Read Online Circus of Thieves on the Rampage by William Sutcliffe and David Tazzyman - Free Book Online

Centre in silence, and arrived with two hours to spare before the show.

    Armitage deposited Billy at a café in the enormous shopping centre that ran all round the Oh, Wow! Centre, told him not to move, and ordered an apple juice for him.
    ‘Does that come in extra-extra small?’ Armitage asked the waitress, employing what he thought was a charming smile, but was in fact a dismal and terrifying leer that gave her
nightmares for two weeks.
    While Billy sipped his minuscule juice, Armitage tiptoed around the Oh, Wow! Centre, examining things through a pair of binoculars.
    Examining what?
    I’m sure you can guess. Vans, caravans, vanacans, and vanacanavanacanavans and, above all, Reginald Clench’s Portakabin box office. 30
    When Armitage returned from his recce, his eyes were alight with a gleam that Billy recognised, a gleam fired by greed, determination and malice stewed together into a mulch of soupy, stinking
wickedness. It was such a hideous gleam it was like bad breath of the eyeballs. You couldn’t look at him without a flip-flop of discomfort flop-flipping in your tummy.
    Armitage ordered himself an extra large cappa-frappa-mocha-tocha-lochaccino with chocolate sprinkles and cinnamon sprinkles and extra sugar sprinkled on the sprinkles and extra sprinkles
sprinkled on the sugar. He sat down opposite Billy, peered over the top of his bucket-sized drink and whispered, ‘I have a plan!’
    ‘Oh, good,’ said Billy, thinking,
Oh, bad.
    ‘We have tickets for both nights. Tonight, we scope things out. Tomorrow, we strike!’
    ‘I didn’t know burglars went on strike.’
    ‘No! We strike! We make our move! We hit Queenie for all the takings!’
    ‘Oh. OK.’
    ‘This is going to be the biggest bonanza ever! It’s going to be my masterstroke!’
    ‘You say that every time.’
    ‘Do I?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, it’s important to be optimistic. It keeps you young. ‘ HahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA! ’
    This time, Billy recognised the cackle and tried to join in. ‘ HahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA! ’ he replied.
    ‘You’ve got it!’ yelped Armitage, spooning cappa-frappa-mocha-tocha-lochaccino froth into his mouth, which gave him a moustache of froth on top of his moustache of moustache,
and a moustache of chocolate sprinkles on top of the moustache of froth, and a moustache of cinnamon sprinkles on top of the moustache of chocolate sprinkles, and a moustache of sugar on top of the
moustache of cinnamon sprinkles. The quintuple moustache look was a new one, fashion-wise, but Armitage pulled it off.
    Billy smiled wanly, wishing the same wish he had wished more or less every day of his life. But today it was pulsing through him more powerfully than ever, because now, for the first time, he
had a glimmer of hope that it might actually happen.
If only my father would come! If only my father would come!
    ‘Maybe I can turn you into a good little thief after all,’ said Armitage, reaching forwards and, in a moment of rare affection, pinching Billy’s cheek between finger and thumb.
(I’m using the word ‘affection’ very loosely here, to include actions which are annoying, humiliating and physically painful.)
    Billy looked down at his very small, very empty cup.
If only!
he kept on thinking.
If only my father
would appear now and save me from this multiple-moustached monster. I
don’t want to be a thief! I don’t want to be a Shank! I want to be an Espadrille
!
    Billy was having a low point.
    As the crowds around him hurrying towards the circus swelled, thousands of people all out for the night of their lives, Billy felt more alone than ever. A hubbub of excitement echoed around the
vast concourse of the arena as more and more people arrived, while Billy felt nothing but sorrow, loneliness and gloom.
    What chance did his father stand of finding him here? Even if Ernesto did find his way to the Oh, Wow! Centre, how on earth would he locate Billy in among all these people? What hope was there
that anyone would