Fizzlebert Stump and the Bearded Boy (14 page)

There was the sound of booing from the other side of the curtain. Which is almost as horrible a noise to hear in the circus as a queue of audience members saying, ‘Can I have a refund please?’ which sometimes comes next.

The Ringmaster rushed through the curtains and they could hear him making jokes and trying to calm the audience down and get them laughing again.

By Fizz’s side, Lady Barboozul was hissing at him.

She leant down close over him, grabbed his arm with one of her claw-like hands, and whispered right into his face.

‘You little wretch, you vermin, you worm! How did you get free? I do hope you didn’t smash a window. You’ll pay for it if you did.’

‘No, not a window,’ Fizz said, standing up to the bully. ‘I broke the door.’

She hissed again and poked him with a long finger.

‘Oh, you’ll be for it soon. Just you wait and see.’

There was nothing she could actually do because there were other people around. Two clowns (Unnecessary Sid and Bongo Bongoton) were playing cards with one of the fire-eaters over on one side, and Percy Late was still chasing his plate in ever smaller circles not far away on the other side.

‘Where have you hidden all the things you stole?’ he said, loudly.

The clowns were watching with interest. Although they’d heard what Fizz had told the Ringmaster they hadn’t decided yet who they reckoned was telling the truth. (Clowns are terrible at making their minds up.)

Underneath their makeup they liked Fizz, of course, they’d known him since he was a little boy. But that meant they also remembered all the times he’d told fibs (there never had been an invasion by Martians) or got in trouble (Madame Plume de Matant had used her powers to divine where the frog in her bed had come from) or had gone missing before (remember
Fizzlebert Stump: The boy who ran away from the circus (and joined the library)
?). And with their makeup on, well, even if they could make their minds up, there was no guarantee they’d come to a sensible decision.

‘I stole nothing,’ Lady Barboozul said, standing up straight and putting her hand on where her heart would’ve been, had there not been a glistening black beard in the way.

She looked at the clowns, shivered slightly, and turned to the fire-eater they were sat with.

‘I swear I’m innocent, my good . . . man.’

She said it in such a hurt tone, such a voice of meekness and tender feelings, that Eric Burnes (the fire-eater) nodded with her, and Bongo Bongoton put down his invisible cards and blew his nose on an invisible hanky. (What he meant by this, no one really knew.)

‘She’s lying,’ Fizz shouted. ‘Just look at her eyes. They’re cold.’

‘Now then,’ Burnes said, getting up. ‘You shouldn’t be rude to a lady, Fizz. I think you’d best run along now. Go back to your mum and dad. Go on. Get out of here.’

Fizz didn’t move.

Eric picked up a step ladder and started walking towards him.

For a moment Fizz was confused, but then it was clear.

The show was going on. The show always had to go on. This was the circus after all. Everyone mucked in, everyone helped each other out. The fire-eater was preparing the Barboozuls for their opening extravaganza.

From outside the tent Lord Barboozul and Wystan appeared. They’d obviously (Fizz reckoned) been off somewhere causing some last-minute bit of chaos.

Lord Barboozul, at least, looked momentarily shocked to see Fizz.

‘Mr Stump,’ he said quietly. ‘How nice to see you.’

Wystan’s face was harder to read because he turned it away.

Even as Fizz protested, the fire-eater helped Lord Barboozul up the ladder and onto his wife’s shoulders, and then Wystan followed. The long coat was done up (with their beards poking through) and as soon as the audience was hushed and their music began they were guided out into the circus ring.

‘But, they’re . . .’ Fizz began, feeling beaten and ignored and lost.

The Ringmaster was back.

‘I’m disappointed with you, Fizz. You know how important today is, and yet you try to ruin it all. You know, I’m going to have to talk to your parents about this behaviour. What would they think?’

‘But it wasn’t me,’ Fizz said, limply. ‘It was them.’ He pointed out at the ring.

‘Right,’ said the Ringmaster with finality. ‘Get back to your caravan. I’m going to have to think long and hard about this.’

He put his hand on Fizz’s shoulder and began to lead him out of the tent. Fizz felt defeated, hopeless.

And then, to make him feel even worse, he smelt a smell like old socks. It was the pungent scent of smoked kippers. Fish, who’d finally caught up with him, let out yet another fish-flavoured belch as he flolloped into the backstage area, almost knocking them over.

‘Oh, Fish,’ the Ringmaster said. ‘Your breath doesn’t half smell.’ He leant down to whisper in Fizz’s ear. ‘Fizz, you’re going on sea lion tooth-brushing duty for the next month. I think that’ll teach you some manners.’ He stood up again, and Fizz heard him say to himself, ‘If we still have a circus, that is.’

He paused as he heard the music change.

Fizz could tell that out in the ring the Barboozuls had disentangled themselves from the triple-decker person that opened their act and were on into the second stage. Wystan would be looking for someone in the audience and Lord Barboozul would still be hidden by smoke.

At that moment, Fizz felt a shove on his thigh.

Fish’s head was squeezing between him and the Ringmaster, and he was pushing his way toward the curtain that separated backstage from the ring.

And then suddenly Fish was no longer between them. He was loose.

‘Stop that sea lion!’ the Ringmaster was shouting, as the sea lion flolloped out through the curtains.

I know that’s the end of the chapter, but to be honest, I’m just going to turn over the page and write the next one straight away, so if I were you I’d come with me. Follow that sea lion!

Chapter Thirteen

In which bad luck befalls some people and a sea lion has his moment

As soon as Fish got into the ring he could tell something was wrong.

All he’d done was follow the smell of fish, like he always did, but when he looked around him all he could see was sawdust and these bright lights pointing down at him. They were dazzling.

Then came the laughter.

An audience at a circus who sees an unexpected sea lion in a smart spangly waistcoat flolloping into the middle of the ring, lit up by spotlights and clearly confused, can’t help but laugh.

‘Catch that sea lion!’

The Ringmaster came running out with Eric Burnes and the two clowns.

‘Get him! Before he ruins the . . .’

The four of them stopped as they realised they were suddenly lit up. Unnecessary Sid fell over his long feet, and Bongo Bongoton opened an invisible door and stepped through it. (Put a spotlight on a clown and they do what clowns do.) The Ringmaster ignored them and pulled Eric Burnes’ sleeve, saying, ‘Come on, let’s get that sea lion, before he ruins everything.’

Fizz, now free, seized his chance and ran into the ring too.

Over on the far side the bearded Barboozuls were bravely battling on with their act, while out in the middle of the sawdust the attention-grabbing Fish was busy comically looking over his shoulders.

From one side people were running at him with their arms open as if they wanted to hug him (this happens to a sea lion quite a lot in a circus, especially when spotted by children in the queue. He had his own methods for dealing with unwanted hugs, mostly involving burping) and from the other side came the delicate, faint but unmistakable (to his high-powered nose) aroma of tuna.

It was an easy decision.

He lunged at the bearded trio and, with Eric Burnes hanging onto his tail, fell short.

The audience loved it.

They were laughing and clapping. Nothing had been this funny all afternoon.

A moment later this was the scene: Fish was wiggling in the sawdust, with a bald man with fiery tattoos hugging him tightly round his tail; Fizz and the Ringmaster were stood either side, one shouting, ‘Well done Eric, hold him,’ and the other shouting, ‘Let him go, Mr Burnes, he’s trying to save us,’; Lady Barboozul had pulled a fan from her beard and was waving it theatrically at her face, as if to say, ‘Crikey, that was a close call,’; and the audience was clapping, thinking this strange interlude in the routine was now over.

A sea lion, however, is a slippery customer and Fish’s flight wasn’t so easily curtailed.

Fizz could see that the fire-eater was struggling hard to keep hold of the beast, and so he started pushing and shoving him.

‘Let him go,’ he shouted. ‘Get off him.’

‘Get off
me
,’ Burnes shouted back.

The man was bigger, heavier and much more burly than Fizz was, and there was no way our hero could push him off if he didn’t want to be pushed off.

But then Fizz saw a shape appear at his side.

It was a black shape.

It was a furry shape.

It was an unruly shape.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ said a voice, low and angry and sharp, but unmistakably Lady Barboozul’s.

‘Helping,’ said a voice from the beard at Fizz’s side. The question may have been asked by the bearded lady, but the answer was clearly intended for Fizz’s ears.

It was Wystan.

As Fizz watched, the boy’s beard wriggled and ruffled around Eric’s ear and on his cheek and down the side of his neck. It was tickling him on the flaming tattoo. It looked like a dozen tiny furry fingers flickering through the firelight.

Burnes’ hand came up to swat away what he probably thought was just a tickling fly, and it’s a truth universally acknowledged that only having one hand on a damp, wriggling sea lion is never enough.

Fish burst out and lunged directly at Lady Barboozul.

She’d left the caravan in such a hurry after imprisoning Fizz in the trunk that she’d forgotten to brush her beard, and that bit of tuna Fizz had seen back then, the tiny fleck of tuna that had given him the idea for his escape for their caravan, that rancid lump of old tuna was still stuck in the coiling blue-black fur.

She screamed and stumbled backwards as the heavy sea lion leant its damp dusty flippers on the shoulders of her beautiful flowing long white dress, and licked at her face.

A sea lion has bad breath. A sea lion has sharp black teeth. And a sea lion has a strong wet rasping tongue, a bit like that of a cat, but twenty times bigger.

Lady Barboozul screamed again and tried slapping at Fish to make him stop.

The audience thought this very funny indeed.

Then two things happened all at once.

Firstly, she stepped backwards and bumped into her husband, who had hidden behind her just in case the sea lion wanted him too, and the pair of them fell over.

(Applause. Laughter.)

And secondly, Fish was left with a mouthful of long blue-black hair. He’d pulled her beard off.

(Laughter. Applause. Someone fell off their seat.)