World's Greatest Liar

by Hutchinson Barry

  “No! It reminded me! Aladdin. Princess Jasmine.”

  “Beaky, what are you talking about?” Jodie demanded, grabbing me by the shoulders.

  “Jasmine! That was the name Steve kept mentioning in his sleep. That’s the woman he’s secretly in love with.”

  Jodie stared at me. Her fingers dug into my shoulders and her teeth clamped together. “You idiot,” she hissed.

  “What have I done now?” I asked, squirming against her death-grip.

  “What do you think ‘Jas’ is short for?”

  Oh.

  Oh right.

  Suddenly Steve’s night-time ramblings made much more sense.

  “I didn’t think it was short for anything,” I admitted. “But, if I had to choose, I’d probably have said ‘Jasper’.”

  “Aunt Jasper?” Jodie yelled. “You thought her name was Aunt Jasper?”

  Giving me one final shake, Jodie about-turned and ran back in the direction of the bus stop. “Come on, we have to get home,” she said.

  I looked back at the empty shop. “But what about me? What about fixing me?”

  “Sorry, Beaky, but we’ve got to try and fix Jas and Steve first,” Jodie said. “I just hope we’re not too late.”

  We were too late. Jas and Steve were driving away as we ran the final few dozen metres home. Jodie and I stumbled to a stop and bent over, panting and wheezing. Through the taped-on back windscreen, I saw Max and Sophie both give us a sad wave.

  “Where have you two been?” Mum demanded from the doorstep.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jodie gasped. “Where are they going?”

  “Home,” Mum said. “They’re going home, then Steve is going to pack his bags.”

  Dad stepped up behind Mum and put a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe they’ll work it out.”

  “You saw Jas,” Mum said, shaking her head. “I think it’s over.”

  “No!” Jodie cried. “We need to talk to them.”

  “We have to go after them,” I said. “Dad, get the car, we can still catch up.”

  Mum sighed. “Not more games, Dylan.”

  “Look, there’s no time to explain,” I said, raising my voice. “I can fix this. Aunt Jas and Steve, I can fix it.”

  I met Mum’s eye. “But you’re going to have to trust me,” I added.

  Dad put his hands on his hips. “I don’t know, Dylan, you’ve been—”

  “Dad!” Jodie snapped, so loudly that we all jumped. “Get the car,” she ordered. “Now!”

  Dad yanked the wheel left, swerving just in time to avoid a van coming the other way. Its horn blared angrily as it sped by.

  “This is exciting, isn’t it?” said Dad, flooring the accelerator.

  Mum grabbed the handle above the door and braced the other hand against the dashboard. “That’s one way of putting it,” she murmured.

  Dad crunched down a gear and merged on to the dual carriageway. Jodie had her phone pressed to her ear. “Jas still isn’t answering,” she said.

  “Keep trying,” I instructed.

  “I’ve been trying for fifteen minutes. She’s not going to pick up,” Jodie said, but she hit redial and tried again.

  Another horn blasted from behind us as Dad switched lanes suddenly. “It’s an emergency!” he shouted into the rear-view mirror, then he grinned from ear to ear. “It’s like being in an action movie, this. Oh! It’s just given me an idea for a jingle.”

  He took a deep breath. “Iffffff youuuuu’re driving in a hurry and your wife begins to worry—”

  “There!” I cried, pointing ahead. Aunt Jas’s car was trundling along, a dozen vehicles or so in front of us, the back windscreen rattling with every bump in the road.

  Dad pushed down on the accelerator. The car complained noisily, but gradually began to speed up. “Closing in on target,” Dad said in a robotic voice. He was loving every minute of this.

  A minute or two later, we were right behind Jas’s car. “Get their attention,” said Mum, leaning over and blocking Dad’s view of the road. She pulled a lever at random and the windscreen wipers swooshed across the screen.

  “What are you doing?I can’t see!” Dad protested, straining to look over her head.

  “I don’t think they’re noticing the windscreen wipers,” I said.

  “I thought it was the lights,” Mum tutted. “Forget it. Let’s try this.”

  She pushed the centre of the steering wheel and the horn squealed. Jas’s car swerved briefly, then we saw Sophie and Max’s faces through the glass. We waved at them, then Mum pointed to the side of the road, indicating they should pull over.

  A few seconds later, Aunt Jas’s indicator started to blink. She changed lanes, then turned off on to a worryingly familiar side road.

  “Oh, it’s Piddington Castle,” Dad said, following Jas past the castle sign. He shot me a doubting look. “I wonder if they’ve got that gas leak fixed.”

  “Probably,” said Jodie, before I could say anything. I gave her a grateful nod, then threw open the door as Dad brought the car to a stop in the car park.

  Aunt Jas, Steve and the kids were already out of their car. They looked confused as I ran up.

  “Jas, I made a mistake,” I blurted. “What I said about Steve, it wasn’t true.”

  “I knew it!” cheered Steve, punching the air. He held open his arms to Jas. “C’mere, cutie-smoosh.”

  Jas gave him the cold shoulder. “So you were lying, Dylan? Why would you lie about something like that?”

  “No, I wasn’t lying,” I said. “I can’t lie, like I keep telling everyone, but nobody seems to believe me.”

  Jas crossed her arms. “So … you weren’t lying? He was talking about a woman, then.”

  “Yes!” I said. “He was.”

  Behind me, I heard Mum take a step closer to Jodie. “How is this meant to be helping, exactly?”

  “He went on and on about her all night. About how beautiful she was. About how much he adored her. I didn’t get a wink of sleep,” I explained. “He just wouldn’t stop banging on about her.”

  Aunt Jas dabbed at the corner of her eye and sniffed. “That’s enough, Dylan. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “No, but you have to,” I said. “Because by the early hours of this morning I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Steve was completely, one-hundred-per cent in love with this woman.”

  Aunt Jas’s face had gone strangely tight. “Get in the car, kids,” she said, not even looking at Steve. “We’re going home.”

  Mum and Dad both stepped forward and grabbed me. Dad clamped a hand over my mouth.

  “Stop it, Dylan,” he yelled.

  “Sorry, Jas,” Mum said. “He said he could help.”

  “He can!” Jodie cried. “Let him finish.”

  I struggled and squirmed. Dad’s grip was too tight. There was nothing else for it.

  “Yeeowch!” he yelped, whipping his hand away. “He bit my finger!”

  “Wait!” I said, pulling free of Mum and Dad’s grasp. “There was one other thing he said that you have to hear. It’s really important.”

  With a resigned sigh, Jas looked at me. “What?”

  “He said, ‘Jasmine, will you marry me?’”

  Tears sprang to Aunt Jas’s eyes. “Jasmine?” she breathed.

  “Beaky thought it was someone else. He thought your name was Jasper,” said Jodie, joining me.

  “Aunt Jasper?” snorted Dad. He shook his head. “We’ve raised an idiot.”

  “Hush, Dan,” scolded Mum, elbowing him.

  Jas looked over at Steve. He took off his sunglasses and we saw that he had tears in his eyes, too. The whole thing was so schmaltzy I sort of wanted to be sick in my mouth, but at the same time it was, I dunno, kind of nice.

  “You said all that about me?” said Jas.

  Steve shrugged. “Apparently,” he said. “I mean… Uh, yes. Who else would I be talking about?”

  With a glance over at us, Steve took a steadying breath, then
lowered himself on to one knee. “Beaky sort of beat me to it, but … Jasmine, will you marry me?”

  Aunt Jas half smiled and half cried, making a bubble of snot pop out of one of her nostrils, but I bit my lip and resisted the urge to announce it.

  “Let me sleep on it,” Jas said with a smirk. “And I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  She bent down and gave Steve a hug. Max and Sophie ran to join in.

  “Aw, that’s nice,” I said, watching them. Through a gap in their tangle of arms, I saw Sophie staring at me. “And a bit creepy,” I added.

  “Oi! You lot!”

  Everyone turned in time to see a grey-haired castle guide hurrying down the driveway towards us. I recognized him right away as the one Destructo had knocked over the day before.

  “Um, we should probably go,” I said, but the guide was already too close.

  “Is there something the matter?” Dad asked.

  “Something the matter? Something the matter?” wheezed the guide, struggling to get his breath back. “No, there’s nothing the matter. I just wanted to shake this lad’s hand.”

  He took my hand in his and shook it enthusiastically. “Thanks to you, we’ve had our busiest day of the season,” he said, gesturing around at the car park. Now I thought about it, it did look much fuller than it had the day before.

  “How is that thanks to me?” I asked.

  “Didn’t you see the papers? There were reports that a ghostly hound was spotted stalking the castle corridors,” the guide said. He winked. “Folks have been coming from all over to try to catch a glimpse of it. There’s even talk of them filming one of them ghost-spotting documentaries here next month.”

  The guide looked around. “Where is it, by the way?”

  “Where’s what?” asked Dad.

  “The dog,” said the guard.

  I could have sworn I actually felt Dad’s heart stop. His face went a deathly shade of pale as he spun to face the boot of the car.

  “The dog,” he whimpered. “We’ve left the dog at home.”

  “The telly!” yelped Mum. “Come on, move, move, move!”

  Mum jumped in the car, then immediately jumped back out again. She raced over and gave Jas, Steve and the kids a hug. “Come back soon, OK?”

  “We will,” said Jas. “And Dylan … thanks.”

  “Any time,” I said, sliding into the back seat and closing the door. Just before we pulled away, I wound down the window and pointed to Sophie. “But she still creeps me out.”

  “Me too, dude!” laughed Steve, before Jas slapped him on the arm.

  The car tyres spun and we roared out of the car park, spraying chips of gravel behind us. I looked back in time to see Jas and Steve taking each other by the hand. My truth-telling had come in useful, after all. Even if, technically, it had caused all the problems in the first place.

  “You did good,” said Jodie.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “We’ll find Madame Shirley’s place and get you turned back. I promise.”

  “No arguments from me,” I said.

  “Are you going to tell me what you did with the photocopies of my diary?” Jodie asked.

  “Nope,” I said, truthfully.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  We joined the dual carriageway and Dad raced for home. I looked out of the window, watching the scenery whizz by.

  Yesterday, I had been the world’s greatest liar. Today, I couldn’t utter a single fib. I had school tomorrow. Parents’ Evening was looming. I had a starring role in the end-of-term play and the school trip was coming up fast. What if I didn’t get my ability to lie back before all that? What if I never did?

  As we hurried home to try to stop our dog eating the TV, I reckoned that, one way or another, the next few weeks were going to be pretty interesting.

  And boy, was I right.

  It had been ninety-two hours since I’d last told a lie.

  Up till then, I’d been something of a lying expert. If they gave out black belts for telling fibs, I’d have been a seventh Dan master. All that changed, though, when I stepped inside a rusty metal box that turned out to be the world’s only truth-telling machine. Without going into detail, I hadn’t been able to utter a single untruth since.

  It was Wednesday morning, and I’d survived two full days of school with only three light beatings from my classmates, two telling-offs from teachers, and one wedgie from Helga Morris in the year above. Everyone says you should always tell the truth, but it turns out that, when you do, it can get you into all sorts of trouble.

  Who’d have thought that people would take such offence when you remark on their bad breath and body odour? Mr Lawson, our head teacher, didn’t take it at all well. Mind you, he was giving an assembly at the time.

  But my problem isn’t just the inability to lie. Whatever that box did to me, it means I struggle to keep the truth in. It’s like it’s always there, waiting to come out at the worst possible times. I can be sitting quietly doing my work when I’ll announce out of the blue that I’m planning on copying the person sitting next to me, or that I’ve just stuck a bogey under my desk.

  Luckily, I sit next to my best mate, Theo, in most of my classes. Theo knows all about my lack of lying ability, and is great at helping me cover it up. He covers for me even though I’ve accidentally revealed pretty much every secret he’s ever told me, including the one about him once drinking a whole carton of dog’s milk. And quite enjoying it.

  Anyway, like I was saying, it was Wednesday morning, and things were going surprisingly well – right up until the point the teacher, Mrs Dodds, peered at me over the top of her half-moon glasses.

  “Ah, Dylan,” she said. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

  Everyone looked up from their work. All eyes went to the teacher, then to me. I shifted nervously in my seat. “Oh?” I asked innocently. “Is it about the time I wrapped your car in cling film?”

  Mrs Dodds gasped and her eyes widened. “That was you? That took me hours to get off.”

  “Yes. And Theo,” I said, jabbing a thumb in his direction. “He helped, too.”

  “Oh, thanks a bunch, Beaky,” Theo muttered.

  Mrs Dodds squinted at us both. “We’ll discuss that later,” she said, her voice ice cold. “What I was going to say was you haven’t handed in your homework.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah. My dog ate it,” I said.

  The teacher sighed. “Your dog ate it? That’s the best you could come up with, Dylan?”

  “But it’s true!” I protested. “My dog really did eat it.”

  “Dogs don’t eat homework!” Mrs Dodds snapped.

  “You’ve never met my dog,” I told her. “He’ll eat anything. Leave him alone with the TV too long and he’ll have a go at eating that.”

  Some of the class sniggered at that, but I was being serious. Destructo was a Great Dane with an even greater appetite. He ate more food in a day than the rest of the family got through in a week, but was always scavenging for anything else he could gobble up. That included my homework, my pencils and, on one memorable occasion, my school bag.

  “And what about your permission slip for the school trip?” Mrs Dodds asked, arching one of her bushy grey eyebrows. “I suppose the dog ate that, too?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “My sister stuffed it into my mouth when I posted a picture of her toes on Instagram.”

  The teacher stared at me in silence.

  “She’s got really hairy toes,” I explained. “Like a troll.”

  The class giggled. Mrs Dodds glanced round, clearly worried that the lesson was about to erupt into chaos, like it usually did.

  “Quiet!” she snapped. “Get on with your work.” She leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped together on the desk. “I’ve never heard such nonsense in all my life, even from you, Dylan. You can pick up another form at the end of the lesson, but–” Her mouth curved into a thin smile – “it needs a parent to sign it, and if you don�
��t get it back to me before the end of lunch, you can forget about going on the trip tomorrow.”

  Copyright

  STRIPES PUBLISHING

  An imprint of Little Tiger Press

  1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,

  London SW6 6AW

  First published as an eBook by Stripes Publishing in 2016

  Text copyright © Barry Hutchison, 2016

  Illustrations copyright © Katie Abey, 2016

  ISBN: 978-1-84715-760-7

  The right of Barry Hutchison and Katie Abey to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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