Percy Dale was visiting a childhood friend who had been an adult when he was just a boy, and telling her what had happened to him in the years that had since passed. He was now barely into his twenties. She was a psychiatrist, and he simply had to tell someone about his teenage experiences, especially about Ingrid. He told her of the remarkable and lasting impression that she had made on him, and then went on to detail what had happened next. She had made a visit to his own house to talk to him. She found his shrinking fantasy to be a particularly fascinating rarity of conditions.
"At school I was not at all happy. I did the work, and did a sufficiently satisfactory job of doing what the teachers expected of me. However, my life was empty. It lacked any spice and illusion. It was devoid of fun. I had my hobbies and things to do, but deep down I was far from happy.
"I used to get beaten about too. I wasn't the well trained fighter I am now, so it didn't take too many kids to overpower me. Playground punchings were something I could do little to avoid. Maybe people sensed that my heart was not really in the school and its activities. So they chose to make life miserable. After all, I would often just sit alone thinking or reading a book. That was what I liked to do. The majority of my playground peers involved themselves in lunchtime sporting games which did not interest me at all. So what? That was my business. Sometimes I think that perhaps I shouldn't have taken the name Sneaky Spy, which I took for sentimental reasons. A name like Black Sheep would demonstrate my strong belief in a person's right to differ from the majority in thought, actions and dialogue, should they so desire.
"When I was fourteen, my parents both died in a car accident, before I met Ingrid. I had never liked cars, but then I promised myself that I would be doubly devoted to never driving one. I had the options of staying with my uncle, being fostered, or staying with my grandparents. I picked the last option, and this had one drawback. I had to attend church with them every Sunday morning.
"One Friday morning, just after I finished school I was extremely excited. My grandparents were going away for an entire weekend. When I had finished school that day, I came home to an empty house. I had planned something big. I had saved enough money to go to the circus. I would steal out late at the end of the day, and ride my bike to St Ives showground and chain it up somewhere.
"It seemed harmless enough, and I would risk the roads for the excitement of it all. The circus of course was owned and supervised by a generous fellow named William Charters.
"It just seemed like a thing worth doing. So I rode all the way, and made it safely, even the long stretch along Mona Vale Road, St Ives.
"The show was magnificent. At the end of it all, I was captivated by the atmosphere of it. A circus had so many different people, each one with at least one peculiar trait that set them apart from everybody else. It wasn't like an army, where everybody does everything in time to a march, in the same uniform, with the same orders. It was a different lifestyle - not the one for me, but certainly one with friendly people. I became scared to go home and face school and everything else. So I didn't.
"Long after the crowds had all departed for their homes, I was still there. I had sat myself down on a fence to think. It was just near where most of the caravans were parked, but I knew I wouldn't make any noise. I wouldn't be a disturbance. I probably wouldn't even be noticed.
"I sat on the fence thinking 'I'm a Christian now. That makes life so much better, but it doesn't give me a trouble free life on earth. This world is so badly messed up, and I let it get to me particularly. I'll probably never see Ingrid again. For years it's been. Oh I just...' and I ended up crying quietly by myself. I did not think anyone would notice, but I felt so defeated by the fact that I seemed powerless to change things. I had had a spell of being a little outspoken at school, which had resulted in the counsellor telling me 'You won't beat the majority. Even a black sheep still has to walk with the flock.' That was shortly before I became a Christian at church.
"Anyway, there I was crying at the circus. Suddenly a hand fell gently on my shoulder, and a lady's voice said 'What's the matter, boy? It's very late.'
"It was Madam Swiftrix, the circus Illusionist. She had dark green straight hair, and a lot of it too. It helped her act, she later told me. She had dyed it once and kept it that colour. Her illusions and other tricks had impressed me on the stage, and there was something about her enigmatic image that seemed to remain when she was off the stage and out of the bright lights. She had an almost illusory way of being perceptive to people's moods, as I later discovered.
"She gave me a hug and took me into her caravan. In the language of a fourteen year old lad, I told this twenty two year old lady my various worries about life, and she was very understanding, like a mentor. In a short time she took a liking to me, and talked things over. I went back there whenever a show was on in the holidays and met her close group of friends within the circus. There was Tall Stella, the seven foot strongwoman with her powerful arms and light brown tints in her dark brown hair. There was Harlequin Harry and his teenage co-clown Junior Jester. Those two had colourful costumes. Harry's top and pants were of blue and white checked diamonds, and his belt, shoes and socks were black. His jacket had a checked pattern (horizontally) of red and green squares, which were a pleasing contrast to the rhombi all over his top and pants. Jester's clothes were similar. He had orange and black rhombi on his top and pants. His belt, socks and shoes were white, and the jacket was horizontally and vertically layered with pink and purple squares. They both had blond hair, and they both knew how to make people laugh, not only with their jokes, but also with their comic stunts. They made their acrobatic accidents look credibly genuine. They were competent acrobats to have falls like that; competent enough to take greater risks without falling if they wanted to.
"So the four of them were close friends, and they became my friends. I'd gotten older, and sneaking out was no longer necessary. I could see the show and see them afterwards. For a time, I wasn't worried about finding a girlfriend. Their friendship was good enough. I saw them three years in a row, and then came a girl called Donna.
Not at the circus obviously. I went to a summer holiday youth camp as a leader and got involved with the boats too. I ended up square dancing with Donna, but I hadn't exactly developed the gall that I have now, so I was rather shy. The dancing was on the first night, and how shy I was for the rest of the week. It was a waste of time for both of us. All I had to do was ask her if we could see each other after the camp. Still, I got my second chance about a year ago, and she's here now. However, I was so upset at the futility of my own shyness back then.
"The circus was back shortly afterwards, and I would turn eighteen that year. Having finished school immediately before those holidays, I decided to work at the circus for a year, travelling around the country with them, doing jobs in the circus in order to earn my keep. The job was easy to get, with four people putting in a recommendation for me. I learnt my knife throwing skills at the circus, and remembered everything that James Hamilton had taught me about gadgets and gimmicks. I thought of putting a razor blade in my watchband too. Making the tranquiliser dart guns was a major project at the time, and I was still learning what to do with the knife. I spent alternate nights of the week studying martial arts techniques, so that I could defend myself, enjoying the confidence as I moved from the most frightened boy in the school playground to the potential nemesis of any hardened criminal.
"It all went towards a dream that I had. I wanted to do something to change the way that the world was. I would be a desk clerk from nine until five, and then I would be something else, some sort of freelance adventurer who dared to interfere. I had started young and found plenty of help. Madam Swiftrix still took a special interest in watching me progress a bit more every now and then. She had an idea what I was working towards too, and we ended up discussing it.
"'Do you think all this is crazy?' I had asked her, 'Am I taking my childhood resentments of the past and my adolescent dispositions of the present too far? You tell me, Swiftrix, because you're one of the closest friends and best inspirations I ever had.'
"'Well Percy, do you remember our first meeting, and why you were so upset? If you want to try to do something about that now, then I admire your attitude. I cannot tell you whether or not anything will work, but be a happy adventurer if you like. Remember that we are always your friends, whatever you decide on.'
"Swiftrix's answer was ideal. I had planned to go ahead with it all anyway, although I was not completely sure how. Her support made it all the more a comfortable idea. At eighteen, I left the circus, almost nineteen actually, and came home to 66 Burnseid Street to recieve a nasty surprise. During my circus wandering days of the last year or so, I had been impossible to locate. So it was with some shock that I accepted the news that both of my grandparents had died of old age within a few months of each other, leaving this property and their vast fortune to their grandson, me.
"There was no point in wishing that things were any different and cursing the situation. It wasn't going to bring them back. I just told myself that people lose their families and friends sometimes, and the best thing to do was cope with it by concentrating on my plans for the future. I have accepted their deaths, but at the same time I have kept a lot of their things, in order to keep this house looking the way it did before they died. I had a considerable amount of work to do altering some of the rooms in this place. Changing the storage room - with its door halfway down the western upstairs hallway - was a demanding task, but now it makes an excellent Sneaky Spy laboratory.
"Occasionally I thought of Ingrid, but then I would realise that I had to get on with things. I didn't really think that I would inherit anything big from my grandparents, and I had no idea of the true extent of their wealth. It's made it a lot easier for me to involve myself in Sneaky Spy adventures. Having to sit at a desk from nine until five would have left me with little time to go out and cause trouble for the naughty ones.
"The first real adventure I ever had was overseas, shortly after I had settled down to a Sneaky Spy lifestyle. I decided to take my first trip overseas, and see parts of the world that particularly interested me. I looked through several of my grandfather's old travel films, some of which had been recorded years before I was born. Having manifested the idea with those viewings, I decided to go to the United States, Switzerland, Paris, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and good old England and Scotland of course.
"At this stage I was almost twenty, and I had worked out where to hide weaponry, and I had made several of my trick pens too. So I was able to smuggle my pieces of paraphernalia around the world with me, and it was in Scotland that the tranquiliser guns had their first chance to prove themselves. I ended up involved in a terrorist scheme, which I was able to thoroughly mess up, and I left several sleeping tranquilised hoods lying in wait for the local law enforcement officers to take them away.