Chew Bee or Not Chew Bee

by Martin Chatterton

  He sighed and rested his chin on his knees.

  Above Willy’s head, the Black Skulls were busy rehearsing. A few of the Utter Nutters had sneaked into the auditorium, and were cheering loudly whenever Olly said a line.

  Olly and Minty had reached the part of the play where Olly’s character avenged the death of the Underworld King. He had to shoot a Frenchman with an arrow. Dead Frenchmen were always popular with the audiences.

  Minty was playing the part of the Frenchman. ‘That is the fake arrow, isn’t it, Olly?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to get it mixed up with a real one.’

  ‘Be quiet, you oaf!’ hissed Olly. ‘I’m in character!’

  Olly hoisted the bow to his shoulder and aimed it at Minty’s heart. ‘Prepare to suffer, o piteous Frenchie!’ he boomed. ‘An Englishman’s sting from which there is no balm!’

  He released the bowstring and the fake arrow clattered against Minty’s chest.

  ‘Ow!’ Minty yelped. ‘That blooming well did sting!’

  Walden Kemp was sitting at the back of the theatre. ‘Those aren’t the right words!’ he shouted, looking up from his notes. ‘You’re supposed to cry out, “Mon Dieu! I am, ’ow you say, killed!”’

  ‘But it shouldn’t hurt like that!’ wailed Minty. ‘This is just a rehearsal!’

  Olly threw his bow to the stage floor with a clatter and flounced towards the dressing room. ‘I can’t work in these conditions!’ he wailed.

  Willy lifted his head. Sting! Olly and Minty had both said the word sting, and it had given Willy an idea.

  Skellington was due back any minute now. Maybe Willy could add some trick words to the play, and then watch Skellington’s reaction? If Skellington reacted in a certain way, perhaps it would show there was a connection between Skellington, the bee, and Uncle Aaron’s death.

  If Skellington didn’t notice anything strange, then Willy would give up on The Ghost altogether, and go back to everyday life with the Skulls. It was worth a try.

  Willy scooted out from underneath the stage. Keeping to the shadows, he slid across to Walden’s desk at the side of the stage, and grabbed three sheets of writing parchment, some ink, and a quill. Walden would go nuts if he caught Willy stealing his expensive parchment, but Willy’s plan wouldn’t work without it.

  Willy sat down at the desk, dipped the quill into the ink and began writing. In a few minutes he’d made some rough jottings.

  He looked happily at what he’d written, then made two copies in his best handwriting—one for Olly and one for Minty. He folded the sheet with his rough jottings and stuffed it in his tunic pocket. Then he carefully rolled the copies in his fist and headed for the dressing room.

  Olly was in a bad mood. He was inspecting a tiny nose-pimple in a full-length mirror. ‘What do you want, Waggledagger?’ he said.

  ‘Oh nothing, really,’ said Willy. ‘It was just that I was listening to the rehearsal and, well…’

  ‘Well what?’ snapped Olly.

  ‘Those lines you say when you see the ghost——’

  ‘I know my lines! What about them?’ interrupted Olly. ‘Aren’t they good enough? What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘It’s just that they could be better. At least that’s, er, what I heard some of the Utter Nutters saying. They were saying that they sounded like lines that…well, that Minty might say.’

  ‘Minty?’ Olly’s face turned pale and he staggered back into a chair.

  ‘Would you like to hear my suggestions?’ said Willy.

  ‘I demand to hear them!’ Olly was turning paler by the minute. ‘You might be a ghastly little oik, but you do have a way with words.’

  Willy gave him the sheets he’d just written.

  Olly unrolled the scrolls and read them quickly. ‘You really think these will help?’ he said.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Willy, sounding a lot more confident than he felt. His plan was a very long shot indeed. Still, there was no point in letting Olly know that. ‘An actor of your star quality should have only the best!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Olly, looking at himself in the mirror, ‘I should, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘And don’t forget to show Minty his new lines, too,’ said Willy. ‘We don’t want him to sound like you!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Olly. ‘I’ll make sure he does as he’s told!’

  Willy headed back into the theatre.

  ‘Places, please!’ Charlie Ginnell was calling from the souvenir stand, where he was pricing up the Olly dolls. ‘We’ve got a play to put on, people. Let’s go!’

  As the actors returned to the stage, Willy went to find Yorick.

  Yorick looked up from his prop box. ‘Took a long time to find them nails, didn’t you?’ he said. He picked up one of the hoses from the fog machine and handed it to Willy. ‘Go an’ run this around the back of the stage. We’ll need it in a minute.’

  Willy took the hose and began putting it in place. He kept one eye on the theatre door, keeping a lookout for Skellington. He didn’t want to miss Skellington’s reactions. But he had to make sure Skellington didn’t see him.

  Five minutes later, the door to the theatre flew open and Skellington waddled to the front of the auditorium, followed by his two goons. Rosenbloom found him a chair, and Skellington sat down heavily.

  ‘Right,’ said Walden, ‘let’s start again from the moment the ghost appears. Yorick, is that fog thing of yours ready to go?’

  Yorick’s head appeared from behind the curtain. ‘Ready as she’ll ever be, Wally.’

  Yorick gave Willy the thumbs-up and Willy checked the hose. Yorick pushed down on a long lever attached to a bellows. White smoke blew through the hoses and began drifting around the stage. In no time at all the actors were up to their waists in fog. Using the smoke as cover, Willy dashed across the stage and clambered up the ladder behind the curtains. He settled on a shadowy top rung with an excellent view of Skellington’s face.

  ‘Nice work, Yorick,’ said Walden.

  Yorick winked and disappeared back behind the curtain.

  Minty, who played the ghost as well as the Frenchman, lumbered through the mist towards Olly, waving his arms in the air and moaning.

  ‘O hideous spirit leave me be!’ wailed Olly, doing a very good impression of a terrified man. ‘What vision of murder is this? What carbuncle be here before me?’

  Sir Anstruther Skellington sat bolt upright in his seat. He looked like he’d been slapped across the face with a wet fish.

  That’s weird, thought Willy. But perhaps it was just a coincidence.

  ‘Whoooooooo-ooooo,’ moaned Minty. ‘Be afraid, Englishman, be afraid! No stinging words can stop this ardent creature. I seek bloody vengeance!’

  Olly cringed. ‘Be gone, spirit, be gone! Your words are fit only for a pig’s ear. You are not whole, but some sort of soup, most——’

  ‘STOP!’ Sir Anstruther Skellington screeched. He leapt out of his chair and bustled furiously towards the stage. ‘Stop this widiculous nonsense wight now!’ He arrived panting at the foot of the stage and waved his fist in Walden Kemp’s face. ‘I see your game! I wealise your twickerwy!’ he snarled. ‘Do you take me for a fool? Do you think I don’t see what you’re up to?’

  Walden looked confused. ‘I-I don’t understand, Sir Anstruther. I didn’t write those lines. Olly must have put them in!’

  ‘Don’t blame me!’ wailed Olly. ‘Waggledagger told me to do it! But I don’t see what was wrong with them!’

  Skellington’s eyes almost exploded. ‘Bees! Stinging! Pig’s ear! Soup! You see? You see?’

  There was a silence.

  Something’s upset Skellington, Willy thought. The last time I saw him, he said that Uncle Aaron drowned in Pig’s Ear soup. Now he’s also blabbering about bees as if the two are connected. Maybe he does know more about Uncle Aaron’s death than he’s letting on.

  ‘See what, sire?’ Walden asked Skellington.

  Skellington looked around. ‘The words! They, they
…’

  ‘They what?’ said Walden.

  ‘Um, the words are, well they’re…they’re not good words!’ Sir Anstruther Skellington had gone very red.

  Willy noticed that the goon called Goldstein was staring blankly at the floor and scratching his nose. The other one, Rosenbloom, was looking at Skellington with interest.

  ‘Bees?’ said Walden, clearly puzzled. ‘Stinging? I’m not sure I quite understand, sire. What, exactly, is wrong with such words?’

  ‘Wrong? Ah, well, that is, they…I just don’t like them!’ blustered Skellington. ‘They’re not proper words for a play!’

  Olly shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t see the problem, Sir Anstruther. These are just a few new lines that Willy suggested to give the play some extra zip. He’s actually quite good at that sort of thing. We can take them out again if you prefer.’

  ‘Of course you’ll take them out! They…’ Skellington stopped suddenly in mid-sentence. ‘Wait a minute. Did you just say that they were written by Waggledagger? That mealymouthed welation of Ardent’s?’

  Willy was glad he was up the ladder, safely out of the way.

  Walden nodded. ‘Yes, but I still don’t s——’

  ‘Everything all right here, Sir Anstruther?’ said Charlie, hurrying over from the souvenir stand.

  ‘No, evewything is not all wight!’ yelped Skellington, as Rosenbloom and Goldstein noisily cracked their knuckles. ‘It all comes down to this, Mr Ginnell. Either you muzzle Waggledagger, or your little pwoduction won’t wun more than thwee minutes! You’ll never work in this town again. And that’s a pwomise.’

  He turned on his little booted heels and, with Rosenbloom and Goldstein following like a pair of walking wardrobes, wobbled out of the theatre.

  Willy breathed a sigh of relief. He was glad to see the back of that nasty little man and his goons. There was definitely something fishy about Skellington.

  The Skulls had formed a worried knot on the stage.

  Olly put one hand on his hip. ‘Well, we might as well pack up and head home. Good work, Yorick!’

  ‘Me!’ gasped Yorick. ‘Wot ’ave I done?’

  ‘You brought Waggledagger to join the Skulls,’ said Minimac, from his perch on top of a packing case in the wings.

  ‘Keep that doll quiet,’ muttered Yorick to Minty. ‘Before I rip ’is ’orrible little ’ead off and give meself a splinter.’

  ‘All right, Skulls,’ said Charlie. ‘Let’s all calm down a bit, eh? Anyone got any idea why Skellington went off the deep end at the mention of bees?’

  Yorick coughed.

  ‘Yes, Yorick?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Nuffink,’ said Yorick. ‘Frog in me froat.’ He looked around for Willy. He had to tell him to drop the whole crazy bee thing. The boy was clearly losing it.

  ‘Well,’ said Charlie, ‘all I can think of is that maybe Skellington thinks bees are too exciting. He said he wants the play to be as dull as possible, so the audience doesn’t have fun. I can’t see the fuss myself, but let’s just cut out the bees, yes?’

  ‘What about the Pig’s Ear soup?’ asked Walden. ‘He didn’t like that either.’

  ‘Maybe he’s upset about Ardent’s death?’ said Elbows. ‘He drowned in a bowl of soup.’

  ‘Well, we’ll cut that, too,’ said Charlie.

  ‘But why would Waggledagger write those lines anyway?’ asked Minty.

  ‘The yokel’s clearly gone nuts!’ said Olly.

  Willy decided to stay hidden. None of the Skulls—except Yorick—had any idea why Sir Anstruther Skellington had reacted in the way he had. It was safer for everyone if it stayed that way. And Willy didn’t feel like answering any awkward questions.

  Maybe I am nuts to create so much trouble for my friends, he thought.

  ‘We’ll have to keep a very close watch on Master Waggledagger,’ said Charlie. ‘We can’t afford any more funny business between Waggledagger and Skellington. No more new lines, no more surprises, no more nonsense, is that clear?’

  The Skulls nodded their agreement. Yorick scowled.

  ‘If Waggledagger does turn out to be a problem, we get rid of him straightaway,’ Charlie added. ‘It’s a shame, I like the lad, but business is business. We can’t afford to have him upsetting the King of Denmark Lane.’

  As the Skulls went back to work, Willy sat on his ladder for a while longer, nervously biting his thumbnail. Part of him was desperate to give up on The Ghost’s mission. The safest thing he could do would be to lie low for a while. Then he could just go back to the Skulls and beg them to believe he wasn’t crazy.

  But, at the same time, he couldn’t let go of the idea that Skellington knew more about his uncle’s death than he was letting on.

  Willy dug the honey pot out of his breeches pocket, and stared at it.

  There was only one place he could think of going next, and it wasn’t down to apologise to the Skulls.

  6

  O Woe is Willy

  Willy waited on the ladder until the rest of the Skulls called it a night and headed back to Mrs McScottish’s boarding house. Then he clambered down to the stage, and let himself out the backstage door. Now that he knew for sure that there was some kind of link between bees, Skellington, and his uncle’s death, he believed that The Ghost wasn’t tricking him.

  Out on the street behind the theatre, Willy pulled the honey pot from his breeches pocket once again and stared at the label for the hundredth time.

  ‘Manufactured at Devil’s Dock, London, by A. Skellington and Co,’ Willy muttered. ‘I have to get myself to Devil’s Dock.’

  He planned to go to Skellington’s honey warehouse to see if there was anything there that connected the fat little man more strongly to the dead bee. It was a pretty shaky plan, but it was the only one he had.

  By the time Willy had made his way through the narrow laneways to the banks of the Thames, it was growing dark. London had become a whole lot scarier.

  He stood on a rickety wharf and stared across the river. The tower of Devil’s Dock Priory was on the opposite bank. Willy’s view east was blocked by a great dripping wall that jutted out over the water. To the west, the river curved away into the distance. A pale mist floated above the inky waters. Even so, the river was thick with boats of every description.

  ‘Ferry, guvnor?’ said a gruff voice somewhere near Willy’s feet. He turned and looked

  down to see a stocky man standing in a boat that appeared to have been nailed together from a few scraps of old wood. ‘Cross the river in comfort, two groats.’

  Willy rummaged in his pocket and pulled out an elderly, fluff-covered groat. ‘I’ve only got one,’ he said.

  ‘That’ll take you ’alfway,’ said the ferryman. ‘You can swim the rest.’ He paddled a little nearer to the wharf. ‘A joke, chief,’ he said. ‘Now jump in. Quick, mind. I ain’t got all night.’

  Willy hesitated before climbing down a rickety ladder and stepping gingerly into the boat. It lurched wickedly and Willy found himself clinging to the side of the rail, with his nose only inches from the stinking water. The ferryman shoved off and Willy pitched backwards, banging his head against a seat. A schooner lurched past, throwing up a bow wave that slopped into the tiny ferry. Willy dropped to the floor and gripped the rail so hard his knuckles turned white. A slim pilot boat, powered by six oarsmen, shot past, only missing the ferry by a sliver.

  ‘Luvverly quiet night on the water,’ said Willy’s ferryman. He stood calmly in the stern, steering the ferry with the pole in his hands. ‘It can sometimes get a bit busy this time of the evenin’.’

  ‘Quiet?’ said Willy. ‘This is quiet?’ Then he noticed something. A large bridge loomed out of the mist just a few hundred yards downriver.

  ‘A bridge!’ he squawked. ‘Why didn’t you mention there was a bridge? I could have walked across for free!’

  ‘You didn’t say you wanted a bridge!’ said the ferryman. He chuckled to himself. ‘Now I’ve ’eard it all!’

&nbs
p; He bumped the boat up gently against a dripping black jetty on the far side of the river. ‘The end of the line,’ he said, pointing up a set of slippery-looking steps cut into an embankment. ‘Devil’s Dock. This is where you get off, sunshine.’

  Willy stumbled ashore. Ramshackle warehouses loomed above him, their pulleys and ropes making a thick tangle against what little light remained in the sky.

  The ferryman pushed off from the dock.

  ‘Ferryman! Wait!’ Willy shouted.

  ‘No waitin’!’ yelled the ferryman, smiling and showing a ragged line of greenish teeth. ‘Got a fare waitin’ at Bishopsgate Lock, chum.’

  ‘Where can I find Skellington’s honey warehouse?’ yelled Willy, as the ferry drifted away.

  The ferryman ignored him and was soon lost in the mist.

  ‘Great,’ said Willy. He turned and climbed the steps. At least he was back on dry land and in Devil’s Dock. Surely the warehouse couldn’t be too hard to find.

  Fifteen minutes later, Willy was totally, horribly, lost. Worse, he was completely terrified. There was no sign of Skellington’s warehouse.

  It was so dark. The lanes and alleys were crowded with overhanging buildings that leaned together so closely they appeared to kiss overhead. The only light came from the drinking houses. Sickly yellow torches set shadows dancing across scenes that Willy would have rather not seen. A stream of raw sewage flowed down the centre of the streets. Rats the size of Shetland ponies sauntered freely down the lanes.

  Screeching women had knock-down fights with stumbling men who had fewer teeth than brains. Every few minutes there was a bloodcurdling scream, followed by a splash. Either there was a fairground featuring a waterslide ride nearby, or the Thames was fast filling up with people who’d said the wrong thing to the wrong person.

  Three sailors, who were trying to bite each other’s ears off, rolled towards Willy in a twisted bundle of arms and legs and swear words. As the sailors drew closer, Willy pressed himself into a doorway and backed deeper into the shadows.