SNUGGLED IN THE CORNER of Narcissus’s cage (which was so cosy it felt more like a hotel room), Hannah asked the questions that had been troubling her for most of the day. ‘Was that Armitage Shank who shouted at us this morning?’
Billy nodded.
‘You looked really scared. Is he mean to you?’
Billy shrugged.
‘When you said that one day you’re going to get out, were you talking about running away?’
Billy’s chin moved ever so slightly upwards and to the left, which appeared to be both a nod and a shrug.
‘You’re supposed to run away to the circus, not from it.’
‘I would run away to the circus. I could never become a civilian. Yuk! No offence. What I want is to run away from this circus to another one. My dad’s one.’
‘But you’re Billy Shank. Heir to the Shank Entertainment Empire. I thought Mr Shank was your dad.’
‘Not my real dad. He’s just my circus dad.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means Armitage booted out my real dad and twisted his circus into what it is now.’
‘Which is what?’
‘I can’t really say.’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Is it something to do with why you’re on the run?’
Billy nodded.
‘Are you always on the run?’
Billy nodded.
For a short while,17 they sat in silence. Then Billy said, ‘Do you want me to tell you the whole story? About my dad and everything.’
‘Oh, yes. If you don’t mind.’
‘Usually I do. It’s not something I like talking about, and I’m not really allowed to tell anyone, either. You’re different, though.’
‘Thanks. Different from what?’
‘Other civilians. But you have to promise not to cry.’
‘Is it a very sad story?’
‘Tragic.’
Not crying was something Hannah was not good at. In fact, just the thought of listening to a sad story made her want to cry. The thought of a tragic story – a tragic story that had actually happened to Billy and his family – well, that had an instant effect.
Hannah began to cry. Not sobby, snotty, snorty crying, just a silent little leak from the corner of her left eye, which was always the weepier of the two. Her right eye was as hard as nails.
‘Are you crying already?’ said Billy.
‘No,’ sniffed Hannah.
‘I haven’t even started yet!’
‘It’s just hay fever.’
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘Maybe I’m allergic to camels.’
‘I don’t think you are. I think you’re allergic to sad stories.’
‘I’m not wet. I just cry easily. I don’t know why. The thought of other people being unhappy, especially people I like, always sets me off. It’s dodgy eye plumbing, that’s all.’
‘OK,’ said Billy. ‘Cry if you really have to. But try and wait till I get to the sad bit.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
Billy took a deep breath and began to speak in a slow, sombre tone. ‘This whole circus used to belong to my family. My real family. Back then, it was Espadrille’s Impossible Circus. My mum was Esmeralda Espadrille.’
He paused expectantly. A hush filled the cage – a strange kind of hush, of a variety you may not have heard – that of nobody talking, accompanied by distant birdsong and not-at-all-distant camel snoring. A camel snore, by the way, sounds like a man sawing through a tree trunk. In other words, this was a rather noisy variety of hush,18 and the longer it went on, the more confused Hannah became.
‘Why have you stopped?’ she said, eventually.
‘Esmeralda Espadrille!’ Billy repeated. ‘The trapeze artist!’
‘Er . . .’
‘Esmeralda Espadrille! The only person ever to do a back somersault from trapeze to trapeze with a double pike, triple flip-flop and quadruple wing-ding! Queen of the air! Bird-woman supreme!’
‘Oh!’ said Hannah, with a polite attempt to sound like she knew what he was talking about. ‘Esmeralda Epsadrille! The trapeze artists! She was your mum?’
‘Yes! And you know what happened to her, don’t you?’
‘Er...’
‘The papers never told the full story. You see, this was my mum and dad’s circus for years, and before that my grandparents’, but Mum and Dad weren’t very good with the money side. They just spent everything they made on the show, and on looking after the animals, so they got into debt. They tried to borrow to keep things afloat, but going to a bank to borrow money for a circus is like going into a tiger cage and asking for a massage. It’s not going to happen. In the end, there was only one person who’d lend them money. Armitage.’
‘Armitage?’
‘Armitage Shank.’
‘Your circus dad.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I still don’t know what that means.’
‘I’m coming to that. First you need to know who he is.’
‘A crook?’
‘Exactly. You’re quick.’ Billy smiled in approval. ‘Armitage Shank has been on the circuit for years, running dodgy circuses which open up and shut down, then open up again somewhere else under a new name. He’s always on the run, and the police are always after him because of his shady deals and dodgy practices and general crookery. Basically the first and only rule of the circus world is Stay Away From Armitage Shank.’
‘So why did your parents ask him for money?’
‘It was the only way to keep the circus going. It was either take Armitage’s money, or sell everything, give up and move into a . . . a . . I can’t say it.’
‘A house?’
‘That’s the word. I mean, it was the worst thing that could possibly happen. It was the nightmare that makes you tremble and sweat and scream, but on the brink of becoming reality. We would have had to become civilians. Bleuuuurrrrgggghhhh! No offence!’
‘So you had to take his money?’
‘Exactly. That was when we became Shank’s Impossible Circus, and my parents became his employees. It was Armitage who made Mum get rid of the safety net. He said it spoiled the excitement. And I suppose you know the rest.’
Hannah didn’t know the rest, but with an awful sensation in her stomach she felt she might be able to guess. Billy wasn’t crying, though, and Esmeralda was his mum, so Hannah knew she mustn’t, either. Using all her mental strength, she clamped down on her tear ducts.
‘My dad was the catcher,’ Billy continued. ‘It wasn’t his fault. I mean, you can’t get everything perfect every single night – that’s why you need a net – but he never got over the guilt. His main thing in the show was juggling, and after the funeral he just couldn’t do it any more. He had the jitters. He kept dropping things. Eventually Armitage sacked him and Dad had to leave. I wanted to go with him, but Dad wouldn’t let me. He said he didn’t have anywhere to live, or any way to make a living, and he wouldn’t know how to look after me. He told me to stay with the circus, and he promised that as soon as he could, he’d come and get me. He promised that he’d get back on his feet, but he needed to know I was safe, and looked after, and this circus was the only place he knew where that would happen. Then he went, and my name was changed to Billy Shank, because Armitage doesn’t have any real children and he thought having a son in the show would be good for his image.’
‘He changed your name? He can’t do that!’
‘It’s only a stage name. The one I had before was, too, so it doesn’t make much difference. You don’t think my mum was born Esmeralda Espadrille, do you?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Her real name was something like Wendy Dunn. I’m not even sure. My dad was Ernesto Espadrille, but off stage everyone called him Clive.’
‘That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,’ said Hannah.
‘It’s just a name.’
‘Not the name. The rest of it.’
‘Oh. I suppose it is pretty bad. Thanks for not crying.’
Hannah shrugged. She didn’t know what to say. Billy wasn’t looking at her any more. He was scrunching up bits of hay and tossing them at his feet.
‘The past is the past,’ said Billy, after a while. ‘And I know Dad will come and get me eventually. What upsets me now is the stealing.’
‘The stealing?’
‘WHAT DID YOU SAY?’
Billy and Hannah both jumped. Neither of them had heard him coming. Neither of them had seen the door open. They just heard the voice; that icy, terrifying voice, right there in the cage with them, bawling those four words with eye-popping fury. Hannah turned and found herself staring up at Armitage Shank. His moustache was still waxed, but other than that he was now in his off-stage outfit: a pink velour tracksuit and lime-green flip-flops. It isn’t easy to look scary in a pink velour tracksuit and lime-green flip-flops, but Armitage managed it.
Hannah looked back at Billy, whose mouth was opening and closing with no sound coming out.
‘WELL?’ Armitage demanded.
‘Healing,’ said Billy, quickly. ‘I said Narcissus’s paw is healing.’
‘Hmmmm,’ said Armitage, turning his attention to Hannah, eyeing her up and down as if she was a corn on the cob and he was pondering which end to gobble first Who’s this?’ he sneered. A new friend?’
You may have noticed that dog walkers usually carry small plastic bags. You may also have noticed the rather unusual way that dog walkers carry these bags when they are full, using only the tips of their fingers, as if they don’t really want to be holding them. This is the way Armitage pronounced the word friend.
Billy didn’t reply. He shuffled further back into the corner of the cage. Hannah felt herself doing the same thing.
Armitage looked at Hannah and spoke again, quietly now, but his quiet voice was somehow even scarier than his loud one. ‘Because you ought to know that we don’t have friends here. You people aren’t our friends. You’re our audience.’
Hannah cleared her throat. Her voice felt wobbly and thin, but she tried to speak as confidently as she could. ‘Mr Shank,’ she said, ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m afraid you’re mistaken, because Billy is my friend and I’m his.’
Armitage blinked at Hannah, appearing surprised that a creature so insignificant was even capable of speech, let alone of contradicting him.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked, in a tone of voice that used politeness in the way chefs use a cleaver.
‘Pffffffffp,’ said Narcissus. And not with his mouth.
An extraordinary smell filled the cage, a cross between tear gas, sewage, curdled milk, egg sandwich and pickled herring. Hannah’s eyes began to run, her nose streamed and her throat constricted. Armitage coughed, his stomach jerking as if he was struggling not to vomit. Billy didn’t move, apart from a faint twitch of one nostril. Over the years, he had developed an immunity – almost a fondness – for Narcissus’s gastric releases.
‘And we’ve got some important things to do,’ Hannah continued, encouraged by the camel’s contribution to her argument. ‘So if you’ll excuse us, I’m afraid we have to go.’
Hannah reached out and grabbed Billy’s hand. It felt cold and stiff, but she gripped hard and pulled, yanking him onto his feet and hauling him out of the cage.
Armitage spun on his heel and sprinted after them, but within seconds a dog leapt out from under a caravan and grabbed him by the leg of his tracksuit, toppling him into a patch of mud.19
‘My tracksuit!’ he yelped. ‘MY TRACKSUIT! MY TRACKSUIT!’
If there was one thing Armitage hated even more than being contradicted by children, gassed by camels and outwitted by civilians, it was getting his clothes dirty.
Hannah and Billy darted across the park, running as fast as they could, out of sight and into the trees. They didn’t stop until they reached Hannah’s secret hideaway high up in the oak.
From far away, they could hear the distant sound of a tiny voice shouting very loudly.
‘MY TRACKSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUI I I I I I I I I I I I I IT!!!’
‘I can’t believe you did that,’ said Billy, when he eventually got his breath back.
‘Neither can I,’ said Hannah.
‘I’ve never seen anyone stand up to him before.’
‘Really?’
‘Never,’ he said solemnly.
‘What do you think he’ll do?’
‘What can he do? He doesn’t even know who you are.’
Hannah looked down, her eye drawn by the casual, loping arrival of Fizzer, who had a scrap of pink velour dangling from his mouth.
‘How much of a crook is he?’ asked Hannah. ‘What’s really going on? Why is everyone so scared of him?’
And that’s when Billy told her what was going to happen later in the evening, during the show, revealing to her every element of the dastardly, devious, deceitful, dishonest, devilish plan Armitage Shank had put into place. Billy had never before told anyone about the circus’s criminal activities, because he knew it was the very secretest secret. If he was caught talking to any civilian about it, he’d be thrown out on the streets. But he trusted Hannah. There was something special about her. And he had a strange feeling – just a hint of a whisper of an inkling – that she was the kind of person who might be willing to help him.
Listening to the details of Armitage Shank’s scheme, Hannah could hardly believe her ears. She was amazed. She was horrified. She was gobsmacked and flabbergasted and gobgasted and flabbersmacked.
Billy knew she’d be shocked, but the thing he didn’t guess was what she would say in response. The words that came out of her mouth were, in fact, the last thing he expected.
‘We have to stop it,’ she said, without even a moment’s thought.
Hannah had an unusually strong sense of what was right and what was wrong, and when one of them pretended to be the other, she never just stood back and watched.
‘We can’t,’ replied Billy. ‘It’s not possible.’
‘Everything’s possible. You should know that more than anyone.’
‘Why?’
‘Think who you work for.’
‘That’s just a name.’
‘Then think what you do. You live in a different place every night and you make a living by amazing people and you ride a camel and you dress yourself in curtains and your mum knew how to do a back somersault with a double pike and triple flip-flop and quadruple wing-ding!’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘If you get on the wrong side of Armitage, you’re done for. He’s dangerous.’
‘We can be dangerous, too, if we put our minds to it.’
‘How?’
‘I think I’ve got a plan,’ she said, a mischievous glint sparkling in her eyes. ‘Do you know how to drive a lorry?’
‘A lorry?’
‘The lorry. The enormous lorry. Can you drive it?’