Circus of Thieves on the Rampage

by William Sutcliffe

  While Billy sipped his minuscule juice, Armitage tiptoed around the Oh, Wow! Centre, examining things through a pair of binoculars.

  Examining what?

  I’m sure you can guess. Vans, caravans, vanacans, and vanacanavanacanavans and, above all, Reginald Clench’s Portakabin box office.30

  When Armitage returned from his recce, his eyes were alight with a gleam that Billy recognised, a gleam fired by greed, determination and malice stewed together into a mulch of soupy, stinking wickedness. It was such a hideous gleam it was like bad breath of the eyeballs. You couldn’t look at him without a flip-flop of discomfort flop-flipping in your tummy.

  Armitage ordered himself an extra large cappa-frappa-mocha-tocha-lochaccino with chocolate sprinkles and cinnamon sprinkles and extra sugar sprinkled on the sprinkles and extra sprinkles sprinkled on the sugar. He sat down opposite Billy, peered over the top of his bucket-sized drink and whispered, ‘I have a plan!’

  ‘Oh, good,’ said Billy, thinking, Oh, bad.

  ‘We have tickets for both nights. Tonight, we scope things out. Tomorrow, we strike!’

  ‘I didn’t know burglars went on strike.’

  ‘No! We strike! We make our move! We hit Queenie for all the takings!’

  ‘Oh. OK.’

  ‘This is going to be the biggest bonanza ever! It’s going to be my masterstroke!’

  ‘You say that every time.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it’s important to be optimistic. It keeps you young. ‘HahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA!’

  This time, Billy recognised the cackle and tried to join in. ‘HahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA!’ he replied.

  ‘You’ve got it!’ yelped Armitage, spooning cappa-frappa-mocha-tocha-lochaccino froth into his mouth, which gave him a moustache of froth on top of his moustache of moustache, and a moustache of chocolate sprinkles on top of the moustache of froth, and a moustache of cinnamon sprinkles on top of the moustache of chocolate sprinkles, and a moustache of sugar on top of the moustache of cinnamon sprinkles. The quintuple moustache look was a new one, fashion-wise, but Armitage pulled it off.

  Billy smiled wanly, wishing the same wish he had wished more or less every day of his life. But today it was pulsing through him more powerfully than ever, because now, for the first time, he had a glimmer of hope that it might actually happen. If only my father would come! If only my father would come!

  ‘Maybe I can turn you into a good little thief after all,’ said Armitage, reaching forwards and, in a moment of rare affection, pinching Billy’s cheek between finger and thumb. (I’m using the word ‘affection’ very loosely here, to include actions which are annoying, humiliating and physically painful.)

  Billy looked down at his very small, very empty cup. If only! he kept on thinking. If only my father would appear now and save me from this multiple-moustached monster. I don’t want to be a thief! I don’t want to be a Shank! I want to be an Espadrille!

  Billy was having a low point.

  As the crowds around him hurrying towards the circus swelled, thousands of people all out for the night of their lives, Billy felt more alone than ever. A hubbub of excitement echoed around the vast concourse of the arena as more and more people arrived, while Billy felt nothing but sorrow, loneliness and gloom.

  What chance did his father stand of finding him here? Even if Ernesto did find his way to the Oh, Wow! Centre, how on earth would he locate Billy in among all these people? What hope was there that anyone would ever find him and help him?

  There is one good thing about low points. If a low point really is a low point, from there, the only way is up.

  Speaking of which, just as Billy was feeling more alone than ever, a girl was arriving in the very same building, accompanied by her granny. Billy had no idea she was there. Not yet. He also had no idea that she was looking for him. And of course, more significantly, he had no idea that this granny was also his granny. Nor that the girl was his sister.

  An enormous problem with the enormous lorry

  ‘SLUGGASLUGGACHAPFFFFUTPFFFF ffutpfffffffffffffffutpfffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffftkch,’ said the enormous lorry, lurching to a sudden and unexpected stop.

  A long, worried silence filled the cabin.

  ‘What was that?’ said Hank.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Frank. ‘We’ve stopped.’

  ‘Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘You hadn’t noticed?’

  ‘Of course I’d noticed! I was being sarcastic.’

  ‘Well, maybe you should stop being sarcastic.’

  ‘Maybe you should stop being sarcastic.’

  ‘I wasn’t being sarcastic.’

  ‘Yes you were.’

  ‘No I wasn’t.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Maurice.

  ‘Maurice is right,’ said Irrrrrena, jolting awake from a doze.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ said Fingers.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Hank.

  ‘I don’t know, either,’ said Frank.

  ‘It’s the engine,’ said Jesse.

  ‘OBVIOUSLY IT’S THE ENGINE,’ said Hank and Frank and Maurice and Irrrrrena and Fingers.

  ‘It’s got no petrol left,’ said Jesse.

  ‘What???!’ said Hank and Frank and Maurice and Irrrrrena and Fingers.

  ‘Look at the petrol gauge,’ said Jesse. ‘It’s empty. I’ve been worrying about it all day.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say something!?’ snapped Hank and Frank and Maurice and Irrrrrena and Fingers.

  ‘Nobody asked me,’ said Jesse.

  ‘YOU IDIOT!’ yelled Hank and Frank and Maurice and Irrrrrena and Fingers.

  ‘I’m not an idiot. I’m just shy. And if I’m the idiot, how come I’m the only one who noticed we were running out of petrol?’

  ‘You’re an idiot, because you didn’t say we were running out of petrol,’ said Hank and Frank and Maurice and Irrrrrrrrena and Fingers.

  ‘Well maybe I didn’t say anything because every time I speak, you all shout at me.’

  ‘YOU’RE AN IDIOT!’ shouted Hank and Frank and Maurice and Irrrrrena and Fingers.

  ‘Right! That’s it! I’m going to sulk in the back!’

  Jesse climbed out of the cabin and went for his sulk.

  The others stared at the petrol gauge. The petrol gauge stared back, with an empty expression on its face.

  There was another long silence.

  ‘Why didn’t you put any petrol in?’ yelled Frank, eventually.

  ‘Why didn’t you put any petrol in?’ yelled Hank.

  ‘STOOOOOOOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!’ yelled Irrrrrena. ‘I’ve had enough of your bickering. Enough! I can’t take it any more. I’m going to go in the back and sulk with Jesse.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Maurice. ‘Me, too.’

  ‘And me,’ said Fingers.

  ‘And me,’ said Frank.

  ‘Fine!’ said Hank, calling after them. ‘I’ll stay here and sulk on my own. In the front. Where it’s more comfortable. So there. I’m going to have the comfiest sulk ever. Think about that!’

  And this is where the rampage after the rampage ended, with a circus of sulkers stuck in the slow lane of the B764, just a mile and a half short of the middle of nowhere.

  ‘OOH, I’M SO COMFY!’ shouted Hank. ‘I’M LYING DOWN NOW.’

  Frank’s muffled but angry voice rose up from the back of the enormous lorry. ‘JUST BE QUIET!’

  ‘I THINK I’LL PUT THE RADIO ON,’ replied Hank. ‘OOH, MUSIC! HOW LOVELY!’

  Opening night

  WHEN HANNAH WALKED INTO THE OH, Wow! Centre auditorium, she said the only thing you can say when you walk into the Oh, Wow! Centre auditorium. She said, ‘Oh, Wow!’

  The Oh, Wow! Centre auditorium31 is enormous. So enormous that, having entered at the back, it was still a long walk to Hannah’s seat, which was at the very front, in the very middle, with lots of legroom and even a cushion specially shaped for posh
bottoms. This was the best seat in the house.

  But Hannah soon forgot how good her seat was, because once the show started she forgot everything about everything. She was, quite simply, mesmerised.

  Billy, only a minute or two after Hannah, also walked into the Oh, Wow! auditorium, and he, too, said the only thing you can say when you walk into the Oh, Wow!, except that for him it was a very short walk from the entrance to his seat at the back, which had no legroom and no cushion and as much view of the stage as a birdwatcher might get of a migrating goose. This was the worst seat in the house.

  But Billy soon forgot how bad his seat was, because once the show started he forgot everything about everything. He was, quite simply, mesmerised.

  First up was Cissy Noodles and her swimming poodles, though to call them swimming poodles is to seriously underplay their talents, because they also dived, leapt, danced, barked amusing arrangements of popular songs, played underwater snooker and rode a motorised surfboard in an arrangement that is usually called a human pyramid, but in this case was a poodle pyramid.

  After that came the Aquabats of Arabia, seven of them, all of whom seemed to have only a loose acquaintance with the laws of gravity. They flew through the air, darted through the water, and flung each other from one element to the other in a series of manoeuvres that made them seem weightless and amphibian and impossibly strong and perfectly balanced and essentially like a troupe of exquisitely choreographed man-bird-fishes. They did this dressed in costumes so tight-fitting that it didn’t seem like they were wearing any costume at all, except for the fact that sometimes it looked like skin, sometimes like glistening scales, sometimes like feathers.

  When they left the stage, to the sound of uproarious, roof-lifting applause, more than half the audience turned to the person next to them and asked, ‘Did that just happen? Were they human?’

  Next up was Bunny Weasel and her synchronised otters. If you’ve never seen a synchronised otter show, the important thing to understand here is that it’s pretty much what it sounds like. Otters. Synchronised. But you have to see this to know how incredibly cute it is. Because even otters out of synch are cute. In synch, the whole thing just goes off the top of the cuteness chart.32 The otters’ tea party with which Bunny finished her act usually resulted in several audience-member faintings. Tonight was no exception, and ambulance crews were on hand at all the exits with cute-attack revival kits (i.e. buckets of cold water).

  After that was Ruggles Pynchon, who did such an extraordinary disappearing act that the collective gasp was so loud, it made a passing meteorologist send out a hurricane warning.

  I won’t go through the whole show, because that will just make you jealous that you missed it, but I must describe to you the final act, which was, of course, Queenie Bombazine herself.

  Normal trapeze artists swing from a trapeze. Queenie didn’t seem to do this. The trapeze was there – it was part of the act – but she hardly needed it. She appeared to fly through the air all of her own accord, backwards and forwards, twisting and flipping and somersaulting and swirling without ever seeming to need the trapeze to catch or propel her. And, of course, there was also the diving and swimming, the way she moved through water like a dolphin, never using her arms, needing only ripples of movement through her torso and legs to zoom her wherever she wanted to go. Everything she did looked at the same time utterly impossible and totally effortless.

  So breathtaking was her performance that some members of the audience literally forgot to breathe, leading to more faintings and emergency revivals.

  The whole show was extraordinary, but since circuses are supposed to be extraordinary, you could say that the extraordinariness of the show was in fact rather ordinary. Apart from one thing. One moment. A moment that for everyone in the audience except Billy was entirely ordinary (in the extraordinary/ordinary way I’ve just explained). It happened towards the end of the act, when high up in the air above the stage, swinging to and fro with angelic grace, Queenie reached out and grabbed a dangling mirrorball. This was the only movement she made that wasn’t perfectly smooth. Something about it seemed improvised, unrehearsed, slightly jerky. Queenie only held the mirrorball for a second, but while she had it in her grasp, she moved it into a spotlight and positioned it at a very deliberate angle.

  What was so deliberate about this angle? Well, it sent a shaft of reflected light downwards, towards one particular seat in the front row, where a girl was sitting. This girl blinked in the glare and shielded her face, but not too quickly for Billy to recognise her.

  This, Billy knew, was a message – a secret message – intended just for him. How he knew it, he didn’t know, but sometimes we all know things without knowing how we know them, and this was one of those times.

  ‘Oh, my giddy aunt!’ yelled Billy, leaping to his feet. ‘It’s . . .’

  Luckily, just as this moment of pure joy was on the brink of shattering all his inhibitions, Billy remembered who was sitting next to him. With enormous effort, just in time, he silenced himself, wiped the grin from his features, and sat down.

  ‘It’s what?’ snapped Armitage.

  Billy had to think fast. Armitage could not be allowed to know that Hannah was there. He was in the middle of a revenge rampage, and Hannah was right near the top of Armitage’s list of People Who Need To Be Taken Down A Peg Or Two. She had diddled him, stitched him up, done him like a kipper, and Armitage did not enjoy being diddled, stitched or kippered, not one little bit. All diddlers, stitchers and kipperers went straight onto Armitage’s list, and the only way to get off it was to be diddled, stitched or kippered back.

  The last thing Billy wanted to do was to let Armitage know of Hannah’s presence.

  ‘It’s . . . cold,’ said Billy.

  ‘No it isn’t,’ replied Armitage.

  ‘I mean it’s hot.’

  ‘You’re right. Too stingy to put the air conditioning on, probably. Typical. That’s Queenie all over. All mouth and no trousers. All gong and no dinner. All frills and feathers and fancy fripperies, but no ventilation to keep the punters comfortable. Am I right or am I right?’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Billy. ‘Typical.’

  Billy tutted supportively, but inside he was very much not tutting. In his heart, he was skippling, zooping and jiggiemuffering33 for joy. Hannah, his friend and saviour, was there! Right there!

  Unfortunately, so were ten thousand other people. He’d seen her, but now he had to get to her, which might not be so simple.

  ‘Time to go,’ said Armitage, grabbing Billy’s arm and hauling him towards the exit.

  ‘But the show isn’t over!’

  ‘We’re not here to have fun! We’re working!’ said Armitage. ‘Anyway, it’s all hype if you ask me. Boring, in my opinion. Average at best.’

  Together, they sneaked out of the auditorium and headed towards a vantage point concealed behind a thick pillar, from where they had an unobstructed view of the box office. It was from this spot that Armitage watched, with particular interest, the moment when Reginald Clench left the ticket desk and locked up, before walking towards the stage carrying a tuba, for his part in the finale. This was Clench’s only self-indulgence. He couldn’t resist claiming just a sliver of the limelight, by providing the oompah for the last tune of the show, dressed as a Hawaiian maiden, floating across the stage on an inflatable palm tree.34

  When Clench was on stage, who was in the box office, guarding the safe?

  Armitage took out his binoculars. He was drooling.

  Billy knew that look on his face. With a little less self-control, Armitage would have been cackling, too. This was the look of a dastardly scheme falling into place.

  Backstage at the Oh, Wow!

  AFTER THE SHOW, Granny took Hannah backstage. The circus on its own was almost more excitement than Hannah could take, so the idea of actually meeting the circussers afterwards was close to mind-blowing.

  What a birthday! Even though she’d only been given two prese
nts – a chunky tandem and a filing cabinet – this was still proving to be the best birthday of her life.

  Hannah gripped Granny’s hand as they edged through the thick35 crowd of circus-watchers heading happily home. Granny’s hand was both gnarled (because she was old) and sticky (because she’d been scoffing candy floss for the last two hours), but it felt to Hannah like the most comforting thing in the world. Granny had always been an important person to Hannah, but now more than ever. She was her link to the past, to the mystery of her parentage and to her long-lost mother. Crowds usually scared Hannah, who preferred fresh air, grassy meadows and the feel of cowpats squelching underfoot, but as long as she had a grip of her sticky, gnarled grandmother, she felt safe.

  After several conversations with sour-faced security men who all sprouted curly wires out of their ears and down into the back of their suits (which made them look as if they had battery-powered brains (which maybe they did)) Hannah and Granny were ushered into a long corridor with a thick36 red carpet.

  Somehow, Granny knew where to go. The further they walked through the winding passageways of the Oh, Wow! backstage area, the tighter Granny gripped Hannah’s hand. There was a look on Granny’s face Hannah had never seen before – a gleam in her eye, a flush to her cheeks, and a slight tremble in the loose flappy bits on her neck. Despite being old and gnarled and sticky, her grandmother was clearly just as excited by circussiness as Hannah.

  ‘Granny?’ said Hannah.

  Granny stopped walking and gave Hannah’s hand an extra squeeze. ‘I know,’ said Granny.

  That was the end of the conversation – a conversation which perhaps appears totally meaningless – but which to Hannah and Granny made perfect sense. They were telling one another this was almost too much excitement to bear, and checking the other one felt the same thing – a feeling like that of simultaneously skydiving, winning the lottery, and needing a pee really, really badly.