Fizzlebert Stump and the Bearded Boy Read online

  Her husband, who had been silent up to now, stepped forward, took Fizz’s hand and said, ‘Good to meet you, Mr Stump.’

  He had a soft voice that hardly seemed able to climb up out of his throat before it was whisked away on the wind. Soft and quiet and anonymous, quite unlike his wife’s.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Lady Barboozul said, turning away from Fizz and looking over at where Cook was ladling food onto people’s plates. ‘I think we’re hungry now. We will take lunch in our caravan, Ringmaster. Have someone bring it over. We can finish the tour later, yes?’

  Before the Ringmaster could say anything, she had pulled her sunglasses from out her beard, slipped them on and began walking back out into the sunshine.

  ‘Gildas, Wystan, come.’

  Man and boy lingered for a moment before turning and following her, hurrying to catch her up.

  The bearded boy turned back as they went and said, ‘I’ll see you later, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ Fizzlebert answered.

  It was only after the boy had said his words and Fizz had answered that he thought about the tone of them. It had sounded a bit like a threat. He’d never had to deal with playground bullies, never having been in a playground, but even without training he could work out the meaning behind the words. It wasn’t so much, ‘I’ll see you later,’ as it was, ‘I’ll get you later.’

  Fizz gulped down half his lunch with a sinking feeling in his stomach. The other half he found he couldn’t eat.

  Oh dear. Laughing at beards isn’t the best way to go about making friends. That’s lesson one in this ever so useful book. What could we possibly learn in Chapter Three?

  Chapter Three

  In which a sea lion chases ducks and in which a clown makes sandwiches

  Later on that afternoon Fizz was down by the duck pond (there’s always a duck pond in a town park (go look)). He ended up there most afternoons, because Fish liked to swim, but he didn’t like to get his spangly waistcoat wet. (Would you want to get duckweed over your silver waistcoat?)

  Fizz was walking round the pond with the glittering piece of cloth draped over his arm like a waiter in an overly sequined restaurant. Fish was swimming rings round ducks and honking noisily at them from behind. The ducks were spinning round in the water and quacking back at him. (The moorhens had seen the sea lion coming and had rapidly migrated to a park on the other side of town.) It was somewhat cacophonous.

  And then Fizz saw what he’d been dreading ever since lunch.

  His stomach did a little flip and his knees wobbled as if they were thinking about running, but couldn’t agree on which direction to head off in. The duck pond noise fell away in his ears.

  There, from the direction of the circus, came the shape of the bearded boy. And as it got closer it turned out to be not just the shape of him, but the rest of him too.

  ‘Oi, you!’ he shouted as he drew close.

  ‘Me?’ asked Fizz.

  ‘Yeah, you. I’ve been looking for you,’ the other boy said, getting right up in front of him.

  ‘Um,’ said Fizz, nervously.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Doing?’

  ‘Yeah, doing!’

  The other boy was pushy and angry, and Fizz didn’t really know what to say.

  ‘Um, well. I’m holding the sea lion’s waistcoat,’ he tried, lifting up the spangly bit of cloth.

  ‘What?’

  Fizz pointed into the middle of the pond where Fish was balancing a rusty tin can on his nose. ‘He likes a swim sometimes, and I . . . er . . . I hold his waistcoat for him.’

  ‘That’s stupid,’ the other boy said, knocking the waistcoat out of Fizz’s hand.

  The pair of them looked down at where it had landed on the ground. It lay in a muddle in the middle of a puddle, the sequins spangling glitteringly up from the mucky water.

  ‘Well,’ Fizz snapped angrily, ‘it’s not the only stupid thing round here, is it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your . . . um . . .’ Fizz couldn’t say the word, the furry one (you know, anagram of ‘bread’). He’d been about to shout it at the boy, but a sudden spark of sense (possibly spelt c-o-w-a-r-d-l-i-n-e-s-s) had flashed in his head. Fizz didn’t want to start a fight. In a fight he might get punched, and if he got punched then he might get a black eye, and if he had a black eye his mum would ask where he’d got it and his dad would get all upset and start to cry. And Fizz would have to wear makeup in order to be able to go into the ring to do his act, and he hated wearing makeup (especially when his mum did it for him).

  Also, Fizz reckoned being the strongman’s son meant that something of his dad’s blood flowed in his veins. If the other boy were to punch him, and Fizz accidentally punched him back, he might do some real damage to the boy. (He’d never seen any sign of this super-strength before, but it might be better to try to not get punched, just in case.)

  While these thoughts quickly jumped through his head, the bearded boy grabbed hold of the front of Fizz’s t-shirt, and tried lifting him up.

  This didn’t work very well because his t-shirt was a baggy one and needed to go a long way into the air before Fizz went anywhere with it.

  ‘What were you going to say?’ the boy said, his blue-black beard bobbing in the bright afternoon sunshine. ‘Go on, say it. I dare you.’

  Before Fizz could say ‘Sorry’, which is what he actually wanted to say, the two boys were knocked to the ground by a huge dark wet honking shape.

  They both screamed involuntarily and thrashed about underneath the stagnant-smelling sea lion.

  Fish barked enthusiastically.

  As the two boys scrambled to their feet it was quickly clear the interruption hadn’t made the bearded boy any less angry. If possible, it seemed to have had the opposite effect.

  ‘What was that for?’ he shouted, pulling a long strand of pondweed from his beard. ‘You set your sea lion on me!’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Fizz. ‘And anyway, he’s not my sea lion. He’s his own sea lion. No one tells Fish what to do. I reckon he just saw you and thought he smelt something fishy. He’s rather fond of – ’

  ‘I don’t care what he’s fond of,’ the other boy shouted, pushing Fizz away. ‘He attacked me! I’m going to make a complaint. I’m going to report him and then you’ll both be for it.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Fizz acidly, stepping backwards, his apology forgotten, ‘why don’t you go running to your weirdy-beardy freaky-furry mummy.’

  ‘She’s not my mummy,’ snapped the other boy.

  ‘Oh sorry, of course she’s not. She looks more like your daddy!’

  ‘She’s not my mum,’ the lad said, suddenly quieter now, ‘and Lord Barboozul isn’t my dad.’

  ‘Well, how come the beards match?’ said Fizz.

  ‘Yes, well, that’s just . . . well, call it luck . . . call it showbiz, if you like. The fact is my real mum and dad are . . . they’re dead.’

  Gulp.

  A pause. Even Fish stopped honking.

  Oh dear. Now Fizz felt guilty. He felt bad. He felt small. He’d been taking the mickey out of this boy’s beard, teasing him and laughing just because he was different, and now he’d found out that something as dreadful as this had happened to him. Goodness. You should have a go at imagining how you’d feel in Fizz’s shoes, because I think, at this moment, he’d be quite happy to swap.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Fizz said.

  ‘Why would you?’ said the other boy, kicking at the ground and looking at his feet.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Fizz asked, trying to keep his voice from wobbling.

  ‘Wystan,’ said the other boy.

  ‘Wystan’s an odd name,’ said Fizz. ‘I’ve never met a Wystan before.’

  ‘You’re Fizzlebert, yeah?’

  ‘Yes. It’s an even odder name. You can laugh if you like.’

  ‘Nah,’ Wystan said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with odd, is there?’

 
‘No, of course not,’ said Fizz, feeling terrible. ‘Tell me about your . . . your mum and dad. I mean, if you want to.’

  ‘There’s not a lot to be said. There was this . . . this accident and . . . well, their hot air balloon just never came down. The police looked for months but they never found it. I was left an orphan and they, I mean, Lord and Lady Barboozul, they took me in. They were friends of my parents. Old friends, they said. They’d even been there when I was a little baby.’

  Suddenly Fizz laughed without meaning to. He clamped his hand over his mouth.

  ‘What is it? What now?’ Wystan snapped, almost angry again.

  ‘Oh, sorry!’ Fizz said, totally shocked with himself. He was blushing deep red. ‘I didn’t mean to . . .’

  ‘No, go on. What made you laugh?’ Wystan prodded Fizz in the chest with his finger.

  Fizz nervously began to explain. He twiddled the hair at the side of his head as he spoke, and half wished he had a beard of his own to hide behind.

  ‘I just thought,’ he said slowly, tiptoeing through the words as if walking through a minefield in a cow pasture (any step might go ‘splat’ or ‘boom’), ‘that if your real parents had asked Lady Barboozul to look after you, I mean, asked her back when you were a baby, then . . . then, she might actually be your godmother.’

  ‘Yeah, I think she is,’ Wystan said, staring suspiciously over his beard. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Well, in that case, you could say,’ Fizz said slowly, ‘that she’s your . . . furry godmother.’

  There was yet another silence. Fish looked from one boy to the other, whiskers glistening in the bright afternoon sunshine.

  Then Wystan smiled. (Fizz noticed it around his eyes before he saw it round his mouth, which is often the way when a bearded person smiles.)

  And then he laughed.

  And then both boys were laughing.

  ‘That’s an awful joke,’ Wystan gasped. ‘Are all your jokes that bad?’

  ‘Most of them,’ Fizz said. ‘Mum’s the funny one really.’ He felt so relieved that he went on, ‘Hey, why don’t you come back to my caravan before the show?’

  He held out his hand.

  And Wystan, after a moment’s thought, took Fizz’s hand, shook it and said, ‘Yeah, okay.’

  Fizzlebert lived with his parents in a small caravan. His bed folded down over the dining table, and the kitchen sink doubled as the bathroom sink when he had to brush his teeth. It wasn’t big, but it was home to him and that was what mattered.

  His mum, whose clown name was The Fumbling Gloriosus, was called Gloria, but I’m going to call her Mrs Stump, because it’s more polite.

  It was an hour before curtain up on the evening’s show and she was wearing her brightly coloured clown costume, but hadn’t yet done her makeup. When Fizz and Wystan appeared, she offered them some sandwiches and poured two glasses of lemonade, with straws and everything.

  ‘Thanks Mrs Stump,’ Wystan said politely, ‘but I can’t eat the sandwiches.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you like ham and jam?’

  (Even without her clown face on, she had some funny ideas about what made a proper sandwich. Rhyming fillings were an especial favourite: she did a great peas and cheese roll, of course, and also a (slightly soggy but ever so yellow) mustard and custard baguette.)

  ‘It’s not that I don’t like ham and jam,’ Wystan said, looking a little sheepish. ‘It’s just that I’m not s’posed to eat when there’s people around.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ Mrs Stump asked.

  ‘Food gets stuck,’ he said.

  ‘Stuck where?’ Fizz asked.

  ‘In here,’ Wystan answered, patting his beard. ‘Lady Barboozul says it’s disgusting, and that no one ought to see a beard full of sauce and breadcrumbs and bits of carrot. I always eat by myself. That way I can brush out the crumbs before I meet anyone.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got napkins, you can always wipe it up as you go,’ Fizz’s mum said.

  ‘No. It’s embarrassing. I’m sorry, Mrs Stump, it does look a nice sandwich.’

  The two boys noisily sucked their lemonade.

  ‘Do you drink soup through a straw as well?’ Fizz asked.

  ‘I’ve not tried it, but it’s an idea,’ Wystan said.

  While the two boys chatted at the dining table Mrs Stump wrapped the sandwich in some paper so Wystan could eat it later, and began painting on her clown face at the other end of the caravan.

  ‘Wystan?’ came a voice from outside.

  The face of Lady Barboozul appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Have you got Wystan here? Ah, there you are, boy. Lord Barboozul was worried.’

  ‘I was playing with Fizz,’ he said. ‘His mum made sandwiches.’

  ‘Sandwiches?’ She sounded slightly shocked.

  ‘I didn’t eat them. Don’t panic.’

  ‘Good. Quite right. But you shouldn’t be bothering Mrs Stump like this. Come home now.’

  At the sound of her name Mrs Stump stood up. She banged her head on a shelf, knocked a cuckoo clock with her elbow so it began cuckooing, and accidentally tapped the tap on the sink as she reached over to shake Lady Barboozul’s hand. Water squirted into the basin, where there were some bowls waiting to be washed up, and the curve of the topmost bowl sent the water spout fountaining out of the open window.

  There was a shocked shout of surprise from outside as someone got it in the eye.

  ‘Hi there. I’m Gloria, Fizzlebert’s mum,’ said Fizzlebert’s mum, Gloria, holding her hand out for the bearded woman to shake.

  Lady Barboozul looked at it as if it were the hand of a fishmonger who was allergic to gloves. And washing.

  ‘Yes,’ she said cautiously. ‘I’m afraid I don’t shake hands with clowns. I had a . . . an experience once.’

  Mrs Stump shrugged her shoulders, honked her horn miserably and slouched away to her dressing table to finish applying her eyebrows. She looked devastated.

  Fizz wasn’t upset for her, though. He knew that she was just playing the part of the dejected clown, because that was what happened when she was in makeup: things always went wrong for her (she was called ‘Fumbling’ after all) and she’d slouch off sulkily until something went even more wrong (or ‘wronger’ if you prefer) for one of the other clowns, at which point she’d slap her sides and point and laugh. Usually she laughed heartily until a bucket of whitewash landed on her head or a custard pie hit her, when she’d become all sad and put upon again. Clowns are just like that. You shouldn’t take them too seriously.

  Wystan whispered mischievously, ‘The clown had a joy buzzer in his hand. They give you a sort of electric shock when you touch it? Lady Barboozul’s beard went crazy . . .’

  ‘Wystan,’ she said quickly. ‘No one wants to hear about that.’

  Mrs Stump had perked up at the story and her bow tie was twirling.

  Wystan went quiet. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

  ‘Quite right, boy,’ Lady Barboozul said. ‘Come along. We must prepare for our first show. Must make it look good tonight, yes?’

  Then she surprised Fizz by squeezing past the two boys sat at the little dining table and leaning over to his mum. Her beard only just avoided trailing in Fizz’s plate with its breadcrumbs and jam smears. If Fizz hadn’t known better he’d’ve said that it had lifted itself up to avoid the plate, but beards don’t do that, so it must have been an illusion.

  ‘It was good of you to look after Wystan,’ she said to Mrs Stump in a sweet warm voice. ‘I’m glad he’s made a friend. So rare, isn’t it? Thank you.’

  And before Fizz’s mum could answer, she retreated, turned and strode out of the caravan, pulling Wystan along behind her.

  And then the two bearded marvels were gone.

  Mrs Stump said goodbye with a mournful sliding note on a miniature swannee whistle, and turned back to her mirror.

  Fizz saw that Wystan had left his sandwiches behind, and while his mum was busy, ate them himself.

&nbs
p; I’ll grant you, it’s perhaps not the most cliffhangery ending to a chapter, a boy eating a sandwich while a nearby clown finishes her makeup, but I think if I was trying to eat I’d like a bit of peace and quiet before the next chapter begins. So please, be kind, and give a Fizz a moment to ingest (which just means ‘eat’ with more letters, like what a postman does) before reading on.

  Chapter Four

  In which a strongman is surprised and a nose goes missing

  Fizzlebert was just wiping the last crumbs from the front of his t-shirt (looks like you waited long enough before starting the chapter – we both thank you) when his dad appeared in the caravan doorway.

  ‘Hi Fizz, had a good day? Where’s your mum?’ he asked, enthusiastically.

  ‘Hi Dad,’ Fizz answered with a sigh. ‘I don’t know where she’s got to.’

  (He pointed to the cupboard above the sink.)

  ‘That’s strange,’ his dad said, grinning widely. ‘She’s normally here.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fizz, talking like a bad actor. ‘I don’t know where she could’ve got to.’

  ‘It’s not like her to go missing.’

  ‘No, Dad.’

  ‘I’m worried about her, Fizz. Where could she be?’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t need to worry, Dad. She’ll turn up. Why don’t you have a cup of tea?’

  (He carried on pointing at the cupboard above the sink.)

  ‘A cup of tea?’

  ‘Yeah. You’ll need to get the tea bags though.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ said Mr Stump.

  Fizz clicked the switch on the kettle and his dad put a pair of mugs on the table and opened the cupboard above the sink, where the teabag tin was kept.

  As the long horizontal door was opened a brightly-coloured silk-clad shape rolled out and fell into his arms. It was Mrs Stump, laughing loudly and honking her horn.

  ‘Boo!’ she shouted between giggles and wriggles.

  Mr Stump put her down on the floor.

  ‘Oh Gloria!’ he said, laughing his deep barrel-bellied laugh. ‘You really got me that time! My heart fair jumped out of my chest. Such a surprise! I had no idea you were hiding up there.’