The Adventures of Stunt Boy and His Amazing Wonder Dog Blindfold (17 page)

30

Promise on Blindfold's life

‘L
isten, Caleb, I've got an idea. I'm going to free the animals and create a stampede,' I said. ‘I'll open all the cages and you keep the bike revved, then I'll open the garage door and leapfrog onto the bike.'

I'm always leaping on and off moving motorbikes. It's pretty easy but you've got to get the timing right. Sometimes if you land in the wrong position you can kill your nuts real bad and they burn like when you're trying to ease yourself into a really hot bath and forget to cup your nuts in your hand and your nuts hit the hot water first. There's nothing worse than stinging nuts.

‘Are you all right to ride? I mean, you've just been hit in the head by a beer barrel.'

‘I'm okay. I can do it,' he replied, standing up but still looking wobbly. ‘Anyway you're the one with the really dangerous job. You're going to have to be quick opening the animals' cages.'

Caleb was right. Elephants, lions and bears could kill a man, even if they were tame. I'd seen documentaries where people had raised wild animals since they were babies and they'd been like their pets, or even their kids, and then the animals had killed them. The animals forgot they were friends and attacked them. It's called animal instinct.

‘I promised the animals that I'd set them free. I promised on Blindfold's life!' I said as Blindfold's ears pricked up and he did a double take. I don't think he liked me promising on his life.

I picked the locks on the animals' cages with Caleb's screwdriver, but didn't open the doors. Then, when they were all done, I sprinted from one cage to the next and opened the door. Caleb and Blindfold, who had his paws on Caleb's shoulders, shadowed me in case any of the animals made an unexpected run for it.

But the animals didn't come out. They were so used to being cowed by being hit with sticks and whips and hooks that they didn't even make a move to leave their cages.

‘Come on, animals, you're free, you're free!' I yelled frustrated, standing by the garage door, but they didn't budge an inch. I was starting to get mad that they were ruining my plan to create a diversion. I knew that the circus animals couldn't escape out into OverEast due to Chesterley's high electrified fences, but the animals weren't playing their part.

Suddenly Blindfold jumped off Caleb's bike and ran inside the elephants' open cage, his tail between his legs and his head low to the ground in a submissive posture.

‘Blindfold! Come back! Come back!' I called out, afraid that he was going to be trampled to death.

He turned and looked at me for a second, his big brown puppy-dog eyes fearful; then he walked deeper into the cage. The bull elephant trumpeted and then sniffed Blindfold from his butt to his head and back again. Blindfold was trembling all over.

The elephant's legs folded and he sunk to his knees. Blindfold walked to the back of the cage then took a run up onto the bull elephant's back, trotting up his spine to his enormous head. Blindfold then sat down in the crook of the elephant's neck, between his ears. When the elephant stood up, Blindfold was three metres in the air. He's a stunt dog. He likes heights. It's just what he does. He probably wouldn't make a big deal of it, so I won't either.

The elephant let out a loud trumpet, throwing his trunk into the air, and Blindfold barked his happy bark, the one where his tongue pokes out the side of his mouth and he looks as if he has a big cheesy grin on his face. The other elephants took it as their cue that they were on the move and started heading towards the open cage door.

‘Stunt Boy, get ready to open that door,' yelled Caleb, signalling that the other animals must have understood the call of the wild as the lion and tiger lazily made their way towards the cage doors. The big dancing bear must have been really tired because he didn't even bother getting up. He sniffed the air and let out a low growl as if to say,
You go for it, guys, but I'll just sit this one out.

Blindfold turned in his direction and barked his disapproval, and slowly the bear got up and moved towards the entrance, giving me seconds to release the bar and wrench up the door. I leap-frogged onto the back of Caleb's bike as it propelled forward past Chesterley and past the clown goons, who were wide-eyed at what was behind us.

I turned around to see the clowns diving inside the windows of their trucks. The last I saw of Chesterley was his puffy jowls swinging as he scrambled up into the monster truck, which suddenly roared to life.

The animals rampaged through the circus, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. The big female elephant threw her head back and charged at the office, smashing the side in, as if it were a dented soda can stomped on by a man with heavy boots, before carrying on through the circus.

I saw two heads appear, their mouths forming O shapes. My uncles looked out, framed by some tattered yellow curtains. I can't take credit for all this as I hadn't worked out this part of the plan. It had just happened.

As we raced through the circus, I gripped Caleb tight around the waist, looking for a means of escape, but the fence was too high to jump. The monster truck gained on us, wanting to crush our bones to dust as we tore up the small hill towards the entrance. Racing along the fence line towards the front of the circus, I saw Lefty Blue Eye point at us, recognising Caleb's bike as Caleb tried to outrun the monster truck.

‘Grip onto me with every bit of strength you have,' yelled Caleb over the noise of the bike. ‘We're going over the fence, dude!'

What? Over the fence! It must have been two metres high, was electrified and it had all that barbed wire up the top. Was Caleb completely crazy? Even though I was a little skinny kid and Caleb was a pretty skinny teenager, there were still two of us on the bike! And there was no ramp – how could we make that kind of clearance?

Earth calling Caleb! This was the dumbest idea ever, but I had to trust that Caleb knew what he was doing, even if we could end up tangled in barbed wire, or worse, dead. Besides, what were the options apart from being turned into human peanut butter by a monster truck with a grudge?

I felt every bump in the ground, every beat of my heart, as Caleb opened the throttle to full power and we roared up the hill, the monster truck in hot pursuit. Caleb headed straight for a large ditch that had a ridge that looked like it had a puffy top lip extending out of it on one side.

I held onto Caleb as if I were superglued to his back. ‘Right, Stunt, when I yell “lift”, we're both going to stand up as one. When I say “drop” sit back down again. Just follow my body and trust me okay?'

As we got to the top of the lip, Caleb revved the guts out of the bike.

‘Lift!' he yelled above the din of the bike as we both lifted our body weight off the bike for a micro second.

‘Drop!' he screamed, as we bounced back down dropping our combined weight on the backseat, compressing the back suspension. It acted like a spring and suddenly we were airborne – and all I could see was the inky night sky.

It felt as if time was slowing down as Caleb held onto the handlebars as the silver glimmer of the knotted barb wire whizzed past my feet. We landed heavily on the other side of the fence, skidding to a stop, the momentum sending the bike sliding out from beneath us as we went tumbling over the top of each other and landed in a tangle of arms and legs.

31

Not the elephant's fault

I
'm not sure how long I was out for but I woke to Sue the Bearded Lady, holding my wrist checking for my pulse.

‘Stunt Boy!' she said as she looked into my eyes. ‘Stunt Boy! Are you okay?'

‘That was awesome!' I said sitting up and removing my helmet. ‘That was amazing. Did you see it? Did you see it, Sue? Did you see that jump?'

Caleb was taking off his helmet. ‘We did it. I can't believe we made it!'

Then it struck me. ‘Blindfold!' I yelled out. He was still behind the fence.

I looked towards the fence line to see Blindfold on top of the elephant, who was manoeuvring his giant weight as close to the fence as possible. Blindfold then trotted down the elephant's spine to his tail, took a running jump from there and sailed over the fence, barbed wire and all, before landing, doing a doggie forward roll and running up to me and licking my face.

When I looked up from hugging Blindfold, I saw that the bull elephant and the female had herded little Sheeba behind them, protecting her. The bright lights from the monster truck shone straight at us, turning everything into a blanket of white haze, as dust particles danced in the air.

‘It was Hayley!' I told the Stoked people as I tried to regain my breath back. ‘Hayley tried to kill my dad!'

‘It's true,' said Caleb. ‘That chick is a psychopath! She was gunning for us'.

‘Hayley?' said Lefty Blue Eye, clutching his chest in shock. ‘Not our sweet little Hayley!'

‘She's not so sweet, Lefty, and she's related to Chesterley. She's up there in that monster truck that just tried to flatten me and Caleb!' I explained, pointing up at it.

The whole Stoked crew reacted in a total uproar, shaking their fists as they screamed out her name, calling her a traitor and some really rude words that I can't repeat.

Hayley stuck her head and her entire torso out of the truck window and gave us the finger, as if she had no shame whatsoever for what she had done.

‘Suck it up, freaks. Suck. It. Up,' she yelled over the noise of the engine at us. ‘Your freak show is over. Stoked Circus is DOA and nothing will be bring it back to life.'

Chesterley popped out of the other window, his face a picture of anger. ‘And start looking for new homes because you're illegally on my land. I want you gone by the morning or I'll be burning you out.'

‘You're going to be arrested for trying to murder my dad!' I screamed, standing up and holding my ribs, which were all achy and sore.

‘Yeah right, Stunt Boy!' said Hayley smiling, her middle finger still straight and erect. ‘Fat chance that is ever going to happen.'

I reached down and felt the spindle in my pocket. I knew full well that there was enough evidence to tie Hayley and Chesterley to the plot. There was no way my uncles would be able to sell those criminals the land now.

The Stoked Crew was still going nuts, screaming and shouting at Hayley and Chesterley. Lucky there was a fence between us, as everyone was so het-up, there could have been bloodshed! Then the truck started blasting its horn in an effort to drown us out, but it only provoked the elephants.

The bull elephant's ears rose high on the side of his head, the light creating almost a see-through effect as if you could see right through them.

Then came a sound I'll never forget: an
elephant's cry, a deep and guttural
EEEEAWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAE
that rumbled through my body, making my ribs ache. It was so loud everyone on our side of the fence put their hands to their ears. The bull elephant then broke from its tiny herd and the ground began to quake beneath me.

I'd never seen an elephant run before, but let me tell you, they might be big and heavy but they move as though they're pumas or Olympic sprinters. The truck spun its wheels in an attempt to reverse away from several tonnes of rampaging elephant.

The elephant bore down on the monster truck and, using its gigantic head as a battering ram, charged. The sound of crushed metal rang out as the truck flipped on its side, the wheels spinning violently. The motor choked on its own petrol and smoke rose from the engine in dirty black clouds.

‘Everyone get back,' yelled Lefty, shepherding us all away from the fence line. ‘That engine could blow at any second.' The elephant retreated back to his family, using his body to create a shield, stomping his feet and trumpeting wildly.

Hayley's head cautiously popped out of the truck. As she jumped down, I saw the bright lights of the devastated monster truck illuminate her green sparkling shoes – the same ones I'd seen from beneath the hot dog stand. She stumbled away into the darkness. Chesterley then emerged dazed and panic stricken, and limped away as if his leg was broken.

Then another head popped out! It was Biker Pete! Biker Pete! He looked shamefaced and embarrassed, as my crew started shouting at him in disgust.

‘You're never going to be the star of the show, Pete,' I yelled, riding the anger as if it was a motorbike. ‘You're going away for a very long time.'

Standing nearby me, Jennifer Pringle smoothed down her hair and the cameraman swung his camera away from the action on the other side of the fence and started filming her.

‘This is Jennifer Pringle at Chesterley's Family Circus, where we have just witnessed the most unbelievable events. Two teens have just jumped a two-metre fence as a rogue elephant attacked a monster truck and
–'

I ran up to her, mad that the wrong person (or animal) was getting the blame again.

‘It wasn't the elephant's fault!' I said, all the emotion of the last few days pouring out of my eyes in the form of tears. I dug into my pocket for the spindle. Then I told her how Chesterley had been beating up his animals to make them do stupid tricks; how Benny's parents had staged a protest to save the animals; how Benny had filmed it and put it on the internet; how I'd been chased up the rigging by a monkey; how Chesterley had framed me as a mastermind kid criminal; how Caleb had been roughed up by evil clowns and had dirty socks stuffed into his mouth (to which Caleb appeared on camera saying he could still taste ‘a revolting
fromage
taste in my mouth'. I later found out
fromage
was cheese; Caleb apparently learnt the word when he performed in France last summer); how Blindfold had led the animals out of their cages; how Biker Pete and Hayley were supposed to be our friends but had conspired with Chesterley to get my dad out of the picture and take over the circus; how my uncles, who didn't like stunts on account of being shot out of cannons from an early age, were trying to sell off our land and how the insurance company had said they wouldn't let us perform our fundraising show.

Jennifer Pringle, who couldn't have got a word in edgeways anyway, just let me talk and talk, until all my words had been used up. I didn't know at the time, but every word was going out live on TV. Actually, the story went all over the world, on account of the freak of a motorbike jump that Caleb did and an elephant beating a monster truck in a battle.

By now I was shivering, not because I was cold, but because I was so exhausted from having more adrenaline in my body than I'd had in my whole life, which had now all drained away. I suddenly felt so tired that I wasn't sure my legs would hold up my body.

I wanted to sleep for days, but I had to get to the hospital. I had to see my dad.