by Mo O'Hara
The crowd went wild.
The announcer stepped forward this time. ‘Now if you would all like to follow me back to the shark-feeding tank, I’m assured that they are just about to feed, for real, this time. And there’s not a goldfish or an octopus in sight.’ He headed off, followed by most of the crowd.
‘Mr Oddjobz,’ the manager started. ‘I don’t know how you did this, but the Aquarium has not had such good publicity for years. Things have gone wild on social media and we’ve had people visiting the website and booking visits all afternoon. Even the TV news want to do a story!’
‘It was really the idea of these two boys here,’ Oddjobz said. ‘Oh, and shark-girl.’ He winked at Sami who shark-thrashed the fin on the back of her yellow life jacket.
‘Well done, boys . . . and shark-girl,’ the manager said kindly. ‘Wherever did you get a stunt goldfish like this one?’ She pointed at Frankie in his jar. ‘We’d love to have him here as an exhibit in the Aquarium.’
‘I don’t think he’d like it much,’ I jumped in. ‘He’s happy where he’s living now.’
Frankie thrashed in his jar and pointed to a tank on the wall. ‘Although he might accept a small fish tank as a thank-you present.’
Frankie thrashed again.
‘I mean, a medium-sized tank,’ I added.
‘Of course.’ She smiled.
Then the manager motioned to our dads. ‘Unfortunately, we also need to discuss how your older sons will work off the money for the damage that Mr Oddjobz tells us they caused.’
‘Excuse me,’ I interrupted. ‘But I think I have an idea!’
Mark and Sanj stomped out of the entrance of the Aquarium in their Mr Squid and Mr Shark outfits.
‘I can’t believe I have to spend every Saturday singing for annoying children dressed as a giant octopus who has been inappropriately named Mr Squid!’ Sanj moped.
‘I think I changed my mind about wanting an evil lair with sharks. If I ever see another shark, it will be too soon!’ Mark huffed.
Fang hissed as Mark pulled her out of his shark hood, dressed as a mini piranha.
‘I think the piranha look really suits Fang, actually,’ Pradeep said to me.
We were waiting at the exit to the Aquarium for the dads to come out with Sami. She was skipping and shark-swimming at the same time. Not an easy thing to achieve, really.
Sami skipped-shark-swam over to us while the dads spoke to the security guards about Mark and Sanj’s working hours. ‘This was best trip ever!’ She beamed.
A moment later Oddjobz appeared at the exit with Antonio in his tank.
‘Wow, you’re going right away?’ Pradeep asked.
‘I don’t think Antonio wants to wait any longer. Besides, today’s my last day working here too. I just quit.’ Oddjobz explained. ‘I love this job, but I think it’s time I had a change of scene. I told the Aquarium that I would make sure that Antonio got back to the ocean safe and sound. So we’re heading off now for a flight to South America where I’ll take him out into the ocean where he belongs. Then maybe I’ll retire and go sailing.’
‘I’m glad we got to meet you,’ I said, shaking his hand.
‘Are you sure you can’t tell us what you did before?’ asked Pradeep.
‘If I told you, I’d have to wipe your brain so you didn’t remember anyway.’ Oddjobz smiled. ‘But I’m very good at keeping secrets, so your zombie goldfish secret is safe with me.’
‘How did you know . . . ?’ Pradeep started to say.
‘It’s classified,’ Oddjobz said, and tipped his hat. ‘Come on, Antonio, we’ve got a plane to catch.’
‘Adios,’ Antonio typed on the ‘Say It, Spell It’.
Sami ran up to Antonio and reached out her arms. He gave her a big squishy hug goodbye over the side of the tank. ‘Adios, sharky-niña,’ he typed with two of his spare arms.
Finally, Frankie flipped up out of the jar I was carrying and high-fived one of Antonio’s tentacles.
‘Adios, fishy amigo,’ Antonio typed. Then he turned off the speaker, typed out a sequence of numbers and handed the ‘Say It, Spell It’ to Oddjobz.
‘Well, I guess this is goodbye,’ said Oddjobz. ‘You kids take care.’
We waved as he started to push Antonio’s tank away.
‘Are you done with speaking now?’ we could hear Oddjobz asking the octopus. ‘I guess you won’t need this in the ocean.’ He was just about to dump the ‘Say It, Spell It’ in a bin when he looked at the screen.
‘Maybe we should stop and get a lottery ticket on the way to the airport?’ We heard him mutter. ‘I’m feeling lucky.’
‘WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!’
Sami, my best friend Pradeep’s little sister, raced down the hill on her scooter towards the school gates. ‘Hang on, Toby!’ she shouted to the terrified tortoise that was wedged into a small yellow bucket hooked over her handlebars.
‘Bumpity-bump-bump coming up!’
‘Sami!’ I shouted from my bike, pedalling hard to keep up. ‘Slow down!’
‘We’ll get there in time, don’t worry!’ Pradeep panted, speeding along behind me.
Sami’s scooter hit the bump and took off. ‘Yaaaaaay . . . Flying bit!’ she squealed. But Toby the tortoise had not followed instructions and hung on (not that tortoises have a natural ability to hang on to things). Sami’s scooter bumped back to the ground with a thunk.
She looked up to see Toby spinning through the air above her head.
‘Toby flying?’ she said as she stared at him in disbelief. My bike hit the bump and I took off too. I stretched out my arm to try and grab the terrified tortoise but I just managed to knock him with my elbow instead.
‘Pradeep!’ I yelled as I crashed back down. ‘Tortoise! Incoming!’
Pradeep was on it, but as he too hit the bump, he lost his grip on his handlebars and was thrown up into the air. Somehow he managed to grab Toby with one hand and pull himself back on to his bike with the other. Even Pradeep would have calculated that the likelihood of all that working was a zillion to one.
I slammed on my brakes and spun round to see Pradeep land hard on his bike seat.
‘ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!’ he screamed, while his look said, ‘My bottom feels like it’s been hit by a train, a bus and a 747 all at once!’ When he had finally stopped screaming, he got off his bike and cowboy-walked over to Sami.
‘Next time we say “Slow down”, can you please slow down?’ he scolded, holding out Toby, who had very sensibly disappeared inside his shell.
‘Sorry, Pradeep,’ Sami said, taking the tortoise. ‘Sorry, Toby,’ she whispered into his shell.
Toby popped his head out, and if I could read tortoise looks I’d swear Toby was saying, ‘Can I just go back to my grass now, PLEASE?’
‘I wish Cousin Joe was around to take Toby and Sami to this audition,’ Pradeep muttered as he walked back to his bike. ‘Toby’s his tortoise. The TV show’s called My Pet’s Got Talent – not My Cousin’s Pet’s Got Talent.’ He rubbed his backside and winced.
Across the road in the school car park were two huge trailers with satellite dishes on the top. The writing on the sides read:
TTP
TRANS-ATLANTIC TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS
A queue of people stretched from the door of one trailer all the way to the school gates.
‘We should probably get in line if we want to get into the auditions,’ Pradeep said, still rubbing his bottom.
‘Yaaaaay!’ Sami squealed again. ‘Toby TV star!’ She wedged the tortoise back in the bucket and grabbed Pradeep’s hand to cross the road.
‘My Pet’s Got Talent,’ I mumbled. ‘Hey, this is one of Solomon Caldwell’s TV shows! Do you think he’ll remember us from the school play he came to?’
‘I think Solomon Caldwell meets about a million people a year,’ Pradeep answered.
‘I guess,’ I sighed.
‘But I bet no one else hypnotized him with a zombie fish, trapped him in a baker’s hat and n
early hit him with an arrow with a goldfish hanging off it,’ Pradeep added.
‘That’s true!’ I said. ‘Hey, speaking of fish . . .’ I smiled and took off my bike helmet. Hidden inside was Frankie, my pet zombie goldfish, in a plastic bag of water.
‘You brought Frankie to the auditions?’ Pradeep sighed. ‘You’re not going to get him to zombify people are you?’
‘Of course not,’ I said.
‘But . . . does he have any other talents?’ Pradeep asked. ‘No offence, Frankie,’ he added quickly.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, slipping Frankie inside my jacket as I started to cross the road. ‘But I’m sure he’ll come up with something. Besides, I couldn’t leave him at home.’
There was no way that I was risking leaving Frankie in the house with my Evil Scientist big brother Mark, and his equally evil but cute little vampire kitten Fang. Although, come to think of it, I hadn’t actually seen either of them at all this morning.
‘But whenever you bring Frankie anywhere, there’s always trouble!’ said Pradeep.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said with a grin. ‘Frankie will be on his best behaviour. Won’t you, Frankie?’
Frankie shrugged.
‘Why don’t I think this will end well?’ Pradeep muttered.
We parked our bikes and Sami’s scooter in the bike shed and joined the back of the queue. Ahead of us were kids with all kinds of talented pets. There was a boy with a beagle called Charlie that could roller-skate. Another kid had a beret-wearing ferret called Tugger that was painting with its tail. There was even a girl with a rabbit that was pulling another rabbit out of a top hat. She told us they were called Siegfried and Roy.
Sami held Toby tight in her hands. ‘Toby got talent,’ she said.
‘I don’t really think that crawling fast can be called a “talent”,’ Pradeep said.
‘Toby is telepopping tortoise,’ Sami replied.
‘She’s got a point,’ I agreed. ‘It is kinda like he teleports. I’ve never seen a tortoise that can make it down a driveway and across two gardens in the time it takes to get my bike out of the shed.’
‘Will you guys never learn!’ a familiar voice said from behind us. ‘They are always listening out for things that can’t be explained. Never admit, never deny!’
‘It couldn’t be?’ both Pradeep and I said at the same time.
We turned around and there was Geeky Girl. Her mum runs the newsagent’s down the road and she has a thing about conspiracy theories, but she was totally cool about helping us save Frankie from our evil big brothers one time.
‘Hey, Glenda,’ Pradeep said. Geeky Girl rolled her hand up into a fist.
‘I mean, “Hey, Geeky Girl”,’ he corrected himself. ‘How’ve you been?’
‘Good, thanks, Brainiac.’ She let her mouth curl up into a slight smile and punched Pradeep on the arm. ‘Hey, little dude,’ she added, winking at Sami.
‘Have you still got your budgie?’ I asked, just as a green and yellow bird flew down from the rooftops and perched on her shoulder like a tiny pirate’s parrot.
‘Yup, Boris is cool too,’ she said.
‘Are you entering Boris into My Pet’s Got Talent for his ability to fly and hover just over your shoulder?’ asked Pradeep.
‘His levitating skills,’ I corrected.
‘Ssshhhh! They are always listening,’ Geeky Girl said, looking around for the ‘they’, I guess.
‘If you’re not entering him for his levitating skills, what else does he do?’ I whispered.
‘I’m here to investigate. There’s been some strange stuff going on. Pets not being able to perform their talents at the auditions,’ Geeky Girl replied. ‘Something fishy’s going on and I want to check it out.’
Frankie started thrashing around inside my jacket, probably because he heard Geeky Girl say ‘something fishy’.
Geeky Girl frowned at me. ‘OK, so either you have one serious case of indigestion or you’ve got your fish in there?’
She leaned over, unzipped the top of my jacket and looked in. ‘Hey, Frankie, how you doing?’ she said with a smile. Frankie rolled the bag up and fish-high-fived her through the plastic.
‘Can we get back to the “something fishy” going on?’ I said.
‘Sounds like the pets just got stage fright,’ Pradeep said. ‘Why is that suspicious?’
‘Everything out of the ordinary is suspicious,’ Geeky Girl replied. ‘You’ve just got to watch out for the signs.’
‘There isn’t a “sign” for everything—’ Pradeep started.
‘So what other talent does Boris have?’ I interrupted.
‘Show them, Boris.’ Geeky Girl nodded at the budgie and he cleared his throat.
‘Ahemmm. Caaaw, caaaw, caw-caw-caw-caaw-caaw, caw-caw-caw-caaw-caaw, caw-caw-caw-caw!’
‘It’s the theme to Star Wars!’ Pradeep and I said together. We have to stop doing that.
‘Birdie sings good,’ Sami added.
‘Thank you,’ said Geeky Girl.
‘But birdie not talented like Toby.’ Sami patted the tortoise on the head and set him down by her feet.
‘Look!’ said Geeky Girl, punching Pradeep on the shoulder. ‘A sign!’
‘Ow!’ he rubbed his arm. ‘A sign that someone’s watching us? A sign of an evil plot we didn’t see? What kind of “sign” now?’
‘I think she means that sign,’ I said, pointing to an actual sign just ahead of us at the side of the queue.
‘Oh, that sign,’ Pradeep mumbled, turning red.
People were taking their pets into the school building on the left and then rejoining the line further down when they came out.
‘I don’t remember the website mentioning anything about screening pets for diseases,’ I said.
‘And I don’t think that’s a very official sign. “Contagious”, “diseases” and “mandatory” are all spelled wrong!’ Pradeep added.
‘We should check it out,’ Geeky Girl said. ‘I could send Boris on a recon mission?’
Just as I was about to say ‘Hunh?’, Pradeep came in with ‘Good plan: he can check out the area from above.’
My confused ‘Hunh?’ turned into a knowing ‘Ahhhh’. Then it turned into a ‘Whaaaaa?’ when something lifted up my left foot.
I looked down and saw Sami crawling along the floor, looking under our feet, other people’s feet, the rabbits’ top hat and pretty much everything else she could find.
‘What’s wrong, Sami?’ Pradeep asked.
‘Toby telepopped bye-bye,’ she snuffled. ‘He’s gone.
‘Sami!’ said Pradeep. ‘I thought you were keeping an eye on him!’
Geeky Girl and Pradeep started looking around for Toby while I unzipped my jacket so Frankie could help.
He immediately thrashed and pointed in his plastic bag like a tiny, orange, scaly pointer dog.
That’s when we spotted the little kitten with huge eyes and stupidly sharp claws and teeth disappearing through the door of the school building leading to the ‘Pet Screening Area’. And she looked like she was pushing something oval and green with her nose.
‘Fang?’ Geeky Girl, Pradeep and I all said together.
‘Toby!’ Sami yelled.
Frankie immediately threw himself on to the floor and started rolling his bag of water after the evil vampire kitten.
‘Wait, Frankie!’ I scooped him up by the top of the bag.
‘We can’t rush in without a plan,’ Pradeep explained. Frankie stopped thrashing, but his eyes still glowed bright green.
‘Naughty evil kitty,’ Sami said.
‘I have a plan!’ I said. ‘We get a helicopter to fly over the building, drop us on to the roof and then we abseil down the walls, swing in through the window and take Fang by surprise!’
Geeky Girl and Pradeep looked at each other.
‘Or we could tunnel under the building,’ I went on, ‘and plant some exploding bubble gum under the floor. When the gum explodes, Fang and Toby will get c
aught in the sticky bubble-gum mess and all we’ll have to do is unstick Toby and get out of there!’
Geeky Girl rolled her eyes. ‘Could we come up with a plan that is not the plot of an action movie or a cartoon?’ she said.
‘Can you get exploding bubble gum in real life?’ Pradeep asked.
‘I don’t know but—’ I started to say, when I was interrupted by Geeky Girl’s glare. (If you don’t think a glare can interrupt you, you haven’t met Geeky Girl.)
‘We are not using exploding bubble gum,’ she growled. ‘But the flying-over-the-building idea is actually OK. Boris could fly up to the window of the school to see what he can find out. He could take Frankie with him, in case there’s any trouble. If anyone sees them, they’ll just think goldfish-lifting is Boris’s special talent.’
‘Will fishy and birdie be OK?’ Sami asked.
‘Boris and Frankie will look out for each other – won’t you?’ Geeky Girl said. Boris bobbed his head and Frankie winked. ‘We’ll head in from down here,’ she carried on.
‘OK, let’s do it!’ I said.
The girl with the rabbits had just come back out of the scanning exit. Pradeep and I took Sami over to play with the bunnies until we got back.
‘There’s nothing weird in there though,’ Rabbit Girl said to us. ‘Just a scanning machine. My bunnies got the all-clear so we’re ready to.audition.’ She smiled tried to smile. I think our tortoise and handed a bit of carrot to Sami. ‘Do you want to help me comb out the bunnies’ fur with conditioner so that they’re all pretty?’ Sami nodded and tried to smile.
‘I think our tortoise wandered in there,’ I said. ‘Can you hold our place in the line? We’ll be back in a minute.’
