Fizzlebert Stump and the Great Supermarket Showdown Page 9

  And so (9) by the time back-up arrived he was already showing her various heavy things that he could pick up.

  It was as Emerald Sparkles went back to her caravan to get her knives (in order to show the police officers some different circus skills to just lifting things up (which she, privately, thought wasn’t all that)) that a commotion was heard coming from the broken door into the supermarket.

  Everyone turned to look.

  But what they saw won’t be revealed until the next chapter.

  Dum!-Dum!-Duumm!

  (Those, in case you’re unsure, are some dramatic chords, implying suspense. I thought I’d put them there because I realised we’ve not had a lot of dramatic music in this book (a common failing in books, I find) and I thought it was about time for some more.)

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In which some photographs flutter and in which some custard is eaten

  ‘What’s going on out here?’ said Mrs Leavings, as she burst from the back door into the car park.

  She straightened her hair as she said it, and tucked her clipboard under her arm.

  Despite the evident hurry, and the time of night, to those who turned to look at her she seemed quite calm.

  ‘It’s very late,’ she went on, ‘and people ought to be sleeping. They’ve got early mornings, after all, being working people.’

  Mr Stump lowered PC Singh to the ground.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  (Secretly he was worried. He’d been both stalling for time and causing a distraction with all the tea-making and circus tricks. He knew, you remember, that Alice was somewhere inside the supermarket. He hadn’t wanted the police to go nosing around in there (it would be bad if they caught her before she’d found the evidence (if it existed)). And he hadn’t expected more of them to turn up. But now he was stuck with them. And on top of everything, Mrs Leavings had emerged from the shop, the shop where Alice was. Had she been found? Had she been caught? Who was exactly in danger from whom?)

  ‘And you are?’ asked one of the other police officers, a tall gangly man who wore a pair of what looked like glasses-with-a-false-nose-attached-to-them, but which weren’t.

  ‘I’m Marjorie Leavings, deputy manager of this supermarket, and I’d much appreciate it if you’d all move along now and allow my staff some sleep.’

  Even as she said this several of the other caravan doors opened and ex-circus faces peered out, woken by the night-time noises and fearful of missing out on some excitement. (Especially since their lives had become so dull recently.)

  ‘Well, Mrs Leavings, my colleague here, PC Singh, was walking in a northerly direction, not so very long ago, when she noticed this gentleman lurking by your back door.’ He pointed at Mr Stump. ‘Upon investigating the situation it has come to our attention that he is not in fact a burglar, but merely a curious and concerned strongman.’

  Mrs Leavings pointed at Mr Stump with her clipboard. ‘I know who he is, officer. Thank you. And he ought to be in bed.’

  The policeman raised his finger as if to say I’ve not finished yet.

  PC Singh took up the story. ‘Although I believe Mr Stump innocent of any wrongdoing, I must inform you that there has been some damage done to your back door there. The handle seems to have come off. I believe Mr Stump, however, scared off any intruders you may have had before they intruded.’

  ‘I heard a noise,’ Mr Stump improvised. ‘And someone ran off when I came out the caravan. That’s right.’

  ‘Did they indeed?’ said Mrs Leavings coldly. Perhaps she was thinking about the broken handle she’d seen on Mr Pinkbottle’s office. She had worrying suspicions growing inside her.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Percy Late, tugging his dressing gown around him.

  ‘Why are there police here?’ asked Miss Tremble.

  Flopples growled in Dr Surprise’s arms.

  Mrs Leavings looked around at the little crowd that had gathered.

  She tapped her clipboard with a finger and said, ‘Everyone! Back to bed. It’s late and you’re all on earlies.’

  ‘I think,’ said the policeman with the nose and glasses, ‘that maybe we should just check inside. Just in case a burglar did manage to slip in while Mr Stump was getting his slippers on. It’s best to be on the safe side.’

  He pulled a torch from a pocket and switched it on.

  ‘That’s not necessary,’ hissed Mrs Leavings. ‘I’ve just come from inside and there was nothing amiss.’ (She wanted to get rid of the coppers so she could deal with this herself.)

  The word ‘amiss’ made a small bubble pop in Mr Stump’s head.

  ‘Missing!’ he spluttered. ‘I think Fizz and Gloria are missing!’

  ‘What’s this?’ asked PC Singh. ‘Why didn’t you say –’

  ‘I thought they’d gone on holiday?’ said William Edgebottom, who had joined the crowd. He was holding a potato up so it could see over Madame Plume de Matant’s hat. ‘Employee of the Month and all that? Sorry to interrupt, madam policeman.’ He nodded at PC Singh.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Leavings firmly. ‘They’re on holiday. A surprise holiday. A prize holiday.’

  The policeman took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose (which is how everyone knew it wasn’t attached to the glasses and was instead attached to his face, like a normal nose).

  ‘Can someone explain what’s going on? Do we have another missing person case here or not?’

  ‘Another?’ asked Percy Late.

  ‘Er, yes. My colleagues are out looking for a lad who’s not home from school yet. Second time he’s gone off this year. Last time he got himself kidnapped by old folk. Inspector Buckley’s doing a door-to-door of sheltered accommodation right now.’

  ‘That rings a bell,’ said Mr Stump. ‘Is he called … oh, what was Fizz’s friend called?’

  He slapped his head to try to get the memories to line up right and knocked himself over.

  ‘Well, I’ve not seen any stray lost boys here … it’s a supermarket, not a dogs’ home, after all … so I’m going to have to ask you to take your enquiries elsewhere now. Thank you very much,’ Mrs Leavings said.

  She indicated the gate out of the car park.

  ‘And you lot, back to bed.’

  ‘Kevin!’ squeaked Dr Surprise suddenly. ‘His name was Kevin, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ declared Captain Fox-Dingle, sticking his head out his caravan window. ‘Did trick. Head. Lion. Et cetera.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mr Stump, climbing to his feet. ‘Kevin came to the circus and he put his head in the lion’s mouth. He did Fizz’s trick with him.’

  Inside the building, winding the clock back a few minutes so we can re-join her when and where we left her, we see Alice crouched by the desk, clutching the envelope of blackmailable photographs.

  She hadn’t opened it. She was curious, of course, but it didn’t feel right to just open it. That was Fizz’s job, surely? Or even the Ringmaster’s, maybe. It wasn’t her circus, after all, she was just doing a favour for a friend.

  But she hadn’t moved either (and because she hadn’t moved for so long, hiding away, one of her legs (the right one) had gone numb), she hadn’t yet made a run for the door and back out to the car park.

  And there was a good reason for that.

  And I’m about to tell you what it was.

  She’d heard something.

  As she’d slid the drawer shut, while pondering what to do, footsteps that had been running away had returned up the corridor outside.

  She heard muttering, like someone talking to themselves under their breath, and it was coming closer.

  She reckoned it must be the supermarket owner, this Pinkbottle bloke. He’d come back for some reason.

  A moment later she discovered the reason. It was a simple reason. An obvious reason.

  Mr Pinkbottle had come back in order to help save the planet.

  That is to say: he reached in and switched off the office light.


  A rectangle of floor remained lit by the light that was on in the corridor. His shadow was a dark shape in the middle of the rectangle for a moment, and then it vanished.

  He had begun to walk away again.

  And then the light in the corridor went out too.

  In the dark Alice stretched a leg (the one that had become numb) and, because she couldn’t see what junk there was on the floor, she knocked over a thing. (Had she been able to see she would have seen it was a pretend can of a popular soft drink that, when it had batteries in it and was switched on, would dance in time with loud music.)

  It went clatter.

  The footsteps stopped, turned around, returned.

  The corridor light flicked back on.

  The rectangle of floor to Alice’s side, stretching across the accumulated rubbish, lit up again.

  ‘What was that?’ snapped Mr Pinkbottle. ‘Who’s there?’

  Things crunched underfoot as he made his way into the rubbish-strewn office.

  ‘I can hear you breathing,’ he hissed.

  Alice stopped breathing.

  ‘You’re in deep trouble, you know,’ he said. ‘Come out now. Come out where I can see you before it gets deeper.’

  Alice could see the man’s shadow creeping across the floor.

  She picked up a button (what was that doing on the floor?) and chucked it over the desk.

  ‘Huh?’ said the man, as he heard it ping off something and tinkle to the floor.

  (She saw his head turn in the shadow, and he moved, just a step or two, over towards the corner where the button had landed.)

  Alice grabbed her opportunity. This was it!

  Holding the envelope in her teeth, she pushed with both hands on the underside of the desk, heaving it upwards, using her legs as levers and her arms as pistons.

  The table rose a foot, two feet, into the air, and crashed down in front of her, knocking the man off his feet under a flood of stuff.

  She jumped up and ran for the door.

  (Her numb leg was all pins-and-needles-y and really hurt and she wobbled, banging into the doorframe, but then she was in the corridor and Mr Pinkbottle was still on the ground in a sputtering heap.)

  She ran back the way she’d come, trying to ignore the noises from the room behind her and the pain in her leg.

  She hurtled down the corridor, past doors and round corners and through open spaces piled high with packets of breakfast cereal.

  Was this really the way she’d come?

  Or had it been that way?

  It was so hard to know in the dark.

  She stood at the junction of two corridors trying to get her bearings, breathing hard and rubbing life back into her tingling leg.

  She was scared, her heart was thumping, her lungs ached, and she was up way past her bedtime. She thought to herself, You know what? This is brilliant! Better than being in the cicrus, anyway. Maybe she’d become a super-strong spy when she grew up.

  There were footsteps behind her, running towards her, and then she saw the glowing green light spelling the word ‘Exit’ at the end of one of the corridors and she lurched into action.

  ‘Get back here,’ yelled Mr Pinkbottle. ‘Stop! Thief!’

  He was dogged in his pursuit. Panting and yelping.

  Alice ran and skidded as her foot landed in a slick of slippery stuff.

  Wobbling and unsteady, sliding on one foot like a skateboarder who’s jumped off her skateboard only to land on an icy puddle, she hurtled forward, but then, with the elegance and skill of a true circus (not cicrus) performer, she regained her footing and ran for the door.

  Behind her the short supermarket manager wasn’t so lucky, skilful or elegant, and he slipped in whatever it was and fell with a splashing, sliding crash to the floor.

  She smiled as she heard the crash and then put her fingers in her ears as she heard the language that erupted from the fallen man.

  She burst out through the door like a train out of Hull and every set of eyes in the car park turned to look at her as she missed her footing on the first step and tumbled forward towards the puddled tarmac.

  Elsewhere Fizzlebert Stump was still in the dark.

  He’d heard running footsteps and muffled swearing outside the door, but he wasn’t sure if it was real or if he’d been dreaming.

  ‘What was that?’ said Kevin.

  Fizz’s mum snored gently.

  ‘I think something happened outside,’ Fizz said.

  ‘Do you think it’s a rescue party?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fizz. ‘I thought I heard some swearing. I think that might’ve been Mister Pinkbottle.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Kevin. It was a disappointed ‘Oh’ because, he thought, quite rightly, it was unlikely the man who’d locked them in would be the one to rescue them.

  ‘I’m going to go nearer the door,’ Fizz said. ‘I’ll see if I can hear anything there.’

  In the pitch darkness he climbed down from the box of cans he’d been lying on and put his feet on the floor.

  ‘Ooh,’ he said. ‘The floor’s all slippery.’

  ‘What?’ said Kevin.

  ‘I think something’s spilt,’ said Fizz. ‘Something’s leaked out. The floor’s all squelchy.’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ said Kevin.

  Now the noises outside had stopped, Fizz found it hard, without being able to see, to know which way it was to the door.

  He slid his feet slowly through the gloop on the floor and shuffled with his hands held out in front of him like a zombie with fingers that could sense brains.

  Suddenly Kevin shrieked.

  There was a clatter as he, and who knew how many cans of who knew what, fell to the floor.

  ‘What is it?’ Fizz asked, urgently.

  ‘Something touched me! I felt it touch my face. Cold and horrible.’

  Fizz had thought his fingers had touched something, just for a moment, but then it had vanished just as Kevin had screamed.

  He put two and two together and explained the answer to his friend.

  ‘Oh,’ said Kevin, embarrassed. He paused. ‘I’m on the floor, Fizz,’ he went on. ‘You’re right, there’s something slippery and cold down here. It’s all over the place. And it smells like … Oh, it tastes like …’

  Mrs Stump carried on snoring, oblivious to the boys’ conversation.

  Outside, Alice Crudge was falling forward through space, and the envelope she had been carrying was flying upwards through a different bit of space. (Neither of them were the sort of space in outer space, which would be quite exciting, don’t you think? I just mean, ‘through the air’.)

  She curled as she fell, and rolled, safely and damply, across the ground before bouncing to her feet and saying, ‘Ta-da!’ (She hadn’t meant to, but sometimes circus instincts take control.)

  Above her large glossy snowflakes were fluttering slowly downwards.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ said a man who was dressed as a policeman. ‘Were you supposed to be in there, little girl?’

  ‘A burglar!’ yelped a woman with a clipboard that Alice assumed was Mrs Leavings.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you some questions,’ said the man dressed as a policeman who Alice was beginning to think might actually be a policeman, as he stepped forward and placed a big hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ said Mr Stump, stepping forward and placing an even bigger hand on the policeman’s shoulder. ‘She’s with me. If you’re going to arrest her, you’ll have to arrest me too.’

  There was laughter.

  Laughter in the car park.

  What’s that all about? Alice thought. It didn’t seem to be funny to her.

  But when she looked the people laughing (Dr Surprise and Miss Tremble, who she’d met before) weren’t laughing at her. Instead they were holding in front of them a piece of the large glossy snow, which hadn’t been snow at all, but rather blackmail photographs.

  ‘What is it?
’ she said. ‘What’s the photograph of?’

  ‘Blackmail,’ said a shorter police officer who Alice hadn’t met before but who we know to be PC Singh.

  She was holding the envelope the photographs had been kept in. She read the words, ‘Blackmail photographs: Ringmaster – do not lose!’ out loud.

  ‘Yes, it’s him all right,’ said Dr Surprise. ‘Those eyebrows are unmistakeable.’

  ‘Young,’ declared Captain Fox-Dingle, peering at the photograph he’d caught.

  ‘Oh, but wasn’t he cute?’ said Miss Tremble. She looked closer at the picture in the doctor’s hand. ‘Um … Why’s he wearing a crown?’

  ‘Blackmail?’ said Mr Stump. ‘That’s what Fizz thought had happened. He said Mr Pinkbottle had blackmailed the Ringmaster into selling the circus.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Mrs Leavings. ‘Utterly ridiculous. Those photographs are private property, and this girl has stolen them. Police people – arrest the wretch and retrieve the photographs, before they get damaged.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can do that,’ said the policeman with the nose and glasses, lifting his hand off Alice’s shoulder. ‘These are some very serious accusations here and, our friend, Mr Stump, deserves to be listened to. As does his friend.’ (He meant Alice.)

  (Mr Stump’s plan (even though he hadn’t really known it was a plan at the time) of making friends with the police and not being bossy and horrible like Mrs Leavings had paid dividends.)

  PC Singh handed the envelope with the incriminating words written on it to her colleague.

  The giggling and muttering continued among the gaggle of curious ex-circus folk. They were passing photos back and forth and chuckling.

  William Edgebottom covered his potato’s eyes so it didn’t have to see. (Which wasn’t entirely necessary since the eyes of a potato aren’t things for looking at other things with, they’re simply spots from which a shoot will grow, if the potato is buried and watered.)

  Then he chuckled too.

  ‘What’s so embarrassing,’ Miss Tremble asked, ‘about a teenage Ringmaster dressed up like a member of Aldonian royalty? Why is this blackmailable? I don’t get it. So, he had floppy hair and spots and went to a fancy dress party. We’ve all done that. When I was seven my mum dressed me as a trifle and, sure, I’d rather the photos didn’t get out, but I wouldn’t sell the circus because of it.’