The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis by Michael de Larrabeiti

and escape into the crowds outside.
    This was easier said than done. In the circus ring all was mayhem. Inspector Sussworth, with the intention of keeping the SBG raid totally secret, had not bothered to tell Signor Buffoni or any other of the circus people what he had in fact planned. Consequently the clowns in the ring, the real clowns, once they had recovered from their initial surprise, became very very angry. As far as they were concerned a group of unidentified men, dressed as clowns, had broken into the circus and ruined their performance just when it had been going well. For all they knew they had been attacked by their deadly rivals in the circus trade, Bernardo Mattamori and Sons. Such things had happened before.
    Now in total blackness, the police began to grope right and left in an attempt to seize and arrest the elusive Borribles. Unfortunately they only succeeded in catching hold of a number of strong circus men who did not appreciate unknowns handling them in the dark. The circus people started to lay about them with a will, grabbing policemen’s truncheons and cracking skulls with all the gusto of men who were used to swinging ten-pound sledgehammers and delighting in it. So the battle was joined in real earnest and although the circus people were outnumbered they more than held their own. They had been trained in the hard school of circus rings up and down the country. They knew all about jumping, falling, tumbling, throwing and ducking; the men of the SBG, for all Sussworth’s pride in them, came off second best.
    Even in the dark the clowns could find their props and some of them ran to their hosepipe. They turned it on and soaked everybody, policemen and escaping audience alike. They found a fire extinguisher too and covered the men of the SBG in sticky white foam. However hard the Woollies fought back, however loudly they shouted that they were officers of the law on official duty, the clowns would have none of it.
    ‘Don’t give us that,’ they yelled. ‘You’re from Mattamori’s. You can’t keep a good clown down.’
    Knocker too was shouting. ‘Spread out,’ he bawled. ‘Separate. We’ll meet by the horse if we can and take him with us. Make for Brixton Market and wait there. Go!’

    On all sides of the Adventurers adults still fought, pushing and struggling, swearing and stumbling, too busy and too angry to notice the slight bodies of the Borribles as they squirmed and shoved their way to the side of the big top. Knocker found himself thrust against the back wall of canvas with Chalotte next to him. She took a knife and slit the tent open. She put her eye to the gap and stared out.
    ‘Stacks of people,’ she said, ‘all watching. I can’t see any uniforms,’ and without saying any more she slipped from the tent and Knocker followed her, hoping that his friends were getting away as easily as he was. Knocker didn’t know it but his optimism was misplaced.
    As a result of the reprimand he had received from the DAC, Inspector Sussworth was determined not to fail this time. ‘Acting on information received’, as he put it, he knew for certain that the Adventurers were present at the circus that night and, to avoid alerting them, most of his men were not wearing uniform. He had disguised them as clowns, hotdog sellers, ordinary citizens and, in case that was not enough, he had an outer ring of officers and police cars all round the outside of the circus, hiding in the trees and bushes, determined to see that no one got away. The crowd into which the Borribles sprinted in such high hopes of safety was laced with members, both male and female, of the SBG. The Adventurers had no chance at all.
    Inspector Sussworth himself stood on the roof of his brand new snow-white caravan, a megaphone in his hands. Floodlights lit the whole area as clear as day. Sussworth was happy; he took no notice of the streaks of rain that blew with the wind over everything. He was shouting at the crowds, enjoying