Fizzlebert Stump and the Bearded Boy by A. F. Harrold Page A

Barboozul muttered something and his wife laughed again. It was a cruel laugh, Fizz thought, the sort that suggested she’d just seen a puppy fall off a skateboard and injure itself quite badly, not the sort of laugh you gave when you were hugged by someone with such a fluffy jumper that it tickled your nose.
    Then he heard another voice.
    ‘Hello? Anyone here?’
    Fizz recognised it immediately, (a) because it was Wystan, and (b) because Fizz wasn’t stupid.
    ‘Oh,’ said Lady Barboozul, no longer laughing. ‘You’re back, are you? Gildas was worried.’ Gildas was Lord Barboozul’s first name, Fizz remembered. ‘Where have you been all morning?’
    ‘Just out walking,’ the boy said.
    ‘Walking?’
    ‘Yeah, just walking. You know, round the park. That sort of thing.’
    ‘You’ve been playing football with that horrid little red-haired brat!’
    ‘No, I never.’
    ‘Don’t lie to me, Wystan,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve seen you. Remember we’re here to do a job and then we’re gone. There’s no point getting soft and sentimental and actually making friends .’ (She almost spat the word out.) ‘You’re just an actor. You’re my innocent little information gatherer.’ She paused, possibly to ruffle his hair annoyingly. Possibly not. ‘We’ll be gone in the morning. We’re booked in at Frobisher’s Freak-O-Rama-Land all next week. I thought we might go as clowns. How’s your juggling? What do you think?’
    (Fizz had heard of Frobisher’s Freak-O-Rama-Land . They were another circus. He’d never actually seen them himself, though. There was only one fact about them that stuck in his mind: Frobisher’s had the oldest high-wire act in the whole country. Not, to be clear, the act that was established furthest back in the past (it was actually a new act they got just last year), but the chap who did it was one hundred and six years old. It had to be seen to be believed, they said. He walked out on the high wire and, balancing a full sixty feet above the ring, forgot what he was there for and went back again. Fizz hoped that sometime he’d get to see the act himself, but not today, since he was still stuck in a trunk listening to someone else’s conversation.)
    He was just hoping nobody needed one of these beards.
    ‘We had a fight,’ Wystan said, his words tugging Fizz’s ears back into concentration.
    ‘A fight?’ Lady Barboozul asked. ‘With that boy? Make a note, Gildas.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘I hope you won.’
    Lord Barboozul said something. Fizz could tell because there was a silence exactly the same length as a sentence.
    ‘No. It wasn’t like that. We just argued,’ Wystan said. ‘He didn’t want to play football – ’
    ‘Oh, you stupid children,’ Lady Barboozul butted in. ‘Always arguing about something. It’s an age of tantrums. The sooner you grow up the better. I’ve always said that.’
    Wystan was quiet.
    It was a different quiet to when Lord Barboozul spoke. It was quieter and more sullen. And then the bearded boy spoke again.
    ‘He’s onto us,’ he said.
    ‘What?’ Lady Barboozul snapped.
    ‘Yeah,’ Wystan went on, ‘he says you’re trying to break his circus. He says you want to smash it up.’
     

     
    ‘What did you tell him? How did he find out? What did he say? Speak up. Spit it out.’
    ‘I didn’t tell him nothing. He’s worked it out for himself, hasn’t he? He’s not as stupid as you reckon he looks. I mean, he was bound to cotton on, wasn’t he? You’ve not exactly been subtle here, have you?’
    She just laughed, and Fizz shivered.
    If only he’d been able to record all this. If only he’d planned better. And then an even worse thought occurred to him.
    He couldn’t feel his leg.
    He had jumped into the trunk as quick as he could and had been sitting awkwardly when he shut the lid, and he was stuck that way, and now one of his legs had gone to sleep. And the only thing that’s worse, as you probably know, than a leg that goes to