The Adventures of Stunt Boy and His Amazing Wonder Dog Blindfold (4 page)

‘Run!' I yelled and took off back towards the hole.

I may be heaps smaller than Benny, but I'm a faster runner so I got to the hole first. I dived in and wiggled under the fence, Blindfold hot on my heels. I grabbed his collar and yanked him through.

As I did, I saw Chesterley, his cheeks swinging and shaking from the exertion of running, waving the elephant hook in his hand, as the bald-headed, jug-eared Biggsy sprinted past him.

‘Hurry, Benny,' I said as Benny got to the fence line. I grabbed his hand to pull him through, but Chesterley's hook caught on the elasticated waistband of Benny's tracksuit.

‘Get off me! Let me go!' yelled Benny, trapped between two worlds. He kicked hard as Biggsy grabbed him by the legs.

I clasped Benny's wrists and pulled as hard as I could, but my strength couldn't match the power of two fully-grown men and I lost my grip. Benny disappeared back under the fence, a shower of dirt falling in his red hair.

‘Got you, you thief,' said Chesterley as Blindfold growled and barked at them through the fence. ‘Let's see what the lions make of this lardy lad, eh, Biggsy?'

Lardy? Benny was the fittest guy I knew! He was all muscle.

What Chesterley and Biggsy didn't know was that Benny was in training for the Olympics, and he slipped out of Biggsy's leg grip as if he were covered in soap and then scissor-kicked Biggsy's leg, so he crashed to the ground.

‘Nice one, Benny,' I yelled, sure Benny would escape now. ‘Come on!'

But then Chesterley put the elephant hook right onto Benny's neck, on his Adam's apple, the spikey bit pressing into Benny's skin. ‘Don't move, boy, if you know what's good for you,' he said.

Biggsy got up dazed from the fall and sat on Benny's chest as Benny cried out as all of his breath escaped from his body in one rush of air and at that moment, Benny was their prisoner.

6

Runt Boy and Chunder Dog

M
y first instinct was to run and get as far away as possible, but I couldn't leave Benny to be fed to the lions, plus if I told his mum he was being held hostage then I probably wouldn't ever see Benny again because he would be grounded for coming OverEast in the first place. What sort of person would leave their best friend to either of those fates, especially when they had flapped their wings like a chicken to make him do something he didn't want to do?

Plus I knew that Benny wouldn't be able to escape on his own so I put my hands in the air and surrendered.

‘If you take him, you're going to have to take me too,' I said as I slid back under the fence, Blindfold following behind me loyally.

All the commotion had also brought out a couple of ugly, shaved-headed thugs dressed head to toe in black. A goon with a tattoo of a spider on his neck grabbed me by the left arm and wrenched it roughly behind my back, so high it felt as if it could snap like the wishbone of a chicken at any moment.

Blindfold popped his head out of the hole. Chesterley started beating Blindfold back with his hook as Blindfold violently barked and snarled at him.

‘Call your dog off, boy! If you know what's good for him,' Chesterley said as he struck out again at Blindfold sending him retreating into the hole for cover.

‘Go home, go on boy,' I said as Blindfold stuck his head out the hole again and cocked it to one side, as if to say, ‘What the?' He was really confused because suddenly I was back on the other side of the fence with the bad guys who were trying to hurt us and now I was telling him to go.

‘Go on, Blindfold, go home, boy,' I said, but as soon the words came out of my mouth I knew I had made a huge mistake as a look of recognition spread across Chesterley's face.

‘Blindfold?' he said grabbing me by the face and squeezing it really hard, so I had goldfish lips.

‘So if this is Blindfold then you must be the famous Stunt Boy,' said Chesterley, but he didn't sound as though he was impressed to meet me. ‘Although you're a lot smaller than I thought you would be. If you were working for me, I'd call you Runt Boy and Chunder Dog. That mutt is pure ugly.'

Admittedly, I'm pretty small for my age, probably a whole head shorter than other twelve-year-old boys, but to call Blindfold ugly! That just wasn't true. He's a very handsome dog. People often stop me in the street to comment on how handsome he is.

‘So what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Runt Boy?' said Chesterley.

I didn't say anything, hoping Benny could magic up one of his lies, but Biggsy was still sitting on his chest. I think Benny was too scared for his brain to work or maybe it was the lack of oxygen?

‘I'd call your dad but he's in hospital, isn't he? Maybe he should learn to ride a motorcycle properly,' Chesterley said, laughing and showing his pointy yellow teeth that looked like tombstones in a graveyard. ‘It would be terrible if he never came out of that coma. You'd be a little orphan boy with no parents at all. Don't worry, Runt Boy, I'd find a place for you and your sister at my circus, as long as you behaved yourself.'

‘No one at Stoked would ever work for your circus in a trillion years,' I said, defiantly.

‘Don't be so sure about that, son, people have bills to pay,' he replied. ‘Anyway isn't your dad a vegetable?'

‘Don't call my dad a vegetable!' I yelled, lashing out kicking him in the shins.

‘You little piece of –!' said Chesterley, twisting my ear really hard so it went all hot and red. Blindfold went crazy, snarling and barking on the other side of the fence.

‘Throw them both in a cage until I decide what to do with them,' said Chesterley. ‘And if the dog gives you any more trouble, shoot it.'

‘Run, Blindfold,' I yelled as the goons started to haul me away. ‘Run, go home, you stupid dog.'

I thought Blindfold would get mad with me and leave, but he just kept barking wildly, his gums exposed, the fur on his back standing on end.

Biggsy had Benny's arm wrenched up behind his back as they marched us off. Benny was wincing in agony. While I knew the pain was killing him, I also knew that Benny would be more upset that his mum was going to double kill him. Chesterley and his thugs hauled us through an open double garage door and into the animal enclosure. Inside were all sorts of animals; a bear, two tigers, two zebras and a lion were pacing in their minuscule cages, whilst the two adult elephants were rocking from side to side. Sheeba moved closer to the bars of her cage to take a look at us. I was double scared that we were going to be put inside with the lion, but I knew Benny would be triple scared because he gets more scared than me.

‘You're in big trouble, boy, the biggest kind of trouble possible!' said Chesterley. ‘Breaking into my property, vandalising my fence. Those are criminal offences. You know what we do to criminals OverEast? We put them in cages and throw away the key.'

Chesterley opened an empty cage between the lion's cage and the elephants' cage and the thugs shoved us inside, sending us sprawling into the straw. It smelt exactly like animal poop – probably because animals had pooped in it.

The lion in the next cage eyeballed us and roared. I felt the tickle of his hot breath that stank of raw meat and cabbage. It made Blindfold's dog breath smell like he'd been eating a strawberry lollypop.

Benny and I huddled together on the far side of the cage as Chesterley locked the big padlock on the cage.

‘You modern-day kids think you can do what the hell you like!' he shouted at us. ‘You're worse than animals, so you deserve to be treated like animals!'

Chesterley flicked off the overhead lights, creating a freaky half-light. They left us with no food or water, surrounded by animals, but I felt safer with them than I did with Chesterley. He obviously hated kids, which was bizarre because his circus was called Chesterley's Family Circus and kids are part of families.

‘My mum is going to kill me,' said Benny, looking like he was going to cry as he picked poo-covered straw out of his hair. Despite being such a big kid, he looked like a little boy. I felt really bad that I'd got him in trouble.

Mrs Henberry, or Jan, as she told me to call her, was super strict. She liked to use the punishment known as grounding when Benny got into big trouble, which means he wasn't allowed to go out. Anywhere. Once we got caught in his garden, smashing eggs at his neighbours' houses with a tennis racket and we didn't see each other for a whole week.

His mum was deadly serious when she grounded him. He wasn't even allowed to go to the shops, to the park, to my place, or anything. He was confined to the house like a prisoner in jail. He wasn't even allowed to use the computer, but he was allowed to go to wrestling training because his mum, although she said she was strict for his own protection, didn't want to derail his wrestling dream of getting to the Olympics.

There was a loud bang. Its sonic boom resonated straight through the concrete walls and into our cage, followed by a howling that sounded like a wolf. The lion next to us roared in response and the elephants trumpeted.

‘Was that a gun?' I said to Benny, suddenly starting to shiver in fear.

Benny looked at me, his mouth open and his eyes wide in terror.

‘No!' I cried. ‘Blindfold, Blindfold! They wouldn't shoot Blindfold, would they, Ben?'

Benny put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed hard. He didn't say anything because I guess he didn't know what to say.

7

The lion didn't find it funny

I
n the half-light I could see the lion staring at us curiously. His yellow speckled eyes squinted; his nose crinkled as he took in our scent. He stood up and stalked along the bars of the cage before letting out a low-pitched growl that rumbled through my ribs right into my heart. Then he plunked himself down again. However, there was something in his expression that made me feel sorry for him as much as scared of him.

‘Maybe he just wants to be friends with us?' I said to Benny. ‘He looks pretty lonely.'

‘Yeah right, Stunt. He may look like an overgrown kitten, but if you tried to pat him he'd take your hand off. He's still a wild animal.'

‘I know I'm an idiot for dragging you here and getting us locked up in a cage, but I'd never pat a lion, even if he looked super lonely,' I said.

I didn't want to think about the gunshot and what it might mean for Blindfold, because then I wouldn't be able to formulate a plan to escape and that's exactly what I needed to do, to get us the hell out of here.

But there were a couple of problems. Problem number one: we were in a locked cage, which wasn't truly a problem for me because I am a master at picking locks. When I perform my straightjacket escape trick, I have to pick seven padlocks right before the audience's eyes. However, I do usually have two paperclips hidden inside my mouth; today I didn't have any because when I left home I didn't know I would need paperclips in order to escape from a cage. Otherwise I would have brought some with me.

I had to think laterally. I scanned the room and noticed a clipboard and pen attached to the lion's cage. If I could get to that pen, I could fashion it into a picking device. Unfortunately, problem number two was slightly larger than problem number one: the lion was right next to the clipboard and was nuzzling his face against it, as if he was scratching an insect bite.

‘Okay, Benny, I've got a plan.'

‘What is it this time, Stunt?' said Benny rolling his eyes. ‘You're always getting me into trouble. Maybe we should just wait. They're probably calling your sister and my parents to come get us so they can ground me until I'm seventy-five.'

‘Are you mad, Benny? These people may have shot Blindfold!' A giant lump of sadness caught in my throat and made it hard to swallow. ‘Nobody even knows we're here! They could just mince us up and feed us to the lion. We've got to get out of here.'

‘How?' he said, shaking his head. ‘In case you haven't noticed, we're locked in a cage, Stunt Boy.'

‘I need you to distract the lion while I get that pen over there,' I said, pointing to the clipboard.

‘What do you want a pen for – to write a letter to the police saying we're being held hostage?' said Benny, sarcastically. ‘And what do you mean, you want me to distract the lion?'

‘I don't know. Sing him a song, or maybe do some star jumps or jumping jacks. Just get his attention and get him off his lazy butt. When he's distracted, I can reach into the cage and grab the pen. You may even get home before your mum finds out we came OverEast.'

‘I doubt that – we're already busted. But okay, let's give it a try,' said Benny sceptically. ‘I don't have to get too close, do I?'

Benny edged to the middle of the cage and started doing little star jumps, but the lion didn't budge.

‘Over here Mr LOL cat, come and have a laugh, Mr LOL cat,' he said before he started singing. ‘La le lol, la le lol, la le lol.'

‘Laugh out loud cat! That's funny, Benny,' I said, but the lion didn't find it funny and didn't laugh out loud. He looked bored. He was probably thinking,
Why is this lunatic kid trying to make me laugh and making up stupid songs in a cage?

‘It is not working, Stunt. He's too lazy,' said Benny. ‘You know lions sleep sixteen hours a day, right?'

Wow. That's more than Jem sleeps. Seriously, once she slept fifteen hours in one go. That happens when you're a teenager. You sleep a lot and get really cranky at stupid things. I'm thirteen next birthday and I have already noticed that I am way more irritated than usual.

‘Benny, you're going to have to take your clothes off, so he can really smell you. Get his tastebuds working.'

‘What?' said Benny. ‘Seriously? You want me to get naked?'

‘It's the only way,' I replied. ‘If he thinks he's getting a nice bit of chicken he might just move his lazy bum.'

‘Why do you keep comparing me to poultry when you know I'm a vegan?' asked Benny, sounding cranky. Benny would be thirteen in just two months. He was getting crabbier as well. ‘Anyway, why do I have to get naked? Why don't you take your clothes off?'

‘All right sure, if you reach your whole arm into the lion's cage, grab the pen and then pick the lock, I'll do the naked thing,' I said, knowing Benny wasn't going to put his arm inside a lion's cage, plus he had no clue how to pick a lock. I had the most dangerous job, as the lion could come charging at me at any moment and I could lose an arm, which would make it really hard to ride a motorbike, or juggle for that matter.

‘Okay, but I'm not going butt-naked. I'm leaving my underpants on,' said Benny.

‘Good!' I said. ‘That would be too weird otherwise!'

Benny pulled his top over his head, then took off his shoes and slipped out of his tracksuit pants. I was expecting to see his all-in-one wrestling trunks. Sometimes he even wears them to school under his uniform. It takes him ages to have a wee. He can't use the urinal because he has to go into the bathroom stall and take his whole uniform off.

But today he was wearing boxer shorts with teddy bears dressed in Santa outfits. Even though I was scared and we were in trouble, I couldn't help sniggering at his undies. I wouldn't wear those undies even at Christmas!

‘Cute knickers,' I said.

‘Shut up, Stunt Boy!' he said, all mad. ‘My mum has been at the restaurant and hasn't had time to do the washing.'

‘Get a bit closer to the bars, so he can smell you,' I said, knowing not to push it any further.

Benny edged closer and closer until he was squashing his chest and stomach against the bars. ‘Mr LOL cat, over here, do you want some hundred per cent prime vegan flesh for dinner?' he said, making us both laugh despite the fact he was in danger and mad at me for laughing at his pants.

The lion lifted his head lazily, sniffed the air, and licked his chops before standing up and moving towards the bars. Benny backed away quickly.

‘Nice one, Benny,' I said as he turned around and wiggled his rump at the lion. ‘Just keep him at that end of the cage.'

‘I've got your back, Stunt,' said Benny, who was an awesome best friend even if he did wear dodgy underpants. ‘Go for it!'

I crept over to the corner on the lion's side of the cage and reached through the bars, dropping my right shoulder down my back and leaning out as far as I could to extend my arm, but I was still too far away. However, when you're a circus performer, you always have to push your body that bit further than you think it will go.

Every day apart from Sunday we meet in the big top at 7 am for conditioning, stretching and training. The whole circus troupe turns out, bleary-eyed and dishevelled. Leonie, who is in charge of our aerials team, leads the exercises. Lots of times I just want to stay in bed, but unless you train you can't be good. Sometimes I think my thighs will snap or my arms will pop out of their sockets, but I always try to find that little bit of extra give in my body that will allow me to perform a trick.

That was what I needed now. I took a deep breath and exhaled, using every reserve of strength and energy to stretch my arm a little further. I managed to hook my index finger around the pen, at exactly the same time the lion turned his gaze away from Benny's prime behind to look at me quizzically.

Our eyes locked as if we were in a staring competition.

‘Stunt, watch out!' yelled Benny as the lion ran towards me.

I pulled the pen free from the string and yanked my arm back into our cage with a nanosecond to spare.

‘Good, Mr LOL cat, nice LOL cat,' I said, clutching the pen and backing away from his side of the cage as he roared his disapproval that I had encroached on his territory.

‘Good one, Stunt!' said Benny, hugging me, his naked armpit right in my face so I could smell his fear, which smelt like BO, but I didn't mention it, as Benny had been pretty brave as well, so he didn't need to be told he had BO.

I crushed the pen cap under my shoe and used the metal part inside as a tension wrench, and a piece of the pen's shaft as a pick.

The sound of the padlock popping open was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard.

‘Get your clothes on, Benny boy,' I said, smiling. ‘And let's get out of here.'

P.S. How to pick a lock with a pen:

1. Remove the cap from the pen.

2. Take the metal holder that is connected to the pen cap.

3. Insert the pen cap into the lock, and push.

4. Turn the lock clockwise.

5. Open the door.

6. Escape.