Mr Pinkbottle had grumbled about betrayal and trust and had said he was going to ring the police about the trespassing impostering burglar (Kevin) and that he’d think up a new suitable punishment for Fizz, who’d tried running away two days in a row (even though on both days he’d only been caught when he came home again, so it wasn’t really running away). And at that point Fizz’s mum had said, ‘I don’t think you’re being entirely fair, Mr Pinkbottle,’ and Fizz had felt his muscles bubbling in his arms as if he wanted to punch the man (but he didn’t).
Mr Pinkbottle didn’t like being interrupted or being contradicted or being fifty-seven (although there was nothing much he could do about that last one), and so he locked them all in the storeroom, out of the way.
Fizz had considered resisting, fighting his way free and making a run for it, going and finding his dad or Dr Surprise or someone who’d be able to help, but he didn’t. Not because he was afraid, but because he didn’t think it would do much good. It wouldn’t help with their plan and it wouldn’t make things easier for his mum or Kevin if (a) he managed to run off or (b) he didn’t. And he knew he couldn’t rely on (c) getting help, because everyone was afraid of Mr Pinkbottle and they all did as he said, because he was the boss. (Fizz didn’t much like having a boss. Few people do.)
And so they were stuck in the storeroom. It had no windows to get out of and the door was heavy and bolted on the other side.
‘At least we’re not going to starve,’ said Kevin.
He pulled a chocolate bar out of one of the boxes and offered it to Mrs Stump.
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but it’s not ours. We can’t eat this food.’
‘Mum,’ Fizz said. ‘Don’t be silly. We should eat it all. That would serve Pinkbottle right.’
‘Mister Pinkbottle,’ she corrected.
‘Oh, Pinkbottle, Winkdottle, Thinkspottle,’ said Fizz. ‘I don’t care about his stupid name and I don’t care about being polite. This is all wrong, Mum,’ he said, ‘don’t you see? There’s something peculiar going on and we think we know what it is. Sort of.’
‘We?’
He told them about what Alice had said, her ideas about their blackmailed Ringmaster. And he told them the plan they’d made to find the evidence.
‘But now I’m stuck in here, I don’t know how we’re going to do it,’ he said.
‘We’re gonna have to wait,’ said Kevin, looking at his watch.
Fizz’s mum looked like she’d understood everything Fizz had told her, but that she wasn’t entirely convinced by it.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘That all sounds a bit far-fetched, Fizz. The Ringmaster had to sell the circus to Mr Pinkbottle, you know that, because … Well, for reasons.’ She paused for a moment as if wondering what those reasons actually were. The Ringmaster had never quite got round to explaining properly. After a moment she waved the pause away with her hand and went on talking. ‘And besides, it’s not the Ringmaster’s fault that it turned out Mr Pinkbottle had different ideas for the circus than he’d expected. Not his fault at all.’ Fizz couldn’t help but think she gave the Ringmaster a little too much benefit of the doubt. ‘I suggest we just sit here quietly,’ she said, ‘and wait for Mr Pinkbottle to open the door, which I’m sure he’ll do any moment now. Now he’s had a few minutes to calm down and think about it. He’s very emotional, that’s all.’
Nevertheless, she took the chocolate bar and broke it into three bits.
‘Just to keep our strength up,’ she said.
Hours went by.
‘Any minute now,’ said Mrs Stump.
And another couple of hours went by.
Fizz woke up.
The little yellow lightbulb still flickered and buzzed above them.
His mum was snoring gently on top of a big box of powdered milk.
Kevin was looking at him.
‘What time is it?’ Fizz whispered.
‘Almost eleven,’ Kevin said, looking at his watch. ‘Do you think he’s going to open the door soon? I reckon my mum and dad’ll be worried by now. They’ll probably have phoned the police again.’
‘I think,’ Fizz said, ‘that we’re in here for the night.’
‘Oh,’ said Kevin. It looked like the thrill of adventure he’d felt earlier had long since worn off. He looked like he had when Fizz had first met him, locked up in the Stinkthrottle’s kitchen. He looked tired and sad and small again.
‘Oh come on,’ Fizz said. ‘Cheer up Kevin. It’s not as bad as all that. We got out of trouble before, didn’t we? We’re gonna do it again, I’m sure.’
Kevin said nothing.
The lightbulb flickered, buzzed and went out with a pop.
The darkness was total and time continued to pass by.
And that’s where we’ll leave them. It’s too dark to see what’s happening, so there’s no point me trying to explain what’s going on, after all you wouldn’t be able to read the words, unless they were illuminated and we don’t have the budget for that sort of stuff.
Instead, we’ll just have to move on to the next chapter and see if that’s any brighter.
CHAPTER NINE
In which a girl runs away from the cicrus and in which some horrible tea is drunk
Alice Crudge exited the ring to a fairly decent ripple of applause. (The sixteen people watching had quite enjoyed her act (in which she lifted up a variety of heavy things, finishing up by juggling three lead balloons (which were painted to look colourful and sparkly and which a member of the audience had tried lifting first, to prove they weren’t filled with helium or something)).)
She passed her father in the backstage area. He was still dressed as a cloud and was still grumbling as he walked into the ring to take part in the cicrus’s big finale, a live zeppelin race. He gave her a half-smile. (He disapproved of her act, mainly because the famous Crudge strength had skipped a generation, leaving him without muscles of any special note.)
During the show she’d almost dropped her twirling dumbbells because she’d been thinking about Fizz and about what they’d be doing later on. They had a plan to unfold and a villain to uncover. That was more exciting than slightly impressing sixteen people in an audience.
She watched the finale through the curtains and bounced out at the end to take the big group bow with the rest of the cicrus. She smiled like she meant it, but her mind wasn’t on showbiz. She was trying to remember where she’d put her black jumper. Was it in the laundry basket, or was it down the back of her fold-up bed?
After the show she ate supper with her dad, who was silent and yet still managed to grumble. They had beans on toast that she burnt, her mind being more concerned about trying to remember where her black gloves were.
After an hour or so her dad went to bed, saying a mumbled, ‘Goodnight,’ and leaving her alone in the kitchen-cum-bedroom.
She washed up the dishes and unfolded her bed.
There was her black jumper, just where she’d left it.
She brushed her teeth and washed her hands and face. Then she got changed, but not ready for bed like normal. Instead she put on her black jumper and black jeans. She cut two eyeholes in her dad’s spare eye mask, instantly changing it from a sleeping mask to a burgling mask, and slipped it on to her face. She laced up her comfiest trainers and pulled a black woolly hat over her ears, picked up a pair of gloves (they were inside the hat) and slipped out the caravan door, shutting it slowly and silently behind her.
She crept out of the circle of cicrus caravans and through the park, past the duck pond, between trees and towards the exit.
She followed the directions Fizzlebert had given her, noting the library as she passed it by, and turned on to the street heading towards Pinkbottle’s Supermarket.
It was late and the streets were mostly empty. The streetlights were those ones that shone orange in the puddles, dim and autumnal.
She dodged out of the way of a long roadside puddle that a passing bus attempted to share with her, only to trea
d on a loose paving stone that squirted dirty cold water straight up her trouser leg.
But even this didn’t dampen her spirits: she was on an adventure and was going to help a pal out of a sticky corner. What could be better? (Doing it in the dry maybe, but still …)
Soon she was at the supermarket.
She looked at her watch.
It was eleven o’clock. At night.
‘Zero hour,’ she said to herself, meaning, ‘Synchronise watches, we’re going in,’ meaning, ‘This is the time that Fizz said we’d meet and begin unfolding our plan.’
Except Fizz wasn’t there.
She was looking into the private car park at the back of the shop and she knew it was the right place because she could see the tiny gaggle of caravans and the big doors where lorries unloaded their goods.
Fizz was supposed to come and meet her and they’d go into the supermarket together.
(He’d said that the woman, Mrs Leavings, might be guarding the shop’s back door. If she was then Alice was to cause a diversion by making a noise in the street (she was good at that sort of thing) and he’d slip in by himself, but since the woman wasn’t there Alice didn’t distract her, not needing to.)
But where was Fizz?
After waiting a few minutes in the shadows, until she was sure there was no one else about, she tiptoed over to Fizz’s caravan.
There was still a light on so she knocked on the door.
There was a clattering from inside and it sounded like someone had fallen over and then the door opened and the light that should have spilt from the doorway into the night, dazzling Alice’s eyes and making her blink, never came because it was blocked by a huge figure looming darkly above her.
‘Hello?’ said a voice. ‘Is there somebody there?’
Alice gathered her courage, not because she was scared, but because she was starstruck. She knew who this man was. He was her hero. Her throat felt dry. She coughed, swallowed and spoke.
‘Mr Stump,’ she said. ‘It’s me. Alice. Alice Crudge. I was wondering if Fizzlebert was at home?’
Alice was a stronggirl. She had muscles far beyond the normal person. All her life she had wanted to be a strongperson like her famous grandfather, but her dad (the generation, as I mentioned before, that the great Crudge strength had skipped) had made her do other things, other acts. (She had been an above-average flower arranger when Fizz had first met her, but she’d never told him about the mediocre sandwich-making act she’d done before that, or the quite rubbish soft-toy-juggling one before that.)
As a wannabe stronggirl she’d read the British Board of Circuses’ Newsletter avidly for news of other strongperson acts, and had memorised everything lifted up by Mr Stump (there’d been a complete list in the New Year special). And so, when they’d met (three-quarters of the way through Fizzlebert Stump and the Girl Who Lifted Quite Heavy Things) she’d been shy and embarrassed and had talked too much and had possibly even blushed (they’d then done a show together, but if you’ve not read that book ignore what I just said, because I don’t want to spoil it for you).
And so, meeting him again, for her, was still just as exciting.
‘Alice?’ said Mr Stump. ‘You don’t look like Alice. Who are you really?’
Alice pulled the mask from her face.
‘Alice Crudge! It is you! Oh my!’ cried Mr Stump.
(As excited to see Mr Stump as Alice was, he was just as excited to be re-meeting her. Her grandfather, Avuncular Crudge, had been Mr Stump’s hero since he was a boy. (Crudge’s was the only autograph the young Mr Stump had ever collected.) Since Avuncular Crudge was long retired from the business (he now ran a second-hand antiques shop on the coast), Alice was the next best thing (and quite possibly the next better thing, since she was possibly, and certainly would be by the time she grew up, even stronger than her grandfather, and that was what really mattered in strongperson circles: not who you were, but how much you could lift).)
‘Come in,’ he said, almost stuttering as he stepped back into the caravan.
Alice climbed the steps as best she could, and ventured inside.
‘Is Fizz here?’ she asked, as Mr Stump clicked the kettle on.
He was wearing a blue stripy nightshirt and nightcap like a character from an old film. (It made Mrs Stump laugh when the cap dangled in front of his face and he liked making her laugh.)
‘Fizz? No, him and his mum have gone on holiday.’
‘On holiday?’ she asked.
This was news to her.
‘Yes,’ Mr Stump said, taking two mugs from the drying rack by the sink. ‘It was a last-minute, spur of the moment thing. You know how it is.’
She didn’t.
‘I was supposed to be meeting him here,’ she said. ‘He can’t have gone –’
‘It was a surprise to me too,’ he said, pouring boiling water on to two tea bags. ‘I was stacking fruit all evening and when I came back here for my supper, they were gone. Mr Pinkbottle explained it though. Fizz won the “Employee of the Month” prize, three days in Acapulco, and because you can’t send a boy on holiday to Acapulco by himself, Gloria went with him.’
Alice thought about this and thought about the things that Fizz had told her.
‘Are you sure?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Mr Stump. ‘You definitely can’t send a boy to Acapulco by himself. Not at his age.’
‘No, I mean are you sure that’s where they’ve gone? On holiday?’
‘Yes, of course. Where else could they have gone?’ Mr Stump asked, but Alice could tell he wasn’t as certain as he was trying to make out.
‘But it doesn’t make sense, Mr Stump.’
He said nothing for a moment and looked around.
‘I did wonder,’ he eventually said, ‘why they hadn’t taken any clothes with them, but Mr Pinkbottle said it’s very hot in Acapulco at this time of year.’
Alice sipped at her tea. It wasn’t very nice. She liked tea normally, but this tasted rather like drinking a tortoise.
‘Mr Stump,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to tell you something.’
And she, even though she’d promised Fizz to keep the secret plan secret, told Mr Stump their secret plan and their secret suspicions about the supermarket and its untrustworthy master.
It took a while for the words she was saying to trickle down into the correct corners of Mr Stump’s brain (his brain not being the biggest muscle in his body (not really being a muscle at all, now I think about it, but you know what I mean)). But, eventually, even a brain as powerful as his has to turn around and say, ‘Hang on a moment!’
‘Hang on a moment!’ Mr Stump said, echoing the words of his brain. ‘Are you saying the Ringmaster’s being blackmailed?’
‘Exactly,’ she said.
She ran through the facts that made that seem the only explanation, again.
‘And you think Fizz and Gloria … aren’t on holiday?’
‘I seriously doubt it,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘But where they’ve really got to … I don’t know.’
She swallowed the last of her tea.
‘Mr Stump,’ she said. ‘Fizz or no Fizz, we’ve got to go through with this plan. Agreed?’
Mr Stump put his mug down.
‘It’s horrible, this tea,’ he said, before reaching over and shaking her hand. ‘Let’s do it.’
Chapter Ten’s going to be a good one. Better than this one anyway. I mean, what really happened here? Alice Crudge met Mr Stump, again. That’s it. That’s hardly the most exciting, adventurous chapter ever written, is it? Sorry about that. (Sometimes, however, you need a chapter like this to (a) explain what’s going on and (b) fill a bit of space (if I hadn’t written this, for example, there’d’ve been eighteen blank pages between Chapter Eight and Chapter Ten and that would’ve just looked weird and you’d’ve thought your book was broken or not all the story had loaded or something).)
So, now … eventually … onwards to adventur
e!
CHAPTER TEN
In which some burglary-ish activities take place and in which some secrets are discovered and uncovered
Mr Stump moved surprisingly quietly for such a big man.
Alice and he tiptoed across the dark car park up to the back door.
Mrs Leavings was nowhere to be seen tonight.
Alice tried the handle, but the door was locked.
‘Do you have a key?’ she asked.
Mr Stump nodded and fiddled with the doorknob until it came off in his hand.
‘There you go,’ he said. ‘It’s like a key.’
On the other side of the door, a second later, the inside handle fell to the concrete floor with a loud rattling metal clatter.
They looked at each other. One of those looks you see in films where a door handle has fallen to the floor in the middle of the night with a rattling metal clatter and the robbers look at each other as if to say, ‘Uh-oh.’
And then, suddenly … nothing happened.
No footsteps came running.
No bright torchlight beam swung into their faces.
No security guard or police officer said, ‘You’re nicked, sunshine.’
After a moment, suddenly nothing happened again.
When, after a few more moments, nothing happened (suddenly) for a third time, Alice pushed the door with her finger.
It swung gently on its hinges and she stepped inside.
‘Which way’s Pinkbottle’s office?’ she asked in a whisper. (Although it was dark inside, and although it didn’t seem as if there was anyone around (this was going easier than it had gone when she and Fizz had first imagined the plan) she still felt whispering was the right way to talk.)
Mr Stump explained and Alice headed, carefully, off through the storeroom.
‘Hello, hello, hello,’ said a voice. ‘What’s going on here, then?’
A flicker of torchlight played across the ceiling and wall before her, but only a flash, just a sliver, because Mr Stump was still stood in the doorway and whoever had spoken was outside, in the car park.
Fizzlebert Stump and the Great Supermarket Showdown Page 7