by Justin D'Ath
Got to keep walking, he thought. Got to eat.
Fifty metres before the traffic lights on the corner, the school fence morphed into a high stone wall. Like the fence, it was unclimbable, but Colt knew there had to be another gate somewhere. He just had to keep going and he’d find it.
He was right. Just around the corner was the school’s main entrance. Colt staggered beneath the big, stone arch that framed the gateway. He found himself in a shadowy forecourt. There were palm trees, flowerbeds and a raised pond with a tinkling fountain. To his right was a paved parking area. Ahead, a concrete staircase led up to a huge stone building with columns, turrets and deep, dark verandahs. It really did look like a castle. Lights shone from two lower-floor windows, but the rest was in darkness. An illuminated sign told all visitors to report to the front office.
Colt ignored it. He followed his nose around the side of the building. The magnetic smell of pizza led him shuffling along a brick-paved path. It was lined with flowerbeds and low, overhanging trees with garden seats beneath them. He came to what looked like a chapel. There were lights on inside. The pizza smell brought on a fresh flow of saliva. There were other smells, too. Pies. Soy sausages. Cake. Colt licked his lips. He zigzagged through a big rose garden, crossed a narrow strip of lawn, and stood up on tiptoes to peer in through a window.
It wasn’t a chapel, it was a dining hall. Nobody was inside, but it was all set up for a party. Balloons and streamers hung from wooden rafters. Bowls of potato chips, cheese rings and Smarties were laid out on two long rows of tables.
At the far end was a food counter. There were three drink dispensers with towers of plastic cups, and a line of misted-up food warmers. Colt’s eyes locked on the foggy glass. Even from outside the closed window, his supersensitive nose told him what was in the warmers: pizzas, hot pastries and sausages of some kind.
He had to get inside.
Creeping round to the front of the building, Colt cracked open the door and peered in. There was definitely nobody home. The food smell was hypnotic. It was overpowering. It was heavenly.
Like an athlete finishing a marathon, Colt staggered the final twenty-five metres to the other end of the hall.
Yum! Never in his life had Colt tasted anything as good as that first wedge of pizza. Except, perhaps, the second wedge. Or the third. Colt wasn’t keeping track. He was just eating.
He was an eating machine!
Colt had demolished three family-sized pizzas and was just starting on a bowl of cocktail sausages, when he heard voices behind him.
Into the hall strode two police officers.
Birdy paused at the corner of the tennis courts. How could she have mistaken the boy in the clown outfit for Colt? His wig was red, not orange. His suit had stars instead of spots. He wasn’t Superclown, he was just a schoolboy in fancy dress. They were all school children in fancy dress! Birdy recognised Matilde Skywalker, two Harry Potters, a rat cop and several screaming ghosts. She could hear music in the background. It seemed to come from the brightly lit gymnasium behind the colourfully dressed group.
Suddenly everything made sense. The kids were here for a school dance – a fancy dress school dance!
But these ones had come outside and found a rat.
‘DEATH TO THE RAT!’ the fake rat cop screamed, as he and his fellow fancy-dressers cornered the unfortunate animal near some rubbish bins.
Birdy shivered. She would never have expected to feel sorry for a rat, but she felt sorry for this one. She stood in the shadows watching as one of the Harry Potters whacked it with his wand. The doomed animal looked stunned, and Harry swung his wand again. This time he missed and hit one of the rubbish bins instead. His wand snapped in two.
‘Leave it to an expert,’ said the clown who wasn’t Colt. He grabbed a wooden sword from a boy dressed as Jack Sparrow Jnr from Pirates of the Caribbean 7, and moved in to finish it off.
‘HEY, CUT THAT OUT!’ Birdy yelled. Suddenly she was running towards them. ‘THAT ISN’T A RAT!’
A ghost and a princess looked round, but the rest of the mob were jostling for position around the sword-wielding clown. Birdy ploughed into them like a footballer into a rugby scrum, knocking off a Harry Potter’s glasses and making Matilde Skywalker shriek. She got through them and grabbed the clown’s sword arm just as it flashed down.
‘STOP! IT ISN’T A RAT!’ she cried. ‘IT’S A MEERKAT FROM THE CIRCUS!’
The clown was a lot bigger than he had seemed from a distance. And so were all his buddies. They looked like Year Sixes or even Year Sevens. Birdy was only in Year Four, and small for her age. But she was deceptively strong and wiry from her job as a circus trapeze artist. The clown tried to wrench his arm free, but Birdy hung on. Her feet left the ground and she swung in an arc around her much bigger opponent. Her flying feet knocked over one of the rubbish bins with a loud clang. When she still wouldn’t let go, the red-haired clown punched her in the ribs with his free hand. It was his left hand and it didn’t hurt much, but it made Birdy mad. She kicked his shins.
‘CLOWN FIGHT!’ someone yelled, as the two of them toppled to the ground.
They rolled over and over, locked together in a tangle of arms and legs. Birdy’s ping-pong-ball nose came loose and one of the backpack’s buckles snapped, but she wouldn’t let go of the other clown’s sword-arm. There were only five meerkats left in the world – if this one died there’d be four.
‘Teacher coming!’ someone hissed.
There was a scuffle of light feet departing, then the thud, thud, thud of heavy feet approaching.
‘STOP THAT THIS INSTANT!’
The boy clown went limp next to Birdy as a tall black figure loomed over them. It was a man dressed as Darth Vader. From the ground he looked huge and scary and totally convincing. It was a relief when he removed his helmet and there was just a normal-looking teacher underneath. But he still sounded scary.
‘GET UP!’
‘I can’t – he’s holding my arm,’ said Birdy’s opponent. He must have thought she was a boy.
‘Let him go, sport,’ the teacher said, gabbing Birdy’s other arm with an enormous black glove and dragging her none-too-gently to her feet.
She fixed her nose and tried to straighten her backpack. It hung crookedly from one shoulder, the broken strap dangling. The meerkat was nowhere to be seen.
Good, thought Birdy. It must have got away.
‘What was that all about?’ demanded the teacher.
‘I didn’t start it,’ the boy clown said. ‘He attacked me.’
‘I was trying to save the meerkat,’ said Birdy.
Both the boy clown and the teacher looked at her in surprise when they realised she was a girl.
‘Meerkat?’ Darth Vader said. ‘They’ve been extinct for years.’
Birdy pointed off into the gathering darkness, where the Big Top was just visible beyond the tennis courts and the sports fields. ‘There are five left. They belong to the Lost World Circus. A couple got out somehow and these guys were trying to kill one.’
‘You’re nuts!’ said the boy clown. ‘It was totally a rat, Mr Girton.’
Mr Girton peered closely at him. ‘Who’s that under the face-paint?’
‘Zac Watson, sir. From 7B.’
Mr Girton turned to Birdy. ‘And who are you?’
‘I don’t go to this school.’
‘YOUR NAME PLEASE!’
Birdy fiddled with the backpack’s broken buckle. ‘Clowngirl.’
‘DON’T TRY MY PATIENCE, MISS!’ Mr Girton roared. ‘YOU’RE IN ENOUGH TROUBLE ALREADY!’
Was she really? Mr Girton might be big and loud and bossy, but Birdy wasn’t one of his students. She could just walk away.
She tried. It didn’t work.
‘Let me go!’ she cried.
But the huge Darth Vader glove wouldn’t release her. ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense,’ Mr Girton said crossly. He jerked his head at the boy clown. ‘Come with us, Mr Watson. Let’s all go and have
a chat with Ms Winzer.’
It was probably lucky that Mr Girton hadn’t let Birdy walk off. As he marched her and Zac Watson towards the brightly lit gymnasium, a pair of cold, yellow eyes watched them from out in the darkness.
It was no use trying to run away from the two police officers – despite all the food he’d eaten, Colt’s body hadn’t recovered its strength yet. And anyway there was nowhere to run.
‘It isn’t what it looks like,’ he said lamely, hiding the cocktail sausage he’d been about to eat behind his back. He wished his clown suit had pockets.
There was a policeman and a policewoman. They each carried a large tray of sandwiches covered in cling-wrap. The policewoman wore sergeant’s stripes.
‘I’ll tell you what it looks like,’ she said from the other end of the hall. ‘It looks like someone has just got himself into a heap of trouble.’
‘It’s an emergency,’ said Colt. ‘I had to eat.’
The police officers set their trays down and came marching up the aisle between the two rows of tables. Colt waited until they reached him, then showed them the little red cocktail sausage.
‘I guess you caught me red-handed.’
It was a pathetic joke and they didn’t laugh. The male officer was staring at the three empty pizza trays stacked next to Colt’s elbow. ‘Did you eat all those?’
‘I’ll pay for everything,’ Colt promised. ‘But first there’s something I’ve got to do.’
‘Is there now?’ said the sergeant, raising an eyebrow. ‘Why don’t you enlighten us?’
Colt flexed his muscles. Or tried to. But nothing was happening yet. ‘Some animals have escaped from the circus around the back of the school. I’m trying to catch them.’
‘Pull the other one,’ said the male officer.
‘It’s true!’ Colt cried. ‘Get on your radio and ask about the flamingo that caused a car accident down the road. I was the one who lifted the car and got the family out.’
‘You lifted a car?’ the sergeant said sarcastically.
‘It was upside-down.’
‘So you lifted it?’ she said, smiling.
Colt sighed. They didn’t believe him. ‘Call the station. They’ll tell you what happened.’
‘What station?’ asked the male officer.
Well, duh! ‘The police station, of course,’ Colt said.
The two officers looked at each other and started laughing. They hadn’t thought Colt’s red-handed joke was funny, but now something he’d just said had set them off. They were really cracking up. Colt had no idea what was going on.
It was the man who stopped laughing first. His face was red. Wiping tears from his eyes, he said, ‘We’re not real police.’
‘You’re not?’
The woman dabbed her eyes with a paper napkin from the serving counter, taking care not to smear her makeup. ‘You kids aren’t the only ones who get to wear fancy dress tonight,’ she said.
Fancy dress? Finally everything began to make sense. All this food, the balloons, the music Colt had heard earlier. It was a school dance!
‘Are you guys teachers?’ he asked.
‘Of course we are!’ chuckled the woman. ‘Don’t you recognise us? I’m Mrs Burston and this is Mr Quinn.’
Colt felt stupid. Now that he knew the truth, he realised they didn’t really look like police officers. Mrs Burston was wearing eye makeup and had on some dainty high-heeled shoes. Mr Quinn was too short and fat. And police didn’t go round carrying trays of sandwiches.
‘And who are you, Mr Clown?’ asked the pretend cop.
‘There isn’t time to explain,’ said the pretend clown. ‘You’ve got to evacuate the school.’
The pretend sergeant’s painted-on eyebrows shot up. ‘Why on earth should we evacuate the school?’ she asked.
There was no need to answer. Because a perfectly good reason to evacuate had just appeared in the doorway at the far end of the hall.
And – unlike the three humans in fancy dress who stood rooted to the spot as it padded silently in from outside – nothing about the new arrival was pretend.
Mr Girton marched Birdy and Zac Watson around to the rear of the gymnasium and ushered them in through a little door. All at once the music became very loud. Birdy was half-blinded by a swirl of coloured lights that lit up a who’s who of Hollywood, book and HV characters, and quite a few rock stars and famous sports people as well. There were even a couple of human-sized ghost rats, which really creeped Birdy out. Several adults (teachers, she supposed) stood around the walls, keeping an eye on things. Most of them were in fancy dress, too. Mr Girton spoke to a man dressed as a Viking, who pointed across the basketball court-cum-dance floor. There was too much noise to hear their conversation, and Birdy wasn’t tall enough to see, but she guessed the person called Ms Winzer was in that direction.
And she guessed Ms Winzer was the school principal.
‘Follow me,’ Mr Girton commanded, setting off through the sea of dancers.
He was still holding Birdy’s arm, so she had no choice but to obey. Zac walked meekly behind them. Even without his Darth Vader helmet, Mr Girton looked scary in his flowing black robes and big clomping boots. Everyone stepped out of the way and watched them go by. It was really embarrassing. Word must have spread about the clown fight, and Birdy heard Zac’s name whispered several times.
Who’s the little one? people kept asking.
The principal was dressed exactly like the queen in a movie Birdy’s mother had on an old 2D televid. Birdy couldn’t remember much about it, only that the queen was evil. Ms Winzer looked just right for the role.
‘Let’s go somewhere quiet to have a little talk,’ she said when she’d heard what Mr Girton had to say.
The principal led them to a door just along from the girls’ toilets. It was locked. Mr Girton had to release Birdy’s arm to get a set of keys out from under his Darth Vader suit. He opened the door and flicked a switch, lighting up a small, airless storeroom filled with sports equipment. After they’d all filed in, Mr Girton closed the door behind them. The music was still quite loud, and there wasn’t much room, but at least they had privacy.
‘I’ll start with you, young lady.’ The principal glared down at Birdy. ‘Mr Girton tells me you won’t give him your name.’
Birdy tried to look innocent, not like someone who was secretly trying to weigh up her escape options. Mr Girton was standing next to the door they’d just come through, but there was another door on the other side of the storeroom. It was partly blocked by a set of hurdles and some rolled-up tennis nets stacked in a wheelbarrow. But it had one of those locks that didn’t need a key on the inside, Birdy noticed.
‘I don’t go to this school,’ she said.
‘What are you doing here, then?’
‘Some animals escaped from the circus and I came to rescue them.’
The principal scoffed. ‘I hardly think they would have rats at the circus.’
‘It wasn’t a rat,’ Birdy said. ‘It was a meerkat.’
‘It was a rat,’ said Zac Watson, who was standing next to a vaulting horse between Ms Winzer and the unguarded second door.
‘Did I ask you to speak?’ the principal asked fiercely. Zac shook his head and she turned back to Birdy. ‘Let’s stop wasting time, young lady. Tell me your name.’
Birdy could feel the weight of the broken backpack pulling on her left shoulder. The rope was making it quite heavy – the rope that Colt needed to capture Assam. And the carrots, in case he needed more food. Her eyes darted back and forth. She didn’t think she could make it to the other door and get it open before the principal or Mr Girton (or maybe even creepy Zac Watson) caught her. And if she told them who she was, her parents would become involved. Then everyone would find out about her and Colt’s secret identities.
Where was Colt, anyway?
‘Clowngirl,’ she said, and waited for the principal to blow her top like Mr Girton had.
But it didn’t happen.
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‘Excuse me a moment,’ Ms Winzer said unexpectedly. Removing one of her long, elbow-length gloves, she raised a pulsing wrist-phone to her ear. ‘Well, I’m in a meeting at the moment,’ she said impatiently to whoever was calling, then fell silent when she heard what they had to say.
‘A what!!!?’ she gasped.
‘Stay close to me and do exactly as I say,’ Colt said quietly. ‘Don’t try to run, don’t make any fast moves, and don’t turn your back on it.’
At last Mrs Burston and Mr Quinn were taking him seriously.
‘I think they only attack things from behind,’ he added, although he wasn’t really sure – they didn’t run animal shows on HV anymore, except on the History Channel (and he and his mother hardly ever watched them because they made her sad).
Something bumped lightly against his shoulder. It was Mr Quinn’s arm. Colt could feel the teacher trembling inside his fake police uniform.
‘We’d better get away from the food,’ Colt whispered, dropping his uneaten cocktail sausage on the floor behind him. ‘Go over to the corner.’
He and the two teachers shuffled slowly away from the food counter. They stopped when they reached the corner of the hall. Now there was a row of tables between them and the animal. Just the top of its head and its yellow eyes were visible. Colt looked up at the rafters. There was no way to climb up there. He checked the nearest window. Even if they could get it open, Mr Quinn was much too large to fit through. And Mrs Burston didn’t look very athletic, either. Colt couldn’t leave them behind. He leaned forward slightly to see around the two teachers, but several piles of plastic chairs had been stacked along the side wall, blocking his view.
‘Are there any doors on this side?’ he whispered.
It was Mrs Burston who answered. Her voice was as shaky as Mr Quinn’s arm. ‘There’s only the door behind . . . it’ – she pointed at the animal – ’and one leading into the kitchen.’
The door to the kitchen was diagonally opposite them – on the other side of the two rows of food-laden tables. It was only five or six metres away, but it might as well have been a kilometre.
