Fizzlebert Stump and the Girl Who Lifted Quite Heavy Things

by A. F. Harrold

  ‘Flerrajin,’ said Fizz, muttering it in just the same way Alice had the first time she’d mentioned the act.

  ‘Flerrajin?’ his dad asked.

  He pulled the timetable out of the inside pocket of his Strongman’s leopard-skin and gave it a look. Then he turned it the right way up and gave it another look.

  ‘Botanic Act,’ he read. ‘Botanic?’

  ‘It means flowers,’ Fizz said.

  ‘I knew that,’ his dad replied, mock-snappily. ‘I may have muscles, Fizz, but I’ve also got a . . . Oh, what’s it called? You know, that grey thing? Spongy? You keep it in your head. Um. . .’

  ‘Brain?’ Fizz offered.

  ‘That’s it. I do have a brain as well as all this brawn, Fizz. I know what Botanic means.’ He thought for a moment, setting that brain of his to work. ‘It’s been years since I’ve seen a Flower Arranging act. It’s an old one, a rare one that. Not a lot of people have the skill. What’s her name, son? Maybe she’s from one of the old-time families, handing down classic acts, forgotten acts, keeping them alive.’

  ‘Alice,’ Fizz said. ‘Alice Crudge.’

  ‘Crudge!’ his dad shouted. ‘She’s a Crudge!?’

  Fizz was startled with his father’s reaction. It was unexpectedly excited. (When Strongmen get excited it’s important to keep things like glasses and biscuits and carrots (for example) out of their hands, because they tend to break things with over- enthusiastic involuntary squeezing. (Maybe we can have a bit of audience participation with the book at this point. (Not every book has audience participation, and I think there’s probably a reason for that.) Please take a moment to imagine to yourself, or to discuss with a friend, some other examples of things an excited Strongman or Strongwoman should be kept away from. I bet you come up with some really funny ideas. If you think your ideas are even better and funnier than mine then please don’t hesitate to write them down on a postcard and send them in to one of those competitions they have on Blue Peter or other popular television shows. Do not send them to me.))

  ‘What is it, Dad?’ Fizz asked, looking around to make sure there weren’t any glasses or biscuits or carrots to hand. (There weren’t.)

  ‘Avuncular Crudge was the greatest Strongman I ever saw,’ his dad said, calming down a little. (There was a tiny trickle of steam coming from one ear, but other than that . . .) ‘He retired twenty years ago, I was only a lad when I saw him, but he was amazing. I had his poster on my bedroom wall. He could lift the back end of an elephant. I’ll show you his autograph when you come home. It’s the only one I ever collected, that and your mother’s. And you know his . . . ?’

  ‘Granddaughter, I guess,’ Fizz said. He remembered Alice saying something about her grandad being a Strongman. He’d believed her, of course, but hadn’t imagined he’d been such a famous Strongman, not when she was trudging around with a cicrus like Neil Coward’s. Something must have gone wrong for the Crudges since Grandpa Avuncular’s day.

  ‘Oh, I’d love to meet her, Fizz. I bet she knows some stories. Why don’t you invite her round for tea or something?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Fizz said. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to share his new friend with his parents quite yet. ‘Say “Big butterfingers” to Mum for me, will you?’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ said Mr Stump, remembering he was meant to be going off to congratulate the clowns. ‘See you later, Fizz.’

  The lights dimmed around the Big Top. A spotlight lit up a spot in the ring. And there was Alice.

  Dressed in sequins, and with a botanical headdress made of bright green plastic leaves, it took Fizz a moment to recognise her. She looked so funny.

  From behind her back she whipped an untidy bunch of flowers. (I don’t know much about flowers and neither did Fizz, so the descriptions in this bit of the book aren’t going to be brilliant, I’m afraid. Do you remember the trouble I had describing fish in the last book? Well, it’s that all over again.) With a flutter of her hands she started whizzing the untidy flowers about.

  This flower went there, that one moved round there. This one was turned to face forward, that one was shifted at a subtle angle to the left. This one was dead-headed, that one was thrown away. It was as if someone had given her a floral Rubik’s cube and she was rushing to solve it in the prettiest, most elegant manner (not just one colour on each side, but patterns of complementary and contrasting colours).

  When her hands had settled down, even Fizz could tell that the arrangement was better than it had been before. It looked neater, tidier, you could even say prettier. To anyone with the slightest artistic sense, the new arrangement was, in fact, a significant improvement.

  But, Fizz asked himself, is this really a circus act?

  She put the fresh arrangement down on a little table that had appeared by her side and she turned to look the other way. There was a pause. The audience were silent in anticipation (also in not-being-there).

  Then, from out of the darkness, flowers began to fly at her one at a time. She caught them and plunged them into a vase that was stood atop a second table. As each different flower arrived in her hand, she added it to the growing display, almost, it seemed, without thinking. But there was evident skill on display, because with each new bloom she added, the flower arrangement grew more impressive, more beautiful, more magnificent.

  Her sequins glittered as she turned and twisted, as she caught and arranged. They sparkled. They twinkled. Her flowery headdress moved sinuously with each movement, like a gaily coloured feathered snake down her back. (Fizz had read a book about how the Aztecs had worshipped a feathered snake called Quetzalcoatl. He had promised himself that if he ever got a pet that was the name he’d give it. It’s a good name. (It’s also a tricky name to spell, especially if you’re typing quite quickly like I am, which explains why Fizz will never get a pet while I’m the one writing his stories.))

  Fizz, though not entirely won over by the flowers, had to admit there was something entrancing about this show. Almost hypnotic. He’d have to ask Dr Surprise about it. Could you hypnotise someone with sequins?

  And then, just as Alice held the completed vaseful of flowers above her head (it was brimful and tight-packed and as colourful as a vaseful of flowers can be (and neat as well)) something happened.

  Something dreadful.

  Something embarrassing.

  Something shocking.

  From somewhere, somewhere out in the darkness, a currant bun bounced off Alice Crudge’s head and rolled to a stop on the ground.

  Fortunately she wasn’t hurt, partly because of the Strongman blood that flowed in her veins, the blood that gave her the strength to lift a full-grown sea lion without breaking a sweat, and partly because currant buns don’t hurt (unless they’re very stale indeed, which this one wasn’t).

  The currant bun was not, in and of itself, the dreadful thing I mentioned above. The currant bun was merely the prelude to possibly the most impressive, audacious bit of circus sabotage that occurred the whole of that week. The bun was the lit fuse to what was about to happen and there was nothing anyone could do but stand back and watch.

  Sea lions love fish. They can sniff them out from up to one and a half miles away, if the wind’s blowing in the right direction. They’ll flollop, as we well know, and gobble any loose fish they can find, never mind what’s in the way.

  Bears can smell honey from almost as far, maybe a mile and a third. They’ll track down a hidden store of honeycomb and gorge themselves until they fall asleep with sticky patches all round their mouths and bees buzzing in their dreams.

  A clown can sense custard (possibly they smell it, although scientists have suggested some other new, previously unknown sense might be at work here, since clown’s noses aren’t actually real noses) from as far away as (maybe) six or seven yards. Unless restrained they will run towards it, trip over and make a mess.

  None of these animals are attracted by currant buns. There is only one animal in the whole of nature whose though
ts turn to currant buns in the autumn and it just happened that one of these impressive, majestic beasts travelled with the Franklin, Franklin, Franklin & Daughter circus. (It didn’t do an act itself, it just liked some of the guys on the crew and followed the circus around. But no one, not even Mrs Franklin herself, could think of a way to turn this circus guest away.)

  And so it was that Alice Crudge, Bold and Talented Flower Arranger Extraordinaire, found herself being lifted up and set aside, placed gently, if rudely, out of the way of the currant bun, by a long curling, grey and bristled snake that twisted down out of the darkness behind her.

  At least that’s what Fizz’s first thought was, but then he corrected himself. He wasn’t stupid, that was no snake. It was an . . .

  And the person operating the spotlight obviously thought the same thing and turned the knob which widened the arc of the light. No longer was there a tight bright circle focused on Alice and her flower-covered tables: there was now a wide pool of light that held within its eye not only Alice, her tables, her flowers and a currant bun on the floor, but also the front end of an elephant: trunk, tusks, high grey forehead, big flappy ears – an elephant.

  Alice was furious.

  The elephant ignored her stamping. It picked up, delicately with the tip of its trunk, the currant bun and popped it back into the darkness of its half-hidden mouth.

  Its little black eye was looking around for more buns.

  The thing about an elephant is (and you don’t need to be an expert to know this) one currant bun does not make a whole meal. It doesn’t even make a snack. To an elephant a currant bun is about the size of a small mint, maybe half a humbug. When an elephant has finished one they almost always want another one.

  Fizz realised the elephant was looking around, this way and that, for a second bun. That little black eye was twirling, the nostril end of the trunk was waving around, sniffing up great gouts of Big Top air, searching for where the next mini-snack might be.

  And then it lifted a whole flower arrangement out of its vase and stuffed it into its mouth. The flowers aren’t currant buns, it seemed to be saying with its small sad eyes, but they are vegetables of some sort or another, and we elephants are vegetarians: we like vegetables of all sorts, but we like currant buns more.

  Alice wouldn’t stand for this any longer. She pulled her headdress off and stomped over, fearlessly, in front of the elephant.

  ‘Look,’ she shouted. ‘Those are my flowers and you’re ruining the show. If you don’t leave right now I’ll have to make you leave. I’m not kidding!’

  She was waving her fist at the elephant to emphasise her point and pointing back towards the Big Top entrance where the elephant had come from. She wasn’t sure the elephant understood English, but she reckoned the thing would surely understand such basic sign language.

  The elephant showed no sign of understanding or moving.

  It picked her up in its trunk and set her aside a second time.

  Nobody set aside Alice Crudge twice.

  She was fuming now.

  Fizz was worried, partly for Alice, and partly for the elephant. He knew that a Strongman’s powers were only increased by this sort of thing. His dad very rarely got angry, but once when the telly had broken just before the end of a whodunit he’d been enthralled in for the last hour and a half, he had gone outside, picked up the caravan and said several rude words. (He had then put it down, come back in, apologised to Fizzlebert and his mum, sat at the little table and wrote a letter to the television manufacturer complaining about their shoddy production values and another one to the BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation, not the British Board of Circuses) asking whohaddunit it in the whodunit.)

  Fizz wanted to run down into the ring and rescue her, to push the elephant aside and sweep her to safety. But he was afraid she’d be even more upset by him running into the middle of it, as if she couldn’t handle a little hiccough like this on her own, as if she needed a boy to ride to the rescue. From the little time he’d spent with her Fizz had the strong impression that she was happier being a rescuer rather than a rescue-ee.

  Nevertheless, Fizz slowly made his way down through the rows of empty chairs to the ringside, ready to offer help if she asked for it.

  But by the time he got there it was all over.

  Alice Crudge, set aside for the second time in five minutes, walked up to the hungry elephant, still sniffing for buns, and put her hands around the cool rough grey trunk. When she was happy with her grip she looked the elephant square in the face, braced her legs, leant back and began to pull.

  ‘Come on,’ she said.

  Her muscles rippled. Sequins flew off her outfit, landing twinkling, twirling in the dust.

  She tugged and the elephant tugged back.

  It snurfed, a big breath that sent dust clouds up in the air. It rumbled an unhappy noise that shook deep inside Fizz’s stomach, rattling his bones.

  This wasn’t a happy elephant, but then again, this wasn’t a happy girl.

  She heaved and pulled and turned around so she was facing away from the mighty beast. She had the trunk over her shoulder, like a fisherman might have the rope of his boat as he hauled it ashore, and she began walking.

  The elephant stood its ground.

  Alice dug in her feet, leant forward and heaved.

  Fizz was sure he saw the elephant’s trunk begin to stretch, like elastic. He half-believed he was going to see it twang back and send Alice flying, but he’d read enough books about elephants to know that that wouldn’t happen (he’d read one book). An elephant’s trunk is not made of elastic. It’s made of nose.

  Where the nose goes, the rest follows, as the old saying I also just made up has it.

  And so, with heaving breaths and bulging biceps, Alice kept on. Foot after foot she plodded through the sawdust of the ring. And the elephant, trying to pull itself away from this tight grip, began to slide.

  Alice Crudge was pulling an elephant!

  ‘Come on!’ she shouted. ‘Get out of my show!’

  The elephant, presumably with a sore nose, gave in, gave up and began walking after her. It was better than being dragged through the sawdust. It was more dignified, and elephants are big on dignity (they’re big on most things, but dignity is near the top: an embarrassed elephant is something to behold, they blush all over).

  Alice had won!

  Alice had tug-o-warred an elephant and won.

  Fizz was excited for her. He thought this was one of the most brilliant things he’d ever seen. He just knew he’d never be able to put on a display like that. He was strong, sure, but this was way out of his league. She was so impressive. Just wait until his dad heard about it.

  He looked over at the judging table, where Mr Gomez and Wystan’s amnesiac mum and dad were sat. He expected to see wonder on their faces, but instead Mr Gomez had a big frown.

  Fizz edged closer and overheard him loudly saying, ‘But it’s not botany! If she’d said it was an animal show, maybe . . . But this isn’t Flower Arranging as I know it. Zero points.’

  And in the ring something else was happening.

  Alice had let go of the elephant and it was busy wandering away from her, out into the sunshine, where there might be more chance of finding another currant bun. She slapped its bum as it went by.

  With a bead of sweat on her brow and her sequins scattered she looked like a real Strongman. But then a man came running into the ring, passing the retreating elephant with barely a glance. Fizz recognised him as her father, who he’d met once before, in a similar circumstance.

  ‘Young lady,’ her dad was shouting. ‘What have you done!? Your costume!? Your flowers!?’

  ‘Dad,’ she said, trying to explain.

  ‘You’ve ruined everything,’ he said, not getting any quieter, even though he was closer to her now. ‘Everything your mother and I have worked for. The years of training, for this! What were you thinking? An elephant, darling? An elephant! How did you think that was going
to work? And look at your costume. It’s ruined. It took me hours to sew those sequins. What am I . . .’

  And so on.

  Fizz felt so sorry for Alice, as she followed her dad out of the tent.

  ‘But it wasn’t me,’ she was saying. ‘There was a currant bun . . .’

  And Fizz reckoned he knew just where that currant bun had come from. It had been dark when it had been thrown, so he couldn’t be sure, but who else would have thrown it? Who else had a personal grudge against poor little harmless Alice? Who had she punched on Fizz’s behalf? Whose ego had she bruised? It was so obvious that it would’ve been dreadfully disappointing had this book been a whodunit, which, fortunately, it isn’t. (Cedric definitely did it.)

  Wystan was right, Fizz suddenly thought. Cedric Greene didn’t just need beating in the competition, but he also needed a long slow slurp of his own medicine. He needed bringing down a peg or two. He needed a good dose of revenge, and Fizz was just the boy to give it to him.

  With that thought he made his way out of the Big Top and began looking for his friends, leaving the three sets of dancing dogs to dance without him.

  izz looked for Wystan at dinner that evening, but he wasn’t around. This was odd, because the bearded boy liked food (he liked it so much he usually kept some in his beard for later. There was a time when he wouldn’t eat with other people because of this habit (when the prim and proper Lady Barboozul was in charge), but nowadays people had just to take him as he was.).

  Fizz scraped his leftovers into the bin, added his plate to Cook’s washing-up pile and went off in search of his acrobatic accomplice.

  The first place he went to search was at Miss Tremble’s caravan. It wasn’t a very long search. As Fizz walked towards the caravan he saw a beard and a boy walking (together) towards it from the opposite direction.

  When they got closer Wystan said, ‘Hello,’ in his usual grumpy voice.

  ‘Hi, Wystan. I missed you at dinner,’ said Fizz. He then paused for a moment and looked his friend up and down. ‘Wystan,’ he said. ‘Why are you dressed like a baby?’