Fizzlebert Stump and the Girl Who Lifted Quite Heavy Things

by A. F. Harrold

  And so Fizz (the real Fizz) had climbed down into the ring and shouted for Cedric. He’d looked around the seats searching for the boy.

  Little Simon Pie, clown-in-training and early Cedric/Fish victim, had been the first to spot him.

  ‘He’s over there,’ he’d shouted, honking his little horn and twirling his bow tie for attention. Cedric was quickly tracked down by a gang of angry clowns and dragged out on to the sawdust.

  His hair was lank and lifeless, his face pale and angry, and, even though his leather jacket was shredded like a Morris dancer’s tassels, he still wore it draped over his shoulders like a security blanket. He no longer looked cool, and when he chewed his fingernails he did so nervously, like everybody else.

  This was the last afternoon’s trial and Cedric hadn’t counted on so many people being around. He hadn’t thought so many people would be there to see Fizz’s new act (even if Fizz wasn’t actually in it). But they’d all heard of the original Boy Who Put His Head in the Lion’s Mouth and wanted to see what he was going to do next. (He’d been in the BBC’s Newsletter twice. People had heard of him.) Or at least that was what Fizz secretly chose to believe.

  What Cedric especially hadn’t counted on was his dad being in the audience that afternoon.

  ‘Cedric Greene,’ boomed the Ringmaster. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘They . . . They,’ Cedric stuttered, pointing at Fizz, ‘they poured pep-pep-pepper on my act.’

  Fizz, not a lad to whom lying came naturally, said nothing and hummed a little.

  ‘Empty your pockets,’ Cedric’s father demanded.

  Moaningly, Cedric did as he was told.

  Fish, fish, handkerchief, loose change, comb, fish.

  ‘This boy,’ Ringmaster Greene said, pointing at Fizzlebert. ‘This boy and this sea lion –’ he pointed at Fish ‘– have been used by you for nefarious ends. I am disappointed. Mr Gomez is disappointed. Our circus is disappointed. Disappointed, I say!’

  ‘But,’ Cedric snivelled, ‘I did it for you, Dad. I did it to give us a chance.’

  ‘And I gave you a chance, Cedric. I listened to your whinging. I bought you a lion, I hired the second-best lion tamer I could find. And what did you do? You wasted the opportunity. Winch-Hardly can do the lion act herself. She’s a good chap. Doesn’t complain. Shouldn’t have to put up with you going round making her lion sneeze all the time. Next week it’s back to candles for you.’

  Aha! That was it. Fizz had thought Cedric did an act involving fire and he’d been right. Cedric was the assistant to Ronald Birthday, The Master of Breath. Ronald could blow out two hundred candles with one breath (he did other tricks with his breath too, not just blowing out candles (though that was the one people remembered)) and Cedric was the boy who lit the candles. Ha ha!

  ‘But, Dad,’ the boy whined as his father sent him away.

  ‘Fizzlebert Stump,’ Ringmaster Greene boomed before he left too. ‘Apologise to the sea lion for me.’

  Fish had already gobbled all the fish from Cedric’s pockets. He belched a sprat-scented burp and wandered off in search of more food.

  Fizz looked around and noticed there was a commotion round the judges’ table.

  He went over.

  ‘My hands are blistered,’ Mr X was saying.

  ‘And mine,’ said his wife. ‘Look at those.’ She held her hands up.

  ‘That tractor seat is uncomfortable. And you’ll need a bigger one soon, Gomez.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ the farmer asked.

  ‘For your fat bum,’ Mr X said, angrily.

  ‘How long were we there? Stuck on your farm? How long’s it been?’ asked Mrs X.

  ‘A little while,’ Mr Gomez wheedled. It was obvious he didn’t want to give a precise answer.

  What was going on, Fizz wondered. Had they . . . ? Hang on!

  ‘Wystan,’ he called, ‘get over here.’

  But Wystan was already on his way.

  ‘Have they . . . ?’ he asked, breathlessly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fizz, ‘but I think so.’

  Gomez saw Wystan coming and shouted, ‘No! No, you keep away!’

  Mr and Mrs X both turned as one and what they saw set their moustaches curling.

  ‘Wystan?’ they shouted together. ‘Is that you?’

  And it was.

  ‘Oh, you’ve grown so. Oh my! Our boy! How long’s it been?’

  Wystan told them.

  Mr X turned to Mr Gomez and said, ‘How long?’ as if he couldn’t quite believe what Wystan was telling him. But it was obviously true, he’d been a little bouncing bearded baby boy when they’d gone off on that final flight and now here he was practically grown up.

  ‘It all seems such a blur,’ Mrs X was saying. ‘The years have all been a blur, like a dream.’

  Like a blur, maybe. Like a dream, perhaps. But they remembered enough of what had happened to them to know that they’d been done wrong, that they’d lost whole years of their lives on the farm, that because of Mr Gomez and his laziness and his wickedness they’d missed out on watching their boy grow.

  And by now other people were taking an interest in what was going on and pretty soon the story of the bearded boy and his missing parents was all round the six circuses.

  ‘You mean they’re not French?’ people were saying. (Madame Plume de Matant came out of hiding when she heard that.)

  ‘You mean they’ve been made to work the farm? With those vegetables?’ people said.

  ‘Parents of the bearded boy?’ they asked. ‘That means they’re circus folk, practically.’

  If there’s one set of people you don’t want to get on the wrong side of, it’s circus folk. For a start a lot of them are slightly peculiar, many of them are rather odd, a few of them have weird powers, and all of them stick together. Never mind a bit of sabotage here and lively rivalries there, at the end of the day they were one big family. That was it. That was the bottom line. Simple as that.

  Mr Gomez tried to explain how he had taken in two poor amnesiacs and cared for them, nursing them all the time slowly back to health. He explained how he gave them a little work to keep them occupied and how kind he was to involve them in all aspects of the farm and the Circus of Circuses show each year. Was that not enough to prove he was a Good Man?

  The six Ringmasters looked him up and down and told him firmly: No. It wasn’t.

  They weren’t going to get the police involved, were they?

  The six Ringmasters told him, equally firmly: No. They weren’t.

  They were going to do things the circus way.

  They were going to give him the Cold Shoulder.

  There would be no Circus of Circuses show tomorrow, nor ever again at this farm.

  They wrote a strongly worded letter to the British Board of Circuses which was published in the very next Newsletter and soon every circus in the country knew what Mr Gomez had done to two of their own. No circus would ever go within four and three-quarter miles of his farm and if ever they found he’d bought a ticket to one of their shows, he would be refused entry and given no refund.

  (The BBC also wrote him a letter asking for his certificate and badge back. When he didn’t reply they sent a crack squad of ninja-clowns who stole them while he was distracted.)

  Mr and Mrs X, now answering to the names of Wilfred and Hester Humphreys, pulled their old hot air balloon, The Golden Goose, out of the barn where Gomez had hidden it. With the help of the men, women and elephant of the circuses the balloon was patched and inflated.

  On Sunday morning they and Wystan climbed into the basket.

  Fizz held one of the ropes and said, ‘Is that it then? Are you really off?’

  Wystan stroked his beard and said, with a sad smile, ‘I’ve got’em back, Fizz. Thanks to you and Alice, and thanks to Cedric even. I’ve got’em back and I’ve gotta go with’em, haven’t I? We’ve got places to be, places to see. People to go visit and surprise with aerial music.’

 
And how could Fizz argue with that?

  He stepped back. Alice put an arm around his shoulder. He blushed, but didn’t push it away.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ she said.

  Fizz shrugged.

  His mother, who was stood the other side of him, parped her horn solemnly and blew her nose loudly on a red handkerchief twice the size of an average-sized tablecloth (not a big one, just an average-sized one (one half the size of a big one)).

  Almost the whole of the six circuses had gathered in the farmyard to watch the balloon lift off.

  Through a chorus of ‘farewell’s and ‘good luck’s and ‘bon voyage’s there came a honking, barking, flolloping noise and the crowd parted as Fish charged his way towards the rising basket.

  ‘Fish,’ shouted Wystan. ‘Goodbye!’

  And Fish, instead of launching himself through the air to land in the basket beside his bearded pal (as Fizz secretly hoped he might), flicked his head and tossed a silvery treasure high into the air. It cartwheeled and turned in the late autumn sunshine and landed with a wet slap at Wystan’s feet on the floor of the basket.

  ‘Gosh, that stinks,’ said Hester Humphreys as she reached down to pick it up.

  ‘It’s a fish, Mum,’ Wystan said, grabbing the sprat for himself.

  ‘Well, it pongs,’ she said, with a smile.

  ‘I’ll chuck it if you like. I mean, if you want me to.’

  They were already high above the farm now. All his friends and colleagues looked tiny down there.

  ‘Oh no, don’t do that,’ said Mr Humphreys, Wystan’s father. ‘It was a gift. You must always keep gifts.’

  Wystan looked at the gift. It was cold and slippery.

  His dad went on, ‘You must always keep gifts, Wystan, at least until you’re out of sight of the gift giver.’

  ‘Let the wind take us far away,’ his mum said. ‘Then chuck it, love.’

  She gave the switch a turn and a gush of flame lit the inside of the balloon above them.

  They rose higher.

  ‘Okay, Mum,’ Wystan said, waving a last farewell over the wickerwork.

  On Monday morning the six circuses began packing away their tents and loading up their caravans ready to head back out on the road (in six different directions).

  Fizz scuffed his feet in the dirt outside Alice’s caravan, waiting to say goodbye to her before she left. There were butterflies in his stomach, which was weird because the Ringmaster had specifically asked Cook to stop serving caterpillars up in the pasta (again). (And for anyone who’s thinking, ‘But at the end of Fizzlebert Stump The Boy Who Cried Fish Cook was hypnotised into being a super-good chef why would he be serving caterpillars up?’, I have only two things to say: (1) it was Dr Surprise who did the hypnotising, and (2) these were gourmet caterpillars.)

  Alice came down the steps and said, ‘Hi, Fizz.’

  ‘Hi, Alice.’

  ‘This is goodbye then.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ He kicked at the dust. ‘I hear you had an offer.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she said, grinning broadly under her twisted nose. ‘Ringmaster Rodriguez has invited us to join their circus. I’m going to be their star junior Strongwoman and Dad’s going to help out in the costume department. He loves sewing sequins and all that. It’s going to be brilliant being in a real circus at last. No more spelling mistakes for us. The Crudges are back!’

  Fizz was happy for her, but there was still something fluttering in his stomach all the same.

  ‘I’d hoped you might join us,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Fizz,’ she laughed. ‘Stump & Son is Strongman act enough for any circus. I’m ever so grateful to you for letting me be a Stump for a day. But . . .’

  ‘No worries,’ Fizz said. ‘And no need to say thank you.’

  ‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘It’s been cool. See you around sometime?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Fizz said, trying to sound as cool as she did. ‘See you around sometime.’

  She punched him on the arm in a friendly way and went up the steps back to her front door.

  (He would cherish the bruise.)

  ‘Oh,’ she said, quickly running back down. ‘Take this.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘That’s for your dad.’

  Before all the circuses went their separate ways Fizz had one last visit to make.

  He picked his way between the caravans of A Ring & A Prayer until he found the one that Cedric was cleaning. He was using scraps of soft leather to polish up the windows.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he spat. ‘Stump.’

  He almost seemed to be afraid, the way he hunched as Fizz walked up.

  ‘Hey, Cedric,’ Fizz said, trying to sound friendly.

  ‘What do you want? Come to cause more trouble?’

  ‘No, I just wanted to say that since neither of us really did our acts, and since neither got picked for the show, I don’t expect you to write that letter to the BBC Newsletter. You don’t have to say I was the best Boy Who Put His Head in a Lion’s Mouth. It’s all right.’ Fizz held his hand out to shake. ‘I forgive you,’ he added.

  Cedric looked at the hand as his brain listened to the words.

  ‘I wasn’t going to write a letter, Stump,’ he muttered. ‘Even if you had won.’

  ‘I know,’ Fizz said. ‘But I would’ve.’

  And with that, hand unshaken, Fizz turned around and walked back to his own circus, where his mum had a stack of warm salmon and gammon sandwiches waiting for him.

  He smiled to himself. Oddly, strangely, even with his friends going off and knowing that Cedric didn’t like him, he felt happy. There was a new beginning here: Stump & Son.

  And really, who knew what tomorrow might bring?

  Mr Gomez knew what tomorrow would bring. Tomorrow and every day for the next thirty-six years was spent farming his seven fields of unnamed odd-shaped vegetables and dreaming of the circus that he loved so much but which he never, ever, ever got to see again. That taught him a lesson and a half.

  Now, if this book were a television show, then there’d be one final scene before the theme tune strikes up and the end credits roll.

  It would have some members of the regular cast, say Fizz and his mum and dad, sat having their lunch and discussing what they’d all learnt from this week’s adventures. Then after the moral had been driven home with a sledgehammer, they’d all laugh at some really lame joke with really fake laughter.

  But this book isn’t a television show. There are no lessons to take away and the book actually finished with the one-sentence paragraph about Mr Gomez being sad and lonely and doomed to work his farm forever because he kept some people who really needed medical attention as his own personal unpaid farmhands and then got found out.

  So maybe there is a moral after all: don’t get found out.

  But then again it might be something else. I don’t know, I just write this stuff, you’re the one who’s read it all. Maybe you know what it was all about?

  Anyway, thank you and well done.

  That’s the end.

  You can shut the book now.

  LOOK OUT FOR FIZZLEBERT’S PREVIOUS ADVENTURES

  SOME THINGS PEOPLE SAID ABOUT THE FIZZLEBERT STUMP BOOKS

  Wonderfully told, fabulously eccentric, and certain to leave everyone in the family wearing a broad smile.

  – Jeremy Strong

  Fantastically funny

  – Primary Teacher

  Walks a high-wire of daft ideas and deft storytelling, ringmastered by a narrator who intrudes on the action with hilariously incongruous asides. Top fun at the Big Top.

  – Financial Times

  One of the funniest books I’ve ever read!

  – Amy, 10, Girl Talk

  If you like funny, exciting and entertaining books, read about Fizzlebert Stump. The author keeps the reader gripped by the way he ends each chapter, making you want to read on to find out what happens next. Even my mum enjoyed this book and I had to keep telling her what was happe
ning!

  – Freya Hudson, 10, Lovereading4kids

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney

  This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  First published in Great Britain in February 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © A. F. Harrold 2015

  Illustrations copyright © Sarah Horne 2015

  The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-4088-5331-3

  ePub: 978-1-4088-5332-0

  www.afharroldkids.co.uk

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