Yo-yo's Weekend

  25.

  Doctor Molasses comes ''To the Circus!''

  YO-YO, dressed in white knee-length shorts, navy blue crew-neck sweater, black socks and silver trainers, leads to the riverside field a large, angry crowd consisting of:

  The American tourists,

  Wee Jocko McTavish,

  Uncle Reefer and Katze,

  Lily Gusset and Aunty Latch,

  the young courting couple and the Podgemeister's family,

  the Ghost-Walker himself,

  the parents from Jorvik with their dung-covered daughters and Porky the Pig,

  the King's Head's landlord and the blackbird called Baby,

  the waitress from Bettys and the waiter from Four High Petergate,

  the barber and the flat-capped old coot,

  Martin Mizzenmast, released from his stool,

  Sergeant Cod and a group of policemen,

  five Japanese students,

  some Peterite schoolboys and the custard pie pupils from Bootham's,

  Harry Gration, Christa Ackroyd, Brucie and Tess, David Attenboroughs and Mona McBonkers,

  Mister Mealey, Ms Mousey

  and Hamish the dog.

  As they cross Lendal Bridge, the grid-lock breaks and people spill out of the tour-bus's windows, ignoring the tour-guide who gives in and follows.

  ''Where are we going?'' the Tourmeister asks.

  TO THE CIRCUS, they cry.

  The red-and-white Big Top billows gently in the springtime breeze. Mister Truss emerges to greet them, rubbing his palms together, then smoothing his scalp.

  ''What a lovely-looking lynch mob,'' he oils, ''Very lovely indeed. If I said..''

  ''Cut the crap, Truss,'' Yo-yo says fiercely. ''Give us Vanilla!''

  ''We're not open yet,'' Truss replies. ''Come back at 4.''

  ''Give us Vanilla!'' Yo-yo yells.

  GIVE US VANILLA, echoes the crowd.

  ''What's Vanilla?'' asks the tour-guide.

  ''No idea,'' someone replies.

  ''Doesn't matter,'' says somebody else. ''Just keep shouting.''

  GIVE US VANILLA, they bellow.

  ''Oh,'' says Truss weasily, ''I have someone else who'd much rather see you than Mister Vanilla''

  and

  Doctor Molasses steps out from the shadows. His over-ripe nose looks ready to burst. The Brillo-pad hair is less springy than usual. His pristine, white coat is heavily starched. He carries a clipboard, a stethoscope and an unfeasibly large, cartoon-style syringe.

  ''Good afternoon, Yo-yo,'' says Doctor Molasses. ''We've been looking for you all over the country. We've been extremely worried since you ran away. It's time you came home.''

  ''He killed my mother!'' Yo-yo yells loudly. ''He pushed her down the stairs then suffocated her with a pillow. Threw her body in a dumpster…. He wanted her ring…''

  ''Yo-yo, poor Yo-yo.'' Doctor Molasses shakes his head sadly. ''Your imagination runs wild.'' He spreads his hands to the crowd. ''Come back to Gillworthy and we'll heal you again. Look. Matron Majeiskii has brought you a chair.''

  Matron Majeiskii looks more like a gorilla chewing a bulldog than ever before.

  ''They torture me!'' Yo-yo cries out. ''They use electric shocks and multiple enemas.''

  They'd claimed he was constipated, despite a twice-daily fig-and-prune diet, and shoved half a yard of rubber hosepipe and a gallon of warm water up his bottom 'to get his bowels moving'. They'd moved for days. The other children had sat dumbstruck with horror as Doctor Molasses had yelled ''Let that be a lesson! To all of you! Don't listen to Yo-yo. Or you'll get the same!'' and hissing in Yo-yo's ear as the rumblings began ''That'll teach you, you mad, crazy bastard.''

  ''I am a doctor,'' Doctor Molasses says to the crowd, ''I know what I'm doing.''

  The crowd mutters a ''He's a doctor. He knows what he's doing.''

  ''Don't listen to him!'' shouts Yo-yo. ''He's mad! He's a nutter! He's a mentalist!''

  ''He's the mentalist,'' Doctor Molasses remarks to the crowd. ''He goes round the garden talking to trees. He chats to ghosts. He reads William Shakespeare and Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels is his favourite book. He believes everything has a soul, even the trees, even the stones. He believes in climate change. He believes in recycling. He believes in public transport and national health and free education! He believes that music and poetry can save the world. He believes that people are essentially good. He believes in the Soul.'' Doctor Molasses senses the crowd beginning to turn. ''He even believes in God.'' The damning declaration.

  ''Phew, what a loony!'' Mister Pedant remarks.

  ''Burn him!'' screams Miyumi, ''Burn the witch!''

  Doctor Molasses holds up his syringe. ''He'll come home with me. I am a doctor. I can cure him of his delusions. I will make him well again.'' The crowd claps. Doctor Molasses bows slightly. ''Come along, Yo-yo. Give me your arm.''

  ''No!'' shouts Yo-yo.

  ''Listen to the doctor,'' says the waitress from Bettys. ''He'll make you better.''

  ''He only wants what's best for you,'' adds the tour guide.

  ''We all do,'' snorts Porky the Pig.

  ''You're very lucky he's a doctor who cares,'' says the Ghost Walker.

  ''He doesn't care! He just wants to destroy my ring, to grind it to powder!'' Yo-yo protests. ''I am creative. I have imagination. I make things happen, here in my head. I write stories in which all things can happen - animals talk, children fly, people do magic, the poor become rich and the blind learn to see - stories, just stories I make up and tell so that people have hope that there is something better.''

  ''You're nuts!'' says the Fatster.

  ''But don't you want to live in a world where things like that can happen, where miracles happen, where anything can happen?'' pleads Yo-yo.

  ''Sure don't,'' says the American. ''You sound like one of them there an-ark-ists. In Thicktwistle Alabamy, we'd feed you on burgers until you explode, you vegetarian weirdo.''

  ''Why do people always want to destroy what they won't understand?'' Yo-yo cries. ''Why do you always want to drag everyone down? What are you afraid of?''

  ''It's easier, Yo-yo,'' explains Doctor Molasses, ''For people to believe the earth is flat. It's easier to believe that all minds are the same. It's easier to believe that the world is what you see, and not what you feel. It's easier to believe what you're told to believe. People feel comfortable with what they're told. Then they don't have to think it through for themselves.''

  ''But there are possibilities out there that neither you nor I can even dream of,'' exclaims Yo-yo passionately, ''Untapped possibilities. Limitless. Infinite.''

  ''And that,'' says Doctor Molasses, ''Is what frightens people. I've told you before. You'll never fit in if you're not mediocre. Nonentity leads to acceptance. Ignorance is security. Mediocrity is safety. Talent, risk, non-conformity, being different …. that leads to the newspapers, exposure, ridicule, humiliation and shame.''

  ''But I can't live like that.'' Yo-yo says softly.

  ''You must,'' says Molasses, ''Go with the mainstream or you'll be destroyed. You can't be in Gillworthy for the rest of your life. We can protect you in Gillworthy, but out in the world .…'' The needle glints in the afternoon sun. ''Just one little prick, and it'll all be forgotten.'' It touches his skin. ''You can come home and we will protect you. We'll make you well again, or, if we can't, we'll keep you safe, from the dreams, from the hopes, from all that would distract you and make you mad. We'll keep you safe from the world, from them.'' The needle pricks his skin. Yo-yo weakens. He can feel his knees turning to water. ''We will keep you cosy and warm….'' The sky reels. Then something explodes:

  BLAM!

  and Doctor Molasses falls to his knees.

  ''Get off him, you bastard!'' screams Mrs Lollipop, ''Leave him alone!'' She stands over the doctor, handbag aloft, pink bed-socks wrinkled, her mob-cap askew. ''It's doctors like you kept me bedridden for forty years! And there's nothing wrong with me! Nothing! Don't listen to doc
tors. Listen to yourself! Your inner voice is the only true voice!''

  Doctor Molasses yells as the handbag wallops him over the head once again. He sprawls on the grass, his clipboard forgotten, as Mrs Lollipop hits him again. His Frankfurter nose explodes in a fountain. Matron Majeiskii cheers with the rest. He tries to crawl to a place of safety but the ghost of Eleazar Glenn seeps through the earth and picks up his pen.

  ''You looking for this?'' the six year old taunts, waving the pen under his nose.

  ''What …what … what ….?'' stutters the Doctor.

  ''I am the Ghost of Eleazar Glenn.''

  ''There is no such as thing as ghosts,'' says Doctor Molasses. ''You're merely a piece of undigested cheese or some too-dry toast…''

  Yo-yo touches his ring. The head of the Earl of Northumberland bleeds out of the earth, with Sister Theresa and Ellen the Girl, the children of Bedern and the mother and son from St Olave's Church. Doctor Molasses tries to bat them away.

  ''You are not real! You do not exist! Ghosts do not exist.'' Doctor Molasses says defiantly. ''I am a doctor. You do not exist.''

  ''We exist,'' says Ellen, ''But you choose not to see us.''

  ''Life is not on a clipboard and it's not on a tick list and it's not in your books of law or your books of medicine or your books of business and commerce. It's here in your head,'' says Sister Theresa, ''And here in your heart.''

  ''He'll never understand,'' Yo-yo says sadly.

  ''I know,'' says Eleazar Glenn. ''Time to go.'' He seizes Doctor Molasses' Paisley-socked ankles. The Doctor screams in terror. The ghostly children of Bedern sing their ghostly song:

  One, two, kick the shoe,

  Three, four, kick the door,

  Five, six, break the sticks,

  Seven, eight, break the gate,

  Nine, ten, kill the men.

  Eleazar Glenn gives a supernaturally strong tug and Doctor Molasses, with a final, despairing wail of ''But I'm a doctor!'', disappears through the earth. Suddenly there is a whoosh and a distant boom and the tent erupts in an orange fireball. Ruff the Bear has dropped his torch.

  ''What the devil was that?'' cries Truss.

  ''The circus!'' says Yo-yo, ''It's all about the Circus.''

  The Wildcat people lay hands on their boss. ''Unhand me, you loons. Unhand me at once.''

  ''No way.'' Catkin Silver. ''Not now we got you.''

  Truss raises his eyes to behold the Uzi-toting Czech Mates, the ferocious features of Brian the Lion, Jungle-Juiced Jake wielding a knife and the Lettuce Brothers with water-squirting plastic buttonholes.

  ''You should've given us a raise when you had the chance,'' says Jungle-Juiced Jake, ''Instead of lectures on productivity and customer service.''

  ''Job Plans and targets,'' says Jezdec.

  ''Feedback and focus groups,'' says Vez.

  ''Health and safety and risk assessments,'' says Strelec.

  ''You took all the fun out of life in a circus,'' says Jungle-Juiced Jake.

  ''It was for your own good!'' cries Truss. ''Remember what it used to be like here? Chaos. Anarchy. No-one in charge.''

  ''Maybe that's how we liked it,'' says Ruff the Bear.

  The circus performers close in on their boss.

  ''What are you going to do?'' he cries.

  ''Revenge!'' grins Brian the Lion. Truss shrieks as they bundle him roughly towards Catkin's Cannon.

  The mob sweeps across the grass towards the burning camp. The heat is intense. Everything seems to shimmer. The smoke is oily and black. Everyone seems to cough. Ropes and hawsers bang like gunshots. Pieces of wood crackle like fireworks. Fingers of fire claw at the canvas. A thick tongue of smoke licks at the sky. The canvas marquee sags in the centre, its roof swaying under the weight of destruction. It collapses upon itself with a deafening crash. People swarm among the trailers. At the Hall of Mirrors they fling open the flap, and are confronted by the Infinite Twins, JaxandDaxandJaxandDaxandJaxandJaxandJaxandDaxandJaxandDaxandJaxandJaxan

  somewhere in the middle

  Constable Kipper, tied to a chair in his boxer shorts and hob-nailed boots,

  and

  Mister Vanilla, grossly naked, a black, studded collar fixed round his neck and linked by a chain to the foot of Rue's bed.

  ''Guess what?'' Catkin Silver shoves Truss into the muzzle. ''You're fired!''

  BOOOOOM

  Truss soars through the air, limbs flailing like an epileptic spider, wailing like a demented police siren, and crashes headlong into the Hall of Mirrors. Everything shatters. Everything splinters. Everything dissolves into fragments of

  d jV

  ax n ki

  x lla ja a

  p per

  x d

  that spray into the air like glitter at a children's party.

  ''Thank you, Catkin.'' Dax, released, flies into the sky.

  ''Thank you, Catkin.'' Jax, released, flies into the sky.

  Constable Kipper picks himself up and uses his helmet to cover his parts. ''Constable Kipper!'' exclaims Sergeant Cod. ''What on earth are you doing?''

  Catkin Silver puts his hand on his Cannon and bows. ''Thank you very much.''

  The Wildcat Circus is falling apart. Tents collapse, caravans fold. Jungle-Juiced Jake's getting shagged by his lion. Strelec and Jezdec are knifing each other whilst Vez stands by with a bazooka to take out the winner. The Lettuce Brothers are four middle-aged, balding blokes stripped of their make-up and big floppy shoes and just looking sad. Truss is crawling around on all fours, cut, bruised, blackened by soot, a few broken bones, his clothes in rags. Mistress Thyme bursts from the debris, waving her riding crop, her top hat on fire.

  ''Everything stop! I command…..''

  ''Ah so,'' says Miyumi, ''There's Mistless Time.''

  Five camera-phones fire off as one and Thyme, her mouth wide-open in a soundless scream, is captured forever in digital form. But now, emerging slowly, steadily from the silvered slivers of glass, comes Mister Vanilla, fully-clothed in his yellow trousers, his lilac waistcoat, his ruffled pink shirt, the golden watch-chain stretching over his stomachs, his thin, black moustache-tips waxed erect, his thin, black hair plastered onto his scalp with an oil that smells of linseed. He pops a sugared buttercup into his mouth. His half-dozen chins and baby-pink face wobble a greeting.

  ''Have one, my pillicock, they're awfully nice.''

  Yo-yo confronts him. ''Give me my ring.''

  ''Your ring?'' Mister Vanilla gives a soft chuckle. ''I think not, my little iced bun.''

  ''You stole it,'' shouts Yo-yo, ''Now I want it back.''

  ''But it wasn't yours in the first place,'' says Mister Vanilla mildly. ''You stole it yourself. I was only recovering the jewel for its rightful owner.''

  ''The owner is dead!'' Yo-yo retorts. ''She left it to me.''

  ''She isn't dead,'' says Mister Vanilla. He sighs sadly. ''I know it's hard, Yo-yo, but you have to grow up. You can't remain a child forever.''

  ''I want the ring,'' Yo-yo says petulantly. ''It's mine. And I want it. Now!''

  Mister Vanilla shakes his chins. ''I'm sorry,'' he says. ''You can't have it.''

  ''It's mine!'' says Yo-yo again.

  ''I was asked to retrieve, and retrieve it I have.'' Mister Vanilla twiddles his 'tache tips. ''You see, my little dogkin, I do not want your ring for myself. Truss and the ladies, they want your ring for what it will bring them. Doctor Molasses wants your ring so he can destroy it. I want your ring because of your mother…..''

  ''Don't talk about my mother!'' Yo-yo slams his hands over his ears.

  ''You need to know the truth,'' says Mister Vanilla, ''About me, your mother and the Wildcat Circus…''

  ''La la la la la la,'' sings Yo-yo, closing his eyes.

  ''You must face the truth. Yo-yo, I beg you, open your eyes….''

  Suddenly there's a low, rumbling grrrrrrrrrrrr. Brian the Lion's black tail-tip twitches. Mister Vanilla's eyes pop with surprise. The lion bounds forward, jaws roarin
g, teeth gnashing. Mister Vanilla squeaks and turns to run but Brian is on him in one mighty leap. Mister Vanilla squeaks and struggles. ''Get off! Get off! Yo-yoooooo…''

  His great face swells,

  his chins expand

  and suddenly

  suddenly

  suddenly

  Mister Vanilla explodes like a giant balloon.

  Pieces of lilac flutter down from the sky. Falling swiftly, whirling and spinning, comes Yo-yo's ring. He hurls himself forward and catches it neatly. ''I got it! I got it!'' He springs to his feet. ''I got my ring back.'' His friends crowd around him, patting his shoulder, clapping his back, ruffling his hair, punching his arm. He solemnly, ceremonially replaces the chain round his neck and then he is chaired through the circus's ruins by crowds of people who cheer and chant his magical name:

  YO-YO, YO-YO, YO-YO, YO-YO,

  YO-YO,YO-YO,

  YO-YO