The Boy Who Cried Fish (3 page)

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, Fizz,’ his mum said.

‘But I’ve finished eating. It’s not full.’

‘I know, dear,’ Mrs Stump said, putting salt on her cornflakes, ‘but it’s good advice. In general.’

Fizz nodded and had another go at telling them about Wystan’s stranger. To his amusement, his dad seemed to take it seriously.

‘A hook, you say?’ he said after Fizz had finished.

‘That’s what Wystan said.’

‘I can’t think of anyone with a hook. Gloria, how about you?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Stump. ‘I haven’t got a hook.’

She waved her hands in the air. They were small, pink and ended with the usual number of wiggling fingers. She looked surprised that her husband had had to ask. Or maybe she just looked surprised because of the makeup. Fizz wasn’t sure.

‘No dear,’ his dad said. ‘I meant, have you seen anyone matching Fizz’s description?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, brightly.

‘Really?’

Both Fizz and his dad looked at her, half intrigued to hear what she’d seen, and half prepared for clown-induced disappointment.

‘Where?’ asked Mr Stump.

‘I saw him last night,’ Mrs Stump replied, mysteriously. ‘I was just looking out the front door and there was this chap, stood right in front of the caravan. Bold as brass buttons. He was talking with that nice bearded fellow, that Barboozul boy.’

Fizz’s stomach flipped. Had Wystan been telling the truth? And had his mum seen Wystan
talking
to the hook-handed stranger? How could that have been? Why? When?

And then he remembered.

‘Mum?’ he said.

‘Yes darling?’

‘Are you talking about
me
?’

‘Well, it was someone who matched your description, certainly.’

‘Oh, Gloria,’ Mr Stump said. ‘You’re just being awkward now. Think properly. Wystan says he saw a stranger. Have you seen a stranger with a hook in the circus? Yes or no?’

‘No. Not a one, unless . . . But wait! What about the Ringmaster’s brother? Do you remember he visited the circus once, years ago? He had a hook, and . . .’

‘No, no,’ Mr Stump interrupted, putting his hand to his forehead, ‘that wasn’t a
hook
. It was a
book
, Gloria. He had a
book
.’

Fizz could see a long and ridiculous conversation beginning, so he slipped down from the table, did up his shoes, opened the caravan door and left them to it.

As Fizz was making his way toward Captain Fox-Dingle’s caravan for his first lesson of the day, Wystan wandered over to him.

‘Fizz,’ he said.

‘Wystan,’ said Fizz.

‘Have you seen Fish this morning?’ Wystan asked, rubbing the tip of his beard between two fingers.

‘No,’ Fizz said. ‘Hasn’t he come back?’

‘I’ve not seen him,’ Wystan answered, ‘and neither’s anyone I’ve asked.’

Fizz didn’t say anything. He knew how Wystan must be feeling. If Fish didn’t turn up then he wouldn’t have an act to do for a second night in a row. On top of that, Fizz felt a tingle of worry in his stomach for his missing friend. Just a tingle, because Fish hadn’t been gone that long, and he was a grown sea lion, quite capable of looking after himself. Sort of. Unless he got distracted by an open can of tuna.

‘There’s footprints in the mud,’ Wystan said suddenly, changing the subject. ‘Exactly where I saw the bloke. So I definitely weren’t dreaming.’

‘Footprints?’ asked Fizz.

‘Yeah.
Boot
prints. And not just boot prints, but claw-prints too. Definitely a crocodile.’

‘I’ll believe them when I see them,’ Fizz said.

‘Well, come on,’ Wystan muttered. ‘Quick, before some other idiot steps all over them.’

‘I suppose,’ Fizz said, squinting at the mud, ‘that it
could
be a crocodile.’

The boot prints were just boot prints, and in a circus there are a lot of people wearing boots every day. But the claw prints did look like claws, although there were only a few of them, the rest presumably having been overprinted by the many boots of the circus.

Fizz had read a lot of books and seen lots of pictures, and he was trying to remember exactly what a crocodile’s feet looked like when Wystan spoke.

‘I had a thought,’ he said in a low secretive voice. ‘When I found Fish hadn’t come back this morning. When no one had seen him anywhere, I put two and two together.’

‘Did you get four?’ Fizz asked, looking up from the mud.

‘No,’ Wystan replied. ‘I got “a hook-handed pirate bloke and his pet crocodile have kidnapped our sea lion”.’

‘I think you’re supposed to get four,’ Fizz said. He wasn’t brilliant at maths but this sounded right.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Wystan said. ‘This is the only thing that makes sense.’

‘What, that Fish has been kidnapped by a pirate?’

‘Yes.’

Fizz didn’t know whether to laugh or to be serious. ‘So, what do we do now?’ he said, adopting the serious tone on the outside.

‘I dunno,’ Wystan said. ‘I guess we rescue him.’

‘And how do we do that?’ Fizz asked. ‘The prints don’t help us. That’s your only clue.’

‘Yeah,’ said Wystan rubbing his beard between his fingers. ‘That ain’t no good. I guess we just gotta keep our eyes open. You know, for
other
clues.’

‘Right,’ Fizz said, sounding just like he agreed. ‘And in the meantime, we’d better go to art class.’

When they knocked on Captain Fox-Dingle’s caravan door he instantly didn’t answer it.

Instead he called to them from Charles’s cage, which was to one side of the caravan.

‘Here,’ he snapped in his usual clipped manner.

Captain Fox-Dingle was a man of few words, only a tiny number of which were verbs. It was rumoured that he’d been in the army once, and communicating quickly is an important skill for soldiers. In the heat of the heart of battle there’s no time for faffing about with long sentences full of conjunctions, and sub-clauses, such as this one, and brackets (like these): no, it’s all about keeping it brief – ‘Run!’ ‘Fight!’ ‘Duck!’ ‘Ouch!’ ‘Cake!’, and so on. In civilian life, once he’d joined the circus as their lion tamer, he’d maintained this shorthand manner, and over the years Fizz had learnt to fill in the gaps in his head.

As well as lion taming, the Captain also took Fizz and Wystan for lessons. In the circus all the boys’ lessons were taught by different acts (Dr Surprise took them for history, Madame Plume de Matant for French and so on) and it just so happened Captain Fox-Dingle had drawn the short straw, and had drawn it so well, the Ringmaster had made him their art teacher.

The boys walked over to the cage.

The Captain was sat on a stool inside it. His uniform glittered in the sunlight. It was ornate and had gold piping round the edges and across the pockets. His hat had a peak that shaded his eyes, and a logo, a coat of arms, on the front: a fox and a lion facing each other across a chair, enclosed in a circle which, if you looked closely, was made from a whip. The Captain had drawn the design himself.

He had small dark eyes that were always watching out for
something
and a flat nose, as if he’d been in some fights when he was younger but hadn’t always won them. Underneath the nose was a neat little toothbrush of a moustache. He stood up as stiff as he spoke and if you didn’t know him you’d be forgiven for thinking he was a villain. (If it weren’t for the fact that his uniform was bright pink.)

‘What’s wrong with the lion?’ Wystan said, pointing at Charles, who was lying in the corner by the Captain’s stool.

‘Old.’

‘Oh, Charles,’ Fizz said, kneeling beside the cage and looking at the cat.

Charles was resting his big chin on his front paws and had his eyes closed. His magnificent mane looked droopier than normal. As Fizz patted his nose the lion gave a big heave of a sigh, and a little whine of a wheeze whistled with it through the bars of the cage.

‘Oh, you poor thing,’ Fizz said.

‘Fizz,’ said Captain Fox-Dingle. ‘No show.’

Fizz absorbed these words and made them into a sentence.

‘You don’t think he’ll be up for the show tonight?’

Captain Fox-Dingle shook his head.

‘Is he sick?’ Wystan asked. ‘Has he caught flu or something?’

Fizz looked at Wystan. When he’d thought it was just the bearded boy who didn’t have a show to do, he’d been unhappy for him, but not worried like he was feeling now. To think
he
didn’t have an act to do either – that was dreadful. No circus performer ever liked missing out, being told they couldn’t do their act. They weren’t in showbiz in order to sit in the wings all night. Who was?

‘Not flu,’ said Captain Fox-Dingle. ‘Old.’

‘How old
is
Charles, Captain?’ asked Fizz.

Captain Fox-Dingle looked at his fingers and counted.

‘Very,’ he said eventually. He laid a hand on the top of Charles’s head and ruffled his great shaggy mane.

‘But the act went so well last night,’ Fizz protested. ‘It was perfect.’

‘Good show.’

Captain Fox-Dingle shrugged and sat silently for a minute. The sadness of the moment seeped into them all.

‘What’s he going to do if he can’t do his act?’ Wystan asked.

‘Retirement. Good home.’

At least, Fizz thought, trying to put a brave face on things, Charles could enjoy his last years somewhere nice. He knew the Captain would find a good home for him, because the Captain cared deeply about his friend. But Fizz had known Charles all his life. How strange the circus would be without him.

‘So last night was his last show?’ he asked.

‘Maybe.’

‘Perhaps he’ll perk up tomorrow?’

‘Maybe.’

As he said this word Captain Fox-Dingle’s bottom lip quivered, in exactly the way it would were he upset. His tiny smart moustache bristled as he sighed. His eyes were fixed just to left of the boys, gripping the distance tightly in their gaze.

There was no art class that morning. The boys could tell the Captain wasn’t in the mood and they didn’t mind skipping a lesson or two.

If they skipped a lesson, however, then they’d have to find something else to do. And to find out what that ‘something else’ is, I’ll have to get on and write the next chapter.

Chapter Three

In which Dr Surprise surprises the boys and in which an Aquarium is visited

After half an hour of staring closely at the ground in different places round the circus, between caravans and tents, around cages and trucks, the two boys had found almost no further traces of the crocodile. (
Almost
no traces because they did see one print that looked a bit like a clawed reptilian foot, but it was at the bottom of the steps to Luke Longrope’s caravan, and everyone knew he wore crocodile-skin cowboy boots.)

They were despondent. They scuffed their feet and hung their heads. This wasn’t helping them find Fish, or find the kidnappers. They were rubbish detectives. The
most
rubbish, Fizz thought. Dreadful detectives. Their sea lion friend was out there somewhere and they’d probably never see him again and it was all their fault. Oh, woe was them.

Thankfully, their moping was interrupted at that point. (If I was a better author I’d’ve interrupted it earlier, but never mind, eh?)

‘Ah, Fizzlebert,’ said Dr Surprise. ‘I thought I might find you here.’

It was no surprise that Dr Surprise had known where to find him. After all, the mind reader was a mind reader, and also he’d seen them walking past his caravan window less than three minutes earlier.

‘The Captain,’ the Doctor went on, ‘told me about Charles. It’s a sad thing, Fizz.’

It was a sad thing, Fizz agreed. Showlessness. Both boys were out of an act tonight, unless they could find Fish, and that wasn’t looking likely (see above). He felt like a spare wheel. The only time a spare wheel is needed is when you’ve got a puncture, but unfortunately, with both him and Wystan out of the show, it was like being a spare wheel
with
a puncture. They’d both be sitting backstage tonight, watching the show through the curtains, passing Percy Late his plate and keeping Flopples’s after-show carrot warm for the Doctor.