Fizzlebert Stump by A.F. Harrold

told Piltdown about the circus that morning, he hadn’t told her everything, so there was loads for her to find out. Loads of mysteries, and her imagination helped fill in the gaps.
    As she was running along, keeping her eye on the top of the Big Top, which she could see over the small tops of the caravans, she was surprised from behind and found herself suddenly screaming face down in the dirt.
    â€˜Arrgghhh!’ she shouted as she writhed under the heavy dark smelly thing that was pinning her down.
    It was damp and fat and unpleasant.
    After the sea lion had rootled its nose into Piltdown’s coat pocket and slurped and scrunched the crusty stale tuna sandwich thatFizz had lodged there a few days earlier, it rolled off the girl.

    â€˜Urgh,’ she said as she climbed to her feet, smelt the fishy waft that Fish left behind him and watched the sleek black watery beast waddle away.
    â€˜Ooh la la,’ shouted a round woman with a voice like a croissant (flaky and buttery). ‘Are you all right?’
    (It sounded like she was a German person attempting a Welsh accent.)
    â€˜Yeah, I’m OK,’ Piltdown said. ‘Just a bit squashed.’
    â€˜Is time for you to see me,
non
?’
    â€˜I dunno. Who are ya?’
    â€˜But Fizzlebert, I ’ave known you since you were a babby. Why do you say such things?’
    She pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and blew her nose.
    â€˜Amnesia,’ Piltdown said suddenly, feeling mischievous, while tapping the side of her head. ‘I fell down in the woods.’ (It was a good excuse, she should have thought of using it earlier.)
    â€˜Ooh la la,’ said Madame Plume De Matant. ‘Zat is a bad thing,
non
? You poor boy. I will make you a little thin tisane and we can go dip the madeleine,
oui
?’
    Piltdown didn’t know what she was talking about, but followed along because … well, why not?
    It turned out a tisane was a herbal tea and a madeleine was a little sponge cake (named after the nineteenth-century French chef Madeleine Paulmier).
    Piltdown ate a whole tray of them, with Madame Plume de Matant’s encouragement. After each one the French teacher (and circus fortune teller) asked, ‘Do you remember anything now?’ and Piltdown said, ‘Nah, not really,’ and Madame Plume de Matant said, ‘Well, maybe just one more will do the trick.’
    After all the cakes were gone and ‘Fizzlebert’ hadn’t got any more of his memory back, she decided they’d best do the lesson anyway.
    Madame Plume de Matant was relieved because the amnesia meant they could start back at the very beginning, with the French words she actually knew. (She wasn’t as good at French as everyone thought, but she got by just as long as she never went to France or met any French people. (Once a French family on holiday in England had come to the show and the Ringmaster had asked Madame Plume de Matant to translate for him. After a few minutes and some not-understanding she’d had to explain to him that they spoke a rare and difficult dialect that she didn’t know very well. ‘But we come from Paris,’ the mother of the family had explained (in English), ‘how rare can it be?’ Madame Plume de Matant had said, ‘I must just go and powder my nose,’ and went and hid in the toilet until they went away.))
    â€˜
Oui
,’ she said to Piltdown. ‘Say after me: “
Oui
”.’
    Piltdown said a different word which meant the same thing as the English word ‘wee’ (which sounds like the French word
oui
).
    â€˜Fizzlebert!’ Madame Plume de Matant said, sounding shocked.
    â€˜Amnesia,’ Piltdown said, smiling innocently and tapping her head. ‘Sorry.’
    The lesson went downhill from there.
    Ten minutes later Madame Plume de Matant was weeping on the steps of her caravan as Piltdown ran off whistling through the circus.
    This time she