The Adventures of Stunt Boy and His Amazing Wonder Dog Blindfold

by Lollie Barr

  About The Adventures of Stunt Boy and His Amazing Wonder Dog Blindfold

  HE’S A BOY WHO DOES STUNTS.

  Someone was out to get my dad.

  Everyone said it was an accident but I didn’t believe them, not even for a second . . . and Stunt Boy is going to prove it.

  With his amazing wonder dog Blindfold and his best friend Benny, Stunt Boy has to find out who is trying to sabotage their Stoked Stunt Circus and close it down forever!

  He’s got some very BIG suspicions already . . .

  Contents

  Cover

  About The Adventures of Stunt Boy and His Amazing Wonder Dog Blindfold

  Dedication

  1 I’m a Boy Who Does Stunts

  2 I Wish I Could Speak Dog

  3 Someone Tried to Kill My Dad!

  4 12 Year Olds Aren’t Allowed to Drive Cars

  5 A Dog Is Heavy When You Carry It in a Bag

  6 Runt Boy and Chunder Dog

  7 The Lion Didn’t Find It Funny

  8 It’s Your Circus War, Not Mine

  9 We Were Going to Jail

  10 I Hate Leotards and Capes!

  11 I Know How to Save Stoked

  12 You’re My Hero

  13 Someone Was Trying to Steal Our Circus

  14 He’s a Dog That Does Stunts

  15 Let There Be an Email from Caleb

  16 He’s a Superfreak with a Motorbike

  17 Kids Aren’t Dumb!

  18 Grease Monkeys Don’t Wear White

  19 Comfy on a Bed of Nails

  20 Inside-out Undies

  21 I Don’t Know Who to Trust

  22 Bears Don’t Waltz in the Wild

  23 It’s My Circus War, Not Yours

  24 Stunt Boy Is on the Loose

  25 Evil Death Breath

  26 I Was a Wanted Kid Criminal

  27 Foul-smelling Black Sock

  28 Danger Ahead

  29 What Any Kid Would Do

  30 Promise on Blindfold’s Life

  31 Not the Elephant’s Fault

  32 I’m a Hero

  33 Even Better Best Mates

  Acknowledgements

  About Lollie Barr

  Copyright page

  For my favourite male of the species,

  my nephew Narayan

  1

  I’m a boy who does stunts

  Someone was out to get my dad.

  Everyone said it was an accident but I didn’t believe them, not even for a second. How could he have been right on target, landed his motorbike with perfect precision and then lost control? Dad went right over the top of the handlebars, flying through the air before his out-of-control bike slammed into him doing untold damage, including three broken limbs and a serious head injury, even though he was wearing a helmet.

  I saw the whole thing with my very own eyes! I’d replayed it in my mind thousands of times, even though the memory made me feel physically sick, and it still didn’t make sense. The police were saying that they couldn’t find anything wrong with the bike and the accident was down to human error. Human error! As if! I know my dad is human but he’d never make an error that stupid on a trick he’d performed thousands and thousands of times. He’d been a professional stunt man his whole entire life!

  For the first seven days after the crash, it was touch and go as to whether Dad would live or die as he had to have two operations to stop his brain bleeding. It was beyond scary because I love my dad so much. I don’t have a mum as she died when I was just a baby, so if I didn’t have a dad, it would just be my sister Jem, Blindfold and me. We’d be orphans! I’d be sadder than I’d ever been in my whole life. Now Dad was in what his doctor called ‘a stable condition’ in an induced coma, which meant he was unconscious as the doctors had to wait for his brain to stop being so swollen to see if he’d be okay.

  Dad looked like a mutant alien mummy when we visited him in hospital this afternoon. A white bandage was wrapped around the top of his head seven times (I counted). His jaw was all blue from the bruising beneath the ventilator mask that was helping him breathe. The breath that escaped out of the mask was stinky, like garbage bins left out in the sun, but it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t clean his teeth.

  Jem and I spent all afternoon by his bedside, surrounded by all manner of medical equipment keeping him alive. My dog Blindfold was there but no one knew that as he was under the bed, playing dead in a black sports bag because dogs aren’t allowed in hospitals due to some stupid hygiene rule. I snuck him in anyway as he’s part of our family.

  Dad’s arms were covered in plaster and then swathed in bright blue tape, the same colour as the sky. His right leg was hoisted in the air by a series of pulleys. I started examining the machine that controlled the hoist. The doctors moved the hoist up and down like they were operating a crane. I like knowing how things work so I looked at it really closely.

  ‘Stunt Boy!’ said Jem in a bossy sister voice. ‘Don’t touch!’

  With Dad in hospital for weeks, Jem had decided she was the boss and that I had to do everything she said because she was sixteen and I was twelve.

  Jem acted like I didn’t know how to wipe my own bum. Dad knew she could be bossy as all hell and he’d say to her, ‘Honey, I know you’re only trying to be helpful but can you try to stop saying “don’t” at the start of every sentence you say to Stunt?’ She’d stop for like an hour and then start again. ‘Don’t you have an assignment due?’ or ‘Don’t you have a sense of smell, because your bedroom stinks like you’ve got a dead rat under your bed, Stunt Boy?’

  Oh, that’s me – Stunt Boy. My real name is William John Stoked, but I get called Stunt Boy because I’m a boy who does stunts. I’m not bragging, but I do heaps of circus tricks – acrobatics, tightrope walking, escapology (that’s straightjacket escapes), trapeze, pole climbing – but what I’m most famous for is doing tricks, jumps and air gymnastics on my motorbike. That’s why I get called Stunt Boy, or just Stunt. I forget my name is actually William. People say, ‘Hey, Stunt!’ and I just say ‘Hey!’ back. When I sign an autograph or a birthday card I write Stunt Boy. Even my teachers call me Stunt.

  I was on a bike before I could walk. I can’t remember it, but Dad tells me I wasn’t even twelve months old. He got me a bike with no peddles, where my feet could touch the ground, and apparently I’d just scoot along. I was riding a proper bike by the time I was eighteen months old. My dad says that I wobbled around for a bit then I was away, and I’ve never stopped since.

  Although Blindfold is a stunt dog, he doesn’t get called Stunt Dog like I get called Stunt Boy. He just gets called Blindfold. You couldn’t shorten his name to Blind, otherwise people would think he was a guide dog.

  Dad reckons stunts are in our blood. If you’re really old, you might know my granddad, John Stoked? He was a legend. He started Stoked Stunt Circus – that’s us. While stunts are in our blood, they aren’t in my uncles’ blood. They’d decided after a childhood of being blown from cannons, catapulted through the air and set on fire, that the safe life was for them. They’d moved across the country to safe suburbs, got safe jobs and had safe children, who had to stay indoors at all times, unless accompanied by an adult. I met my cousins six years ago. They’d never be allowed to do the stunts that I did, but they are allowed to play computer games and have pretend adventures.

  We’re not a regular old-fashioned circus, with elephants, lions, clowns
and stuff. Chesterley’s Family Circus on the other side of town is that kind of circus.

  Barry Chesterley hates our circus. He calls us ‘the freak show’. Dad says we’re a human circus, because we’ve got stunt riders, sword swallowers, trapeze artists, tightrope walkers, contortionists, fire breathers, jugglers, strong men, bearded ladies, ladder climbers, all kinds of crazy stuff.

  ‘Stunt, seriously, get away from that hoist!’ said Jem, getting antsy, again. ‘I don’t want to have to tell you –’

  ‘I’m not doing anything, okay!’ I replied interrupting her. ‘I was just looking to see how it works.’

  I moved to the end of the bed to get her off my back. The only thing that wasn’t broken was Dad’s left leg, which looked oddly out of place lying against the blue blanket, a green and black-checked slipper on his foot. Dad always said pain was part of the job of being a stunt man. I know because I’m a stunt kid. I’ve been pretty lucky, the worse I’ve had was a broken arm. Dad has had heaps of injuries in his career.

  Every scar told a story. Sometimes in the mornings when I’d jump into bed with him for a cuddle, I’d trace the scars on his body, stopping on my favourite.

  ‘What about this one, Dad?’ I’d say, tracing my finger along a scar that looked like a train track stretching from beneath his elbow all the way to his armpit, although I knew exactly what had happened.

  ‘I call that my Hollywood elbow,’ he’d say for the four-hundredth time, before telling me about the time he jumped twenty cars on a Harley-Davidson XR750 for a big Hollywood film. Dad’s back wheel touched the nineteenth car and sent him spiralling into the crash bags, smashing his entire elbow joint.

  I loved those mornings cuddled up in his bed hearing stories from the days before I was even born, but now my dad was lying all smashed up in a hospital bed. And it was summer holidays and everything! It’s usually my favourite time of the year, because I don’t have to go to school for a whole two months. Normally, we’d be touring up and down the country. ‘Runs’ Dad called them. We’d head off in a convoy of caravans, a truck following with our big top, ramps, bikes, rigging and the wheel of death. But we weren’t going anywhere while Dad was in a coma.

  A nurse in a blue uniform came in and picked up the chart hanging at the end of Dad’s bed. I’d tried to read it once or twice, but the writing was like mine when I was in kindergarten. If doctors are so smart, why do they write like they’re six years old?

  ‘I’m really sorry, kids, but it’s time to go,’ the nurse said, compassionately. She ruffled my hair, so the tops of her arms wobbled. ‘Visiting hours are over.’

  I hated leaving Dad lying there in a hospital bed with no one to keep him company or talk to him.

  ‘Bye, Dad, I love you,’ I said, bending down to kiss his forehead, my chin quivering. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll find out who did this to you. I promise!’

  I knew he’d heard me because I saw the muscle in his left cheek move slightly, as if he was trying to wink at me. That was our special code. Just before I was about to make a big jump, Dad would wink at me. That was how I knew everything was going to be all right. Only this time I wasn’t so sure.

  P.S. My dad’s career injuries:

  Two lost teeth; cauliflower ear; burnt bum and twisted testicle; four broken arms and three broken legs; a torn right nipple; a spike through his left flank; a cracked skull and lots of bruises, strains and aches.

  2

  I wish I could speak dog

  The next morning, I woke up to Benny trying to suffocate me with my pillow. Blindfold was joining in. He didn’t mind Benny suffocating me because he knows Benny is friend not foe. Best friend, actually.

  He’d wrestle me all day if he could. Benny loves freestyle wrestling. Not the wrestling with guys in dumb costumes, with made-up names like the Human Hurricane Tornado, who pretend to beat each other up. Benny likes the proper wrestling where you can win medals at the Olympics. That’s Benny’s dream. Right now, he’s in training for the State championships. If he wins, he’ll go to the Nationals. He really wants to go to the Nationals because then he’ll get the fanciest tracksuit ever! Benny loves wearing tracksuits. He wears them all the time. The only time you don’t see Benny wearing a tracksuit is when he is in his wrestling trunks, his school uniform or in his pyjamas.

  ‘Get off me, Benny,’ I said, pushing the pillow away and trying to break free. But Benny’s track-suited bulk was pinning me down. He’s much bigger than me. It’s like he’s sixteen in the body, but twelve in the brain. Whereas I’m sixteen in the brain and maybe eleven in the body, even though I’m twelve. So I breathed stinky morning breath right in his face.

  I don’t know if ‘Death Breath’ is an official wrestling manoeuvre, but it got Benny off me quick smart. As he jumped up off the bed I saw the words Stunt Boy! Stay fearless! Caleb Calloway. It was how I woke up every morning – to the sight of my personally autographed poster of my hero Caleb Calloway, the seventeen-year-old freestyle motocross rider. He signed it when I met him last year.

  ‘Eugh! Stunt!’ said Benny, waving the smell away. ‘That’s disgusting! Did you eat Blindfold’s dog food for breakfast?’

  I suddenly realised I was starving, which was hardly surprising because it was nearly eleven o’clock. It was Sunday, so I could sleep in, but I was surprised that I’d slept so long. However, I hadn’t been sleeping well since my dad’s accident. My mind had been waking me up in the night, worrying me about stuff. I’d tell it to go back to sleep but it always wanted to talk to me, especially at two in the morning.

  Despite having already had scrambled tofu on toast plus four Weet-Bix, Benny said he was starving too. He’s always hungry because he trains so much, but he’ll only eat food that is healthy because he wants to be a professional athlete and he’s also a vegan. It’s no big deal – he just doesn’t eat meat or any animal products. Kids tease him at school and call him stuff like ‘Veganosaurus Rex’ because he’s so big and eats vegetables. Benny says it’s the most stupid nickname ever because the T-Rex was a carnivore. I’ve never seen him break, not even at Easter when kids like me are stuffing their faces with chocolate eggs. He loves animals so much that he doesn’t eat Easter eggs unless they’re carob, which is like a vegan chocolate.

  We helped ourselves to some muesli, strawberries and blueberries and stepped out into the sunshine and onto the wooden deck that surrounds our caravan. Did I already mention that I live in a caravan? Not caravans like nans and granddads have parked in their driveways for holidays; more like a huge trailer with three bedrooms, a lounge room and a kitchen.

  I’ve never lived anywhere that doesn’t have wheels. Why don’t all houses have wheels? That way you can drive off and go wherever you like and not have to worry about packing up all your stuff. I take my bedroom with me wherever I go, instead of having to fit everything into one suitcase.

  Benny and I stood with our bowls in our hands, eating our breakfast and looking out over Stoked Stunt Circus. We live on a small hill right at the back of the circus. The view is amazing. You can see the red, orange and gold flags flapping in the wind near the entrance; the double-domed, red-and-yellow-striped big-top tent, the words Stoked Stunt Circus swaying in the breeze between the domes; the hot-dog stand with the giant hot-dog man in a cape on the roof, sideshow alley, the practice jumps, the outdoor trapeze, and the performers’ campground with its caravans, teepees and wagons nestled within the trees.

  This morning the place was eerily quiet, as if the life force had been sucked out of it. And not because it was a Sunday. Stoked has been dead the whole month since Dad’s accident. It had been in all the newspapers and on TV. Instead of feeling sorry for Dad, some people had got really angry, saying it was a ‘health and safety issue’ and that kids like Jem and me shouldn’t be risking our lives doing mad stunts.

  Other people had said Stoked was a bad influence and children should not be exposed to humans with ta
ttoos and piercings, ladies with beards, people swallowing knives or hanging from hooks in their backs or eating fire. They said kids should be focusing on their schoolwork and other wholesome activities, not the weirdoes at Stoked. We’re not weirdoes. We’re circus folk. There is a difference.

  Last week I’d overheard our front-of-house manager, Ginger Styles, saying to Leonie, (who is in charge of our aerials team, which is stuff like silks, rope, static trapeze and flying trapeze) that ‘the bad press was killing us’, it was just another thing to worry about. You can see why my mind was freaking out in the middle of the night.

  ‘How’s your dad?’ asked Benny, like he was reading my mind. Having Benny is like having a brother – we always know what is going on in each other’s brains.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it, okay?’ I said, because I would only get even sadder than I already was, so I put a lid on it and walked over to the other side of the deck and placed my bowl down on a shiny blue table.

  ‘Don’t!’ said an annoyed voice. ‘Get that off me now, Stunt Boy!’

  No, it wasn’t a talking table but my sister Jem hanging out in a backbend. She is super flexible. It’s as if she was born without bones. She’s a contortionist, which means she can bend her body into the weirdest shapes. Sometimes I feel sick watching her. I wish her name was Wendy, then we could call her Bendy Wendy, but it’s not, it’s Jemima, so we call her Jem. Although sometimes Dad calls her Jemima when she’s in trouble, which isn’t very often.

  Jem also does trapeze and silks. She can twirl up to a hundred and twelve hoops at the same time. The world record is a hundred and thirty-two, which she says she’ll break one day. The media got all fired up about Jem’s ‘Hula Hoops of Fire’ act, where she wears fire-retardant clothing and is set alight while hula-hooping. The headline in the newspaper read, A very hot teen and then they said it was scandalous that kids were allowed to set themselves on fire and it might encourage other kids to set themselves on fire, too. You’d have to be an idiot because you’d burn your skin off! Why do people think kids are idiots?