Circus of Thieves and the Raffle of Doom (11 page)

Thanks to Armitage, Billy had been given an education that was atrocious in all subjects except two: camel riding and theft. Sadly for Billy, there were no GCSEs on either of these topics. While
many children imagine themselves running off to join the circus and having wild adventures, Billy dreamed of going to school and sitting exams. This is irony of a different kind. We all want what
we haven’t got. It’s human nature.

Camel nature is different. Camels want what they have got, assuming what they’ve got is a bucket of taramasalata and room to doze. Most of us would be far happier if we could take a more
camelistic approach to life. But enough philosophosophising.
²⁹
We have a set of keys to steal.

Billy was a bright lad and a keen student. This had made him an exceptionally good thief. He’d brought with him one simple tool for the task at hand: a coat hanger. He bent and twisted it
into a new shape, a long, stretched-out question mark, and said to Hannah, ‘I need another bunk-up. Do you mind if I step on your head?’

In truth, she did mind, but something about Billy made it almost impossible to say no. She cupped her hands, and he instantly zipped upwards, alternating footholds between parts of her body and
bits of the caravan’s window frame. As it turned out, Billy managed to get up on the roof without resorting to a head-step, and gave Hannah a big grin and a thumbs-up from his high perch.

Hannah smiled back, trying not to look too obviously relieved. Billy took a penknife from his back pocket, opened a box on the roof and snipped the wires that powered the ‘Yankee Doodle
Dandy’ alarm. The same knife then slipped neatly under the catch of the caravan’s sky-light, allowing Billy to reach in with one arm – an arm that was now holding the
stretched-out coat hanger.

The keys were hanging from a hook just inside the door. At first it seemed too far to reach, but with an extra-long stretch, holding his home-made grabber with the very tips of his fingers . .
.

[If this was a film, there’d be a whole long drawn-out bit here where our hero almost gets the keys, then he doesn’t, then he does get them, then he slips and drops them, and he
seems to despair, then he thinks of some amazing new idea, and stretches a bit further, and gets them off the floor just as someone scary comes into view and almost catches him, and the clock is
ticking, and the person is getting closer, and Hannah is saying, ‘Now! Now! We have to leave now!’ and Billy’s saying, ‘But I’ve almost got it,’ and
Hannah’s saying ‘You’re crazy, we have to run for it!’ and Billy’s saying ‘I’ve almost got it. You run and save yourself!’, and Hannah’s
saying, ‘No, we’re a team. We’re in this together!’, and Billy’s saying, ‘Just five more seconds!’, and Hannah’s saying, ‘We haven’t got
five more seconds!’ then Billy slips, and drops the keys again!!! So Hannah steps out of the shadows and distracts the random scary intervening person with a clever trick that makes him not
notice the clattering, grunting, thieving that is going on RIGHT ABOVE HIS HEAD AND WE CAN HEAR IT BUT THE SCARY PERSON HASN’T NOTICED YET! The tension is unbearable. NOW HE’S HEARD THE
NOISE ABOVE! Disaster is inevitable! They are DONE FOR! But Hannah convinces random scary stranger that the noise is
something else
coming from
somewhere else
and he should run
off and investigate without delay. And he falls for it! And Billy gets the key! Incredible! Amazing! Spectacular! And to a soundtrack of soaring brass and sawing violins the two of them run off
hand in hand with beautiful smiles on their beautiful faces showing beautiful rows of beautiful teeth. But films can be kind of cheesy, so we’re not going to do that. Besides, (between you
and me) Billy’s teeth were not his strong point. While he was very good at shooting a bow and arrow from the back of trotting camels, he was not so good at tooth-brushing. Or hair-brushing.
Brushing of any kind, in fact, was just not one of his interests.]

. . . where were we, again? Oh, yes. Billy, with an extra-long stretch, had just managed to lift the keys off their hook, towards the sky-light, and out.

Phase one of Hannah and Billy’s plan was complete. The burglar had been burgled.

Just as Billy was breaking into Armitage’s caravan, Armitage was picking the lock at the post office. This took a rather more sophisticated method than Billy’s
penknife, but there weren’t many locks that Armitage couldn’t get through, and this one took him little more than a couple of minutes. He then tiptoed in – not that anyone was
likely to hear him, but he was in character, and felt that burglars ought to tiptoe – and made his way towards the safe.

As this was happening, Jesse strode onto the Big Top stage, accompanied by Irrrrrena, who (freed from the demands of trapeze artistry) was now oiled from head to toe in a way
that made her so shiny you could have plonked her on a clifftop and used her as a lighthouse. Behind them, pulled into the ring by a bored-looking elephant, was Jesse’s enormous bright red
cannon.

Armitage was clearing a work space in front of the safe when Fingers arrived, with a simple cape over the top of his magician’s costume, carrying a black holdall. They
greeted one another with a quick nod, and Fingers unzipped his bag.

Inside were two lumps of grey goo. Two lumps of very important and expensive and dangerous grey goo.

Experts in goo and experts in explosives will know what this was. Doh! I’ve given it away. Yes, these were two lumps of safe-cracker’s explosive, which Fingers proceeded to attach
very carefully to the hinges of the safe. Armitage then set up a fuse, which he connected to a wire, which was carefully unravelled as they retreated behind the nearest supporting wall. The
identification of sturdy walls is an important, and often overlooked, aspect of the safe-cracker’s art. Blowing up a safe is not particularly hard. Blowing up a safe without also blowing up
yourself presents more of a challenge.

A watchdog, at this point, would have been barking loud enough to alert anyone within earshot. The post office, however, did not have a watchdog. It had a watchcat, Fluffypants McBain, who had
dozed through the entire break-in, napping in his favourite spot, on top of the safe. Now, however, the smell of explosives woke him up. He knew immediately that something was amiss. He understood
straight away that these were bad people engaged in bad things, and that it was up to him, Fluffypants McBain, to defend his territory.

On the other hand, he really was still very tired, not to mention peckish.

He looked across at the two men dressed in black, clutching a detonator linked by a wire to two lumps of goo stuck onto his bed, and concluded that prompt action was needed.

He yawned. He stretched. He washed his left ear. Then he made a plan. A cat’s got to do what a cat’s got to do. He was going to step up and take care of business.

Neither Armitage nor Fingers noticed the awakening of Fluffypants McBain. With the explosives primed, the fuse prepared and the detonator ready, the two of them crouched behind their carefully
chosen wall and waited.

For quite some time, they did nothing.

Or what looked like nothing.

But if you followed the path of their eyes, you might have noticed that both of them were staring with intense concentration at their watches, which were perfectly synchronised, the two second
hands ticking closer and closer to 8:55.

‘
Q
UICK!’
said Billy. ‘It’s 8:52!’

‘Is it?’ said Hannah.

‘Yes! Run!’

She ran. They both ran. Through the line of caravans, around the Big Top, jumping over the guy ropes they had hammered in earlier that day, and up the hillside towards Armitage’s lorry.
Billy climbed the metal step to the high door, shoved in the key, and wrenched at the handle.

Nothing happened.

He yanked and pulled and twisted and tugged and heaved and hauled and wonked and wiggled. Still nothing.

‘Try giving the key another turn,’ suggested Hannah.

Billy gave the key a firm jiggle. The hinges of the door creaked. Bingo!
³⁰

He dived in, reached out an arm, and hauled Hannah upwards. She slammed the door shut behind them.

‘Right,’ said Billy. ‘We’re not tall enough to do this the usual way, so what do you want to be in charge of? Steering or pedals?’

‘Er . . . steering,’ she said.

‘OK.’ Billy jumped down into the footwell and handed Hannah the key. ‘Now put this in the ignition. When I say go, turn it and I’ll pump the accelerator.’

‘Got it.’

Hannah put the key in. She gripped it tight. She waited. But Billy said nothing.

‘What’s the hold-up?’ she asked.

‘We have to mask the noise. When this thing starts it sounds like 60,000 ducks having their ducklings stolen.’

‘What does 60,000 ducks having their ducklings stolen sound like?’

‘You’re going to find out in one minute. Just wait till I say go.’

Billy, Hannah noticed, was staring at his watch, whose second hand was ticking closer and closer to 8:55.