her son close to her bosom. ‘Of course we came.'

‘Let him breathe, Gloria,' Mr Stump said. ‘Give him some air.'

They bundled him into the back seat, not noticing that he was wearing a different
dressing gown to the one he'd been wearing the night before and not noticing that his pyjamas underneath weren't pyjamas Fizz had ever owned. They were too relieved to have found him more or less safe and sound to worry about little details like that.

As you've probably realised however, it's not actually Fizz they're taking home, but someone who looks enough like Fizz to be mistaken for him with a bit of mud on their face and twigs in their hair.

And so, Mr and Mrs Stump are taking the wrong child back to the circus and we'll all find out what things happen there in the next chapter.

In the meantime, why don't you have a think about how you would get on pretending
to be a circus child amongst strangers, sea lions and crocodiles. And then, if you find the thought fun and think you might be quite good at it, why not have a look in the local paper and see if there's a circus visiting your town anytime soon?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In which the circus is returned to and in which some things begin to go wrong

Piltdown Truffle thought Mr and Mrs Stump were huge idiots. What sort of parents would mistake their own son for someone else? Just because they had similar not-really-what-you-can-call haircuts and were the same height and build and she had mud all over her face and twigs in her ears as if she'd been lost in the forest all night … She'd
come up with a plan to have some fun and they'd fallen for it, like idiots.

She hoped the boy, Fizz, was having fun at school. Another flipping idiot. What sort of chump puts on a school uniform when he doesn't have to! Of course it was going to get him in trouble. She'd hidden behind a tree and watched Mr Mann haul him off. She'd laughed for somewhere between five and seventeen-and-a-half minutes when that had happened.

She'd put on her scruffiest pyjamas, nicked her gran's dressing gown and struck off straight through the woods to the road the boy had been stranded on. She hadn't
exactly
known what would happen then, but whatever it was it would be better than sitting in a classroom listening to some old bloke drone on about some old rubbish.

When the stupid little car came pootling along with that pair of idiots in it she'd been delighted, if a tiny bit nervous. When the bloke climbed out he was enormous; the big muscles rippled and the tiny moustache fluttered. He was obviously the strongman the boy had said was his dad.

This was where it could all go wrong. If that monster of a muscleman thought Piltdown was trying to pull a fast one, well, she could be in a lot of trouble. But, she thought to herself, Trouble was her middle name (her parents had been astute in that) and she was certain she could bite, scratch and run faster than this man-mountain, if that's what it came to.

But obviously it didn't come to that. She was swept up in a big hug by the woman
(who looked more normal than Piltdown had expected) and had her hair ruffled by the man.

They thought she was their son. What flipping idiots!

Before she knew it she was in the back of the car being driven straight to the circus.

‘Ah, Fizzlebert, there you are,' said a tall man with a shiny moustache. ‘Ready for some history?'

Piltdown had been taken back to the Stumps' caravan and made to change out of her pyjamas and put on Fizz's clothes, including a stupid heavy red coat (which had once belonged to the Ringmaster, as you know). (When she'd stuck her hand in the pocket she'd found what felt (and smelt) like the
remains of an old tuna sandwich.) And then the woman who was supposed to be a clown but who hadn't done
anything
funny yet fed her a second breakfast (cornflakes and cheesecakes (Piltdown didn't complain)) and then marched her off to some other caravan and knocked on the door (it was during this time that Bongo Bongoton saw Fizz walk past the clown's caravan with Mrs Stump).

‘Who are you?' Piltdown asked, trying to sound like a boy who spoke nicer than what she done talk.

‘Me?' said the tall chap, rubbing his top hat. He looked surprised at the question. ‘It's me, Fizz, Dr Surprise.'

‘Dr Surprise,' repeated Piltdown. ‘Of course.'

There were a number of reasons Piltdown
didn't like going to school. For a start she kept going to different ones. Her parents were away at boarding school (they were teachers, not very old pupils) and she had to live with her gran during term time, and, since her gran had to go where the trees were (being a lumberjack), that meant every term she got enrolled in a new school full of new kids and none of them ever much liked her.

So you might imagine being taught history by Dr Surprise, without the distraction of a bunch of other kids sitting there staring at her and whispering behind their hands, would have been a good thing, but it wasn't. Without someone to sit next to, who was there to push off their chair? Whose homework was there to scribble on? Whose pencils were there to
break the leads of? What fun was there to be had at all?

Dr Surprise sat down with the text book (
The British Board of Circus's Official Educators' Guide to the Industrial Revolution & Famous Cheeses of Swindon
) and began reading from the first page.

‘Ah, yes,' he said. ‘Look, Fizz. This man,' (he pointed at a picture), ‘invented this thing,' (he pointed at another picture), ‘which made doing something easier. See?' (He pointed at a third picture of whatever the job was that had been made easier by the thing the man had invented.)

Piltdown had never been in a magician's caravan before. She wasn't paying much attention to the book but was looking round at the decoration. There were jars and boxes
stuffed with wands and other smaller boxes and handkerchiefs and the other various paraphernalia of the illusionist's trade. Books lined the wall with titles like:
Beginners' Tricks
and
Intermediate Magic for the Intermediate Magician
and
Advanced Illusions for the Brave or Foolhardy
. From the ceiling over the sink hung a stuffed plastic crocodile from which dangled ladles and spoons and a sieve.

‘Fizzlebert,' the Doctor said. ‘Are you paying attention?'

‘Yeah, whatever,' Piltdown said, poking her finger underneath the Doctor's rabbit. (The rabbit, Flopples, was sat on the table next to the textbook, chewing its ragged corner.)

‘I'm not sure that's the attitude, Fizz,' said the Doctor, ‘and please stop poking Flopples. You know she doesn't like people
introducing things underneath her tummy. She's an alpha rabbit and it upsets her authority.'

‘
Flopples!?
' shouted Piltdown with a sneering laugh.

She knew people gave animals stupid names, but a grown man with a rabbit called Flopples really was stupid times ten.

‘Flobbles,' she said, poking the rabbit on the nose.

‘Don't do that, Fizz,' the Doctor said, beginning to sound upset.

Piltdown stood up and began rummaging in a box.

‘Fizzlebert,' the Doctor squeaked, standing up too, ‘come out of there. Leave those things alone.'

Piltdown grabbed hold of a bit of cloth. It
had the Union Jack on it. It was like a tiny little flag. She pulled it and another flag of a country she didn't know followed it out of the box (Uganda). She pulled again and a third flag followed the first two (Vatican City). They were all tied together, corner to corner, and every time she tugged another flag flopped out.

This was fun, especially since it was making the weird old man with the plastic moustache (he'd taken it off when they'd come in the caravan and swapped it for a smaller one) upset.

‘Fizzlebert Stump!' he was saying. ‘Why are you doing this? Stop it! Please!'

‘Sure,' she said, pulling so hard not only did three more flags (Brazil, France and Cornwall) come flying out but so did a small
bottle of smoke, which broke on the floor, smashing and surrounding them with a blue swirling fog that smelt of dolphins.

She dodged back to where the table was, and, under cover of the mist, began tying knots in the string of flags. This, she thought, was fun.

Slowly the smoke cleared (Dr Surprise had managed to find the caravan door and fall through it (which was as good a way of opening it as any, I suppose)).

‘What's up, Doc?' Piltdown said, grinning broadly and swinging Dr Surprise's pocket watch from side to side. ‘D'ya use this for hypnotisming?'

Dr Surprise didn't answer the question. He stared into the caravan with his mouth open,
his moustache dangling from one nostril and his monocle in the wrong eye.

‘What have you done?' he squeaked, sounding like a dog toy at the end of a vigorous dog toy session when the dog squeezing the dog toy can only find enough energy for the most pathetic half-hearted little final squeeze.

The place looked a tip. Not only were books scattered around the place, not only was the broken glass of the
Dingle's Deep Sea Smoker (Second Class)
shattered dangerously across the floor, but boxes were tipped up, wands spilt out, his top hat lay crumpled on his bed and Flopples, poor Flopples, was dangling among
Flags of All Nations
, giving him the most evil look a rabbit has possibly ever given a magician in the history of the professional working relationship between
magicians and rabbits, a relationship spanning over two thousand years of secret history (about which I can tell you nothing, it being secret).

Flopples twitched her nose angrily and Dr Surprise began to cry.

‘Fizzlebert,' he said, quietly between sobs, ‘I think you'd best go. I've taught you all I can today. I need to be alone.'

These were just the sort of words Piltdown wanted to hear. She wasn't learning nuffink about the circus cooped up in this caravan. She wanted to get out there and smell the sawdust and swing on the trapeze.

‘OK,' she said, letting go of the swinging pocket watch, which flew out of her hand and through the window. (Unfortunately, the window was shut.)

She pushed past the Doctor and said, ‘Don't worry, Doc. I'll let you and Flobbles alone now.' She made kissing noises and jumped down the steps.

She made her way towards the Big Top. It was obvious that was where the heart of the circus was and where all the
really interesting
things would be. They'd have trampolines and trapezes
and high wires and all that scary stuff and maybe they had lions or elephants as well. When Fizz had told Piltdown about the circus that morning, he hadn't told her everything, so there was loads for her to find out. Loads of mysteries, and her imagination helped fill in the gaps.

As she was running along, keeping her eye on the top of the Big Top, which she could see over the small tops of the caravans, she was surprised from behind and found herself suddenly screaming face down in the dirt.

‘Arrgghhh!' she shouted as she writhed under the heavy dark smelly thing that was pinning her down.

It was damp and fat and unpleasant.

After the sea lion had rootled its nose into Piltdown's coat pocket and slurped and scrunched the crusty stale tuna sandwich that
Fizz had lodged there a few days earlier, it rolled off the girl.