Circus of Thieves on the Rampage

by William Sutcliffe

  (Anyone who has read Circus of Thieves and the Raffle of Doom will know that this devious and malicious girl wasn’t in fact devious and malicious at all. She was Hannah, who was about as undevious and unmalicious as it is possible to be; but she was clever and resourceful, and when she’d joined forces with Billy, Armitage’s plot to rob Hannah’s town had fallen apart like a doll in the mouth of a Rottweiler.)

  You may remember that Armitage had run away, thinking a sack of his loot was safely stashed in a cunning hiding place. (A bush.) OK, not that cunning. But when he went back, disguised as a travelling fishmonger, to look under his top-secret bush, the loot was gone.

  Yes, gone!

  He had been diddled, and if there was one thing Armitage didn’t like6 it was being diddled.

  He needed that money back. And he needed revenge!7

  But revenge on who? Because that girl was just a girl and people who are just girls – and civilian girls at that – are in no way powerful or clever enough to diddle the great criminal mastermind, Armitage Shank. Not on your Nellie!

  On whose Nellie?

  Your Nellie.

  Whose?

  You! Out there! Holding this book!

  But I don’t have a Nellie.

  That’s not important right now.

  Who is Nellie, anyway?

  I don’t know.

  Is she an elephant?

  Stop arguing. We’re wasting time.

  Where were we? Oh, yes. Shank was thinking about that meddling, bothersome girl who had robbed him of his robbings. Somebody somewhere must have trained her and sent her to GET HIM! One of his enemies. The question was, which one?

  Armitage wasn’t sure.

  Some people collect coins, some people collect football stickers, some people collect vintage cars. Armitage collected enemies. So, in circumstances such as this, it was hard for him to figure out who had plotted against him.

  On his list of suspects, one name was at the top.8

  But, before I tell you who that was, I should explain the other thing that was bothering Armitage. It was a jeet he had read that morning.

  ‘A jeet?’ I hear you ask. ‘What is a jeet?’

  Ah, technophobes, the lot of you. All right, I’ll explain. Armitage loved gadgets, which was why he stole as many of them as he could. His favourite gadget was his mobile phone, and his favourite thing to do on his phone was to use an antisocial networking service called Jitter. Armitage’s phone buzzed and vibrated every time a new message – or jeet – was put up on his Jitter account. Each jeet told him what somebody he knew (or somebody he wanted to know) was either doing, or was about to do, or had just done, or what they thought, or what they thought other people thought, or what they thought of what other people thought about what they thought (are you still with me?). Every time Armitage’s phone buzzed, he read the jeet, usually tutted about how boring it was, then put the phone back in his pocket. He did this about seventy-nine times a minute. It was an unhealthy addiction.

  But one jeet which he had read that morning came from an old enemy of his. It was this jeet that shifted a particular enemy to the top of his list of suspects.

  The jeet was from the legendary, the one and only Queenie Bombazine, and it was quickly rejeeted by thousands of her followers. It was an announcement. An announcement that circus aficionados the world over had been waiting for. Queenie was making a comeback. She was putting on a show.

  This, Armitage concluded, was deeply suspicious. She was up to something. All those foolish rejeeters out there might have thought this was just happy news of a circus starlet re-emerging from a period of mysterious hiding, but Armitage had a powerful feeling there was more to Queenie’s re-emergence than that. She was out to GET HIM.9 Or, rather, to GET HIM BACK.

  Because Armitage and Queenie had A PAST.

  Armitage was determined to get to the BOTTOM of this mystery.10

  11

  Nose-clips on? Here we go, back into those gloomy, doomy, rheumy years known as Armitage’s Youth, when he was a young buck on the circus scene, untainted by cynicism, criminality, bad breath or grass stains on his favourite trousers. My, he was a fine specimen. Phwoooaaargh, what a hunk! He was just the cat’s pyjamas, the kitten’s mittens, the feline’s beeline. This is not the Armitage we know and loathe, not by any stretch of the meaningless, cat-based metaphor. For not only was he just about the handsomest being ever to be squeezed into a pair of skin-tight trousers, he was also different where it matters. In the heart.

  Back then, way back when phones were for phone calls and computers the size of a garage could just about do the three times table, Armitage had a delicate, fluttery heart, vulnerable to quite overwhelming pangs of love.

  Yes, he was still a macho ringmaster with a penchant for flamboyant moustachery, but his muscle-bound, show-offy body was wrapped round a pink, fluffy, vulnerable, palpitating little heart. And, back then, Queenie was in her pomp. (No, that’s not a make of car. It just means she was young and beautiful, and was in the process of becoming what she was destined to remain for the rest of her life: a star.)

  I’m going to leave out the gloopy, soppy bits, because once a book has been vomited on it is very difficult for the next reader to unstick the pages, so let’s just cut to the chase and say that Queenie and Armitage were in love. Handy-holdy, kissy-kissy, fainty-fainty, petal-scented, drippy-song-loving love. Beautiful, it was. Or nauseating. Depending on your viewpoint.

  But then, one fateful day, LOVE TURNED TO HATE!

  Why?

  Well, the trouble started on the day Queenie appeared on the cover of The Circus Times. Because even back then, when Armitage was much nicer than he is now, he was prone to bouts of poisonous jealousy.

  Until Queenie got on the cover of The Circus Times, Armitage had always thought he was the rising star, and his pretty young girlfriend was, well, an adornment. He was the Christmas tree, she was the bauble, so to speak. That’s how he thought of it. But, when she became a featured cover artiste, he began to realise that she wasn’t just a bauble. She was also the tinsel, the flashing lights, the chocolate coins, the dangly biscuits and – worst of all – the star on top. Yes, she was a star. He was just some foliage.

  From that moment on, his love withered. He remained Queenie’s boyfriend for a while longer, but he began to criticise, nark, niggle and snipe. She felt sorry for Armitage, not to mention a little guilty that it was her getting all the attention, so for a while she forgave him and politely tolerated the criticising, narking, niggling and sniping. But the day she caught him smearing suntan oil on her trapeze in an attempt to make her fall was the day her patience ran out.

  In an instant, her love for him came to an end, like a light switching off, or a train hitting the buffers, or a happy but absent-minded dog accidentally running off the edge of a cliff. In fact, their love didn’t just end, it transformed into its opposite.

  From that day forth, Armitage and Queenie were sworn enemies.

  Queenie left Shank’s Impossible Circus to start her own troupe. Not long after that, with audiences dwindling, Shank’s Impossible Circus ran into financial difficulties. And, not long after that, Armitage turned to crime.

  When he committed his first robbery, can you guess who the victim was? Yes, it was Queenie Bombazine. He cleared her out. Picked her clean. Did her over like a kipper.

  And you know what she did in return? She ambushed one of his shows, took the brakes off his medium-sized lorry,12 and pushed it into a pond.

  A few weeks later, Armitage sneaked into Queenie’s costume trailer, took all her costumes, washed them at 60 degrees, and put them all back again, shrunk. Ha!

  A month or so after this came the itching-powder-in-Armitage’s-stage-underpants debacle.

  When, later that year, Queenie temporarily lost her licence after a clown’s exploding cigar exploded ten times more violently than it should have done, setting light to the hair of a granny in the front row, she was in little doubt about who was to blam
e.

  You get the picture. Shank and Bombazine had been rivals and enemies for many, many years. So when Armitage heard that Queenie was making a comeback, and that this was taking place only a short while after his last show had been comprehensively sabotaged, he put these two facts together and came to a conclusion. Two conclusions, in fact. No, three.

  CONCLUSION ONE: Queenie Bombazine was to blame for everything.

  CONCLUSION TWO: It was time for revenge.

  CONCLUSION THREE: Not just ordinary revenge, but a rampage!

  Armitage leapt out of the shower (did I mention that he was in the shower? Possibly not. It wasn’t important until now) and rushed to Narcissus’s cage, where he knew he’d find Billy.

  ‘Billy! You’ll never guess what I’ve decided!’ he cried.

  ‘Why are you naked?’ replied Billy.

  ‘Oh, muffins,’ said Armitage. ‘I always get forgetful when I decide to go on the rampage.’

  ‘We’re going on the rampage?’

  ‘Stay there.’

  Armitage rushed back to his caravan, towelled himself dry, and put on his rampaging outfit. When it came to matters of rampage, Armitage had classic tastes. His rampage outfit was a beige safari suit (multi-pocketed, pleated back); safari shorts (beige, with turn-ups); white knee socks (leech-proof); desert boots (beige) and a pith helmet (beige).

  He reappeared in Narcissus’s cage, where he immediately blended in, what with Narcissus also being beige from head to toe.13

  ‘That’s . . .’

  ‘Yes! My rampage outfit! This time it’s just me and you. Despite your occasional outbreaks of civilian behaviour, you are still heir to the Shank Entertainment Empire, and I’ve decided that you’ve reached an age when it’s time you learned to rampage. Are you ready?’

  ‘Er . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘That wasn’t a question, it was a statement.’

  ‘You said, “Are you ready?” That’s definitely a question.’

  ‘Stop being cheeky. Do you know what happens to cheeky people?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO CHEEKY PEOPLE?’

  ‘Why are you shouting?’

  ‘Because you said “what?”’

  ‘I meant “what?” as in “what happens to cheeky people?”’

  ‘I don’t know. What does happen to cheeky people?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Billy. ‘You asked me.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look, we’re getting sidetracked,’ said Armitage, tightening the chinstrap on his pith helmet. ‘I’m telling you you’re old enough for a rampage. You are ready. Now go and get ready.’

  ‘You said I was already ready.’

  ‘Ready as in old enough. Now go and get ready as in changed.’

  ‘Into what?’

  ‘Something more rampagey. Something hard-wearing, quick-drying and suited to sudden changes in climate.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jeans and a T-shirt or something.’

  ‘What kind of a rampage are we going on?’

  ‘The best kind. A thieving rampage and a revenge rampage, rolled into one. I have a plan so devastatingly, demonically, deviously dastardly that if I told you what it was, it would probably melt your eardrums. We’re going to be rich. Rich, I say, rich. RICH! Hahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!’

  ‘I don’t get the joke.’

  ‘What joke?’

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘I wasn’t laughing, I was cackling. They’re very different. Now go and get changed.’

  Billy gave Narcissus a last handful of pellets and a quick slurp of taramasalata, then went to change his clothes. He was an obedient boy. Obedient, that is, when he wasn’t trying to get his stepfather caught by the police and locked up in jail for the rest of his life, which, let’s face it, doesn’t usually fall into the bracket of obedience.

  Part of him dreaded the idea of going off with his stepfather,14 just the two of them, without the rest of the circus troupe to dilute Armitage’s attentions. And why was Billy so reluctant to spend some quality time with his father-out-law? Well, mainly because Armitage was a revolting slug of a human being without any shred of decency, courtesy, morality, honesty, kindness, humour or humility. That more or less sums up the downside. But, on the other hand, Billy’s curiosity had been pricked by that word rampage. He didn’t quite know what Armitage meant, but it sounded interesting. It sounded like an adventure.

  Just as Billy was entering his caravan, pondering whether or not something exciting was about to happen on the trip that lay ahead, something exciting happened right there and then, in front of him.

  A man appeared. (OK, it doesn’t sound that exciting, but bear with me.)

  A man appeared out of the sky.

  ‘Implausible!’ you cry. ‘Men don’t appear out of skies.’

  All right, all right. A man seemed to appear out of the sky, when in fact he had jumped down from the roof of Billy’s caravan.

  This was no ordinary man, either. He was dressed in black and white stripes, with a chain around his ankle, and the words PROPERTY OF HM PRISON GRIMWOOD SCRUBS: IF YOU SEE ME WALKING AROUND OR JUMPING OFF THE ROOF OF CARAVANS, BEWARE BECAUSE I AM AN ESCAPED CONVICT written on his back.

  Billy, who was a perceptive chap, concluded that this was an escaped convict. If he’d been a screamy kind of person, it’s about now that Billy would have let rip with a right proper belter.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ said the escaped convict.

  If Billy had been the bedwetting sort, it’s at roughly this moment that he would have broken with nocturnal tradition and weed in his trousers.

  ‘I’m a friend of your father,’ said the man. ‘He was jailed for a crime he didn’t commit, and so was I. We’ve shared a cell for the last five years, keeping each other going by playing games of chess with carved toenail clippings. Your dad’s rubbish at chess, and that’s what kept me sane. He never beat me once. And he asked me to give you this!’

  From his pocket, the man pulled out a letter, on which were written two words that cured Billy instantly of his fear and made his heart dance a very small tango of delight. His name. Not Billy Shank, but a name he hadn’t heard for a long, long time. His real name. Billy Espadrille.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Billy.

  ‘I’m Magwitch Intertextuality McDickens. Your father talked about you all the time, except for when he was swearing about losing another game of chess. He loves you very, very, very much. If he wasn’t locked up, he would have come and got you ages ago. Read the letter. Though it might be a bit boring now, because I’ve told you most of what’s in it. Sorry. I have to go. Oh, wait, I forgot the best bit!’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘They’re letting your dad out this week! He’s going to come and get you.’

  ‘Really!? But how will he find me?’ Billy was trembling with excitement.

  ‘Same way I did.’

  ‘And how was that?’

  ‘I hid on top of your caravan,’ replied the convict, looking surprised that Billy had already forgotten.

  ‘But how did you find my caravan?’

  ‘Guesswork. Bye.’

  Then Magwitch Intertextuality McDickens was gone, leaving behind only the faint odour of unwashed feet and boiled cabbage.

  Billy hurried into his caravan and read the letter. It wasn’t even slightly boring, though it did say exactly what Magwitch Intertextuality McDickens had already told him, except with dodgy spelling and totally b’onk-er:s p,un?ctu/!!ation;. Ernesto Espadrille15 was almost as bad at punctuation as he was good at juggling.

  His father was coming to rescue him! This was the best news ever! Even better news than the day when a TV newsreader went loopy and announced that the government had decided to disband the army and spend all the money on free chocolate. Yes, news just didn’t get any better than this. Not ever.

  Except that Bill
y was about to set off on the rampage. So, even if Ernesto did guess the location of the caravan, Billy wouldn’t be there.

  And how would his father know where to look? Guesswork didn’t sound like a promising strategy, especially given that the whole point of Shank’s Impossible Circus was that nobody ever knew where they were, because there were so many people out to get them, not least every law-enforcement official in the entire country.

  So how had Magwitch McDickens found him?

  And how had he escaped?

  And why was he a convict?

  And there’s no way you can play toenail clipping chess every day for five years without even winning once, surely.

  Mystery upon mystery, baked into mystery cake, iced with mystery icing, decorated with mystery sweets and mystery candles, served on a mystery plate in a mystery room to mystery people in mystery masks blowing mystery party tooters and . . . can I stop with this yet?

  Granny becomes a double granny

  ‘GRANNY, GRANNY, GRANNY!’ yelled Hannah. ‘I’ve just been told the weirdest thing ever, but it doesn’t make any sense! I need you to explain.’

  It was no use. Hannah was too impatient. She would have to go round to Granny’s house before she started yelling for explanations.

  She ran there as fast as she could.

  ‘Granny, Granny, Granny!’ yelled Hannah. ‘I’ve just been told the weirdest thing ever, but it doesn’t make any sense! I need you to explain.’

  No, impatience was still getting the better of her. She had to ring the doorbell first.

  She rang the doorbell.

  Granny opened the door.

  ‘Granny, Granny, Granny!’ yelled Hannah. ‘I’ve just been told the weirdest thing ever, but it doesn’t make any sense! I need you to explain.’

  ‘Hang on a second, dear, I haven’t got my hearing aid in yet. Have a gobstopper.’

  Hannah took the gobstopper and a seat in the living room. Granny went upstairs (which took a while), looked for her hearing aid (which took another while), put it in (one while more), then came downstairs again (which was really fast, because she slid down the banister). She sat opposite Hannah, in a chair so densely covered in purple embroidered roses that it made your eyes hurt to look at it.