Chop-Chop, Mad Cap!

by Juliette Saumande

  Mr Fitzmarcel plucked the needle out of her ear and pointed it at her.

  ‘Gisella, what’s going on? Why did you want to stab me?’

  ‘I didn’t! Never!’ she swore.

  ‘But what about the blanket with that awful message in it? What is it anyway? A curse? A spell?’

  Gisella Mudrick shuffled sheepishly.

  ‘A wish,’ she breathed. ‘But I didn’t mean you.’

  ‘How many other Fitzmarcels do you know, lass?!’

  She went from purple to pink as Mad Cap answered thoughtfully, ‘Well, there’s your wife, for one.’

  The butcher faced her again. ‘What wife?’ he asked.

  He seemed genuinely puzzled. Could he possibly have forgotten the plumber woman who, at this very moment, was probably upstairs mixing up bacon and chicken nuggets?

  There was a silence. Mad Cap’s mind raced. Had the man killed poor Mrs Fitz? Could he have had time in the few minutes between Mad Cap’s encounter with a sheep in the cold-room and the moment she and Norbert had discovered the dancing pair? No, she decided, that was impossible.

  So, in that case, there was only one question: who was the woman in the shop, the one who called herself Mrs Fitzmarcel?

  Madgie braced herself and asked the question.

  ‘She doesn’t call herself Mrs Fitzmarcel,’ said Mr Fitzmarcel.

  ‘Everyone calls her Mrs Fitzmarcel,’ argued Norbert.

  ‘Do they?’ asked the butcher. ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed. But anyway, that’s not her name. She is in fact Miss Fitzmarcel. She’s my sister. I’m not married. But what she’s called is not very important. What I’d like to know is why would you want to kill my sister, Gisella?’

  ‘Your … sister?’ repeated the old woman, flabbergasted. ‘But I thought she was your …’

  The butcher scowled at her, but just then Mrs Mudrick spoke again.

  ‘Wobbly cow! So you’re single?’

  She dropped on one old knee with a plonk and said, ‘Clotworthy, I have loved thee ever since I clapped eyes on thee. Wilt thou marry me?’

  The butcher nearly swallowed the knitting needle, which he had been using as a toothpick. He coughed and spluttered and retched. Mrs Mudrick took this as a yes and kissed him ferociously. (She also kissed the needle, but she didn’t seem to mind.)

  Norbert and Madgie closed their eyes. They had seen enough for one day.

  And so, Mr Fitz and Mrs M got married and had loads of kids.

  Well, no, not quite. They didn’t get married straight away. First they kissed, and then they kissed again. And then when they stopped, Mr Fitzmarcel said he had loved Mrs Mudrick ever since he’d arrived in Barnaby Street a few weeks ago, but he had been too shy to tell her, and yes, of course, he loved darling little Sapphire too, and no, he didn’t mean it when he called her sausage meat. And so on and so forth, so that eventually Norbert had to clear his throat and ask them could they please help him and Mad Cap out of the doorway because he, for one, had to be at the audition for the panto in about five minutes.

  ‘Five minutes?! Chicken’s bladder! I’ve got to go too!’ cried the butcher.

  He ran around the room like a headless ham, pulling a jacket and dungarees on over his tutu.

  ‘You think they’ll recognise me?’ he asked his sweetheart anxiously.

  ‘Your own mother wouldn’t recognise you,’ she said, tugging at Mad Cap’s bunny arm. ‘And if they do, and they have a problem with it, they will have me to reckon with.’

  With another tug, Madgie and Norbert popped out of the doorway and were rolling on the floor.

  ‘So nobody wants to kill us any more?’ Mad Cap said in a loud whisper.

  ‘Shhh!’ hissed her friend as he picked himself up. ‘Don’t be giving them ideas!’

  ‘What do you mean kill you?’ asked the butcher. ‘Where did you get such a silly notion from?’

  ‘Silly?’ mused Mrs M. ‘It has some appeal … They know our secret now.’

  ‘But we didn’t this morning when you Morse coded your death threat over to us,’ Norbert pointed out.

  The blank looks on Mrs Mudrick’s and Mr Fitzmarcel’s faces were enough to tell him they had no idea what he was talking about. Madgie picked up on it too and started clicking her tongue to the rhythm of K-I-L-L-T-H-E-B-R-A-T-S, while Norbert translated letter by letter. Suddenly, the butcher’s feet sprang into motion, tapping exactly the dots and the dashes and soon the old biddy was knocking the knitting needle against a pipe in the exact same tempo.

  It was the Rent-a-Hero team’s turn to look baffled.

  ‘What was that about?’ asked Madgie when Mr Fitz finally stopped.

  ‘That,’ he said, wiping a sweaty brow, ‘was my very difficult and very amazing routine for the panto audition.’

  ‘And what is she doing banging that pipe?’ asked Norbert pointing at Mrs Mudrick.

  ‘I’m helping of course! Keeping the rhythm: Stomp flap [pause] back-flap [pause] tap stomp back-flap [pause] tap stomp back-flap. They’re the dance steps, you ignorant child.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s also KILL in Morse code,’ countered Norbert. ‘So you mean you weren’t signalling to us?’

  ‘No. But I wish we had been. Might have kept you away,’ muttered the woman. ‘I thought we were safe down here. I had no idea anybody could hear us.’

  Norbert put his genius brain to work. It took him less than a second to figure it out.

  ‘It’s the pipes,’ he said. ‘This one must run into our own basement – we’re only next door after all – and up through our kitchen and on to my bedroom. Fascinating …’

  It was certainly very interesting (well, sort of), but Madgie was getting all sweaty in her bunny costume and she really wanted to get back to the fresh air now.

  ‘Great!’ she concluded. ‘Now that we know you didn’t mean to kill us and you’re really lovely people, how about we leave you to it and go home?’

  The butcher didn’t seem convinced. ‘What will we do with them?’ he whispered to his sweetheart. The future real Mrs Fitzmarcel considered this.

  ‘Well, I’m sure they won’t tell anybody about what they’ve seen today, will they?’

  The Rent-a-Hero team shook their heads vigorously. Even if they did tell, Norbert thought, nobody would believe a word of it and they’d probably be sent to the madhouse straight away.

  ‘Because if they do,’ continued the old woman, ‘I’ll feed them to Sapphire.’

  Mad Cap looked horrified. Norbert looked even more horrified, because he had seen what that psycho cat had done to the innocent chicken breast.

  ‘Grand so,’ concluded Mr Fitzmarcel. ‘On we go. Does the bunny need a lift?’

  And so they all trooped out of the basement through Mrs Mudrick’s kitchen. She tutted at the sight of the scattered potatoes. She pressed a button marked ‘Spud Magnet’. All the potatoes began to buzz and zoom on the floor all the way to the trap-door.

  Norbert was impressed, but there was no time to marvel. They had to move on and he still had to put on the rabbit costume. Unless …

  Mad Cap still couldn’t believe it. But there she was, on stage, in front of a dozen good citizens of Barnaby Street. In a bunny suit.

  The mask made her nose itchy but she knew she couldn’t take it off. For one thing, she’d rather spend the weekend at her grandmother’s than be recognised doing an audition for a silly panto. Plus she had promised Norbert.

  It was a simple deal really. Norbert’s mum would think he was on stage and she would be happy. Norbert would never have to wear the stupid costume ever again – there was no way Madgie was going to get the role – and he would be happy. Madgie would look like an awful eejit, but no one would ever know and then, in exchange for all that, her friend would, at last, tell her the name he had found in Colm’s diary.

  Colm’s girlfriend’s name: this was the kind of thing a sister needed to know. It could come in very useful for blackmailing purposes.

  So on she tapped across
the wobbly stage, dancing along to the wobbly music and … into an open trap-door.

  ‘Jaaaaaaaaaaaanie!’ she shouted as she went through.

  The jury gave her a standing ovation.

  10

  MAD CAP FOREVER AND BEYOND!

  They say a rabbit’s foot brings good luck. Mad Cap didn’t know about that. If it hadn’t been for that rotten costume, she probably would never have broken her leg and she probably would never have spent the night in the hospital. But then again, she would never have gotten the role either.

  Not that she would take it, she thought, as she strapped herself into her wheelchair. She wouldn’t recover in time. Nope, Norbert would have to do it. And that had certainly never been part of any of his plans.

  She chuckled to herself while Mum installed the ramp to wheel her into the van and Colm locked the house. They were on their way to the hospital again. This time, to the maternity unit.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ called a voice acidic as vinegar.

  Madgie looked up to find Mrs Mudrick standing outside their gate. She was wearing her Sunday best and was carrying a bulging bag sporting the words ‘Fitzmarcel’s: Tender Loving Care for all Your Meat Needs’.

  ‘The butcher’s shop has reopened,’ the old woman announced rather needlessly.

  ‘Yes, we know,’ said Madgie’s mum politely.

  She couldn’t see why Mrs Mudrick (who didn’t like anybody but her cat and would only give you the wrong time of day) had stopped by their house for a chat.

  Has Mrs Mudrick become nice? Mad Cap wondered. It would be a miracle, but come to think of it, Madgie had seen far stranger things in the last forty-eight hours. If you could be a butcher and an amazing tap-dancer, if you could be a teenage rebel and a perfectionist chef with a filthy bedroom, if you could be a genius with a mission and a plan and still be a hero when the plan went out the window, well then, why couldn’t an old meanie turn all smiles and sweetness?

  Then again, as Madgie mulled over this transformation, she looked at the way Mrs M was wringing her hands and playing with her brand new ring, and she started to guess what all the politeness was about.

  ‘We’re engaged,’ Mrs Mudrick announced. ‘Clotworthy and I, I mean.’

  And then Madgie understood why she was here. This couldn’t be happening. Life was just a bit too full of surprises these days. She tried not to hear what came next. She tried to pretend it was all a nightmare. But Mrs M walked right up to her and (yuk!) ruffled her hair with her pointy nails and said, ‘We’ll be needing a bridesmaid.’

  ‘No way. Niet. Nein. Poo!’ Mad Cap shouted as Colm pushed her up the ramp and into the van. ‘I’ll never be a bridesmaid!’ she yelled as they closed the door on her.

  She started banging against the side of the van.

  By the time they got to the hospital, her fist was nearly as painful as her broken leg.

  ‘Madgie, stop!’ her mum shouted from the front seat. ‘We’ll talk about this after my appointment, OK? But don’t you think it would be an exciting mission for Mad Cap? It would take a hero to pull it off. And who else is going to do it?’

  Madgie said nothing. She knew better now than to sniff at a mission. But still, what could be exciting or heroic about wearing a stupid dress and getting her hair done all funny and stumbling around in little heels for an entire day?

  She grumbled quietly as she was wheeled out of the van, through the maternity wing and into the lift to the scans department. She grumbled still when Mum left her and Colm in the waiting room and disappeared with a couple of nurses.

  She only stopped grumbling when her brother took out a marker and started drawing on her cast.

  Since she’d got Norbert to sneak the diary back into Colm’s room the day before, Colm had been in a far better mood. He had even promised to cook her favourite dish tonight: popcorn soup.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ she asked, pointing at the cartoony creature on her shin.

  ‘She,’ Colm corrected her. ‘It’s you, you big eejit!’

  And so it was, kind of. It had a cape and a mask and rabbit ears, and was yelling ‘Mad Cap Forever and Beyond!’

  Madgie was chuffed. This was the best ad for Rent-a-Hero. Not for the first time, she felt a tweak of guilt about the whole diary thing. She was about to confess everything, but then she wasn’t sure a busy hospital corridor was the best place for it.

  After a few minutes Mrs Cappock came back, escorted by a man in scrubs whose name, according to his badge, was Ian.

  ‘So, what’s it going to be?’ Colm asked, pointing at his mum’s belly.

  Before Mrs Cappock could say anything, Ian answered: ‘You’re going to have a little brother!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Madgie asked.

  ‘Sure as eggs,’ Ian said to her. ‘I’m quite a pro, young man.’

  There was a moment of silence where the Cappock family all wondered if they should tell the nurse that Madgie was not, in fact, a ‘young man’. But then they all said at the same time, ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘We’ll keep it anyway.’

  ‘Life’s full of surprises.’

  As the van trundled up the avenue, Madgie imagined a gigantic toddler whirlwinding through her bedroom, making a mess of her homework and turning her origami circus into microscopic confetti while she scooted around like a headless rabbit shouting totally useless orders and putting up totally useless barricades. For a moment, Madgie felt just that: useless, hopeless, clueless.

  But then her eyes fell on the Mad Cap cartoon on her cast and she began to smile. There was no point worrying now. And when the little monster came along, Madgie would be ready. Or maybe she wouldn’t, but she knew she’d be fine. She’d stitch together a one, two, three plan like Norbert or she’d just improvise. But she would cope. She wasn’t a superhero for nothing.

  Madgie stretched in her wheelchair and closed her eyes. She said it again. Life’s full of surprises. And she felt really, really good about it.