Fizzlebert Stump (5 page)

‘I think you've got the wrong person,' Fizz said, wondering if he ought to go back to Piltdown's cottage.

‘Look, just stop being silly. Come on, Piltdown.'

‘Piltdown?' Fizz said.

It wasn't all that embarrassing to have been mistaken for the girl. After all, he
was
wearing her spare school uniform. At least there'd been a simple explanation. This stranger wasn't one of those strangers to be wary of, he was just a man who was mistaken.

The man held the car door open and said, ‘Get in. I haven't got time for this.'

‘No,' said Fizz with a smile. ‘You see there's been a funny mistake here. You think I'm Piltdown, but I'm not. She's back at the cottage. Shall I go get her?'

The man sighed deeply, shook his head wearily and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

‘Give me strength,' he said. ‘We don't have time for this. Just get in the car.'

Before Fizz had the chance to realise something was wrong and make a run for it, the man grabbed him by the satchel strap.

‘Look, little madam,' he said, leaning down so their faces were close together, ‘I've got a job to do. I'm paid to get you to that school. No one cares how I do it, not any more, not after the run around you've given us all last week. I'll stick you in the boot if needs be, but you're going to get in that car, right now.'

His breath smelt of acid drops.

‘But,' pleaded Fizz, feeling desperate, ‘I'm
really
not Piltdown. My name is Fizzlebert Stump and I live in the circus and I got lost in the forest last night and Piltdown found me and made me breakfast, but really I'm just trying to get home to my mum and dad.'

The man listened to Fizz gabbling and then shook his head and said, ‘No.' Firmly.

He pointed down at the top of the satchel that was hanging in between them. In the big black letters of a permanent marker it said:
Piltdown Truffle's Bag – Now Buzz Off And Leave Me Alone
.

He pushed Fizz towards the car's open door.

‘Get in,' he said.

Fizz didn't know what else to do. He could try running, but he didn't think he'd get far. He could try reasoning with the man, but it didn't seem the man was open to reason. He could try shouting, in case the real Piltdown Truffle heard and came running to his rescue (again), but he had the feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had been, as they say in
the circus business, stitched up like a kipper. (Not that there's much call for kipper stitching these days, not since they invented edible glue (but still, a saying is a saying and who are we to start making changes now?).)

Maybe when he got to the school he'd be able to talk to someone more sensible. Maybe there'd even be a telephone there he could ring his mum from (if he miraculously found his coat, which was in the caravan, with the phone number in). OK then, if not
phone
her, maybe he'd find some sensible helpful grown-up who'd listen and help him get home.

The door slammed and the man climbed in the other side.

‘Look, Piltdown,' he said as he put the key in the ignition. He seemed a bit calmer. ‘I know it can be a bit daunting starting a new
school, but you'll make friends in no time at all and it's a good place. You'll enjoy it, really, as long as you stop being a stupid, horrible, rebellious little madam.'

The car pulled away and under the noise of the engine the two of them sat in an uneasy silence. Eventually Fizz broke it.

‘Who are you?' he asked, in order for me to stop writing ‘the man' every time I talk about him, which is getting a bit annoying.

‘What do you mean?' the man said (see what I mean?). ‘We've met before. Last Friday?
And
last Thursday? You don't remember? How about last Tuesday?'

‘Um, no? Sorry,' said Fizz.

As the man drove he slipped a small rectangle of card out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Fizz.

‘You hear of any other kids bunking off, you just give me a ring on that number,' he said, pointing at the card. ‘We could be friends, me and you, you know.'

Fizz read the card. It said:
T. Mann – Independent Truant Officer – for waifs and strays and runaways – all ages retrieved, minimum of fuss, maximum results.
There was a series of letters and logos and a phone number.

‘What's the ‘T' stand for?'

‘Mind your own business.'

Fizz very nearly said, ‘That's a funny thing for a ‘T' to stand for,' but he thought better of it.

After a drive of just a few minutes the car pulled up in a car park in front of a low white building with lots of windows.

A short woman with a face like a friendly otter's and a colourful blazer jacket with big lapels and a glittery brooch in the shape of a crocodile wandered over to the car. Fizz noticed such details because he'd seen an otter in a previous book, there was a crocodile in his circus, and he was generally able to tell men and women apart (which was more than some people in this book so far, he thought).

‘Ah, Mr Mann,' she said, leaning down (though not very far, already being a short person) and looking through the window at Fizz, ‘I see you've brought our recalcitrant ne'er-do-well back into the fold. Splendid.'

‘Yes, here she is, Mrs Scrapie,' Mr Mann said, unclicking Fizz's seatbelt. ‘And if you need me later on, you have my number.'

‘I hope that won't be necessary.'

‘Of course.'

Mrs Scrapie opened Fizz's door and, because he couldn't think what else to do, he got out, still clutching Piltdown's satchel. He was sure there was no point pointing out Mr Mann's mistake while Mr Mann was still there.

‘Cheerio,' said Mrs Scrapie as she slammed the car door.

She stood with a hand on Fizz's shoulder and they watched as Mr Mann drove off.

‘Now,' the woman said when they were finally alone, ‘let's get you to class.'

‘About that,' Fizz began, lifting up a finger.

‘Piltdown Truffle,' Mrs Scrapie said, sharply but kindly, in a way that clearly meant, ‘Shush'.

Fizz was hurried through a set of doors and down a corridor and round a corner and through some more doors, round another corner and down one last corridor, up to a final door. All the time he tried to explain that he wasn't who she thought he was, but she never let him get far enough into his explanation for it to make sense before she cut him off with a curt, ‘Now, now,' or a smart, ‘Hurry up,' or a dismissive, ‘I'm not listening, la la la.'

This wasn't going brilliantly and Fizz worried about his parents worrying about him. He wished there was a way he could get in touch with them, but he couldn't think how.

His only option was to wait, be patient, be alert, watch out for a chance to either
(a) tell his story to someone willing to listen or (b) escape and find his own way back.

At least, he thought, he was only in a school. It wasn't as if he had been kidnapped by bank robbers or aliens or angry wasps. How bad could school be?

Although he had never actually been in one before, Fizz had read about them in some of the books he'd picked up from the various libraries they passed by in the circus. (In case you're wondering, some of the libraries gave him self-addressed envelopes to post the books back in, some let him return the books to libraries where the books hadn't come from, and some of them insisted he only borrow unpopular books that no one would miss if he didn't bring them back for a year or two. It depended on which Local
Authority the library in question belonged to.) So, having read a bit about schools (they weren't his favourite sorts of books since often they didn't have
any
robots in, let alone aliens), he knew there'd be a tuck shop somewhere round here where he could get some chocolate when he felt peckish and all the kids would have funny nicknames for each other like Fatso or Big Ears or Jonson Minor. He knew they were always having sporting competitions against other schools and he'd have to get a scarf in the school colours. And sometimes they had owls.

Mrs Scrapie pushed him into the classroom and said, ‘Mr Carvery, look who it is. Young Ms Truffle has deigned to return.'

Fizz looked around the room. There were no owls.

There was, however, a bald man in a tracksuit and thirty-odd kids in school uniforms staring at him. (Not, let's be clear, thirty
odd
kids. I just mean there were
about
thirty (say, more than twenty-seven but fewer than a hundred-and-thirteen, if I had to guess) normal, run-of-the-mill, common-or-garden kids, grey and boring and probably without any special powers, hidden skills or fire eaters for friends.)

‘Excellent,' the man (who Fizz
assumed
was a teacher) said, running his fingers through invisible hair. ‘Just what we needed.'

With that Mrs Scrapie shut the door and went off to wherever she went and Fizz was left in the classroom.

He fiddled with his satchel strap and looked at his slippers.

As a circus performer (he had recently started doing a strongman double act with his dad, and before that had put his head nightly in a lion's mouth) he was used to being watched by lots of people. Here he was being looked at by only thirty or so, and he found it awkward. When you were in the circus ring, doing your act, the lights were on you and you were concentrating and you weren't able to see the crowds. They were off in the dark and all you really knew of them was the hush as you did something daring and the roar of applause or laughter as you did something amazing. This was very different indeed.

He glanced up nervously.

No one looked like they were waiting for a brilliant act to start. In fact, they didn't look like they were about to have fun at all.

‘Well?' said Mr Carvery, tapping his watch. (There was a lot of watch-tapping action going on this morning, Fizz thought.) ‘Come on.' (And a lot of people in an awful hurry, he added.)

‘What should I do?' Fizz asked in a quiet voice.

‘Go sit down, Truffle,' Mr Carvery said, as if explaining something obvious to someone very stupid.

The other kids were sat in chairs around half a dozen tables. Fizz noticed a couple of empty seats, but none of them had neighbours who looked inviting. If anything, he got the impression he wasn't much desired at any of the tables.

‘Where should I sit?' Fizz asked.

‘Go sit next to Charlotte,' Mr Carvery snapped. ‘And hurry it up. We've not got all day.'

This didn't help.

I don't know if you've ever tried looking round a room of kids and tried to spot which one is Charlotte, but it's not as easy as it sounds. Especially if you don't know who Charlotte is.

Fizz edged towards the nearest table with both an empty chair
and
a girl.

‘No!' bellowed Mr Carvery. ‘Take your coat off first, Truffle.'

‘I don't have a coat,' Fizz said, feeling somewhat smaller than normal.

‘Don't answer back. Have you no manners, girl? That
thing
you're wearing. Take it off and hang it up.'

‘It's my dressing gown,' said Fizz.

There were a few titters from the back of the room.

Fizz draped the dressing gown over the back of the chair that seemed to be his. (The girl in the chair next door (Charlotte, presumably, since no one had said, ‘That's not Charlotte, dummy') edged as far away from Fizz as she could physically get. If she still had a whole buttock on her chair Fizz would be surprised. She also slid her pencil case and workbook right over to the edge of the table as well.)

‘No!' shouted Mr Carvery, tugging at his non-existent hair. ‘Hang it up!'

Fizz looked around and saw a row of coats on one wall.

‘Oh,' he said. ‘I see.'

Despite all the shouting and staring and tittering he was trying his hardest not to let it get to him too much. He was a circus star, he wasn't easily daunted. He was Fizzlebert
Stump, he thought. Or possibly Piltdown Truffle, his mind whispered, and then he wondered where the girl had run off to. She'd seemed so nice, to begin with, and now this.