by Duncan Ball
Liz: Good afternoon. I’m Liz Dizzy. Are you Sam Shovel, the detective?
Sam: That’s me.
(LIZ DIZZY sits.)
Liz: Are you a real detective?
Sam: Yes, of course I’m a real detective. I’ll have you know that I was once an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Liz: Why, that’s … the FBI.
Sam: That’s right. And I was also an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Liz: Oh … the CIA.
Sam: Yes. And I was also an agent for Electronic International External Investigations Organisation.
Liz: (A pause and then she suddenly gets it.) I see … the E I E I O. (Pause.) (To SAM.) The reason I am here, Mr Shovel, is that I’d like you to dig up some information for me.
Sam: Shovel’s the name, digging’s the game. I’ll dig up the information until you have the whole story. (Pause.) Then I’ll fill you in. What do you want to know?
Liz: There’s a man I want you to find.
Sam: Nothing to it. How much can you pay?
Liz: Well, what do you charge for finding people?
Sam: That depends. For sixty dollars a week — cash in advance, of course — I’ll do my Super Cheap Search.
Liz: What do you do for that?
Sam: Simple: I just wait till he walks in here by mistake.
Liz: Walks in here by mistake?! But you don’t understand, Mr Shovel: he might be living anywhere in the world. For all I know, he’s living in one of those houses made of ice in Alaska: an ig.
Sam: An ig? Don’t you mean an igloo?
Liz: No, I mean one of those tiny ones that doesn’t even have a loo. (Pause.)
Sam: I see. Then let me recommend my Super-Duper-Extra-Special-All-Expenses-Paid-to-the-Ends-of-the-Earth Search with guaranteed results.
Liz: How much will that cost?
Sam: (Dramatically.) That’ll be ten thousand dollars if I find him and five thousand if I don’t.
Liz: Hang on: five thousand dollars if you don’t find him?! Didn’t you just say it was guaranteed?
Sam: Well, it is. It’s guaranteed that either I’ll find him or I won’t. (Pause.) So don’t be a cheapskate. Do you want to find him or don’t you?
Liz: Okay, Mr Shovel, it’s a deal.
Sam: Good. Now give me all the details. Start at the beginning.
Liz: It all started when I was a child.
Sam: What did?
Liz: My life. (Pause.)
Sam: Could we get down to the case, Mrs Dizzy?
Liz: Yes, of course. I’ll be brief.
Sam: (Aside.) Oh, so this is a brief case, is it? (Pause.)
Liz: Many years ago, I read a marvellous book about an island in the Indian Ocean.
Sam: (Aside.) Wouldn’t you know, it’s a book case, too. (Pause.)
Liz: I desperately wanted to go there, so I grabbed my baby and I quickly packed a bag.
Sam: (Aside.) So now it’s a packing case! (Pause.)
(To LIZ.) What did you pack?
Liz: Well, two things: first of all, my good tweed suit.
Sam: (Aside.) Now it’s a suit case! (Pause.)
Liz: And some biscuits.
Sam: Biscuits?! Why biscuits?!
Liz: Because I knew I’d be a wafer … a while. (Pause.)
Sam: I see.
Liz: I also packed some nuts.
Sam: (Aside.) This woman’s turning into a nut case! (Pause.)
Liz: Then I bought a coat.
Sam: What do you mean, you bought a coat? What does that have to do with anything?
Liz: I’m sorry, I mean I caught a boat.
Sam: What kind of boat was it?
Liz: It was a deep-she fishing boat.
Sam: A deep-she fishing boat?
Liz: Yes. They were fishing for mermaids. (Pause.)
Sam: (Aside.) I might have guessed.
Liz: Halfway to Zanzibar, we were surrounded by sharks.
Sam: Did you say, (with special emphasis) Zanzibar?
Liz: Yes, Zanzibar. The sharks circled round and round, and finally the captain reached out to hook one but it bit off his arm.
Sam: Which one?
Liz: I don’t know, they all looked alike. (Pause.) There was blood everywhere. Blood, blood, blood! The decks were covered in blood! It was awful!
Sam: (Aside.) This ship was turning into a blood vessel! (Pause.)
Liz: But I wasn’t scared of the sharks.
Sam: You weren’t? Why not?
Liz: Because they were man-eating sharks and I’m not a man. (Pause.) We were in a terrible storm. I had acute seasickness.
Sam: Never mind what it looked like. (Pause.)
Liz: My baby was sound asleep.
Sam: (Aside.) Oh, so there was a kid napping, too! (Pause.)
Liz: We were making about twelve knots an hour … and then we ran out of rope. (Pause.) Suddenly a whale came up under the ship and threw it twenty metres into the air with its enormous back fin.
Sam: (Aside.) That sounds like a tall tail. (Pause.)
Liz: The ship was thrown onto some rocks and wrecked. It began shaking all over.
Sam: (Aside.) It must have been a nervous wreck. (Pause.)
Liz: That all happened many years ago, off the coast of Zanzibar. That’s when I lost my baby. The last I saw of him, he was drifting out to sea. He had to live on a tin of biscuits — (aside) which would have been okay but he kept falling off the tin. (Pause.)
Sam: Off the coast of Zanzibar?
Liz: Yes. And now I want you to find him. I’m sure he survived. Don’t you see, Mr Shovel? Somewhere out there, my baby is a thinking, feeling man living under a new name and wondering where his mother is.
Sam: (Dramatically.) Hold on a minute. How old would your baby be now?
Liz: Well, about your age.
Sam: What colour hair did he have?
Liz: Same as yours.
Sam: What colour eyes did he have?
Liz: The same as yours, too. Why do you ask?
Sam: Because I, too, was cast adrift off the coast of Zanzibar when I was a baby. And I, too, had to live on a tin of biscuits — (aside) which would have been okay but I kept falling off the tin. (Pause.)
Liz: Did you say, (with special emphasis) Zanzibar?
(They stare at each other for a second and then throw their arms around each other.)
Sam: Mum!
Liz: Son! I’ve found you at last! It is you, isn’t it? You are my baby, aren’t you?
Sam: Yes, Mother, it’s me! (He releases her. Then he holds out his hand.) That’ll be ten thousand dollars, please. (Pause.)
Liz: Ten thousand dollars?! You would charge your own mother ten thousand dollars for finding yourself when you didn’t even have to look?!
Sam: No, Mum, the ten thousand isn’t for finding me. (Short pause.) It’s the pocket money you owe me.
CURTAIN
Acting Tips from Gary Gaggs
To get the most laughs, kids, try saying the lines with a straight face. Don’t laugh. Don’t even smile.
Sometimes an audience takes a while to warm up. What I do to get them laughing is I pause after a joke to give them time to think about it. If they still don’t laugh, then I say it again louder. I might say, ‘I said, I was lying in bed sound asleep when a big noise woke me up. It must have been the crack of dawn.’ After a while you’ll work out how to squeeze lots of laughs and groans out of the audience.
‘Aside’ means that the character says the line to the audience and not to the other character.
Speak loudly and clearly and don’t rush, and you’ll have them in the palm of your hand.
Good luck, kids!
SELBY’S CHRISTMAS PARROT
It was springtime in Bogusville. The bees were buzzing, the buds were budding and the birds were singing in the treetops.
‘I just love this time of year,’ Mrs Trifle said, taking a deep breath. ‘It’s like the morning of the earth, and the alarm clock is going beep bee
p beep. Plants everywhere are waking up from their winter’s sleep, stretching their arms and wiggling their little toes and yawning.’
‘That’s very poetic, dear,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘It certainly is a beautiful day. Why don’t we go for a nature walk?’
‘Good idea. Let’s take a stroll through Bogusville Reserve.’
‘But aren’t there fences around it to keep people out?’
‘No, they’ve taken them down,’ Mrs Trifle explained. ‘All the weeds were pulled out, new plants were planted and the Reserve is just like it must have been long, long ago. The native plants are bringing back birds that haven’t been seen around here for many years. Bogusville’s natural beauty is being returned at last.’
‘Is it okay to take Selby with us?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘Yes. Selby’s a very careful dog. We’ll make sure he stays on the path and doesn’t damage any plants.’
‘Hey, they’re taking me with them!’ Selby thought. ‘I love going on walks with the Trifles.’
And so it was that the Trifles and Selby set off for a morning’s walk through Bogusville Reserve.
‘Wow,’ Selby thought, as they walked along the path. ‘It’s so much prettier than it used to be.’
‘What an interesting plant,’ Mrs Trifle said, bending down for a closer look and then thumbing through the pictures in a book called Plants for Everyone. ‘I do believe it’s a Variegated Conjugated Fiddle Fern. It says here that people long ago used to chew them when they had sore knees.’
‘Very interesting,’ Dr Trifle said, pointing his binoculars to the top of a tree and then checking his bird book, Feathered Fun. ‘I think I see a Fifty-Two-Spotted Pardalote. I’m just counting the spots.’
‘Are they rare birds?’ Mrs Trifle asked.
‘The book says that they’re not but they make their nests in an unusual way. They build them one on top of the other like pancakes. Some of the baby birds have very flat heads.’
‘I always learn so much when I’m with the Trifles,’ Selby thought,‘but I wish I could have a squiz through the binoculars at that spotty thing. Maybe I’ll come back by myself with the bird book and the binoculars.’
The very next morning he got his chance. The Trifles were out for the day so Selby sneaked out of the house with the binoculars around his neck and the bird book in his mouth. It wasn’t long before he was creeping up to one bird after another.
‘Oh boy!’ he thought. ‘A Sticky-Beaked Lark! And look! There’s a Short-Tailed Thieving Magpie.’
All morning, Selby tiptoed through Bogusville Reserve. When he was about to go home, he noticed a bird in the bushes nearby.
‘It’s sort of like this one,’ he said to himself, looking at a picture in the book. ‘A Lesser Crested Parrot. It says here that it’s very rare. Wow! I may have just seen a very rare bird. But I can’t quite tell from this picture. I know, I’ll ring Robyn Renn, the author of Feathered Fun, and see what she thinks.’
As soon as Selby got home, he rang the famous bird-book author.
‘Is this Robyn Renn?’
‘Speaking.’
‘I wanted to say that I love your book, Feathered Fun. It’s really good.’
‘Thank you. I’m glad you like it.’
‘And I think I just saw a Lesser Crested Parrot.’
‘Well done! They’re getting rarer and rarer. Where did you see it?’
‘In Bogusville Reserve, here in Bogusville,’ Selby said. ‘Only I can’t be sure that it was a Lesser Crested Parrot because I couldn’t quite tell from the picture in your book.’
‘Yes, that’s sometimes a problem,’ the woman said. ‘You may have seen a Sure-Footed Paraclete. They’re often mistaken for Lesser Crested Parrots. Did it have a red head and a silver crest sticking up?’
‘Yes, I think it did.’
‘Then that’s a Sure-Footed Paraclete you saw. They’re very rare, too. I’ll put a note on my website to give the birdwatchers a chance to ramble through Bogusville Reserve to see it.’
‘They’d come here?’ Selby asked. ‘How many people might come?’
‘Probably a hundred or so. I can never be sure.’
‘A hundred people tramping through Bogusville Reserve? I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s a very delicate natural area. The plants might get trampled.’
‘Plants? Who cares about a bunch of stupid plants? If there’s a Sure-Footed Paraclete, then birdwatchers will want to see it.’
‘Come to think of it,’ Selby said, ‘I don’t think it did have a red head.’
‘Didn’t it?’
‘No, it was more like a reddy-greeny sort of colour.’
‘So it had both red and green on its head plus the silver crest like the star on top of a Christmas tree.’
‘Yes, kind of more like that — sort of.’
‘Did it make a noise like Keeee-ka-krita-krita-krork?’
‘Yeah, that sounds right.’
‘Well, then it’s not a Sure-Footed Paraclete at all.’
‘No, I guess not. Oh well,’ Selby said with a sigh,‘I guess there’s nothing here to see.’
‘Are you kidding?!’ the woman boomed. ‘You have just seen one of the rarest birds in the world — a Christmas Parrot!’
‘I did?’
‘Yes, and there’s only one that we know of and it’s in the National Zoo! This is the most exciting news I’ve ever heard!’
‘Wait! Don’t hang up!’ Selby said. ‘I don’t think it made that sound you said! I don’t think it’s a Christmas Parrot.’
‘You mean it didn’t make a sound like Keeee-ka-krita-krita-krork?’
‘No, it was different.’
‘Okay, so it was probably Keeee-kaw krita-krit-krit-krit?’
‘Yes, I think it was more like that.’
‘That’s even better!’ the woman screamed. ‘The Christmas Parrot in the National Zoo is a female and what you’re telling me is that this is a male Christmas Parrot!’
‘Now hang on a tick. I’m not telling you anything, Robyn.’
‘Yes, you are. If we could capture this one, the two could have lots of little Christmas Parrots and then we’d release them into the wild and there would be lots of Christmas Parrots again! This is the greatest news a birdologist could ever hear!’
‘But-but-but …’
Click.
‘What have I done? Now Robyn and her ramblers will come and trample everything in Bogusville Reserve. And I know it couldn’t have been a Christmas Parrot anyway. Why did I ring her? Why? Why? Why?’
‘Did you hear about the bird?!’ Mrs Trifle asked that evening. ‘Someone spotted a very rare parrot here in Bogusville.’
‘Really? What kind of parrot?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘A Christmas Parrot. It’s all over the news. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day for Bogusville. Birdwatchers from everywhere will be coming to town to get a glimpse of it. Some of the people from the National Zoo will be trying to catch it so they can put it in with the other one they have.’
‘That’s very exciting,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Do you know who saw it and where?’
‘Robyn Renn, who wrote the book Feathered Fun, got a phone call from a mysterious caller. He didn’t say who he was. She’ll be here tomorrow to help look for the parrot. We should go with her.’
‘I’d love to,’ Dr Trifle said, ‘but I’m too busy.’
‘Me too. Maybe if it’s still around on the weekend, we can see it then.’
That night, Selby dreamed about the birdwatchers coming to Bogusville. The next morning he looked out the window to see car after car whiz by.
‘It’s them,’ he sighed. ‘I should have kept my big mouth shut. They’ll trample Bogusville Reserve flat. It’ll take years for the plants to grow again.’
Selby raced over to the entrance to Bogusville Reserve where people were gathering. A woman in gumboots stood in front of them all.
‘That must
be Robyn Renn,’ Selby thought. ‘She looks like her picture in her book, only about twenty years older.’
‘Listen up, everyone,’ the woman said, clapping her hands. ‘The caller said that he saw the parrot over there in the Reserve. Now Christmas Parrots spend most of their time on the ground, so what we’re going to do is sweep across the Reserve in a line. If we walk slowly, the parrot will walk away from us and the guys with the nets will catch it. Okay, line up!’
‘They’re going to destroy the Reserve!’ Selby thought. ‘I’ve got to stop them! I’ve got to tell Robyn that I’m the mysterious caller! Okay, so I’ll give away my secret but it doesn’t matter now. For the sake of Bogusville’s beauty, I have to do it!’
Selby dashed to the front of the line and stood looking at the birdologist. He was about to say, ‘I’m sure it wasn’t a Christmas Parrot, Robyn — it was probably just a magpie or something,’ when he suddenly had a better idea. ‘I’ll distract them!’ he thought. ‘I’ll pretend that I’m the Christmas Parrot!’
Selby dashed along Bogusville Creek, away from the Reserve and hid in the bushes.
‘Keeee-kaw krita-krit-krit-krit,’ he called. ‘Keeee-kaw krita-krit-krit-krit.’
Suddenly he heard the cry, ‘Over there! It’s not in the Reserve — it’s over there!’ followed by the sound of pounding feet.
‘Keeee-kaw krita-krit-krit-krit,’ Selby called again as he tore through the bushes along Bogusville Creek. ‘I’ll lead them as far away as possible. By the time I finish, they’ll be so tired they’ll give up.’
For the next hour, Selby Keeee-kaw krita-krit-krit-krited and kept moving just ahead of the pack. Through the bushes he could see people giving up and turning back.
‘This is fun!’ Selby thought. ‘Keeee-kaw krita-krit-krit-krit. They’ll never know that I’m taking them on a wild parrot chase. Keeee-kaw krita-krit-krit-krit.’
At that very moment a net whizzed down over him.
‘Gotcha!’ Robyn Renn yelled. ‘Hey! What is this? I’ve caught a dog! Oh, yuck! Here, I’ll let him go.’
‘Now wait a minute,’ a man from the zoo said. ‘This dog was making bird noises. I heard him. I even saw his lips move.’
