Circus of Thieves on the Rampage (3 page)

But one jeet which he had read that morning came from an old enemy of his. It was this jeet that shifted a particular enemy to the top of his list of suspects.

The jeet was from the legendary, the one and only Queenie Bombazine, and it was quickly rejeeted by thousands of her followers. It was an announcement. An announcement that circus aficionados
the world over had been waiting for. Queenie was making a comeback. She was putting on a show.

This, Armitage concluded, was deeply suspicious. She was up to something. All those foolish rejeeters out there might have thought this was just happy news of a circus starlet re-emerging from a
period of mysterious hiding, but Armitage had a powerful feeling there was more to Queenie’s re-emergence than that. She was out to GET HIM.
⁹
Or,
rather, to GET HIM BACK.

Because Armitage and Queenie had A PAST.

Armitage was determined to get to the BOTTOM of this mystery.
¹⁰

Nose-clips on? Here we go, back into those gloomy, doomy, rheumy years known as Armitage’s Youth, when he was a young buck on the circus scene, untainted by cynicism, criminality, bad
breath or grass stains on his favourite trousers. My, he was a fine specimen.
Phwoooaaargh
, what a hunk! He was just the cat’s pyjamas, the kitten’s mittens, the feline’s
beeline. This is not the Armitage we know and loathe, not by any stretch of the meaningless, cat-based metaphor. For not only was he just about the handsomest being ever to be squeezed into a pair
of skin-tight trousers, he was also different where it matters. In the heart.

Back then, way back when phones were for phone calls and computers the size of a garage could just about do the three times table, Armitage had a delicate, fluttery heart, vulnerable to quite
overwhelming pangs of love.

Yes, he was still a macho ringmaster with a penchant for flamboyant moustachery, but his muscle-bound, show-offy body was wrapped round a pink, fluffy, vulnerable, palpitating little heart. And,
back then, Queenie was in her pomp. (No, that’s not a make of car. It just means she was young and beautiful, and was in the process of becoming what she was destined to remain for the rest
of her life: a star.)

I’m going to leave out the gloopy, soppy bits, because once a book has been vomited on it is very difficult for the next reader to unstick the pages, so let’s just cut to the chase
and say that Queenie and Armitage were in love. Handy-holdy, kissy-kissy, fainty-fainty, petal-scented, drippy-song-loving love. Beautiful, it was. Or nauseating. Depending on your viewpoint.

But then, one fateful day, LOVE TURNED TO HATE!

Why?

Well, the trouble started on the day Queenie appeared on the cover of
The Circus Times.
Because even back then, when Armitage was much nicer than he is now, he was prone to bouts of
poisonous jealousy.

Until Queenie got on the cover of
The Circus Times
, Armitage had always thought he was the rising star, and his pretty young girlfriend was, well, an adornment. He was the Christmas
tree, she was the bauble, so to speak. That’s how he thought of it. But, when she became a featured cover artiste, he began to realise that she wasn’t just a bauble. She was also the
tinsel, the flashing lights, the chocolate coins, the dangly biscuits and – worst of all – the star on top. Yes, she was
a star.
He was just some foliage.

From that moment on, his love withered. He remained Queenie’s boyfriend for a while longer, but he began to criticise, nark, niggle and snipe. She felt sorry for Armitage, not to mention a
little guilty that it was her getting all the attention, so for a while she forgave him and politely tolerated the criticising, narking, niggling and sniping. But the day she caught him smearing
suntan oil on her trapeze in an attempt to make her fall was the day her patience ran out.

In an instant, her love for him came to an end, like a light switching off, or a train hitting the buffers, or a happy but absent-minded dog accidentally running off the edge of a cliff. In
fact, their love didn’t just end, it transformed into its opposite.

From that day forth, Armitage and Queenie were sworn enemies.

Queenie left Shank’s Impossible Circus to start her own troupe. Not long after that, with audiences dwindling, Shank’s Impossible Circus ran into financial difficulties. And, not
long after
that,
Armitage turned to crime.

When he committed his first robbery, can you guess who the victim was? Yes, it was Queenie Bombazine. He cleared her out. Picked her clean. Did her over like a kipper.

And you know what she did in return? She ambushed one of his shows, took the brakes off his medium-sized lorry,
¹²
and pushed it into a pond.

A few weeks later, Armitage sneaked into Queenie’s costume trailer, took all her costumes, washed them at 60 degrees, and put them all back again, shrunk.
Ha!

A month or so after this came the itching-powder-in-Armitage’s-stage-underpants debacle.

When, later that year, Queenie temporarily lost her licence after a clown’s exploding cigar exploded ten times more violently than it should have done, setting light to the hair of a
granny in the front row, she was in little doubt about who was to blame.

You get the picture. Shank and Bombazine had been rivals and enemies for many, many years. So when Armitage heard that Queenie was making a comeback, and that this was taking place only a short
while after his last show had been comprehensively sabotaged, he put these two facts together and came to a conclusion. Two conclusions, in fact. No, three.

CONCLUSION ONE: Queenie Bombazine was to blame for everything.

CONCLUSION TWO: It was time for revenge.

CONCLUSION THREE: Not just ordinary revenge, but a
rampage!

Armitage leapt out of the shower (did I mention that he was in the shower? Possibly not. It wasn’t important until now) and rushed to Narcissus’s cage, where he knew he’d find
Billy.

‘Billy! You’ll never guess what I’ve decided!’ he cried.

‘Why are you naked?’ replied Billy.

‘Oh, muffins,’ said Armitage. ‘I always get forgetful when I decide to go on the rampage.’

‘We’re going on the rampage?’

‘Stay there.’

Armitage rushed back to his caravan, towelled himself dry, and put on his rampaging outfit. When it came to matters of rampage, Armitage had classic tastes. His rampage outfit was a beige safari
suit (multi-pocketed, pleated back); safari shorts (beige, with turn-ups); white knee socks (leech-proof); desert boots (beige) and a pith helmet (beige).

He reappeared in Narcissus’s cage, where he immediately blended in, what with Narcissus also being beige from head to toe.
¹³

‘That’s . . .’

‘Yes! My rampage outfit! This time it’s just me and you. Despite your occasional outbreaks of civilian behaviour, you are still heir to the Shank Entertainment Empire, and I’ve
decided that you’ve reached an age when it’s time you learned to rampage. Are you ready?’

‘Er . . . I don’t know.’

‘That wasn’t a question, it was a statement.’

‘You said, “Are you ready?” That’s definitely a question.’

‘Stop being cheeky. Do you know what happens to cheeky people?’

‘What?’

‘I said, DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO CHEEKY PEOPLE?’

‘Why are you shouting?’

‘Because you said “what?”’

‘I meant “what?” as in “what happens to cheeky people?”’

‘I don’t know. What does happen to cheeky people?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Billy. ‘You asked me.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look, we’re getting sidetracked,’ said Armitage, tightening the chinstrap on his pith helmet. ‘I’m telling you you’re old enough for a rampage. You
are
ready. Now go and get ready.’

‘You said I was already ready.’

‘Ready as in old enough. Now go and get ready as in
changed
.’

‘Into what?’

‘Something more rampagey. Something hard-wearing, quick-drying and suited to sudden changes in climate.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. Jeans and a T-shirt or something.’

‘What kind of a rampage are we going on?’

‘The best kind. A thieving rampage and a revenge rampage, rolled into one. I have a plan so devastatingly, demonically, deviously dastardly that if I told you what it was, it would
probably melt your eardrums. We’re going to be rich. Rich, I say, rich. RICH! Hahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!’

‘I don’t get the joke.’

‘What joke?’

‘Why are you laughing?’

‘I wasn’t laughing, I was cackling. They’re very different. Now go and get changed.’

Billy gave Narcissus a last handful of pellets and a quick slurp of taramasalata, then went to change his clothes. He was an obedient boy. Obedient, that is, when he wasn’t trying to get
his stepfather caught by the police and locked up in jail for the rest of his life, which, let’s face it, doesn’t usually fall into the bracket of obedience.

Part of him dreaded the idea of going off with his stepfather,
¹⁴
just the two of them, without the rest of the circus troupe to dilute Armitage’s
attentions. And why was Billy so reluctant to spend some quality time with his father-out-law? Well, mainly because Armitage was a revolting slug of a human being without any shred of decency,
courtesy, morality, honesty, kindness, humour or humility. That more or less sums up the downside. But, on the other hand, Billy’s curiosity had been pricked by that word
rampage.
He
didn’t quite know what Armitage meant, but it sounded interesting. It sounded like an adventure.

Just as Billy was entering his caravan, pondering whether or not something exciting was about to happen on the trip that lay ahead, something exciting happened right there and then, in front of
him.

A man appeared. (OK, it doesn’t sound that exciting, but bear with me.)

A man appeared out of the sky.

‘Implausible!’ you cry. ‘Men don’t appear out of skies.’

All right, all right. A man
seemed
to appear out of the sky, when in fact he had jumped down from the roof of Billy’s caravan.