Circus of Thieves on the Rampage Read Online Free PDF

She inhaled and inhaled, sucking her mother’s scent into her. Then Hannah saw the sequinned words embroidered on the back: ‘
Esmeralda
Espadrille
’.
    ‘WHHHAAAAAAT!?’ shrieked Hannah. ‘Esmeralda Espadrille! That’s my mother?’
    ‘Yes. That was her stage name. She could do a back somersault from trapeze to trapeze with a double pike, triple flip-flop and . . .’
    ‘. . . quadruple wing-ding. I know.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘I met her son. Billy. It was him and me who took the enormous lorry and stole back Armitage’s loot.’
    ‘His lute? I didn’t know he played the lute.’
    ‘No, the stuff that he’d stolen. His
loot
.’
    ‘
That was Wendy’s son
?’
    ‘It was Esmeralda Espadrille’s son. And if they’re the same person . . .’
    ‘THEY ARE! I knew it!’ said Granny. ‘I mean, I didn’t know it. But I should have. The minute I saw the way that boy handled a camel I knew he was . . . was . . .
’
    ‘Special?’ offered Hannah.
    ‘Yes. Special like your mother was special. Special like you’re special. And, now I think of it, I recognise that camel – strong profile, movie-star eyelashes and a good set of
long green teeth – and I’m sure that’s the camel who delivered you.’
    Hannah’s heart was now beginning to feel like a trampoline and a trapeze and a drum kit, all at once. This had been a deeply strange day. She’d lost a mother and father, then found
another mother only to discover that she was dead, found two potential new fathers, and now it dawned on her that she might have gained a . . . no, she couldn’t let herself think it until she
knew for sure.
    ‘So, if Esmeralda Espadrille is my mother, and she’s also Billy’s mother, does that mean Billy’s my brother?’ she asked.
    ‘I suppose it does. Or your half-brother at least. That all depends on who your father is and who Billy’s father is.’
    ‘The other man who came round that day – the Cupcake Test day – was he called Ernesto?’
    ‘I think he might have been. It’s definitely a name with that kind of sound, because I remember telling myself not to call him Tesco by accident. Or maybe he was called Clive. I
think it was one or the other.’
    ‘We have to find Billy and get the truth! He’s my brother!’
    ‘He’s my grandson!’
    ‘So let’s go!’ said Hannah, leaping up.
    ‘Let’s go!’ replied Granny, leaping up, too.
    ‘But where?’ said Hannah, sitting down. ‘How are we going to find them? Shank’s Impossible Circus is on the run. In hiding. And nobody knows where Ernesto is, either. Do
they?’ 16
    17
    18

The Oh, Wow!
    Y OU MAY HAVE READ ABOUT THIS in the newspapers already, but just in case it passed you by, now is probably a good time to tell you
about a strange event of national importance that happened several years ago. It was a hot summer’s day, somewhere towards the tail end of the last century, and Parliament was filled with
dozy, sweaty MPs, busy debating and dozing and sweating. The Prime Minister himself felt particularly thirsty and hot, which in his case combined with a sudden overpowering urge to drink something
blue. He sent out one of his minions for a Slush Puppy, which he foolishly drank in one go, giving him a huge brainfreeze.
    In the grip of this brainfreeze, he suddenly stood up and yelled, ‘Let’s build a massive tent in the middle of nowhere and fill it with interesting stuff! It’ll be incredible!
Trust me on this!’
    Everyone there was too hot and dozy to object, but by the time the tent was eventually built the brainfreeze had worn off, and the Prime Minister couldn’t remember what interesting things
he’d had in mind to put inside it. The upshot was a massive pointless tent in the middle of nowhere, which sat there for a few years, as a monument to ________, 19 until an international consortium of property developers called Yeravinalarf Incorporated bought the site at a knock-down price and turned it into an entertainment