All the Fun of the Fair: A hilarious, brilliantly original coming-of-age story that will capture your heart

by Caroline Hulse

  He got up to put the empty containers in the bin.

  When he came back, I added, ‘We’ll be careful. And it’ll be fun.’

  I opened my coat and showed Lewis my secret pocket.

  A minute later, he did the same.

  We gave each other a secret smile and let our coat flaps fall back.

  ‘We can start investigating him this afternoon.’ I reached into my secret pocket and got out my spy fortune teller. ‘And this will tell us what to do.’

  ‘Just – only the strange man. Not Danielle’s death.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll listen to you. You’re very sensible.’

  He frowned.

  ‘Honest.’

  He stood up. ‘I think I’ll get another pack of biscuits, to celebrate.’ And I watched him get up and put more money in the vending machine, grateful he’d saved me from having to lie to him too much – which would have been such a shame, when we’d only just made up.

  What Might the Strange Man Have Done to Make Mum Call Him Strange?

  1.Axeman stuff

  2.Paedo stuff

  3.Flashing

  4.IRA terrorism – Manchester bomb

  5.Drink-driving

  6.Cut Mum up at a roundabout

  7.Went to Danielle’s funeral even though he didn’t know her, or

  8.Went to Danielle’s funeral and stopped at M&S on the way back

  9.Vandalised Monkford Precinct Christmas display with graffiti that time*

  10.Killed Danielle

  * ‘Jesus is a bellend’ and ‘Mary and Joseph shagged ↓ these camels’

  21

  A good lookout stays cool, calm and collected – ideally, he has nerves of steel.

  The Junior Spy’s Secret Handbook™

  Eighteen days to the fair

  I stayed crouched behind the parked car opposite 56 George Street, my heart beating in my ears.

  Now? I mouthed.

  Lewis fidgeted, all alert, moving his weight from foot to foot like he was fielding in a game of rounders. We’d agreed our signals in the leisure centre café but now – an hour later, now it was actually spy time – Lewis wasn’t doing either of the signals we agreed. He wasn’t yawning or hooting like an owl. Instead, he just jiggled by the lamppost, looking wide-eyed.

  I strained my neck to make my eyes go as wide as his. Do something.

  ‘Now!’ he barked.

  Barked. Not mouthed. And he still didn’t hoot.

  Still, I ran.

  I ran down the driveway of 56 George Street and towards the house’s black bin. My heart pumped hard as I grabbed the twigs out of my pocket and arranged them in front of the bin in a criss-cross shape. Too late, Lewis remembered to owl-hoot, finally – his owl sounded sad, more unhappy pigeon – and I took the lid off the bin, grabbed my prize, put the lid back on and ran.

  Ten minutes later, we sat across from each other on Lewis’s bed, the bin bag open between us.

  Things in the Strange Man’s Bin

  1)Fourteen teabags, used

  2)A microwave meal carton – chilli con carne, eaten

  3)Three takeaway trays with scraps of sauce and noodles. Assume sweet and sour.

  4)A bumper tin of value white emulsion paint, empty

  5)A third of a bag of potatoes, sprouting

  6)Three pairs of curtains with netting, old lady

  7)An IKEA receipt for three pairs of curtains, six houseplants and a tap

  8)A bottle of WeedBeGone! weedkiller, empty

  9)A can of air-freshener in Outdoor Breeze, empty

  10)Three family-size packets of Hot ’n’ Fiery beef tortillas, empty

  11)A two-pence coin, green on one side

  12)A cigarette lighter, half full, broken spark

  13)A box of twenty Silk Cut, empty

  ‘He buys cigs in twenties.’ Lewis nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s odd.’

  ‘A lot of adults do.’ I tapped one of the packets of Hot ’n’ Fiery beef tortillas. ‘He got those from Paper Rack in the precinct. Eighty-nine pence.’

  ‘Impressive!’ Lewis said. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because that’s where I always got mine. Not lately, though.’

  Lewis pressed his lips together in pity – he knew I was avoiding the Paper Rack man.

  I looked at our haul again. I moved the teabags so they were more central, to stop so much cold tea seeping onto Lewis’s duvet. ‘I was hoping to find something Irish. Is any of this stuff Irish?’

  Lewis stared at our haul. ‘I don’t think so. He could still have done the IRA bomb though. He could be a mercenary.’

  I shook my head. ‘Things aren’t always about mercenaries.’

  Lewis poked at a carton. ‘I suppose bombers eat food too.’

  ‘Good point. And just because there’s no bomb stuff here, it doesn’t mean the man didn’t build the bomb. Just that he didn’t put any of the bomb wrappers in this bin.’

  There were footsteps on the stairs. Lewis and I locked gazes in panic.

  ‘Lewis?’ Lewis’s mum’s voice was soft. ‘Why’s this door shut?’

  ‘DON’T COME IN!’ Lewis shouted.

  I never heard Lewis shout. But I suppose if there’s ever one person to make you feel like you’re in charge, it’s ‘this old thing, sorry, I’m so stupid’ Lewis’s mum.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I come in?’

  ‘Mu-um!’ Lewis made it have an extra syllable. ‘I’ve told you!’

  She threw the door open. ‘And I’ve told you that the rules are you keep the door open when Fiona’s here.’

  ‘We’re not having sex, Mrs Harris,’ I said quickly. ‘I promise.’

  ‘I can see that, thanks, Fiona.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s chlorine-y in here. You both definitely had showers?’

  We both nodded, me furiously, hoping Lewis’s mum wouldn’t see how tangled my hair was. From not showering.

  ‘Well, I know you kids wouldn’t lie to me.’

  I gave her a big smile. Mr Kellett would call it irony – that Lewis got the trusting mum, when he didn’t even need one. When I was the kid who, last Christmas, had to go into school with a real temperature of 102, just because of that one time with the thermometer and the light bulb.

  Mrs Harris looked at the bed. ‘Is that a bin bag? What are you keeping in there?’

  Lewis looked like he’d forgotten how to speak.

  ‘A school project,’ I said. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Is that an actual bin bag from an actual bin?’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Is that paint? And teabags? On the duvet?’

  The telly noises from downstairs stopped suddenly.

  ‘Lisa?’ Lewis’s dad shouted up the stairs. ‘What’s the boy done now?’

  Me and Lewis went still.

  So did Mrs Harris. ‘He’s done nothing.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Get rid of that, now.’ She gestured for Lewis to bundle up the stuff and put it under his bed.

  Lewis gathered everything up, the paint tin and the air freshener clanking together.

  I was about to shove the chilli con carne meal carton into the bin bag, when I saw something papery inside the carton. A shiny flyer, the size of a small envelope. The kind of flyer that comes through the door with the local paper.

  And the picture on the flyer looked like—

  There was no time to think. I pulled the flyer out of the meal carton and shoved the carton into the plastic bag. I pushed the flyer into my coat pocket, crumpling it in my rush.

  Lewis was just pulling the duvet straight when his dad reached the top of the stairs.

  He looked from me, to Lewis, to Lewis’s mum. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Mrs Har
ris said.

  ‘It smells like chlorine in here.’

  ‘They’ve been swimming after school.’

  ‘And paint. Chlorine and paint.’

  I jumped up. ‘I’d better go.’

  I grabbed my bag and hurried out.

  I waited until I was out of sight of Lewis’s house to slow down and pull the flyer out of my pocket. I unfolded it.

  Monkford Fair. Festival Field. Fri 19–Mon 22 July.

  There was a smear of chilli sauce over the clown’s face.

  I turned the flyer over. On the plain side, someone had written messily, in biro:

  registrar – death cert

  will

  account numbers

  I stared and stared.

  I didn’t know the word registrar, but the next two words couldn’t have stood out more. Not if they’d been written in neon highlighter.

  Death cert.

  I felt a splatter of rain on my shoulder. Then another on my head. Then another, and another – the droplets splatting down faster now.

  I jammed the flyer into my pocket to keep it dry. I pulled up my hood and hurried towards home.

  I’d been joking, investigating the strange man. Playing, practising. I’d been messing around when I wrote killed Danielle on the list of things the strange man might have done.

  I’d been joking – till now.

  Death cert.

  Certain death.

  Words written on a flyer for the fair.

  I realised the splatters of rain had turned into a full-on shower without me noticing. Heavy rain drops exploded on my coat, like mini-bullets. I started to move, hurrying home.

  I turned down George Street just as the shower was finishing. So I slowed at number 56.

  The red car was in the drive, a light on inside the house. The criss-crossed twigs in front of the bin were how we left them, undisturbed.

  I pulled the flaps of my coat tighter round me and ran the rest of the way home.

  22

  Sometimes a spy has no choice but to confront his quarry.

  The Junior Spy’s Secret Handbook™

  Seventeen days to the fair

  I didn’t tell Lewis about the fair flyer on the way to school. We walked past 56 George Street that morning without a peep from me.

  Lewis stared at the bins. ‘The twigs haven’t moved!’

  I made myself smile and kept walking. ‘Maybe there’ll be another bin bag tomorrow.’

  It was too nice having him as my friend again. I couldn’t ruin it so soon.

  School news! Greeney’s had a shit haircut!

  Really bad as well, like his mum’s done it or something.

  He swears she didn’t. ‘I had it done at the place on King Street, the one with the shampoos in the window – British Hairways. And by a barber, not a hairdresser. I can ask him to write a letter to prove it? I’ll show you all the letter, that’s fine. As if I’d let my mum cut my hair!’

  But he would say that, wouldn’t he?

  His hair’s longer on one side of his fringe than the other. Where he used to have two curtains, he now has exactly one curtain, one half-curtain. Which are called tiers when you’re Mum, making fabric curtains.

  I think Greeney should have cut the other side to match, but he obviously decided it was better to have half a shit haircut than a whole shit haircut.

  Swings and roundabouts, Dad would say.

  Anyway, now every time anyone passes Greeney in the corridor, any kid from any year, they shout Haircut! Our corridors get busy between lessons and you can hear when Greeney must be close by, because it’s all, ‘Haircut!’ ‘Haircut!’, ‘Haircut!’, ‘Haircut!’, like a weird mating call across the school. Though no one would mate with Greeney, not when he looked that shit.

  Greeney usually hangs around with the blue estate crowd, but I’m guessing he doesn’t anymore.

  Not for a while.

  I didn’t trust myself not to spill death cert and, besides, I needed time to think. So I told Lewis I didn’t have time to hang out after school.

  I sat cross-legged on my bed, the Scrabble dictionary and fair flyer on my lap. I stared at the hand-scribbled words.

  registrar – death cert

  will

  account numbers

  I looked up the words in the Scrabble dictionary.

  Registrar – n – keeper of official records

  Cert – n – certainty

  Will – v – used as an auxillary to form the future tense or to indicate intention, ability or expectation – n – strong determination

  I knew another meaning of will, from detective books – but Danielle wouldn’t have had one. Kids don’t have any money to leave.

  And then . . . will could also refer to a person? A person called Will?

  The doorbell rang and lights flashed. I didn’t move, not even when I heard a pretty laugh downstairs. Even Selina Baker couldn’t tear me away from death cert.

  I looked back at the flyer.

  It could all be a code, of course. Hide important information in lists, that’s what The Junior Spy’s Secret Handbook™ said.

  But the whole point of codes was that they were impossible for people to break, without the key.

  I pushed the flyer and Scrabble dictionary to one side in frustration.

  One of my legs started jumping, on its own. Sending me a message.

  Because – seventeen days to the fair. I had to do something.

  I waited till Selina and Mum had gone out for their lesson and hurried downstairs. Dad was on the sofa, watching a quiz show.

  ‘Fi!’ He looked up. ‘What do you know?’ That was Dad’s way of saying How was your day?

  I pushed death cert out of my head and concentrated on what I’d memorised that morning. ‘Well, Biljana Plavšić is in charge of the Bosnian Serbs now. Like we expected, Radovan Karadžić has relinquished power.’

  Dad’s smile faded.

  ‘And Costas Simitis has been elected president of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement of Greece. And it’s the Russian elections coming up, but I guess you knew that.’

  Dad just stared up at me.

  ‘Can I borrow the polaroid camera?’

  He kept staring.

  ‘Dad?’

  Finally, he took in what I’d said. ‘I know you like that camera but the film’s so expensive, Fi. I’ve only just put in a new one. That camera’s special occasions only.’

  ‘Lewis has a new packet of film. We can replace yours with it.’ Not true, but I could buy film with my money from the car boot sale.

  ‘You promise you have film?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And you also have to promise you won’t take the camera into school.’ Dad got up from the sofa and got the camera from his high cupboard. ‘I don’t want you getting it confiscated and me having to beg for it back from Dr Sharma. If you break it, you’ll have to give up your birthday present to get me another.’

  He handed the camera over. Carefully, I cradled it. ‘I’ll only use it after school, I promise.’

  ‘Oh. And there’s one other condition.’

  I waited.

  ‘You make a call for me.’ Dad smiled and jerked his head at the television. ‘That number on the screen? Request an application form. And do me a favour – don’t tell your mother.’

  I made the call to the quiz show for Dad and gave our details for the application form.

  Back upstairs, I sat on my bed, cross-legged, and took the polaroid camera out of its case. I turned the camera over, looking at the curves. I looked through the camera’s window, imagining taking a photo.

  I hate lying to Dad. But sometimes I have no choice.

  This was crossing a line, I knew. Moving from kid’s spying to adult spyin
g. Taking secret photos was very different from sketching faces.

  But that was fine. I was too old for kid’s spying, anyway. No more hoofprints and practising limps. No more of the bits Lewis liked. I needed to focus. And, while I was focusing, I made another decision.

  There was a smudge on the camera’s window where my eye had been, so I wiped the glass with my sleeve.

  No one had taken me seriously applying for any of the adult jobs. The news thing wasn’t working, Dad’s face downstairs told me that. My parents didn’t think I was mature, just weird. And it was taking up too much time. It was bad enough having to learn about Bosnia and Greece but, with everything I had going on, I really didn’t have time for the Russian elections right now.

  I zipped the polaroid camera up in its case and placed it carefully into my rucksack.

  It was time to get serious. No more kids’ spying. No more trying to get my parents to think I was grown up. The key to going to the fair was finding out what happened to Danielle.

  Death cert.

  And the key to finding out what happened to Danielle was the strange man.

  23

  A good spy is clever, using red herrings and decoys to mask his true intentions.

  The Junior Spy’s Secret Handbook™

  Sixteen days to the fair

  Lewis took a lot of persuading to ring that doorbell at 8.30 that Wednesday morning.

  ‘It’s just a bit of fun, Lewis.’ I tried to smile, trying not to look as scared as I felt. ‘Just fun spying.’

  ‘Of course, I’d help – normally.’ Lewis looked at the pavement to avoid my eyes. ‘If it wasn’t the strange man’s house, I wouldn’t mind. But you haven’t given me time to prepare. That house is the one place. . .’

  ‘It’s got to be right now.’ I kept my arms folded. ‘There are too many people around later, and the sound of that lawn mower will cover the noise of the camera. And it’s got to be you. I can’t do both jobs.’

  Lewis gave a sad nod. He trailed after me.

  I positioned myself down the side passage of 56 George Street. I jerked my head at him – go on.

  Lewis rang the doorbell. We waited.

  And waited.