Circus of Thieves and the Comeback Caper

by William Sutcliffe

  ‘You saw that hideously ugly ratty skunk of a man who just sneaked out of this caravan? I need you to make me look like him.’

  ‘But you already look like him,’ said Vince, who might have realised this was an impolite comment if he hadn’t been in such an advanced state of bafflement.

  ‘WHAT DID YOU SAY?’ barked Zachary.

  ‘Er . . . I mean . . . I don’t know much about make-up and I don’t know how I’ll . . . you know . . . figure out how to make you look so completely different . . . but I’ll . . . er—’

  ‘Shut yer mouth and follow me.’

  Zachary skipped up the steps, picked the lock on Armitage’s caravan and disappeared inside. Vince followed.

  Zachary was already stripping off and dressing himself in Armitage’s discarded ringmaster’s outfit. This proved to be something of a challenge, since the trousers were already as tight as is humanly possible on Armitage, and Zachary’s fondness for eel pies had given him a waistline several sizes larger. In the end, Vince had to lift him off the ground and lower him into the trousers, having caked his legs in a kilo or two of talcum powder. Luckily, the seams were triple-stitched or the garment would have exploded like a safe filled with squid ink.25

  Fully costumed, Zachary couldn’t bend at the knees or waist, and his voice was an octave or two higher than usual, but after an extremely amateurish application of stage make-up, everyone had to admit he was now almost indistinguishable from his hideous twin.

  ‘Look at me,’ said Zachary, admiring himself in one of Armitage’s four full-length mirrors. ‘’Nuff to make you puke, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yes . . . I mean, no . . . I mean . . . no comment,’ said Vince, struggling to think of the least insulting response.

  ‘Right,’ said Zachary. ‘Show time! Yadadadada shwwwwing yugada shwwwwing chachaaaaa!’

  This time, Vince didn’t ask. He’d figured this one out for himself. That was clearly Zachary’s show time theme.

  ‘Yadadadada shwwwwing yugada shwwwwing chachaaaaa!’ sang Zachary and Frankie and Vince as they ran back across Hockney Marshes towards the Circus Impossible Big Top. Well, Frankie and Vince ran; Zachary kind of waddled, due to the non-bending-trouser situation.

  The invisible hand of Esmeralda Espadrille

  BUT WHAT ABOUT HANNAH?

  Yes, yes, I know.

  You left her hanging there in mid-air, swaying and tipping above the hole in her safety net! Moments away from meeting her dooooooom!

  Oh, come on. Surely you know me better than that. I couldn’t let Hannah meet her doooooom. Not here – right in the middle of a book. She’s our heroine.

  She could still have fallen. I mean, you could have broken her legs or something.

  Stop that! I won’t have you butting in with your horrible and inappropriate ideas. I will not break Hannah’s legs – not here, not anywhere, not ever.

  What about her nose?

  Stop it! I don’t know who you are, but it’s time for you to go away and interrupt someone else.

  Right. Where were we? Ah, yes. Hannah was up on her tightrope, swaying and tipping, her concentration shattered by the noise of the blown-up safe.

  Speaking of the safe, you’ll be pleased to hear that’s how Hannah ended up. No, not blown up. Safe.

  She made it back down from her tightrope despite throbbing thighs, knocking knees, shivering shins, clammy calves, anxious ankles, fretful feet and trembling toes. She gave a small and very modest bow, thinking she had entirely messed up her act, but the audience, who had witnessed her tussle with doooom, and seen the bravery, skill and concentration required to get her performance back on track, were so relieved and impressed that they all rose to their feet and gave an ear-splitting standing ovation. Only one person in the entire audience didn’t join in. Wanda. Because she had fainted. Again.

  Hannah hurried from the stage, anxious that Ernesto might tell her off, or sack her, or even just be disappointed in her for getting things wrong, but in the two seconds between her exit and his entrance, he looked deep into her eyes and said, with absolute sincerity, ‘I’m so proud of you! You were brilliant! That was true circus.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hannah, her eyes filling with tears. This was the best compliment anyone had ever paid her.

  ‘Now I need you to do something,’ he continued. ‘Armitage is trying to rob us. That bang was him blowing up my safe. He hasn’t got anything yet, because it was booby-trapped, but you never know what he’ll do next. Find him and stop him. I can’t help. I’m on.’ And with that, he was off.

  Ernesto cartwheeled away into the ring (which isn’t an easy thing to do when you’re riding a unicycle) leaving Hannah in an addled, muddled and befuddled state of mind as she watched him from the wings. She couldn’t look for Armitage just yet. Her heart was still thrumming, not just with fear, but also with an exquisite and uplifting sensation she had never felt before. Hannah realised she had at last experienced the true essence of circus, and it was like silken gloves massaging her very soul.

  But there was something else. Something more than that. Something so powerful it held her transfixed. In those last minutes, up on that tightrope, facing real danger, Hannah had come closer to her mother – her real mother – than ever before. It was as if she had felt her physical presence for the first time.

  She still wasn’t quite sure what had stopped her falling, what had stilled her panicking mind and toppling body, but at the key moment she had felt the distinct sensation of two gentle, reassuring hands placing themselves calmly on her shoulders. She hadn’t been able to turn and look, but she was sure she recognised the touch. Her mother, the mother she had never even met, was right there with her, guiding her to safety.

  ‘Hannah? Are you OK?’ Billy asked. Her eyes were wide and far, far away. She hadn’t even heard him approach.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘More than fine. I’ve never felt better. Aren’t you supposed to be on stage?’

  ‘I should be, but this is an emergency. Dad’s going solo. We’ve got work to do. Let’s go.’

  ‘I . . . I felt her,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Our mother.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘On the tightrope. She was there. She saved me.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You know?’

  ‘I felt it, too. I didn’t see her, but I sensed her up there, with you. I closed my eyes and wished for her help.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I did. She isn’t gone. She’s always here. In this Big Top. She’s always watching. But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But we have to go. Now. Armitage is getting away.’

  And off they went, in pursuit, yet again, of that cranky, crazed, creepy, cretinous, crooked, crafty criminal, Armitage Shank.

  Zachary does Armitage while Armitage does Ernesto while Ernesto does some juggling

  AT THE SAME MOMENT THAT HANNAH and Billy set off in search of Armitage, and Armitage staggered inkily and stinkily out of Ernesto’s box office, Zachary stepped onto his twin brother’s stage, in disguise.

  He tried to prance. He knew that prancing was important in the circus game, but unfortunately it isn’t possible to prance without bending at the knees.26 He tried a couple of prancey strides, but soon realised that he was goose-stepping, which felt very wrong, so he settled for the closest he could get to a standard walk, given the trouser situation.

  Zachary had never been on stage before. He’d never had so many people stare at him with such happy faces, waiting for him to entertain them. It felt like the biggest hug of his life. The feeling was just overwhelmingly lovely, so much so that he momentarily forgot he actually had to do something other than just stand there basking in the circussy glow.

  No sooner did he remember that he needed to put on an act, than he also remembered that he didn’t have an act to put on. But that wasn’t the point. He wasn’t there to entertain. He was there to sabotage. He was there, in the guise
of his despicable lorry-loving brother, to make the audience hate him so much that they asked for their money back, thereby creating the biggest mass-robbery of Armitage that was humanly possible, which would take all his takings for the evening, and at the same time swamp him with such an angry mob that Zachary would be able to take anything that the takings-takers weren’t taking for themselves. If things went really well, Zachary would be able to steal the Big Top itself.

  That was the plan. Entertainment had nothing to do with his purpose on stage. He was there to make the audience hate him (or at least, to make them hate the person they thought he was).

  But when that spotlight hit him, something curious happened. A distinct flush appeared on Zachary’s face. A glow seemed to rise to his cheeks, giving him an appearance of serenity and happiness that Chippy, Vince and Frankie had never seen before. Serene happiness was not Zachary’s standard demeanour.

  Zachary had been hit by a feeling not dissimilar to the one that had overwhelmed Hannah after finishing her act. Some indefinable, impalpable, inexplicable circus magic had sprinkled itself over him and seemingly rewired his brain. To put it another way, Zachary was stage-struck.

  This was a problem since, according to his original plan, he was there purely to annoy the audience so much that they demanded a refund.

  But given the stage-struck situation, which had now overtaken the trouser situation as Zachary’s main concern, he decided to make a slight modification to his original scheme. He didn’t need to start irritating the audience straight away. What was the rush? This might be the only opportunity he’d ever get to perform in a Big Top. It would be a shame to pass it up without at least having a go at circussing.

  The problem was, he didn’t know how to do anything except steal, swindle and intimidate, none of which are very circussy activities.

  Then he remembered something. Like his brother, Zachary loved to shower, and in the shower he always sang. It had often struck Zachary, while singing in the shower, that his voice was at least as good, if not better, than the warbling, whiny weirdoes whose songs filled the radio airwaves.

  I could do that, he’d often thought to himself.

  And now he could. He had an audience. He had a microphone. It was time to treat the world to a stage debut of his vocal skills.

  ‘LADIES and gentlemen, BOYS and girls, and anyone else who doesn’t fall into the above-mentioned categories, WELCOME to the Circus Impossible Extreme Something Wassitcalled Thingummy CIRCUS!! Yes! Here I am, Zach— . . . er, I mean Armitage Shank . . . ringmaster extraordinaire . . . here to thrill and entertain you with my . . . er . . . circus. Which you’ve already seen some of. Obviously. And I hope you liked it! Of course you did! Hooray!’

  Zachary took a few goose-stepping prance-attempts, stopped himself, and cracked Armitage’s whip. Or tried to. He tried four times, but a whip in the hands of a non-expert whipcracker isn’t much more than an oversized shoelace, which, flapped silently in the air, provides very little entertainment value.

  ‘Blast,’ he spat, chucking the whip to the ground. ‘Anyway . . . what was I saying? Yes! WELCOME! And that kind of stuff! And it is my pleasure as your ringmaster extraordinaire, ARMITAGE Shank, to treat you . . . before our next wonderful act . . . to a song.’

  Zachary raised his arms and attempted a cartwheel. It didn’t go well.

  ‘Blast,’ he muttered, dusting himself down. ‘This sawdust is much too slippery. Anyway. What was I saying? I think I’ve got a splinter. Er . . . yes! A song! Written by me as a tribute to my hero, Mr Bung Crosby, probably the greatest crooner of the century. Not this century. The last one. Crooners these days are a bunch of amateurs, if you ask me. Anyway, here goes. You’ll just have to imagine the band because I don’t have one. It’s called ‘Lovey, lovey, love love’. It’s a love song.’

  Zachary began to sing. If he thought he was replacing his plan to annoy the audience with an alternative, he was very much mistaken, because his singing wasn’t well received. Not at all.

  I love youuu,

  Yes I doooo.

  You love me toooo.

  You’re very nice.

  And so am I!

  That’s probably why we love each other.

  Ooooh!

  Lovey, lovey, love love.

  His voice was approximately sixty-seven thousand times less good than Zachary thought it was. The audience began to boo.

  Let’s hold hands, don’t fret.

  Let’s go for a walk in the sunset

  Near to where we first met.

  You have lovely hands.

  And feet.

  But especially hands.

  And so do I.

  But that’s not why we love each other.

  Ooooh!

  Lovely, lovey, love love.

  The boos turned into jeers, then shouts. Some people wept in despair. Others begged for mercy.

  ‘You’re rubbish!’

  ‘Get off!’

  ‘Where’s the next act?’

  ‘PLEASE STOP SINGING!’

  ‘WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK!’

  At the sound of the word ‘money’, Zachary snapped out of his fantasy of vocal stardom and realised that his performance was not getting the reception he had anticipated. In fact, it was getting the reception he had planned to get for being deliberately bad, but as a response to his attempt to be deliberately good.

  The blush of pleasure left Zachary’s cheeks. He went white. Another blush rose, this one of embarrassment (in the left cheek) and rage (in the right cheek).

  All these years he had dreamed that he was an undiscovered crooning genius, destined to wow the world with his unique and original songbook. But now, in a sudden and brutal way, he learned that he’d overestimated his appeal. He was not, after all, a great singer. He was not even a good singer. He was rubbish. Nobody liked his song. Nobody liked his singing. Nobody liked him.

  For a moment, Zachary thought he might be about to cry. Then a surge of pure white-hot jealousy for his brother sparkled through his veins. Why was it that Armitage knew how to do this and not him? How was it that his hideous fink of a sibling knew how to go on a stage and make strangers like him, when within a matter of seconds Zachary had made an entire audience loathe him? It wasn’t fair. Why did people like Armitage more? Why? Why?

  As the wave of shouts from the crowd grew ever louder, Zachary suddenly remembered where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. He was in the middle of a plan to diddle his brother. He wanted the audience to hate him, and he’d achieved that in record time. Yes, he was good at what he did. He was a criminal, and a skilful one, unlike his useless brother, who could be relied on to always mess up his burglarising. Zachary had nothing to be ashamed of. Circussing was a stupid waste of time, anyway. So what if Armitage knew how to prance around on stage entertaining people? Pah! That was no job for a fully grown man! What a waste of time!

  ‘Right, you horrible, useless bunch of grinning morons,’ yelled Zachary. ‘You don’t like my singing? So what! I don’t care! I don’t like you, either! And if you think coming into this stupid tent and watching stupid people do stupid things is sensible, then you’re . . . er . . . stupid. So there.’

  A stunned silence filled the Big Top, followed by more than a hundred splutters of outrage, followed by a tsunami of booing. Q

  ‘If you don’t like it, lump it,’27 he shouted. ‘And if you can’t lump it, then come and find me in my caravan. It’s the big shiny silver one just outside the Big Top. I’m going there right now to count the money I made from selling tickets to you idiots. If you shout enough and beat the door down I might consider giving you a refund, but you’ll have to get really angry because the truth is CIRCUSES ARE RUBBISH, INCLUDING THIS ONE, AND PEOPLE WHO GO TO THEM ARE ALL DUNCES WHO DESERVE TO BE RIPPED OFF! AND I AM A GOOD SINGER – YOU JUST DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MUSIC. I’M THE NEXT BUNG CROSBY! MARK MY WORDS!’

  More silence. Proper silence this time, since everyone in the audience was now t
oo shocked to even boo.

  ‘THIS CIRCUS IS OVER!’ Zachary continued. ‘GO HOME!’

  Then he sprinted off the stage, which finally resolved the trouser situation. There was a loud ripping noise as he fled, and the audience found themselves staring aghast at a stage containing nothing but a trouser-shaped shred of black cloth.

  Never trust a monkey

  MAURICE, IRRRRENA AND FINGERS O’Boyle watched this spectacle from the wings, increasingly convinced that Armitage had gone insane.

  None of them had thought he was particularly sane in the first place, but even for Armitage this was bizarre.

  Trouserless, sprinting Zachary barged straight into them, thinking he’d be able to knock Maurice out of the way. He didn’t realise that, though Maurice was small, his muscles had the consistency of reinforced concrete, and Zachary simply bounced off him, falling flat on his back.

  ‘What was that?’ said Fingers. ‘What were you doing out there?’

  ‘You’re fired!’ Zachary snapped, hauling himself back to his feet. ‘All of you. As of now. HahahaHA.’ (He wasn’t nearly as good at cackling as his brother.) ‘And I’m doing you a favour! Because all of this stupid circus rubbish is just . . . a load of . . . stupid rubbish. Ha! Those morons wouldn’t know a good song if it drove through their ears and parked in their brain.’

  Zachary stormed away, leaving the three fired performers standing there in the wings, listening to a deluge of booing, jeering and cat-calling28 from the auditorium.

  ‘What do we do now?’ said Fingers.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Maurice.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ snapped Irrrrena. ‘Of course you know. What are you? Civilians?’

  Fingers and Maurice stared at her, confused.

  ‘No!’ continued Irrrrena. ‘You’re circussers. And, fired or not fired, you go out there, in the name of circus, and save the show. Now. NOW!’

  Fingers knew she was right.

  He had no idea how he’d do it, but he knew it was a matter of honour that he at least try. Fingers didn’t usually have much time for the concept of honour. He was a thief, after all. But this was circus honour, which is different. Circus honour is about never disappointing your audience: it is a sacred code stating that whatever happens, come what may, the show must go on.