Circus of Thieves and the Comeback Caper

by William Sutcliffe

  ‘How do you do that?’ said Constable Runcible Constable.

  ‘I’ll teach you later,’ said Billy. ‘We have to catch Armitage Shank! Both of him! They’re getting away!’

  Now this is what I call a chase

  NARCISSUS DREW UP IN FRONT OF BILLY and went down on his knees. Billy mounted him swiftly.

  ‘Hop on,’ he said to Hannah. ‘I’m going to need some help.’

  Hannah hopped on.

  Narcissus stood up.

  Hannah fell off.

  Billy had forgotten to tell Hannah that when camels stand up they straighten their back legs first, the result of which was that Hannah somersaulted all the way down his neck to the ground.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Billy. ‘I should have warned you.’

  ‘No problem,’ replied Hannah. ‘That was fun.’

  Narcissus was still angled downwards, so Hannah ran back up his neck, sat on the front hump, and this time held on tight while he straightened his front legs and set off at a renewed gallop, in pursuit of the Shank twins. You may recall that riding Narcissus felt like sitting on a seesaw strapped to a supermarket trolley rolling around the deck of a boat on a stormy day in the middle of the Atlantic. And that’s when he was walking. Riding a galloping camel was like being picked up by a giant who has mistaken you for a piggy bank and is trying to shake out a stuck penny. This was not what car salesmen describe as a ‘smooth ride’.

  ‘You steer,’ said Billy, who was now standing on the rear hump.

  ‘How do I do that?’ replied Hannah, gripping Narcissus’ neck with all her might.

  ‘Oh, he knows where he’s going. But if he sees any food he might veer off course and you’ll have to yank the reins.’

  ‘There aren’t any reins.’

  ‘Aren’t there? Oh, well. We’ll just have to hope for the best. Do you mind if I use your head for balance?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Billy, still standing, undid the rope that was holding up his trousers and fashioned it into a lasso. Once the lasso was made, he whirled it around his head and yelled, ‘Yeeee haaaah!’ like a cowboy – or, rather, a camelboy. A camelboy whose trousers had, unsurprisingly, fallen down to reveal the bottom half of his Lycra star-spangled circus costume.

  Local passers-by, out for an evening stroll, were rather surprised by this sight. But we’re not interested in them right now.

  Narcissus, Hannah and Billy soon caught up with the Shanks, just as they reached the edge of the marshes and began sprinting down Hockney High Street.

  ‘That idiotic boy and his idiotic friend on their idiotic camel are coming after us,’ spat Armitage. ‘We’d better split up. You go left, I’ll go right.’

  ‘You’re always bossing me around. Why don’t you go left and I’ll go right?’ replied Zachary.

  ‘MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY! COMING THROUGH!’ yelled Hannah to passing shoppers, who were having to fling themselves off the pavement to avoid the galloping camel. ‘SORRY! POLICE EMERGENCY.’

  ‘What do you mean, “bossing you around”?’ said Armitage. ‘I’m just saying we should split up so they can’t catch us both.’

  ‘You’ve been bossing me around all my life!’

  ‘Well, at least I’m not a thief,’ said Armitage.

  ‘Yes, you are. It’s your job.’

  ‘Not from you. You’re the one that kept on stealing my tiny enormous lorry!’

  ‘You started it!’

  ‘You started it.’

  And while the Shank twins returned to their favourite bicker, a lasso whirled through the air, circling above their heads.

  But just as it was about to ensnare them, something extraordinary happened. A swarm of canaries arrived and caught the lasso in their beaks.

  How on earth, you may wonder, could this possibly have happened? Well, it’s quite simple. A little unusual, granted, but perfectly explicable. You see, Narcissus wasn’t the only mammal to hear Billy’s emergency whistle. Maurice had been just beginning an evening massage on the roof of his caravan when this call, immediately followed by the unmistakable sound of galloping camel hooves, alerted him to the danger that was facing his employer.

  Knowing that (despite being one of the fittest specimens of masculinity in the civilised world) he could never catch a galloping camel, Maurice had dashed to his canary choir, whose training in the art of criminal techniques had been coming on very nicely. He unlatched the door of their cage and commanded them to ‘STOP THAT CAMEL!’

  Irrrrena had jumped down from their roof at the same time, with a similar idea. She hurried to 3.14159’s pen, unlocked the door, and instructed him to give chase. The pig looked up at her with an expression which communicated that he was both unimpressed and peckish. 3.14159 ambled off in the direction of the Big Top, pausing on the way to eat a guy rope.

  Fingers, having roughly the same idea, had released his monkeys.

  ‘Follow that camel!’ he shouted.

  Monday ran north; Tuesday ran south; Wednesday ran east; Thursday ran west; Friday put one thumb in each ear and jumped up and down on the spot, shouting, ‘ACK ACK ACK OOK OOK ACK.’ Cuddlecakes jumped into Fingers’ arms and gave him a cuddle. The training of the monkeys was not at an advanced stage.

  The canaries, however, followed Maurice’s instructions perfectly and even improvised a strategy of their own, which is why, only a few minutes later, Billy found himself in a strange tug of war. The flock of canaries were now trying to pull him off Narcissus’ back. Billy had never wrestled a canary choir before, but they were a surprisingly strong team. He could feel his foothold on Narcissus’ rear hump weakening.

  ‘Hold my legs, Hannah!’ he said. ‘And sing the “Marseillaise”.’

  ‘The “Marseillaise”?’ replied Hannah. A patriotic sing-song was not what she had in mind for this particular moment.

  ‘Yes, it’s the French national anthem.’

  ‘I know, but . . .’

  Billy began to sing:

  France is really cool,

  Oooh, yeah.

  Much, much cooler than everywhere else.

  With really nice cheese and everything,

  Oooh, so cool, so so cool.

  Hannah didn’t know the words, but she la-la-laed along to the tune. She didn’t know the tune, either, to be honest, but she tried her best. Just as Billy hoped, the canaries immediately joined in, their beaks gaping wide to lustily intone every word. This caused them to drop the rope.

  Back on firm ground – or firm hump – Billy swung the lasso above his head again, still singing, and hurled it one more time in the direction of the Shank twins, who were still running and still bickering – now, seemingly, about newts. The lasso looped perfectly over the twins’ heads, descended past the two moustaches and two sets of hideous teeth, and gripped the brothers around the waist.

  ‘Whooaaaah there,’ yelled Billy.

  Narcissus skidded to a halt. The Shanks crashed to the ground. Hannah flew through the air, and only saved herself from entering a passing double-decker bus through a top-floor window by grabbing hold of a lamp-post, halfway up.

  ‘Yeeeee-haaaah!’ said Billy, dismounting from Narcissus, who was now entirely blocking the entrance to the Hockney High Street branch of Poundstretcher.

  The canaries watched through their disappointed little canary eyes, but continued gamely on into the second verse of the French national anthem, which was about wine and long-distance cycling.

  Narcissus smiled, something he hadn’t done for seventeen years.

  ‘How could you plot against me like this?’ wailed Armitage, attempting unsuccessfully to get back on his feet. ‘After everything I did for you?’

  ‘What, killing my mother, imprisoning my father and forcing me to participate in your criminal schemes?’ replied Billy.

  ‘No, the other stuff. Giving you a job and leftover food and occasionally nicking clothes for you from charity shops.’

  ‘You never even paid me.’

  ‘That would have
been illegal. You were underage.’

  ‘The job was as a thief! And I never wanted to steal. I never wanted to be part of your hideous, disgraceful excuse for a circus. You’re a traitor to the circus fraternity, Armitage, a common criminal, and now you’re going where you belong. Prison.’

  ‘Did you say common? How dare you call me common?’ barked Armitage.

  Billy had never before spoken his mind to Armitage, not even once, and it left him feeling rather light-headed. His brain now felt empty of all words.

  ‘He said you’re a common criminal. Which you are,’ said Hannah, who was sliding back to earth, down the lamp-post.

  ‘It’s all your fault,’ snapped Armitage, pointing a long, bony and still slightly fishy finger in her direction. ‘You’ve corrupted him. You’ve made him . . . honest.’

  ‘He was honest already. In his heart. He just needed some help. Billy’s the bravest—’

  ‘Oh, vomit vomit vomit, I don’t want to hear any of that you’re-so-wonderful nonsense. Being tied up with this moron is bad enough without having to listen to you two bang on about how wonderful you think you are. Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s bad manners to gloat?’

  ‘No,’ said Billy. ‘You taught me to gloat as loudly as possible at every opportunity.’

  ‘That’s different!’ snapped Armitage.

  This is when Wednesday appeared (the Shanks had been running east). Recognising Armitage, Wednesday ran towards him and gleefully jumped up and down on his head, shouting, ‘ACK ACK ACK OOK OOK ACK’, which means . . . well, nothing really, except perhaps, ‘Hello, I feel like jumping up and down on your head.’

  ‘Did you just call me a moron?’ said Zachary, who seemed in something of a daze, as if he couldn’t quite understand what had just happened to him.

  ‘Did you just call me a moron?’ replied Armitage, wrestling Wednesday into an arm lock.

  ‘Are you making fun of my voice?’

  ‘Are you making fun of my voice?’ said Armitage, who now seemed to be in an arm lock himself, with Wednesday wrapped around his back.

  ‘That’s not funny.’

  ‘Just get this monkey off me!’

  ‘Why should I?’

  While the Shank twins argued, moaned and wrestled with Wednesday, Billy tied the lasso to Narcissus’ tail and led the way back towards Hockney Marshes.

  The canaries were now on the seventh verse of the French national anthem, which was about high-speed trains and an unfortunate head-butting incident during a World Cup final.

  The arrest. Justice at last! Or maybe not . . .

  CONSTABLE RUNCIBLE CONSTABLE WAS still standing by his car, gazing forlornly at the broken windows. He was attempting to fill in an accident report form. So far he’d written:

  I was proceeding in a northerly direction on the evening of the 1st January, responding to an emergency call from a distressed citizen of a possibly juvenile persuasion involving circus-related thievery, when a boy from said entertainment troupe whistled to summon his trained camel in order to chase and lasso two escaping twin ringmasters who were suspects in the above case. As a result of the volume and high frequency of the aforementioned whistle . . .

  There was something wrong with this report that Constable Runcible Constable couldn’t put his finger on. The punctuation wasn’t right. And he wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling his boss might not believe him.

  For a moment he couldn’t believe it himself. Then the boy and the camel and the girl and the two ringmaster twins, now roped together and accompanied by a surprisingly cheerful monkey, appeared in front of him.

  ‘We’ve done your job for you,’ said Billy. ‘You can arrest them now.’

  ‘Er . . . what for?’ replied Constable Runcible Constable, who didn’t have a very good memory. In fact, he didn’t have a very good anything. He was, as the saying goes, an idiot.

  ‘I called 999 to report a robbery,’ said Hannah. ‘It was him that did it! Armitage Shank!’

  ‘That’s right!’ said Constable Runcible Constable. ‘Robbery! Safe blown up in the box office of a Big Top. You’re one of the suspects. You’re two of the suspects. You two are both one of the suspects. Something like that.’

  ‘But we have an alibi,’ said Armitage. ‘I’ve been with him all day.’

  ‘Yes, me too,’ said Zachary. ‘We’ve been catching up on old times. We’re brothers.’

  ‘Apart from when I was on stage,’ added Armitage, realising that he couldn’t claim to have been in two places at once.

  ‘You were on stage?’ said Hannah. ‘Then you must be Armitage!’

  ‘No – by the stage. It felt like I was on stage, because I was so close, in the front row, and so nervous for my brother, but I was by the stage, watching him perform. He was wonderful.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Zachary. ‘I mean – no! Lies! I was by the stage! He was on the stage.’

  At this point, Ernesto appeared.

  As soon as his show finished, Ernesto had run off in search of Hannah and Billy to check they were safe. Knowing Armitage was on the loose, he hadn’t wanted to risk leaving the night’s box-office takings lying around, so he’d shoved all the money into a backpack and taken it with him.

  Now, to his huge relief, he’d found them. So pleased was he to find them unharmed that he barely noticed the two policemen and two Armitages who were also right there.

  The instant Armitage saw Ernesto, carrying a backpack, his nose twitched with a spontaneous, cunning upsurge of thief’s instinct. He could recognise a sack of loot from fifty paces, blindfold, with seven balaclavas over his head, and he sensed in his inner criminal nervous system that there was something fishy about Ernesto’s backpack. Something roughly as fishy as a safe filled with squid ink.

  This had been a day of bad plans badly executed. But now one last plan occurred to him, masterful in its simplicity.

  ‘There he is!’ said Armitage. ‘That’s the man! Stop him! He blew up my safe!’

  ‘Him?’ said Constable Runcible Constable.

  ‘Yes! All my night’s takings! He got away with the whole lot!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Ernesto. ‘He blew up my safe. But I knew he was going to, so I filled it with rancid squid ink. He’s the thief.’

  ‘And you’re accusing him of stealing rancid squid ink?’ said the constable.

  ‘He’s the thief!’ said Armitage, raising an accusing finger towards Ernesto. ‘Look in his bag!’

  Ernesto’s legs suddenly turned to lead, as he realised what Armitage had done. He was carrying hundreds of pounds in used banknotes. Armitage had framed him. Again.

  Constable Runcible Constable stepped forward and looked inside Ernesto’s backpack. It was, indeed, stuffed with cash.

  ‘Right! You’re under arrest!’

  At that moment, Wanda appeared. She’d been looking for Hannah ever since the end of the circus, but she hadn’t been doing it very well, since her head was filled with dreamy soft-focus images of Ernesto back-flipping through flaming hoops. It was only when she finally caught sight of Hannah that her head cleared and she remembered who she was and what she was supposed to be doing.

  ‘WHAT’S GOING ON?’ she demanded. ‘HANNAH! I’ve been looking for you everywhere! My parking has almost expired, and if we don’t head home very soon you might miss your bedtime, which as we both know puts you in a very bad mood the next day.’

  As usual, Wanda and Hannah were not on the same wavelength. ‘There are two Armitages!’ said Hannah. ‘We lassoed them to stop them escaping, but now one of them has framed Ernesto! That policeman’s trying to arrest him for stealing his own money, because Armitage has told him it’s his money when it isn’t!’

  ‘Do you have a fever, dear?’ said Wanda, feeling Hannah’s forehead. ‘I knew it was a bad idea for you to go up on that stage. You sound delirious. I think today has been far too much for you. Well, at least you’ve got that circus nonsense out of your system now, and we can go back home
and find you a more sensible hobby.’

  ‘Look for yourself! Two Armitages!’

  Wanda looked. Hannah was right. Apart from Narcissus’ tongue, she had never seen anything quite so unpleasant.

  Hannah leaped forward towards Constable Runcible Constable, who was now putting handcuffs on Ernesto.

  ‘This is totally unfair!’ she yelled. ‘Why are you arresting him? That’s his own money! You can’t steal your own money!’

  ‘A theft has been reported and he’s the suspect, because he’s carrying stolen currency.’

  ‘IT’S HIS MONEY!’

  ‘If it’s his money he’s carrying around, nobody would have reported a theft. And people don’t just carry around huge bags of cash.’

  ‘I’m carrying it to stop him robbing me!’ pleaded Ernesto, pointing at Armitage. ‘Or maybe him,’ he added, pointing at Zachary.

  ‘He’s trying to frame me! The outrage!’ said Armitage. ‘Blackmail! You can add that to the charge sheet.’

  ‘THIS IS ARMITAGE SHANK!’ yelled Hannah. ‘HE’S WANTED BY EVERY POLICE FORCE IN THE COUNTRY. OR MAYBE THAT’S HIM! BUT ONE OF THEM IS! YOU CAN’T LET THEM GO FREE!’

  ‘I’ve found who I was after, young lady,’ said Constable Runcible Constable, ‘and I’ll thank you not to tell me how to do my job. Whether he’s innocent or not is a matter for the courts. And the rest of you had better watch it. I don’t want any more nonsense.’

  ‘Of course not, officer,’ said Armitage. ‘Shall I help you with your car door? There you go, officer. Thank you so much. You’re doing a wonderful job.’

  Constable Runcible Constable gave Armitage a suspicious stare. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Nothing! Nobody! Er . . . Gabriel Honeytoes. I just help out in a menial capacity at the circus. Sweeping up. Folding costumes. Struggling to rub two pennies together in the humble service of art. Anyway, I’m rambling. Must be off. Bye.’