Circus of Thieves and the Raffle of Doom (15 page)

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Hannah woke up at dawn, not because she wasn’t tired, but because she was too angry to sleep. She’d
been angry all night, thrashing around in bed, tormented by furious dreams about the dastardly devilry of Armitage Shank and the sad fate of Billy.

Hannah was not a wallower, a moaner or a sulker. There was no point in just lying there crossly, so she raised herself from bed, walked to the window, and looked down at her garden. Her boring
garden, surrounded by a boring fence, boxed in by more boring gardens with their boring lawns and boring plants and boring patios and boring chairs. (Hannah was not a keen gardener.)

She knew she ought to just feel sorry for Billy, who right now was held captive by an evil man, stolen away from his real father, grieving for his lost mother and destined to roam the country
robbing and circussing. But deep down some mad part of her couldn’t help being jealous. She wanted Billy’s life. Not the vanished father, dead mother, evil stepfather bit, but the rest.
The circus bit. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything. She just
had
to have it.

Together, she and Billy had
almost
foiled Armitage and rescued Billy from his fate. Her plan had almost worked. And if a plan can almost work at the first try, then surely it ought to
be worth tracking down the circus and trying again. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, hose yourself down, have a bite of chocolate, and give it another shot,’ as the old saying
goes. Or, as Hannah preferred to put it, nothing is impossible.

The circus would be far away by now, she knew that. Nobody would know where, she knew that, too.

But then, nobody else had spent long summer evenings practising tracking in the woods with Fizzer and nobody else had memorised the shape of a certain camel’s footprint.

She just couldn’t stay in this dull place any longer. She’d suffocate.

And the more she thought about it, the more another plan began to take shape. This plan would need an adult, but Granny was always up for a trip. Sle loved travel. She loved the way each town
you visited sold different sweets. Hannah was sure she’d be able to persuade her to go. Together they’d track down Shank’s Impossible Circus, and when they did, this time Hannah
would come out on top. She’d free Billy and Armitage would meet his doooooom! All Hannah would need was some money to pay for the trip, because Granny was always as skint as a pocket of
lint.

Hannah’s whole life could change, it could begin to follow the path she knew she was destined for, if only she had that little bit of money.

As you have probably noticed, Hannah’s town was a sleepy little place, populated with sleepy cats and sleepy people who didn’t pay much attention to their sleepy
post office, so it wasn’t until the morning after the circus left that anyone realised the safe had been blown up and robbed. Everyone knew immediately who had done it, but Shank and his crew
were long gone, and nobody knew how to find them.

However, just as the sleepy post office staff were walking down the high street pinning up sleepily-written posters advertising a reward for any information on the whereabouts of Armitage Shank,
or of the stolen money, a certain alert and unsleepy dog, Fizzer,
³⁵
was taking his morning stroll.

Fizzer was in the park, checking his pee-mails, when from a distant and usually unremarkable thicket, he detected a curious waft. Something plasticky and acrid. A hint of smoke tinged with a
waft of explosive. He went to investigate.

A bag is a bag is a bag, in general. Unless it is a suitcase. But this, Fizzer knew, was something special. He could tell by the smell of it. Up close, there was a faint aroma of Fluffypants
McBain and a definite honk of cash. This bag was from the post office.

Fizzer now did something extremely unusual. He began to engage in an activity which in all other circumstances he considered beneath him. He raised his head and barked.

There were many people in the park, but nobody gave him a second glance. He was just a dog, barking. What could possibly be important or interesting about that?

Only one person noticed that something was up: a girl, an alert and unsleepy girl, who was at that moment gazing boredly out of her bedroom window. This girl – and I think you know who it
was – recognised the bark, and understood that if Fizzer was barking, something was up which required immediate investigation.

So she ran downstairs in her pyjamas, slipped into her wellies, and off she went. She had no idea what she might be about to find, or of the reward that was attached to it; she was just
following her instincts, which were to stay alert, keep her eyes open, and never to say no to adventure.

THE END

Except that …

a few questions …

remain …

All these questions will (probably) be answered in …

1
. Answer: small ones.

2
. Note to non-dog people: this is friendly. Dogs like it. Note to non-human people: humans don’t like it. Scratching humans between the
ears is not considered friendly and shouldn’t be attempted without asking permission first.

3
. This does not mean a lorry that talks posh. That would be an articulate lorry, which is another matter altogether. An articulated lorry is one
that bends in the middle, which has no bearing on the vehicle’s verbal skills. All humans bend in the middle, as you probably know, yet some are far more articulate than others. Penguins do
not bend in the middle, and are also strikingly inarticulate, but their lack of bendiness is probably not to blame.

4
. Uglily isn’t a word. You know that. I know that. Let’s just move on.

5
. Take note. You may find this information useful in after life. On the other hand, you may not.

6
. ‘Who is Fizzer?’ I hear you ask. ‘Is he Hannah’s dog? Or somebody else’s? How did he get to be so preposterously
clever? Is he working for the government?’ Patience, my friends, patience. All will be revealed. Probably.

7
. This is a very special sack of potatoes we’re talking about here, but let’s not rule anything out. Life is full of surprises.

8
. The number of ‘R’s is variable, depending on how well you know her time of day and humidity.

9
. Hardly anyone actually knows what ‘svengali’ means, but that doesn’t matter because just the sound of the word tells you
everything you need to know. A svengali as you can probably guess, is somebody who is wise and important and powerful and ever so slightly sinister.

10
. It is hard to tell when a paving slab becomes excited, but if you look very very carefully it is possible to spot the difference. There is a
slight temperature rise and occasionally a jiggle. A clue is the sight of ants (who hate excitement) running for their lives, in search of somewhere boring.

11
. If this comment causes offence to any fish who happen to be reading this book, I apologise. My use of the term ‘fishy’ is not
intended to be in any way disrespectful towards our ocean-dwelling friends.

12
. Let’s have a little chat, down here at the bottom of the page where none of the characters can hear us. Would you like to know what
the prize is? I’ll give you a clue. It’s not a prize at all. In fact, it is something rather horrible that nobody in their right mind would ever want, and even people in their wrong
mind would try to avoid.

13
. Nothing nothing nothing. Not anything. Zero. Nil. Zilch. Naught. Nada. Niente. Diddlysquat. Nothing.

14
. Wollycobbles are similar to collywobbles but MUCH WORSE.

15
. ‘Speaking of which,’ I hear you say, ‘You’ve still not told us who Fizzer is. Where does he keep appearing from?
Where does he go?’ Patience, my friends. Patience.

16
. ‘What is a mortal coil,’ you ask, ‘and why is he shuffling off it?’ This is a posh way of saying that Billy’s
snuffed it, or pretended to, and has done so in such a theatrical way that he deserves a theatrical description of his efforts. I’ve nicked this phrase from a play called
Hamlet
, so
if you think it’s no good don’t blame me.

17
. A short while is precisely seven seconds. A while is sixteen seconds. A long while is one and a half minutes. This has been agreed at an
international conference of timekeepers. Ages is thirty-seven minutes, blooming ages is fifty-two minutes and yonks is 2.3 years. Decision on a final definition of jiffy has been delayed until next
year, due to an unseemly episode involving heckling, a jug of iced water and a frenzied kerfuffle of fisticuffs.

18
. The snore of a female camel, curiously enough, sounds exactly like a woman sawing through a tree trunk. This has been conclusively proved by
the experiments of Professor Zzzz at the Western Sahara College of Lumberjacking, though a rival study by Doctor Hump of the Saskatchewan Institute of Dromedary Studies disputes these findings.
Hump and Zzzzz regularly exchange angry letters.

19
. You know which dog, don’t you? Of course you do.

20
. Psst! Have you guessed what the prize-that-isn’t-a-prize is yet? If you have, you are very clever. If you haven’t, you are
possibly also clever, but are lacking insight into the criminal mind, and into the techniques of burglary. Ooops! I’ve given it away. If you still haven’t guessed now, you should
probably rule out a career in the police force.