Circus of Thieves and the Comeback Caper

by William Sutcliffe

  And with that he climbed up into his enormous lorry and without so much as a ‘see you in another twenty years’ to his long-lost brother, roared away. Or tried to.

  After a long, whinnying splutter from the enormous engine of the enormous lorry, Armitage reappeared, carrying a jerry can.

  ‘Anyone know where the nearest petrol station is?’ he asked. Constable Runcible Constable was still giving him that hostile stare. ‘Never mind. I’ll find one.’

  And away he ran.

  After a few paces, he stopped and turned back.

  ‘If a traffic warden comes, tell him it’s a medical emergency and I’ll be right back.’

  And away he ran, again.

  After a few more paces, he stopped and turned back once more. Constable Runcible Constable was still giving him that stare.

  ‘I mean, tell him nothing but the truth – which is my policy in all matters of law enforcement. And you can say that I’ll pay the fine with exceptional promptness,’ said Armitage.

  And away he ran, yet again. This time he didn’t stop.

  At the same time, Zachary, Frankie, Vince, Chippy and Ewan climbed into their van and sped off, unaware that Wednesday was on the roof, nibbling a recently detached windscreen wiper.

  Constable Runcible Constable bundled Ernesto into the police car.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong man!’ pleaded Hannah. ‘The real criminals are getting away. They were right here and you’re letting them escape!’

  Billy just stared. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t watch his father being taken away from him again.

  ‘Young lady,’ said Constable Runcible Constable, leaning through the broken window, ‘I’m a professional law enforcement officer, and believe you me, I know a criminal when I— OW! OW! OW! That’s really sharp!’ He paused to pick a fragment of glass out of his elbow, then carried on his speech, this time with his arm inside the car. ‘As I was saying, professional law enforcement, blah blah blah, know a criminal when I see one, and this chap in the back of my car, he’s a wrong ’un through and through. I can tell from the eyes. And from the bag of stolen money he’s carrying.’

  ‘It’s not stolen!’

  ‘Not to mention those witnesses.’

  ‘They’re liars!’

  ‘We’ll see about that. Mark my words.’

  ‘Which words?’

  ‘All of them.’ Constable Runcible Constable revved the engine, put on the siren, and took off at speed. Backwards. He wasn’t very good at gears.

  There was a loud crunch as he hunted for first gear. Or second gear. Just any of the forward ones would be fine.

  ‘I’ll be OK!’ called Ernesto, out of the back window. ‘Don’t worry about me! Take care of yourself, Billy. Stay safe and stay honest. I’ll come back for you as soon as I can! Look after him, Hannah! And never forget that you’re circus!’

  With those words, Ernesto was driven away to an uncertain fate, leaving us very little time indeed to salvage anything remotely resembling a happy ending from this messy farrago of injustice, indignity, ineptitude, badly trained monkeys and canary-obstructed-twin-ringmaster-lassoing.

  Poor Billy. Silly Billy. Lucky Billy?

  POOR BILLY.

  Yet again, his father had been dragged away from him, framed for a crime he hadn’t committed.

  Billy slumped to the ground. Hannah sat next to him and put an arm around his shoulders.

  Hannah’s touch lifted Billy’s spirits a little, yet it was also the trigger for the beginnings of a snuffle. He didn’t exactly cry, but he wasn’t quite not crying, either. Billy was feeling very sorry for himself, and with good reason.

  Wanda was feeling sorry for him, too, which wasn’t a sensation she liked. She wasn’t fond of being in any situation where she had to converse with a human who washed less than six times a week. Billy, by the look of him, washed less than six times a month.

  ‘Do you have anywhere to go?’ asked Wanda.

  Billy shook his head.

  ‘Armitage will be back when he finds some petrol. You could join up with him again, couldn’t you? Until your father gets out. I’m sure Ernesto will clear his name.’

  Billy shrugged.

  ‘Why don’t you come and live with us?’ said Hannah.

  Billy looked up, but didn’t reply.

  Wanda’s face puckered into a lemon-sucking pout. ‘Hannah! What a ridiculous idea! Ha ha ha! She’s joking! What a silly joke! Don’t pay any attention to her, Billy. She has the weirdest sense of humour. You! In our house! Hahahahaha!’

  ‘Billy can share my room. He can have my room,’ pleaded Hannah. ‘We can’t just leave him here.’

  ‘He has a father of his own. He has two fathers. He has an ample supply of fathers. We can’t go around taking children off the street and dragging them off to live with us! That’s just . . . not possible.’

  ‘He’s not a random child off the street. He’s my brother. My at-least-half-brother.’

  ‘But what about the other half of him? He’s not like us! He’s a circus child! He’s half-wild. He probably has nits.’

  ‘I’m a circus child,’ said Hannah.

  ‘You think you’re a circus child but you’re actually very well brought up, with immaculately clean hair.’

  ‘He needs help.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Billy. ‘I can go back and work for Armitage. I could never go where I’m not wanted.’

  ‘You are wanted! We want you to come!’ insisted Hannah.

  ‘Don’t worry. I wouldn’t belong.’

  Hannah turned from Billy to Wanda, grabbed her arms, and stared deep into her eyes with a hypnotic gaze that sent a spooky that-really-reminds-me-of-my-sister shiver down Wanda’s spine, back up her spine, twice around her skull, then out of her left ear. ‘Pleeeeeaaaaaaaaase!’ Hannah begged. ‘We have to!’

  ‘There simply isn’t space,’ said Wanda. ‘I’m sorry.’

  As soon as these words were out of Wanda’s mouth, her phone beeped with a text message from Granny, which said: Of course there’s space.

  Wanda sighed and typed frantically into her phone. ‘This is none of your business. And he’s half-wild. He’d cause chaos.’

  Granny responded immediately, in capitals: HE’S FAMILY. HANNAH’S RIGHT. YOU HAVE TO TAKE HIM IN.

  Wanda switched off her phone and shoved it deep into her handbag. She looked at Billy and sighed.

  ‘I’m not keen on this at all,’ said Wanda, after a long think. ‘You’d have to wash. Regularly. Including your hair.’

  Hannah leaped up and gave her a limb-crushing hug.

  ‘We’ll need to incinerate those clothes,’ added Wanda, who found to her surprise that she seemed to be smiling. Wanda very rarely did anything she didn’t want to do, and was interested to notice the oddly pleasurable sensation that went with making a reckless decision you weren’t quite sure was the right one.

  ‘Billy?’ said Hannah. ‘Will you come home with us?’

  ‘To your house?’ said Billy. He said the word ‘house’ as if he barely knew how to pronounce it.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Hannah, reaching out a hand and pulling him up.

  ‘I’ve never slept in a house before,’ he said. ‘Is it really hot? I don’t like being hot.’

  ‘It’s cosy,’ said Wanda. ‘It’s just right.’

  ‘We can turn down the heating if you feel uncomfortable,’ offered Hannah.

  ‘I don’t think I can. I’m circus. A . . . house?’

  ‘What, you’d rather be stuck with Armitage again, stealing for a living?’

  ‘No! That’s the last thing I want! Joint last. Level with being stuck in one place every day in a building without any wheels.’

  ‘That’s crazy! Didn’t you listen to what Ernesto said? Stay safe and stay honest. The only way you can do that is with us.’

  ‘Mmmmm. I don’t know. Could I bring Narcissus?’

  ‘No,’ said Wanda. ‘Absolutely not. No no no no no no no no no no no no no. NO!’


  ‘I think that was a no,’ said Hannah.

  ‘You’ll have to ask one of your circus people to take care of him,’ said Wanda. ‘There must be someone.’

  ‘I think you’d like him. He’s very friendly,’ said Billy, attempting a charming smile, which didn’t really have the desired effect, because all Wanda noticed was the tooth decay.

  ‘We hardly use the garden shed. He could go in there,’ suggested Hannah. ‘He really is very friendly.’

  ‘No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no. NO!’

  As a rule, it wasn’t easy to change Wanda’s mind. A spreadsheet enumerating counterbalanced lists of pros and cons was usually the only way to get her to reassess her position on anything. It will therefore come as a surprise to you that Wanda was soon on the phone to her husband demanding that he clear out the garden shed to make way for a camel, and clear out the spare room to make way for a boy.

  I can’t really explain how Hannah and Billy did it. Billy thought it might have something to do with Narcissus appearing at the crucial moment and giving Wanda an irresistibly charismatic glance with those movie-star eyes, but then Billy was biased. Hannah thought that maybe seeing her perform had made Wanda realise the family really were circus.

  In truth, even Wanda didn’t quite know why she agreed to it, except to say that for the first time ever, she found herself wondering whether life might be more interesting if you weren’t quite in control of what happened all the time. A hint of chaos might not, after all, be a catastrophe. Wanda was perhaps, as Hannah had guessed, detecting the faintest glimmer of her inner circus. Either that, or she’d gone nuts.

  Billy still didn’t feel right about living in a house, and before they’d even set off, he was already wondering when would be the best time to ask about moving into the shed with Narcissus.

  How long could he really last as a civilian? He’d lived a life of non-stop fly-by-night circussing, with frequent midnight flits, dawn raids and daylight robberies. He’d never stayed in one place for longer than a week. But after everything he’d lived through, the prospect facing him now felt like the strangest adventure of all.

  ‘My father will come back, won’t he?’ asked Billy, even though Hannah and Wanda knew no more than he did.

  ‘Of course,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Hopefully very soon,’ added Wanda.

  ‘We’re just looking after you for a short while until he sets the record straight,’ said Hannah. ‘Think of it as a holiday.’

  ‘Think of it as market research. It’s your chance to find out how normal people think,’ added Wanda.

  ‘Just come,’ said Hannah. ‘I’m your sister. You’re my brother. It’s the most natural thing in the world.’

  ‘Then why does it feel so weird?’

  Hannah and Wanda shrugged, smiled and reached out to him. Billy thought for a second, then reached out in return, holding on to his sister with one hand and his aunt with the other.

  Together, in step, they set off away from Hockney Marshes, towards Billy’s new life, arriving very soon at the place known, for now, as . . .

  Except that . . .

  A few questions . . .

  Remain.

  1 – How long can Billy survive in a house?

  2 – How long can Wanda survive with a Billy?

  3 – Will Hannah ever go fully circus?

  4 – Will Ernesto be convicted of stealing his own money?

  5 – What dastardly scheme will Armitage cook up next?

  6 – What will Narcissus eat next?

  7 – What is the mystery of the spoons?

  8 – What would happen if Tuesdays didn’t exist?

  9 – What is the highest mountain in Belgium

  Endnotes

  1. Spoons are so squeaky, even forks can’t hear them.

  2. An average portion of spaghetti, fully untangled, is 37 metres long.

  3. He didn’t really cut Narcissus in half. But it did look that way. Which is, officially, an international dromedary-showbiz first.

  4. This is a magician who does clever tricks with his hands. The word comes from the latin ‘digit’, which means finger, and ‘presti’, which means, ‘blooming ‘eck, did you see that?’

  5. This is a cough. There is much dispute in literary circles about how to spell out a cough. This dispute is of no interest, so I shan’t go into details. If you really want to know more, you can read From Hrmph to Tsk: A Guide to Noises You Can Make But Can’t Spell by Xtrpt Pffffp.

  6. But he didn’t have a motto. He thought mottoes were stupid and pointless. If you’d twisted his arm and forced him to choose one, he probably would have chosen the phrase, ‘I Hate Mottos’ as his motto. Billy had once suggested that he should have badges made bearing this motto, but Ernesto wasn’t interested in diversifying into the novelty accessories trade. Not even when Billy suggested printing badges that said ‘I Never Wear Badges,’ an idea that would have made Ernesto far richer than putting on circuses for a living.

  7. Armitage often wondered why Irrrrena would never lend him her copies of Rich People With Good Teeth Sitting on Sofas. This was why.

  8. Like many aggressive and angry people, Armitage was in fact very needy. He had never been loved. He’d never been loved because he was horrible. But, on the other hand, maybe he was horrible because he’d never been loved.

  9. I had to work really hard there to avoid using the word ‘boring’. Did you notice? It’s very important to be polite about people behind their backs. But on the other hand it’s also important to be interesting, and Hannah’s parents were really, really dull.

  10. If you’re having trouble remembering who was responsible for her death, I’ll give you a clue: it’s a name that rhymes with Barmitage Bank.

  11. Wanda, as it happens, is the Ancient Greek goddess of Health and Safety.

  12. Insightful readers may have noticed a spoon theme emerging in this text. This often happens in great works of literature. Themes that is. Not spoons.

  13. I.e., every time they went anywhere

  14. This killed a worm, who had just poked her head above ground to see if it was raining. Sadly for the worm, it was raining sledgehammers. One sledgehammer, anyway, but if you’re in the wrong place, one is enough. It’s hard being a worm.

  15. Wanda

  Wendy/Esmerelda

  16. But obviously not secret enough.

  17. If you don’t know what ‘a mug’s game’ means, count yourself lucky, because you have been spared a truly attrocious gag. It’s a Cockney phrase meaning a foolish or pointless enterprise. There. Now you know. You were better off before, weren’t you?

  18. Delete as appropriate

  19. Some people believe chakras are invisible channels of energy that run through the human body. Other people think that’s a load of old phooey. Wanda, as you can probably guess, was firmly in the phooey camp.

  20. Another spoon! Mmmm. Very profound.

  21. Yes, a hundred. Yes, I counted them. Well, it looked like a hundred. Ish. OK, seven pieces. But a hundred sounds better.

  22. Armitage had most of his best ideas during sulks. He found them very productive. Showering was his other main source of inspiration. He enjoyed showers so much that he found it very hard to sulk during one, but on the rare occasions that he managed a simultaneous sulk/shower, he often came up with a real humdinger.

  23. This is the French national anthem, the lyrics of which are something along the lines of:

  France is really cool, Oooh yeah.

  Much, much cooler than everywhere else.

  With really nice cheese and everything,

  Oooh, so cool, so, so cool.

  (As opposed to the British national anthem, which goes:

  The Queen is really cool, Ooooh, yeah.

  Much, much cooler than everyone else,

  With sometimes slightly above average cheese and everything.

  Oooh, slightly above average)

  24. Events are always unfolding everywhere,
all the time. Who it is that folds them up in the first place is a mystery.

  25. One of Armitage’s many mottoes was ‘Cut every corner you can and skimp on everything. Except clothes.’

  26. If you don’t believe me, sellotape a ruler firmly to each leg and attempt a prance. You won’t manage it. And you’ll probably break your rulers.

  27. This doesn’t mean anything, but everyone understood what he meant. Sometimes complete nonsense is just as clear as perfect clarity. At other times, nonsense is just nonsense. This footnote is roughly halfway between sensible nonsense and nonsense nonsense. Halfway nonsense of this kind is sometimes known as pointless nonsense, which is an accurate name for it, and explains why we need to stop wasting our time down here and go back up the page in search of some sensible nonsense.

  28. Cat-calling, in this context, means loud and angry whistling, not going down on your knees and saying, ‘Here puss-puss, time for kitty din-dins,’ which is also cat-calling, but would be a strange response to unprovoked insults from a crooning half-naked ringmaster.

  29. ‘Unbeknownst’ is a book word. Nobody ever says it in real life. Other examples are moreover, nevertheless and jumbohubbanoops. (Though one of those words has only ever appeared in one book.)

  30. !

  31. !!

  32. Don’t tell Chapter 15 that Chapter 19 got a title, even though 19 is shorter than the chapter that supposedly didn’t get a title because it was too short. 15 would get jealous, and might go off in a sulk, which would leave a confusing hole in the plot. If Chapter 15 asks about Chapter 19, distract it by offering it a biscuit.