Circus of Thieves on the Rampage (4 page)

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 Espadrille
¹⁵
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 Billy 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?

‘G
RANNY, 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.

‘Now, dear. What’s the trouble?’ she asked.

‘Grnnng, Grnnng, Grnnng!’ yelled Hannah. ‘I’nk jush bing yold hte heerdnest ning nivr, buu is yonts’s makl ang shints! H neee woo ta hxplxn.’

‘Pardon?’

Granny fiddled anxiously with her hearing aid. Hannah took out the gobstopper.

‘Granny, Granny, Granny!’ she yelled, slightly hoarse now, and with rather less enthusiasm than when she’d started. ‘I’ve just been told the weirdest thing ever,
but it doesn’t make any sense! I need you to explain.’

‘It’s your birthday, isn’t it?’ replied Granny. ‘You’re twelve now, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, Granny.’

‘So your parents have told you the Big Secret?’

‘Yes! But I don’t understand!’

‘Well, it’s a rather long story. Would you like a cup of tea first?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Juice?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Banana?’

‘Please, Granny. Just tell me the story.’

‘OK, dear. Well, it all goes back a long, long way. We have to go right back to the day you were born. No, we have to go back to the day your mother was born. Or, rather, your
mothers.’

‘Mothers?’

‘Yes, mothers. You see your mother – your current mother – is a twin. You have an aunt you’ve never met. Except she isn’t your aunt. She’s your mother. Your
other mother. Your birth mother.’

‘I thought you said you were going to explain. This is just even more confusing.’

‘Put the gobstopper back in, dear, and let me tell you the whole thing. Your mother isn’t my only daughter. I had twins. Wendy and Wanda. They weren’t identical twins, and they
weren’t even non-identical twins. They were opposite-in-every-way-you-can-imagine twins. Wanda, your mother – your current mother – is as you know a very cautious, careful and
safety-conscious person. She didn’t walk until she was two, because she thought crawling was safer. Wendy, your other mother – your birth mother – walked at six months, fell over
all the time, visited A&E every few weeks, and liked nothing better than launching herself down a staircase just to see what would happen.’

‘Hak ma mrrrrbit?’

‘Pardon?’

Hannah took out the gobstopper.

‘That’s my mother? My real mother?’

‘It is. She was a wild one from the start. I always worried about her – always knew she’d get herself into trouble – and she did. She was only a teenager when she ran
away to the circus. Can’t say I was surprised. And when she told me she’d discovered a talent for the trapeze, and had learned that she was never happier than when spinning through the
air of a Big Top, that was hardly a shock, either. But I was surprised when she came back for a visit and told me that she was in love, and that she had a problem, because she couldn’t tell
who she was in love with.’

‘What?’

‘There were two men from two rival circuses, and they’d both told her they loved her. Wendy knew she was in love, because she felt fluttery and flighty and flouncy and flushed, but
she couldn’t tell which man she was in love with. She said they were both in the car outside, and asked me if I could take a look at them and give her my advice. Now this was very unusual for
Wendy, because she was not the kind of girl who ever asked my advice about anything, but I was happy to help, so I said she should bring them in, and I’d take a look, and set them the Cupcake
Test.’

Granny’s stories were always like this. Stories within stories within stories, like Russian dolls. Once she’d started telling you something, before she got to the end, she’d
always divert into telling you something else about somebody else. Hannah knew better than to fight it. If you waited long enough, Granny usually worked her way back to the starting point.

‘The Cupcake Test?’ asked Hannah, with a mixture of curiosity and impatience.

‘Yes. The Cupcake Test. You sit them both down, and hand the boyfriend a plate, on which are two cupcakes. A big one and a small one. If he takes the small one, he shows that he’s
kind and considerate, and he passes. If he takes the big one, he’s clearly selfish and arrogant and rude, and he fails. It tells you everything you need to know about how this person is going
to treat your precious daughter.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Well, Wendy brought in these two young men, and I have to say they were both extremely handsome. Not that looks are the most important thing, but golly they really were quite delectable .
. .’

‘Granny?’

‘What?’

‘You’ve drifted off.’

‘Sorry. Yes. So she brought in these two young chaps, and I brought out a plate with three cupcakes on it, two big and one small. And I handed the plate to the first one – the one
with a moustache – and you know what he did?’

‘What?’

‘He took all three! Gobbled them down and didn’t even say thank you. I knew straight away that he was a wrong’un. Despicable! And I told her so! But did she listen? Did
she?’

‘Did she?’

‘I don’t know. The other chap was lovely. A proper gentleman. I handed him a refilled plate and he gave both cupcakes to Wendy, then stood up and poured everyone tea and handed it
round without even being asked. And you should have seen his muscles! Not that muscles are important, but when he held the teapot his forearms rippled and bulged and . . . Anyway, I told Wendy what
I thought, but just as Wendy was not the kind of girl to ask for advice, she was also not the kind of girl to listen to advice when it was given. I knew she was falling deeper in love after that,
because one of the symptoms of love is that you stop phoning your mother. I didn’t hear from her for a while, except for a postcard from Moscow saying that she wanted me to post her a pair of
gloves, and that she was married, and that she’d tell me all about it as soon as she got home.’

‘And?’

‘Well, the circus was on a world tour, and a few months after that I got a card from Mexico City asking me to post her some tea bags, and saying that she was pregnant, and that it was the
most exciting thing ever, and she’d tell me all about it as soon as she got home.’