The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas

  “Hush,” says Pancho. He raises his voice so that the onlookers can hear. “He grew up by the shores of the Orinoco. He was reared by the wise men of the South American rainforest.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” says Nitasha, who’s joined them.

  Now Stanley laughs. “Yes, I was, Nitasha.” He winks at her. “I was. It’s all part of my legend. And I can swim with piranhas.”

  “But you need more practice, lad,” says Dostoyevsky. “It’s been no time since you were washin’ plastic ducks, and now you’re swimmin’ at the shores of death!”

  “OK,” says Pancho. “We’ll have a bit more practice. Then there’ll be a performance that’ll go down in history. How about tonight, Stan?”

  “Tonight?” says Dostoyevsky.

  “Yes,” says Stan. “Tonight.” He hugs Dostoyevsky and Nitasha. “I’ll be prepared. It’ll be all right.”

  “He is a special kind of lad,” says Pancho. “You said that yourself.”

  “I did,” agrees Dostoyevsky. He gulps.

  “Please say yes,” begs Stan.

  “OK,” whispers Dostoyevsky. “Tonight. But lots of practice first!”

  Pancho smiles broadly, then turns to the worried watchers.

  “This was just a trial run, ladies and gentlemen,” he announces. “Now spread the word. Tell your friends. Tonight will be the first public performance of Stanley Potts. Tonight a star is born!” He widens his eyes. “Either that, or a star is gobbled up!”

  OK. Now’s our chance to check what’s happening on the road from Fish Quay Lane. Let’s head out of the fairground. Let’s rise and look down. Oh, heck! There’s the DAFT van already heading into town with the DAFT message written on the side and with Clarence P. and Doug and Alf and Fred and Ted bundled up inside. They’re approaching the traffic lights. And look, there’s that same policeman waiting at the junction. The lights turn red, the policeman strolls into the road and glares in through the windscreen.

  “Best behaviour, lads!” warns Clarence P. Clapp. “This is an ossifer of the law come to call.”

  The policeman reads what is written on the side of the van. He approaches the driver’s door. Clarence P. winds the window down.

  “Good afternoon, ossifer!” he says. “It is good to know that you is fighting wickedness in this town.”

  “What is your name?” asks the policeman. “And what is the purpose of your visit?”

  “My name,” says Clarence P., “is Clarence P. Clapp Esq., and my porpoise is to seek out daftness and destroy it.”

  “Is it now?” says the policeman.

  “It is,” says Clarence P. “For I, sir, is a DAFT envistigator.”

  “Is you now?”

  “Aye, ossifer. A envistigator with seven stars, two pips and a certificate signed by the Chief High Envistigator hisself. I envistigate strange things, peculiar things, things what shouldn’t even be things. And I bring them to a complete and nutter halt!”

  “Do you now?”

  “Aye, sir. And these is my lads, Doug and Alf and Fred and Ted. Say hello, lads.”

  “Hello, ossifer,” grunt the lads.

  “Hello, lads,” says the policeman.

  “Could I be bold enough to ask,” says Clarence P., “if there is any fishiness or daftness what needs to be envistigated in this here town?”

  The policeman leans on the window. “We live in a wicked world, do we not, Mr Clapp?”

  “Indeed we do,” agrees Clarence P.

  “So there is always fishiness,” says the policeman. “There is always daftness. There are always peculiar goings-on. There are always vagabonds and waifs and strays and wicked folk that would lead us all astray. Let me tell you that right now, not one mile from here, we have a field full of—”

  At that moment, a car horn sounds. The policeman leans back from the van and glares at the traffic behind.

  “Oh sorry, officer!” comes a timid call.

  The policeman scribbles something in a notebook and turns back to the van.

  “You has a field full of what?” asks Clarence P.

  “Of fishiness, Mr Clapp. A field full of shenanigans and peculiar goings-on.”

  “That’s disgracious,” says Doug.

  “Appallin’,” says Alf.

  “Frightful,” says Fred.

  “Well said, Fred,” says Ted.

  A car horn sounds again. The policeman leans back a second time and gazes out into the darkening afternoon.

  “Would you like my lads to see who is tootin’ their hooter and put it to a halt?” asks Clarence P.

  “Indeed I would,” says the policeman. He moves aside as the lads clamber out of the van and head towards the cars behind. He smiles. “You are a man after my own heart, Mr Clapp.”

  “Us enemies of fishiness must stick together, ossifer,” declares Clarence P.

  “Indeed we must,” agrees the policeman. He points towards the waste ground where the fair is. “Now, if you drive your DAFT van down that lane there, you will find more fishiness than you could ever imagine.”

  The lads quickly return. They climb proudly back into the van.

  “We found the hooter-tooter, ossifer,” says Alf.

  “And the hooter-tootin’ is now over,” says Doug.

  “Thank you, lads,” says the policeman. “Off you go, and see what other daftness you can put an end to.” He steps back and salutes as Clarence P. Clapp drives off and heads down the lane towards the fair.

  “That is a man that is fighting the good fight,” says Clarence P. “Now, lads. Eyes peeled for daftness.”

  What do you think? Is Stan off his rocker? Has he gone too far? Should he ditch it all – the piranha tank, the cloak and trunks, the thirteenth fish, the hook-a-duck? Should he go back to having an ordinary life? But what’s an ordinary life for Stanley Potts? And what would you do if somebody came up to you out of the blue and told you there was something very special about you? That you had a special talent, a very special skill, and if you dared use it you could become famous; you could become great; you could turn from being you into being a very special kind of you?

  That’s the question, isn’t it? What if something like the piranha tank appeared in your life? What if somebody like Pancho Pirelli invited you to jump in?

  Would you be brave and bold?

  Would you face up to your fears?

  Would you jump in?

  You can’t know the answer, can you? Not really. You can’t know what you’d do until the very moment when you’re standing above the piranha tank and the piranhas are gazing up at you and showing their teeth.

  It’s nice to wonder, though, isn’t it?

  So Stan practises all afternoon with Pancho. He practises holding his breath; he practises dancing. He faces his inner piranha time and again. He imagines his exotic childhood by the Amazon and the Orinoco. He imagines the heat and the rain and the burning sun and trees as vast as cathedrals and birds as bright as the sun. He imagines the whispered instructions given by the wise men of the rainforest.

  He also spends a little time with Dostoyevsky and Nitasha. They tell him it’s the biggest day of his life. They’ll be there watching him, applauding him, praying for him.

  “I’m terrified,” admits Dostoyevsky, “but I’m dead proud of ye, son. Who’d’ve known, that mornin’ ye turned up at the hook-a-duck stall, what it would all lead to?”

  Nitasha smiles. “You make me think that anythin’s possible, Stan,” she says shyly, and she lifts her eyes to the brightening moon, and Stan knows she’s thinking of a slender woman in faraway Siberia.

  Stan dips his hand into the fish tank. He feels the fins and tail of the thirteenth fish, the fish he saved, the fish that somehow showed him the special talents inside himself. Then once again he makes his way through the darkening fair towards Pirelli and the piranha tank. People whisper and murmur as he passes by. “That’s Stanley Potts. Yes! The Stanley Potts.” Stan waves to those who call out his name. He blushes at their praise.
He grins at their encouragement. His cloak flaps behind him as he walks.

  He doesn’t see the five men who watch from beside the Wild Boar Cookhouse.

  “Aha!” says Clarence P. “Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  It’s him, of course. Him and his lads. By now, Clarence P. Clapp and the lads have seen enough fishiness to last them a hundred years. Disgracious fishiness. Appallin’ fishiness. They know they’ve surely come to the land of Rackanruwin.

  “Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” mutters Clarence P.

  “What is it, boss?” says Doug.

  “I should of knowed!” says Clarence P. “I should of thunk of it!”

  “Thunk of what?” says Ted.

  “Thunk of what might be behind all this. Thunk of what might be right at the heart of it!”

  “What is at the heart of it?” says Ted.

  “That!” he answers. “Act natural, now. And look quick where I is looking and where I sees the face of evil.”

  The lads swivel and look at Stan, whose blue cloak flaps around him as he walks.

  “You has seen that face before, lads,” says Clarence P. “You might well have forgetted it. But not Clarence P. Clapp Esq. Clarence P. remembers everything, always, everywhere. Clarence P. is not one to be tricked or fooled. Remember Fish Quay Lane, lads?”

  “Aye, boss,” mutter the lads, though Fred and Ted glance at each other and scratch their heads.

  “There was a lad there – I say a lad, though I should say a monster – that escaped just before we done the evicshon. And when we looked at him, we was looking upon the face of evil.”

  “I remember, boss,” says Ted. “It was horrible, boss. It was like a nightmare, boss.”

  “Well said, Ted,” says Fred.

  “And now the nightmare is back,” Clarence P. tells them. “This time it is dressed in a sky-blue cloak.”

  “Aaarrrgggh!” says Alf.

  “Can I smash his face in now, boss?” asks Doug.

  “No, Doug,” says Clarence P. “Can you see how he is loved in this place? Can you hear how these fishy folk think that he is the pea’s knees?”

  “Aye, boss,” answers Doug.

  “So we must bite our time. We must wait for our moment. But when we get him we will get him proper. We will rip out the heart of fishiness in this place and put it to an end … for ever.”

  Stan reaches the piranha tank.

  “Tonight,” says Clarence P., “is when all fishiness will come to a complete and nutter end.”

  They watch Stan disappear into Pancho Pirelli’s caravan.

  “Would you like to eat?” growls the boar man from the counter of the Wild Boar Cookhouse.

  “Eat what?” says Clarence P.

  “Chops!” growls the boar man. “Or a sausage or three. Or a burger, perhaps.”

  “What is they made of?” asks Clarence P.

  “Best boar, of course,” growls the boar man. He leans towards them. “You look like a bunch of upright fellers. You look like fellers that’d benefit from chomping on the boar.”

  “We certainly is fellers of a different caliper from others what we have seen in this place,” agrees Clarence P.

  “Then come and eat. There’s plenty here for all of you.”

  Clarence P. and the lads stand at the counter of the Wild Boar Cookhouse. They chomp on the delicious boar meat.

  “Is it tasty?” asks the boar man.

  “It is delicious,” mumbles Alf.

  “Is it making you hairy?”

  “Hairy?” says Doug.

  “Aye! Hairy like a boar. Like in the tale!”

  “In what tale?” asks Fred.

  “In the tale about the man that et the boar. Shall I tell ye it?”

  “No, sir!” says Clarence P. “We is not interested in silly tales. We is interested in truth and facts.”

  “Then shall I tell ye the truth about the man that et the boar?”

  “No.”

  “He turned into a boar hisself,” growls the boar man.

  “That, sir,” says Clarence P., “sounds distinctly like a tale.”

  “Perhaps it is. Perhaps the truth and the tale about the man and the boar is all one thing. Perhaps the truth and the tale about anything is all one thing.”

  “Should we do him, boss?” ask Fred and Ted.

  “Aye!” snarls the boar man, opening his jaws and showing his teeth. “Aye! Do it now! But before ye do, did ye hear the tale about the man that had no tales?”

  “No, sir!”

  “A tale came along and gobbled him up!”

  And the boar man jumps up onto his counter and opens his jaws again and roars.

  Back we go to the traffic lights at the end of the road into town. The lights are red. The traffic’s at a halt. The policeman’s standing there, of course, watching out for wickedness and fishiness.

  A tractor pulling a cart full of hay draws up. The driver turns in his seat and calls behind him, “It’s the end of the road, you two!”

  The policeman hears, and he watches.

  Two figures clamber down from the cart. They’re stumbling, sticklike figures, like scarecrows.

  “Thank you, sir!” they call to the driver. “Thank you, kind sir!”

  “Think nowt of it. Glad to be of service,” answers the driver.

  The lights turn green; the traffic moves on.

  The policeman grins. What have we here? he thinks as he proceeds towards the scarecrow pair with his hands behind his back. The ugly grin turns to a tender smile upon his face.

  “Good evening,” he says, ever so polite.

  “Good evening, sir,” say Annie and Ernie, for of course it is they.

  “Welcome to our modest town,” says the policeman. “And what might you be after in this place?”

  “Oh, sir,” says Ernie. “We are searching for a lost boy.”

  “A poor ickle lost boy?” replies the policeman.

  “Yes, sir,” says Annie. “He is a good boy, sir. He is this tall and he has a bonny face and there is goodness glowing from his eyes. I don’t suppose you have…?”

  “Goodness?” says the policeman. “I see many boys in the course of my work, but not too many who have goodness glowing from them.”

  “Then you would know him easily, sir,” says Ernie.

  The policeman ponders. He strokes his cheek, scratches his head. “No,” he murmurs. “I recall a high degree of wickedness, but… How is it, if I may ask, that you came to lose him?”

  Ernie looks down at the pavement. “Oh, sir,” he says. “I have only myself to blame. I did not treat him right. He ran away.”

  “He ran away, and yet you tell me that he is a good boy. Can a runaway ever be a good boy?”

  “Oh yes, sir!” cries Annie.

  “And what is more – can those who do not treat their children right be good themselves?”

  “No, sir,” whispers Ernie. “But I have seen the errors of my ways and I have changed.”

  “Too late!” snaps the policeman. “Your wickedness has been unleashed upon the world! We have an evil runaway in our midst. Now you follow him and think the world will be all lovey-dovey to you. IT WILL NOT! I should take you away this very minute and slap you in my darkest cell!”

  “Oh, please no, sir!” begs Annie.

  “What did you expect?” asks the policeman. “Did you think I would escort you to the nearest five-star hotel? Did you expect to be offered jacuzzi baths and handmade chocolates and four-poster beds?”

  “Oh no, sir,” says Annie. “We do not want luxuries.”

  “Luxuries? I’ll give you luxuries!” The policeman points across the road to the narrow lane opposite. “Get out of my sight,” he snarls, “before I slap the cuffs on you! Follow that lane. You’ll be at home down there with the rest of the raggle-taggle lot. You’ll find plenty of holes to hide in and ditches to kip in. Go a bit further and you’ll even find a river to fling yourselves in.” His eyes glitter in the sinking light. “If I so much as catch a glimp
se of you two again…”

  Annie and Ernie scuttle across the road. They dodge the traffic; they enter the potholed lane. The policeman sniggers as he watches them go. Oh, how he loves his work!

  “A nasty man,” says Ernie.

  “Maybe he’s just had a difficult day,” says Annie.

  She takes Ernie’s arm and they stumble together through the darkness down the lane.

  “You’re right, dear,” says Ernie. “Maybe he’s just had a very difficult day.”

  One by one and million by million the stars start to shine. The pale moon brightens. All across the fairground field the lights begin to flicker, flash and glow. People scream and laugh in the cooling air, and music thuds and wails and shrieks. Many make their way in hushed excitement to a place that seems more still than any other, a place where a simple wheeled trailer stands with a tarpaulin draped across its front, bearing the simple words:

  A floodlight shines upon the scene. And a spotlight makes a circle of brightness upon the blue tarpaulin, a circle that awaits the performer. The crowd gathers and grows. People eat popcorn and crisps and candyfloss. They eat sugary rock in the shape of little walking sticks and moulded into plates of English breakfast. They chew on chops and boar burgers. They swig beer and lemonade and bottles of black pop.

  “Where is he?” is the whisper. “Where is Stanley Potts? Have you seen him yet?”

  Nobody has, for Stan is in Pancho Pirelli’s caravan. He’s looking at the photographs of Pancho as a boy; he’s looking at the great changes that came upon that boy and turned Pancho into the man he is today. He’s looking further back in time, to the great Pedro Perdito. This is his ancestry. This is the line of history that leads to him, to Stanley Potts. And Stanley shakes a little, and trembles.

  “Nervous, Stan?” says Pancho.

  “Yes,” admits the boy.

  “Scared they’ll eat you up? Scared it’s the day of doom?”

  Stan ponders, then he shakes his head. “No,” he says. He trembles again, suddenly. “I’m scared of something, but I don’t know what.” Then he knows. “I’m just scared of doing it in front of all those folk, Mr Pirelli.” Then he knows some more. “And I’m scared of changing. I’m scared of becoming a different Stanley Potts.”