Mr Pinkbottle also escaped just before his case went to trial, but no one knows for certain where he ended up. But here are three rumours I’ve heard.
(1) He drowned in the great M6 custard spill of 2011.
(2) He changed his name to Siobhan, invented a time machine and introduced jazz music to fourteenth-century Paris.
Or (3) he moved back in with his mum and dad.
I don’t know which, if any, of those is the truth.
What I do know is that, when he was arrested, Pinkbottle’s Supermarket was taken over by the staff in a bloodless coup (I didn’t often mention it, but of course there were other people working there besides our circus friends). They renamed it A Good Shop For Food and it remains a popular shopping destination for people in the area who like food.
So that’s nice. A happy ending for them, able to get on with their jobs without a pig of a boss breathing down their necks and being unpleasant.
As far as I know the Ringmaster wasn’t heard from again. Perhaps he shaved his moustache and joined another circus at the bottom, starting as a sawdust sweeper or minor juggler. Or perhaps he went and got an entirely different job, a change of direction. What is certain is that he never returned to Aldonia and became king and lucky mascot of the nation of his birth, because it would’ve been in the newspapers, wouldn’t it?
Mr and Mrs Stump offered to use the last of the Ringmaster’s money to have the lettering on the side of Neil Coward’s caravan repainted.
He refused to take the money. Secretly he’d grown fond of the word ‘cicrus’.
Word got round about the new acts appearing in his ring and in the next town they visited audience numbers were in the low thirties, then in the high fifties and by the following spring there were nights when they almost sold out the Medium Top.
Neil Coward’s Famous Cicrus wasn’t such a bad place after all, it turned out, and even the acts who weren’t very good when Fizz had joined, got better. That happens sometimes, just being in a place where good things are happening, where great acts are showbizzing around you … it’s inspiring, it makes you work harder, it pulls your socks up.
One night, a few weeks into the cicrus’s new life, Fizz woke in the night to hear a honking outside his caravan.
He unbuckled the straps, slipped his feet in his slippers and rummaged in one of the kitchen cupboards.
He knew the noise, recognised the voice. He’d not heard it for ages and he wanted to make sure he met it in the right way.
He stood up and made his way to the caravan door, clutching a cold tin in his hand.
He hooked a finger into the ring on the top of the can and, with a pop, pulled back the lid.
The honking outside grew louder, more excited.
The smell of pilchards in tomato sauce filled the caravan.
Fizz opened the door and before he could step outside was knocked to the ground by the heavy, smelly, wonderful shape of a pilchard-seeking sea lion.
Fish had found his way home.
And so, it’s not an unhappy ending.
Sure, Fizz wasn’t in the brilliant circus he was in at the start of the book, but sometimes that’s the way it goes: the place you end up is different to where you begin. Sometimes Different is a Good Thing.
He and Alice and his dad lifted things up.
And he was happy.
And, well, to be absolutely honest, he couldn’t really ask for more than that.
DISCOVER FIZZLEBERT’S FIRST ADVENTURE!
Fizzlebert Stump lives in a travelling circus. He hangs around with acrobats, plays the fool with clowns, and puts his head in a lion’s mouth every night. But it can be a bit lonely being the only kid in the circus. So one day, Fizz decides to join a library – and that’s when it all goes terribly wrong …
HAVE YOU READ ALL OF FIZZLEBERT’S PREVIOUS ADVENTURES?
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in August 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
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BLOOMSBURY is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Text copyright © A.F. Harrold 2016
Illustrations copyright © Sarah Horne 2016
The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4088 6945 1
eISBN 978 1 4088 6946 8
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Fizzlebert Stump and the Great Supermarket Showdown Page 11