Fizzlebert Stump by A.F. Harrold

Author:A.F. Harrold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get this lot home before they melt.’

‘Or can you go for help?’ Fizz asked, growing desperate. The argument round the front of Mr Mann was bound to end soon. This old chap was his only hope. ‘Can you go to the circus and tell them I’m here. I’m going to be taken back to the school in a minute. They could come find me there.’

‘The circus?’ the old man asked, a twinkle in his eye. The wind ruffled his tufty hair and his bow tie fluttered. ‘What does a potato want with the circus?’

‘I’m not a potato,’ Fizz said, hurriedly. ‘I’m a boy called Fizzlebert Stump and I live at the circus. I’m trying to get back there, but I’m being kidnapped.’

‘Oh no, no, no,’ the man said. ‘I don’t think that’s the case at all. You don’t look like Fizzlebert Stump at all. He’s the other way up, usually, and less potatoey. And he doesn’t normally wear a dress.’

‘I’m not wearing a dress,’ Fizz said, even though he sort of was.

‘Now a potato in a dress, that’s not so odd. I saw one at the World Circus Expo in Ipswich back in ’78. It was the largest potato then known, and it was opening the fire station so it had dressed up lovely for the occasion. Had difficulty with the scissors though.’

‘Hang on,’ said Fizz, squinting. It was hard looking at things upside down. All the blood had run to his head and he had a bit of a headache and, on top of that, everything was upside down. He looked harder at the little old man. ‘Are you with the circus?’ It was unusual for normal people in the street to know about the 1978 World Circus Expo in Ipswich.

‘With the circus? Why, dear potato, I practically am the circus.’ The old man stood up straight, polished an imaginary medal and then added, ‘Well, I am a part of the circus. There’s lots of us and everyone plays their part. No one is more important than anyone else.’ Fizz recognised the Ringmaster’s words, he was forever telling them things like this, even though some people were more important than others. (For example, Captain Fox-Dingle, the animal trainer, was more important than Kate, the crocodile. A circus with the Captain but no Kate would be a safe circus, albeit one with a bored animal trainer looking for a project, whereas a circus with Kate but no Captain would be a circus with a loose crocodile wandering around with no one in charge.)

Fizz looked as hard as he could at the old man. It was difficult to tell who he was. He was in street clothes, not his circus gear. He wasn’t the Ringmaster because he never went anywhere without his top hat. He wasn’t one of the Twitchery Sisters, because neither of them were old men. He didn’t look like anyone he knew.

‘I’m Fizz,’ he said desperately. ‘I really am.’

‘No, no, no,’ said the old man.

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