He grabbed the handle of the door, turned it and stepped out into the cool air of the evening.
Up in the sky stars twinkled and the sea was crashing somewhere nearby.
He was in a little concrete courtyard that smelt of fish. In the middle of the wall on his right hung a curtain, rustling softly in the light breeze that moved the smell of fish around the small square.
He knew where he was. He was backstage. That curtain led out to the pool he’d been aiming for. At last he felt his luck was turning.
The best thing about backstage (he knew this from the circus where the Ringmaster was always complaining) was that it was full of stuff. And stuff was exactly what he needed right now. Moving quickly he dragged some empty crates in front of the door, and then piled some rope, two buckets and a long pole with a net on the end on top of them. It wouldn’t keep the door shut for long, not if someone really wanted to get through, but it was better than nothing, and the noise of all that lot crashing to the ground would at least give him some warning.
Breathing a little easier, he finally felt able to continue his search.
If he could find Fish before that security guard found him, then he’d be able to prove that he and Wystan had done the right thing breaking into the Aquarium. When everyone saw that Spratt-Haddock had kidnapped the circus’s sea lion, well, he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
So first, Fizz asked himself, where would a sea lion be at this time of the evening?
He was sure he wouldn’t be anywhere indoors, in one of those tanks. Fish preferred to sleep outside. He had his paddling pool and he’d lie on the grass with his tail in it, gently splashing about, while he snored loud fishy snores into the night.
He wasn’t here in the courtyard, so he must be beside the pool.
Fizz carefully parted the curtain and poked his head through. Across the water, which rippled brightly under the white floodlights, he could see the seats where they’d been sitting earlier that day watching the show. There was no one there now. And it wasn’t just that there were no people there, Fizz couldn’t see Fish anywhere either.
More worrying was what he could see. Waving into his view, inches in front of his face, was a long curved silver hook, which was attached to the arm and body (and head and legs) of Admiral Spratt-Haddock himself.
And if that’s not the cue for a chapter break, then I’m writing the wrong book.
Chapter Ten
In which Wystan gets wet and in which Fizz makes an escape
Wystan Barboozul, the bearded boy, fell.
It seemed to take an age, but it could only have been a split second before he hit the water and the world abruptly changed. From one of dry warm airiness, it flipped in an instant to one of wet cold wateriness. He thrashed around, kicking with his legs, trying to find out which way was up. His beard spread out around him curling like black inky tentacles.
Wystan had never learnt to swim. He had a paddle sometimes, when Fish wanted company in his paddling pool, but he couldn’t lie down in it and even if he could have, swimming lengths would have been far too easy, since the pool was probably only three inches longer than he was.
That wasn’t to say Wystan had never tried to learn to swim, but he had been banned from the one public swimming pool he’d been to because of his beard. (He had refused to wear a chin cap and there had been mean-spirited complaints from other children’s parents. Apparently he’d looked so scary with the bedraggled beard floating out from his face across the water like black wriggling furry fingers that a girl called Sandra Loosley had wet herself, right there in the water. The whole place had to be emptied and refilled with clean water, which took hours.)
So, for years and years Wystan hadn’t been swimming, hadn’t had a chance to try it, and now, all of a sudden and rather unexpectedly, he was having a splash course.
And guess what? It turned out to be easy. There was enough air trapped in his beard that he floated, head above the water. As he kicked his legs about, he found that he moved forwards. He tried moving his hands too. He moved even quicker. This was a piece of cake, he said to himself, even going so far as to imagine what sort of cake (Battenberg).
The only problems he found were that the water was rather cold and the tank he was in wasn’t quite big enough. As far as fish tanks went, it was a big one, much bigger than some that they’d seen that evening, but as far as swimming pools went, it was tiny. He was already up against the glass. He’d have to turn around and swim the other way now.
And then he remembered how he’d got where he was: the break in, the hiding, the chase, Fizz, Fish! Funny how a plunge in cold water had flushed it all out of his head for a moment. Well, he thought, he’d better find his way out of the tank and get on with the search for their sea lion.
Paddling his hands and treading water with his feet, he slowly revolved.
It was only as he did this that it occurred to him to wonder what lived in the fish tank. Whose home was he floating in? Who might be watching his feet waving around in their back garden?
And then he saw something that would have upset Sandra Loosley greatly. There was a fin in the water.
No, that’s wrong. There was a fin poking out of the water.
There was no need to worry about a fin, of course. A fin never hurt anyone. It was what was attached to the fin, in the water that was worrying Wystan. I’m pretty sure it’s not a tiger, his brain said, they don’t have fins. But if it isn’t a tiger, then it must be . . .
It was coming towards him. It was gliding through the water in his direction. And although it had a pinkish shade to it, it also had a decidedly sharkish shape.
He pedalled his feet and flailed his hands about desperately, somehow hoping that would boost him out of the water and into the air. It didn’t. Instead it just sprayed water up and hid the approaching fin from view.
Wystan didn’t not see the fin for very long, because as soon as he stopped splashing his hands about it was back, and so much closer, and what was worse it seemed to be moving faster, towards him. But then . . . then it vanished, it sank out of sight and the tank was calm again. The shark had gone. Had he scared it off? Oh wow, he thought, I scared off a shark, wait till I tell Fizz about this . . .
The biggest pinkest set of tooth-filled jaws Wystan had ever seen burst out of the water directly in front of him, huge and pink and gaping, and they slammed shut just as something grabbed his collar, and then he was going upwards, hauled up like luggage on an elastic band, and thump! he was lying on his back on the metal walkway, dripping water back into the tank below.
Wystan breathed a sigh of relief, a big one, and even as Mrs Darling said, ‘Oh goodness! I’ve caught the burglar!’, he leaned over and watched the great murky pink shape of a shark circling below him, trailing wisps of black hair from the side of its mouth.
He felt his beard. Even in its wet, bedraggled state he could tell it was now lopsided.
Fizz pulled his head back through the curtains as quick as he could.
Admiral Spratt-Haddock was standing on the poolside stage with his back to the curtain. Fizz had seen him, but he hadn’t seen Fizz.
‘Listen, me lovelies,’ said the Admiral’s salty voice. He clearly wasn’t talking to Fizz, which meant there must be other people out there. ‘Swabs has sent us a copy of the evening paper. He said we’d be mighty interested in something on page 23. Shall we have us a look then, me hearties?’
There was a rustle of newspaper pages being turned.
‘Here it is!’ the Admiral exclaimed. He cleared his throat with a tarry ‘ahem’ before reading out what Fizz quickly realised was a review. ‘All can agree that Admiral Spratt-Haddock’s once wonderful ’Quarium has been going downhill . . . mumble, mumble. I’ll just skip ahead a bit, here we go . . . but now it seems a corner has been turned. Take a seat in the arena and prepare for the show of a lifetime.’ Although the Admiral’s voice had sunk at the beginning of the review, when he reached the words ‘show of a lifetime’,
energy sprang back into his throat. ‘Did you hear that?’ he shouted, with a saucy cackle. ‘Show of a lifetime! Not bad, eh?’ He muttered his way through the next few lines before saying clearly, ‘The sea lion, Pescado, the ’Quarium’s latest star, is both funny and touching: a brilliant comedian, an astonishing acrobat and, as you’d expect, an accomplished swimmer. Wherever the Admiral found this wily, winsome, witty beast, I recommend he go back and find some more. For once, a show worth seeing. Three stars.’
The newspaper made the noise of a newspaper being folded away and stuffed in a nautical chap’s coat’s large pocket.
‘Three stars!’ the Admiral shouted. ‘That’s amazing, astonishing, wonderful! A show worth seeing! She said you were brilliant, Pescado, my shipmate. Oh, you were so right to come aboard when you did! I saw your talent straight off, didn’t I? Me old sea lion, me old first mate!’ A small burst of maniacal laughter from the Admiral. ‘I’ve got a nose for talent. Remember, I was there when they caught the great Cedric the Swordfish? Old Frank had him down for supper, but I made him a star!’ The Admiral’s voice fell so low, Fizz had to press his ear against the curtain to hear him. ‘. . . stupid fish. How could I know those eels were live? I’m not an electrician, am I? But Pescado, my dear boy, my lubber, my star! That’s all behind me now. You’ve put us back on the map. You’ve breathed new life into our salt-caked, salt-baked lungs. Go on, give us a kiss!’
There was a barking honk, which sounded like a reply.
It didn’t just sound like a reply, it sounded like Fish replying.
That must be who he’s talking to, Fizz thought. He’d wondered why he hadn’t heard anyone else saying anything. Like a Ringmaster, the Admiral was talking to his acts. Fish would be out there, and maybe Philip the otter, and the pool would probably be filled with all the fish artistes.
So, Fizz had the Admiral just where he wanted him, and Fish within his reach. He was fizzing with excitement. Now was the time to make his move, to put his brand new plan into action.
He was about to burst through the curtain, push the Admiral into the pool and shout for Fish to follow him, when a new voice appeared on the scene.
‘Ahoy there, Admiral! I’ve caught a burglar, sir! I’ve got him. Look! Look!’
‘What?’ shouted the salty fiend.
‘Over here, Admiral.’
‘Mrs Darling? Who’s that?’
‘It’s an intruder, sir. I pulled him out of the shark tank, just now. There was another one, but it got away.’
‘What is it?’
‘I think,’ she said, carefully, ‘it’s a boy.’
‘But, that thing on its face, it looks like . . .’
‘It’s a disguise, Admiral. I tried pulling it off, but it’s stuck on with glue.’
‘It’s not a disguise,’ Wystan’s voice snapped.
‘A bearded boy?’ Mrs Darling said. ‘Who’s ever heard of such a thing?’
‘Aha,’ said Admiral Spratt-Haddock, his voice cold. ‘I’ve heard of such a thing. I’ve heard of such a thing just recently. Where’d’ya find the furry fiend?’
‘I fished him out of the shark tank, sir. He’d fallen in whilst running away.’
‘The shark tank? Which one?’
‘Austrian blushing shark, sir.’
‘Nasty. You got him out whole?’
‘Yes sir. And I thought I’d best show him to you first, sir, before I phoned the police.’
‘Police?’ the Admiral said, slowly, rubbing his chin with his hook. ‘Methinks there’s no need for that. I can deal with this one meself. Just one little shrimp? And me an Admiral and all? Oh, you leave it to me, Mrs Darling.’ The Admiral chuckled wickedly.
‘Ahem. Two intruders, sir.’
‘Two intruders? Oh aye, you said. Another boy?’
‘I think it was a boy,’ Mrs Darling offered, ‘but I didn’t get a good look at him. This one’s playing dumb. They were scuttling around up in the gangways, looking to scoop themselves more of your fish, I’d say. I was too busy heaving this one out of the shark tank to see where the other got to.’
‘Well, Mrs Darling, you’d best get back to the search, and leave this dear little bearded urchin with me. And, Mrs Darling . . .’
‘Yes, Admiral?’
‘Lock them doors behind you.’
‘Aye aye, Admiral.’
As soon as Fizz heard the door on the other side of the pool swing shut, he put his earlier plan (which wasn’t much of a plan, but was all he had), now slightly modified to take account of the change in circumstances (push the Admiral in the pool, rescue Fish and Wystan, escape somehow), into action.
‘Arrgghhh!’ he shouted as he burst out through the curtain, pushing the surprised Admiral straight into the deep pool . . .
. . . except . . .
. . . the Admiral had moved and Fizz found he was pushing nothing, nothing but air, and the thing about pushing air is that air doesn’t push back, and so Fizz went flying, for the second time in ten minutes.
He fell, arms whirling like skinny featherless wings, straight into the next chapter.
Chapter Eleven
In which Fizz gets wet and in which an Admiral is questioned
Fizzlebert Stump fell.
Wystan Barboozul shouted.
And Admiral Spratt-Haddock lunged with his hook.
Fizz’s beautiful red Ringmaster’s coat caught on the steel spike, and he dangled for a moment in the air before he slipped out of the coat and fell again, this time straight down into the pool, crashing into the water with a flailing, panicked splash. His coat swayed forlornly from the Admiral’s hook.
Fizz, having neither a beard nor a swimming instructor to hand, suddenly remembered he couldn’t swim. (There was a shower in the caravan, but he avoided that as much as he could.)
The water was cold, shockingly so, and Fizz’s breath exploded out of his body (through his mouth) as he hit it. Under the water all he could see were bubbles, whirling round him. He didn’t know which way was up and which was down. He couldn’t tell if moving his arms or legs was having any effect, but he threw them about anyway, just in case.
He had the distinct feeling, in the pit of his stomach, that he was sinking. He was going down. After years of putting his head in a lion’s mouth, was this the way things would end? Drowning while attempting to push a pirate into a pool? He imagined what his mum would say: ‘Drowning in custard I understand, but water? Why didn’t he just drink it?’
Then he thought he could see light somewhere, and sparkles somewhere off beyond the bubble clouds, and then a sudden huge dark shape lunged at him.
Wystan had watched the scene unfold before him with an open mouth, although you might not have noticed that, unless you were looking really quite closely. (Mrs Darling had given him a towel to dry himself off, because she wasn’t an unfeeling security guard, and he’d rubbed his beard vigorously and now it was bushy and prickly and sticking out all over the place.)
He’d had time to look around the arena while the Admiral had been talking with his captor. He’d seen Fish lying fast asleep on the pool edge beside the Admiral, and he’d seen the dark shape that he knew was the beeping crocodile floating log-like in the water (and by ‘beeping crocodile’ I don’t mean ‘bad word that I’m not writing down crocodile’, I mean ‘crocodile that from time to time has been heard to beep’).
He’d watched Mrs Darling lock the door, leaving him in the arena with the Admiral, as she went off to continue the hunt for Fizzlebert, and then he’d turned to face the Admiral and gulped as the man had gestured with his metal hook. The big lights that illuminated the pool glinted wickedly off it and Wystan felt like the game was up. He’d looked around the stadium of seating he was stood in and saw no other exit beside the door they’d come in through, other than through the curtain at the back of the stage. He was cut off from the pool itself by a plastic screen, which stopped the audience getting wet during the more lively parts of the show. With his acrobatic prowess he cou
ld easily have jumped it, but the soft landing in the water didn’t appeal, not when he remembered those pink teeth opening before him. At the opposite end of the seats was a little metal gate that opened onto the pool-edge and it was towards that Admiral Spratt-Haddock was pointing. To Wystan’s mind he looked half angry and half delighted, a dark grin curving across his face, pointing his chin out even further, and then . . .
. . . then a shape burst out past the nautical man, flew through the curtains which flicked and waved like great red wings, and Wystan saw it was a flying Fizz.
‘Watch out!’ he shouted as his friend got caught, by accident it seemed, on the Admiral’s hook, and dangled for a moment before plunging straight down into the water. Admiral Spratt-Haddock wobbled on the edge himself, Fizz’s Ringmaster’s coat unbalancing him, but he stamped a boot, held out his other arm like a tightrope walker’s pole, and stood firm. He leaned over the water and peered down into the bubbles.
Wystan ran along the front row of chairs, towards the gate that led to the tiled area at the edge of the pool. He didn’t understand exactly what Fizz’s plan was, how diving in the water was meant to help them escape, but he reckoned getting closer to where Fizz was would be a good start. Get the boys together again, that had to be a step forward, yes?
When he had his hand on the gate he stopped, because something was happening in the water. He could make out the troubled surface, underneath which Fizz was trying to swim, and he could see a dark shape deep down hurtling towards him.
For a moment he couldn’t think what it was, then he heard a strange submerged bubbling beeping – beep beep beep, beep beep beep – and then he realised what had vanished silently from the surface of the pool. The log-shaped monster, that giant toothy antelope-snatching killer . . .
Then, there was Fizz on the surface of the water, but he was floating face down, his red hair plastered round his head and his arms weakly flapping. Wystan shouted his name as a great dark shape rose beside him, and shouted it again as those heavy jaws opened, water pouring off them.
The Boy Who Cried Fish Page 7