Wystan looked at Fizz. He mimed the hook. He mimed the chin (though not very well). He mimed the lack of moustache. He mimed the man’s tiptoeing spy-ish-ness. And he mimed the lugubrious waddle of a hungry crocodile.
‘Fancy dress?’ Fizz offered.
‘You’re an idiot sometimes,’ Wystan harrumphed.
‘No I’m not,’ Fizz replied.
‘Yes you are.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘No I’m not.’
Wystan stepped right up close, so that his beard tickled our hero’s chin. It bristled and crackled with tense static electricity.
‘Yes, you are,’ he said quietly and menacingly.
‘Ah, my happy boys!’ said Fizz’s mum, looking round the edge of the doorway.
‘Hello, Mrs Stump,’ Wystan said, stepping back and waving at her with the tip of his beard.
‘It’s time for bed, darling,’ she said, looking at Fizz. ‘It’s a big day tomorrow.’
‘Mum!’
‘But darling,’ she said, nodding seriously, ‘there was a thing on the news about it. The Prime Minister has decided that Thursdays will be twenty-six hours long. Starting tomorrow. A big day.’
‘But . . .’
Even as Fizz spoke he was trying to see whether she still had any clown’s makeup on.
‘Um . . .’ Wystan lifted his finger as he spoke, ‘ain’t tomorrow Monday?’
‘It was on the news,’ Mrs Stump answered. ‘Mondays are the new Thursday.’
‘But . . .’
Fizz was pretty sure he could see a bit of white face paint on her left cheek.
‘Oh, just go to bed, Wystan,’ he said, knowing when to give up arguing with a clown. ‘It’s getting late.’
Wystan looked at Mrs Stump again and then at Fizz and whispered, ‘What about . . . ?’
‘It was nothing,’ Fizz said. ‘I reckon you fell asleep and just dreamt it all.’
‘Well, I ain’t dreaming now, am I?’ Wystan muttered under his breath. ‘And I weren’t dreaming then, and you’re an idiot to say I was.’ And with that he shoved his hands in his pockets, turned on the spot and stomped off between the caravans, leaving Fizz and his mum behind.
Fizz hadn’t said what he really thought, which was that Wystan had made the whole story up to make it seem he’d had an exciting evening even though he wasn’t performing in the Big Top. And the reason Fizz hadn’t actually come out and said this was that he was polite, and his mum’s interruption had taken the wind out of the boys’ argument.
Nevertheless as Fizz shook his head and climbed the steps into the caravan, he half hoped Wystan had been right (although, of course, Fizz knew he wasn’t), because a strange-looking nautical man pursued by a crocodile did sound vaguely interesting.
Chapter Two
In which some questions are asked and in which a lion is discussed
The next morning Fizzlebert woke up, got up and ate up his breakfast. As he swallowed the last slice of doughnut on toast, wiping a spot of red jam from his chin, he began to tell his mum and dad about Wystan’s story. (The more he thought about it the sillier it seemed.)
‘Guess what Wystan told me,’ he began.
‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, Fizz,’ his mum said.
‘But I’ve finished eating. It’s not full.’
‘I know, dear,’ Mrs Stump said, putting salt on her cornflakes, ‘but it’s good advice. In general.’
Fizz nodded and had another go at telling them about Wystan’s stranger. To his amusement, his dad seemed to take it seriously.
‘A hook, you say?’ he said after Fizz had finished.
‘That’s what Wystan said.’
‘I can’t think of anyone with a hook. Gloria, how about you?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Stump. ‘I haven’t got a hook.’
She waved her hands in the air. They were small, pink and ended with the usual number of wiggling fingers. She looked surprised that her husband had had to ask. Or maybe she just looked surprised because of the makeup. Fizz wasn’t sure.
‘No dear,’ his dad said. ‘I meant, have you seen anyone matching Fizz’s description?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, brightly.
‘Really?’
Both Fizz and his dad looked at her, half intrigued to hear what she’d seen, and half prepared for clown-induced disappointment.
‘Where?’ asked Mr Stump.
‘I saw him last night,’ Mrs Stump replied, mysteriously. ‘I was just looking out the front door and there was this chap, stood right in front of the caravan. Bold as brass buttons. He was talking with that nice bearded fellow, that Barboozul boy.’
Fizz’s stomach flipped. Had Wystan been telling the truth? And had his mum seen Wystan talking to the hook-handed stranger? How could that have been? Why? When?
And then he remembered.
‘Mum?’ he said.
‘Yes darling?’
‘Are you talking about me?’
‘Well, it was someone who matched your description, certainly.’
‘Oh, Gloria,’ Mr Stump said. ‘You’re just being awkward now. Think properly. Wystan says he saw a stranger. Have you seen a stranger with a hook in the circus? Yes or no?’
‘No. Not a one, unless . . . But wait! What about the Ringmaster’s brother? Do you remember he visited the circus once, years ago? He had a hook, and . . .’
‘No, no,’ Mr Stump interrupted, putting his hand to his forehead, ‘that wasn’t a hook. It was a book, Gloria. He had a book.’
Fizz could see a long and ridiculous conversation beginning, so he slipped down from the table, did up his shoes, opened the caravan door and left them to it.
As Fizz was making his way toward Captain Fox-Dingle’s caravan for his first lesson of the day, Wystan wandered over to him.
‘Fizz,’ he said.
‘Wystan,’ said Fizz.
‘Have you seen Fish this morning?’ Wystan asked, rubbing the tip of his beard between two fingers.
‘No,’ Fizz said. ‘Hasn’t he come back?’
‘I’ve not seen him,’ Wystan answered, ‘and neither’s anyone I’ve asked.’
Fizz didn’t say anything. He knew how Wystan must be feeling. If Fish didn’t turn up then he wouldn’t have an act to do for a second night in a row. On top of that, Fizz felt a tingle of worry in his stomach for his missing friend. Just a tingle, because Fish hadn’t been gone that long, and he was a grown sea lion, quite capable of looking after himself. Sort of. Unless he got distracted by an open can of tuna.
‘There’s footprints in the mud,’ Wystan said suddenly, changing the subject. ‘Exactly where I saw the bloke. So I definitely weren’t dreaming.’
‘Footprints?’ asked Fizz.
‘Yeah. Boot prints. And not just boot prints, but claw-prints too. Definitely a crocodile.’
‘I’ll believe them when I see them,’ Fizz said.
‘Well, come on,’ Wystan muttered. ‘Quick, before some other idiot steps all over them.’
‘I suppose,’ Fizz said, squinting at the mud, ‘that it could be a crocodile.’
The boot prints were just boot prints, and in a circus there are a lot of people wearing boots every day. But the claw prints did look like claws, although there were only a few of them, the rest presumably having been overprinted by the many boots of the circus.
Fizz had read a lot of books and seen lots of pictures, and he was trying to remember exactly what a crocodile’s feet looked like when Wystan spoke.
‘I had a thought,’ he said in a low secretive voice. ‘When I found Fish hadn’t come back this morning. When no one had seen him anywhere, I put two and two together.’
‘Did you get four?’ Fizz asked, looking up from the mud.
‘No,’ Wystan replied. ‘I got “a hook-handed pirate bloke and his pet crocodile have kidnapped our sea lion”.’
‘I think you’re supposed to get four,’ Fizz said. He wasn’t brilliant at
maths but this sounded right.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Wystan said. ‘This is the only thing that makes sense.’
‘What, that Fish has been kidnapped by a pirate?’
‘Yes.’
Fizz didn’t know whether to laugh or to be serious. ‘So, what do we do now?’ he said, adopting the serious tone on the outside.
‘I dunno,’ Wystan said. ‘I guess we rescue him.’
‘And how do we do that?’ Fizz asked. ‘The prints don’t help us. That’s your only clue.’
‘Yeah,’ said Wystan rubbing his beard between his fingers. ‘That ain’t no good. I guess we just gotta keep our eyes open. You know, for other clues.’
‘Right,’ Fizz said, sounding just like he agreed. ‘And in the meantime, we’d better go to art class.’
When they knocked on Captain Fox-Dingle’s caravan door he instantly didn’t answer it.
Instead he called to them from Charles’s cage, which was to one side of the caravan.
‘Here,’ he snapped in his usual clipped manner.
Captain Fox-Dingle was a man of few words, only a tiny number of which were verbs. It was rumoured that he’d been in the army once, and communicating quickly is an important skill for soldiers. In the heat of the heart of battle there’s no time for faffing about with long sentences full of conjunctions, and sub-clauses, such as this one, and brackets (like these): no, it’s all about keeping it brief – ‘Run!’ ‘Fight!’ ‘Duck!’ ‘Ouch!’ ‘Cake!’, and so on. In civilian life, once he’d joined the circus as their lion tamer, he’d maintained this shorthand manner, and over the years Fizz had learnt to fill in the gaps in his head.
As well as lion taming, the Captain also took Fizz and Wystan for lessons. In the circus all the boys’ lessons were taught by different acts (Dr Surprise took them for history, Madame Plume de Matant for French and so on) and it just so happened Captain Fox-Dingle had drawn the short straw, and had drawn it so well, the Ringmaster had made him their art teacher.
The boys walked over to the cage.
The Captain was sat on a stool inside it. His uniform glittered in the sunlight. It was ornate and had gold piping round the edges and across the pockets. His hat had a peak that shaded his eyes, and a logo, a coat of arms, on the front: a fox and a lion facing each other across a chair, enclosed in a circle which, if you looked closely, was made from a whip. The Captain had drawn the design himself.
He had small dark eyes that were always watching out for something and a flat nose, as if he’d been in some fights when he was younger but hadn’t always won them. Underneath the nose was a neat little toothbrush of a moustache. He stood up as stiff as he spoke and if you didn’t know him you’d be forgiven for thinking he was a villain. (If it weren’t for the fact that his uniform was bright pink.)
‘What’s wrong with the lion?’ Wystan said, pointing at Charles, who was lying in the corner by the Captain’s stool.
‘Old.’
‘Oh, Charles,’ Fizz said, kneeling beside the cage and looking at the cat.
Charles was resting his big chin on his front paws and had his eyes closed. His magnificent mane looked droopier than normal. As Fizz patted his nose the lion gave a big heave of a sigh, and a little whine of a wheeze whistled with it through the bars of the cage.
‘Oh, you poor thing,’ Fizz said.
‘Fizz,’ said Captain Fox-Dingle. ‘No show.’
Fizz absorbed these words and made them into a sentence.
‘You don’t think he’ll be up for the show tonight?’
Captain Fox-Dingle shook his head.
‘Is he sick?’ Wystan asked. ‘Has he caught flu or something?’
Fizz looked at Wystan. When he’d thought it was just the bearded boy who didn’t have a show to do, he’d been unhappy for him, but not worried like he was feeling now. To think he didn’t have an act to do either – that was dreadful. No circus performer ever liked missing out, being told they couldn’t do their act. They weren’t in showbiz in order to sit in the wings all night. Who was?
‘Not flu,’ said Captain Fox-Dingle. ‘Old.’
‘How old is Charles, Captain?’ asked Fizz.
Captain Fox-Dingle looked at his fingers and counted.
‘Very,’ he said eventually. He laid a hand on the top of Charles’s head and ruffled his great shaggy mane.
‘But the act went so well last night,’ Fizz protested. ‘It was perfect.’
‘Good show.’
Captain Fox-Dingle shrugged and sat silently for a minute. The sadness of the moment seeped into them all.
‘What’s he going to do if he can’t do his act?’ Wystan asked.
‘Retirement. Good home.’
At least, Fizz thought, trying to put a brave face on things, Charles could enjoy his last years somewhere nice. He knew the Captain would find a good home for him, because the Captain cared deeply about his friend. But Fizz had known Charles all his life. How strange the circus would be without him.
‘So last night was his last show?’ he asked.
‘Maybe.’
‘Perhaps he’ll perk up tomorrow?’
‘Maybe.’
As he said this word Captain Fox-Dingle’s bottom lip quivered, in exactly the way it would were he upset. His tiny smart moustache bristled as he sighed. His eyes were fixed just to left of the boys, gripping the distance tightly in their gaze.
There was no art class that morning. The boys could tell the Captain wasn’t in the mood and they didn’t mind skipping a lesson or two.
If they skipped a lesson, however, then they’d have to find something else to do. And to find out what that ‘something else’ is, I’ll have to get on and write the next chapter.
Chapter Three
In which Dr Surprise surprises the boys and in which an Aquarium is visited
After half an hour of staring closely at the ground in different places round the circus, between caravans and tents, around cages and trucks, the two boys had found almost no further traces of the crocodile. (Almost no traces because they did see one print that looked a bit like a clawed reptilian foot, but it was at the bottom of the steps to Luke Longrope’s caravan, and everyone knew he wore crocodile-skin cowboy boots.)
They were despondent. They scuffed their feet and hung their heads. This wasn’t helping them find Fish, or find the kidnappers. They were rubbish detectives. The most rubbish, Fizz thought. Dreadful detectives. Their sea lion friend was out there somewhere and they’d probably never see him again and it was all their fault. Oh, woe was them.
Thankfully, their moping was interrupted at that point. (If I was a better author I’d’ve interrupted it earlier, but never mind, eh?)
‘Ah, Fizzlebert,’ said Dr Surprise. ‘I thought I might find you here.’
It was no surprise that Dr Surprise had known where to find him. After all, the mind reader was a mind reader, and also he’d seen them walking past his caravan window less than three minutes earlier.
‘The Captain,’ the Doctor went on, ‘told me about Charles. It’s a sad thing, Fizz.’
It was a sad thing, Fizz agreed. Showlessness. Both boys were out of an act tonight, unless they could find Fish, and that wasn’t looking likely (see above). He felt like a spare wheel. The only time a spare wheel is needed is when you’ve got a puncture, but unfortunately, with both him and Wystan out of the show, it was like being a spare wheel with a puncture. They’d both be sitting backstage tonight, watching the show through the curtains, passing Percy Late his plate and keeping Flopples’s after-show carrot warm for the Doctor.
‘I thought you might appreciate a change of scenery, boys. Take your minds off things. How do you fancy visiting the Aquarium?’
‘Aquarium?’ Fizz asked.
‘A big building full of fish,’ explained Dr Surprise.
‘I know that,’ Fizz replied. ‘I just meant “What Aquarium?”’
‘Oh, whichever one’s nearest,’ said Dr Surprise, reaching into his pocket f
or his pocket watch and glancing as if to check the time. At this point he noticed that his hand was empty.
‘Where’s your watch, Doctor?’ asked Wystan.
‘I keep forgetting,’ Dr Surprise replied, ‘it’s at the watch-mender’s in town, being mended. Flopples mistook it for a carrot last weekend, and, well . . .’
Fizz had been wondering why the Doctor’s act these last few days had involved lots of sparks, mind-reading and magic tricks, but none of his famous hypnotism. This explained it, since he always dangled his pocket watch when he put people into trances. Without it he was just a normal man with a top hat, monocle, dangerous rabbit, card tricks, unexpected fireworks and surprising bunches of flowers.
‘There’s an Aquarium I spotted just along the prom,’ Dr Surprise went on, putting the non-existent pocket watch back into his existent waistcoat pocket. ‘Won’t take us five minutes to walk there. It could be interesting. I’ve heard that they have a lesser green-footed coral octopus in there that can disguise itself so well that it completely vanishes. It changes colour and shape and the texture of its skin and all sorts, and, hey presto!, you simply can’t see it any more. Sounds like marvellous stuff. Or so someone said. I wouldn’t know anything about it.’
‘Yeah, okay,’ the boys said. ‘Why not?’
This would be a good time to tell you where the circus is. As you know, Fizz’s home is a travelling circus and this means every week or so they move from one place to another, parking up in a town park and setting up the Big Top to entertain the locals. So, where’s the circus today?
It’s by the seaside.
If you look into the sky you’ll see gulls circling. If you look closer you’ll see the gulls are seagulls. And they’re still circling.
The circus is set up in a park, one side of which faces the sea. There’s a row of trees, then the tarmac strip of a path and then a rather pebbly beach and then water. Lots of water, water as far as you can see. In the other direction the park opens out into the town, which is just like any other town, except with more fish and chip shops, seashell emporia and concrete sandcastles. (Since the beaches in these parts are singly shingly, a bright-eyed Mayor in the 1980s had half a dozen giant sandcastles built out of concrete around the town (in the parks, squares, shopping centres and so on). He claimed they reflected the cheery seaside nature of the town, without the impermanence, the mutability if you will, of a normal sandcastle (that is to say, the sea can’t sweep them away, because they’re great ugly things made out of concrete). He said they’d bring in tourists. Tourists disagreed.)
The Boy Who Cried Fish Page 2