Weirdest Show on Earth

by Barry Hutchison

  For Cal Carver

  ~ Barry Hutchison

  To Dan (Muesli Pocket)

  ~ Katie Abey

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 – Casting Call

  Chapter 2 – The Telly People

  Chapter 3 – The Other Machine

  Chapter 4 – The Enemy

  Chapter 5 – Rehearsal #1

  Chapter 6 – Rehearsal #2

  Chapter 7 – Betrayed

  Chapter 8 – Experimenting

  Chapter 9 – Devious Schemes

  Chapter 10 – The PTA Thing

  Chapter 11 – TV Day

  Chapter 12 – The Distraction

  Chapter 13 – Show Time

  Chapter 14 – Dog Fight

  Chapter 15 – The Bombshell

  Chapter 16 – Aftershocks

  Chapter 17 – The Play’s The Thing

  More Books About Beaky!

  Copyright

  “I’m talking to Leon tonight,” I said, plodding along the corridor with my best mate, Theo.

  He nodded for quite a long time. “Oh.”

  “You’ve forgotten who Leon is, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Theo admitted. “Who is he?”

  “The Aberdeen guy,” I said. “The one who emailed me about Madame Shirley.”

  “Oh, him. Cool. Keep me posted,” said Theo.

  Leon’s message had come out of the blue a couple of days before. He said he’d been reading my blog about everything that had happened since my life-changing experience in Madame Shirley’s truth-telling machine, and that he was one of her victims, too.

  “What do you reckon you’re going to be doing in the play?” Theo asked, changing the subject.

  I shrugged. “Dunno.”

  Putting my name down for the Year Seven school play had seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought it’d mean I could skip a few classes, muck around a bit, and generally use it as an excuse to a) do less work, and b) have a bit of a laugh.

  Of course that was before Madame Shirley had robbed me of my ability to lie, throwing my whole life into chaos. There was no saying what would happen if I stepped out on stage in front of a packed audience, but it’d probably be memorable. Just not in a good way.

  Still, I was missing the last ten minutes of maths, so that was something.

  Theo and I shuffled along the corridors, heading for the hall. He had put his name down for the play, too. Or, being honest, I had put his name down for it for a laugh, but now I was relieved to have him with me. I was counting on him to dig me out of any trouble my truth-telling might get me into.

  “I’m not acting,” he said. “No way. I’ll be, I don’t know, lighting engineer or something.”

  “You don’t know anything about lighting.”

  Theo mimed flicking a switch. “On. Off. What else do you need to know?”

  I snorted. “It’s a play. I think it’ll be a bit more complicated than that.”

  “Not if I’m in charge it won’t,” Theo said. “You can have all the lights or no lights. Absolute darkness or brighter than the sun.”

  “I vote for darkness,” I said as we pushed through a set of swing doors. “Anyway, maybe I should be the one doing the lighting.”

  “I thought you liked acting?” Theo said.

  He was right – I did like acting, and had it not been for the whole “unable to lie” situation, I might have been looking forward to it. Now, though, I had no idea how it was actually going to work.

  “I don’t know if I can act,” I said.

  Theo smirked. “You can’t. You’re rubbish. I’ve been trying to tell you for years.”

  “Hey!” I protested. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, I can’t lie, right?”

  “Really?” said Theo. “You’ve kept that quiet…”

  We both knew that wasn’t true. I’d told pretty much everyone in school about my encounter with the mysterious Madame Shirley, her shop, and her truth-telling machine, but Theo was the only one who really believed me. My big sister, Jodie, knew it was true, too, but only because she’d shoved me into the machine in the first place.

  “If I can’t lie, how can I pretend to be someone else?” I asked. “How can I walk out on stage and say, ‘Hello, audience, my name’s … Acty McActingface’? That would be a lie.”

  “It’d also be a terrible play, by the sounds of things,” said Theo. “Mind you, Brannan’s written this one herself, so I doubt it’s going to be Shakespeare, either.”

  I shuddered. “Hope not. Shakespeare’s so boring.”

  “Maybe it’ll be a love story,” said Theo. I looked round to find him grinning at me and waggling his eyebrows. “Evie’s in the play, too.”

  “What? No! Is she?”

  Theo nodded. “She told me in physics. She seemed very excited about it. She totally fancies you.”

  I wanted to deny it but all the evidence pointed to the very real possibility that Evie Green did, in fact, fancy me. She’d even kissed me after our team had won the Winston and Watson Wagstaffe Cup of Competitive Chummery recently. OK, it was just a peck on the cheek, but still…

  “Can you blame her?” I said, trying to laugh my embarrassment away. “I’m easily a four out of ten on the looks front. Four-point-five if the lighting’s right … and you ignore my nose.”

  We turned on to the French corridor, where one of the teachers was shouting at his class in a language we didn’t understand. French, probably.

  It wasn’t until we passed the shouty teacher’s door that I noticed Theo was still grinning at me. “What?” I asked.

  “So…?” said Theo.

  “So what?”

  Theo sighed. “So, Evie.”

  My heart began to race. I knew what was coming next and instinctively reached a hand into my pocket. “What about her?”

  “Do you like her?” Theo asked.

  “Yes, she’s pretty cool,” I said, frantically unwrapping a plastic bag in my pocket.

  “You know what I mean,” said Theo. “Do you fancy her?”

  Before the truth could blurt itself out, I crammed my Emergency Gobstopper into my mouth. With that in place I could barely breathe, let alone speak. And if I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t humiliate myself - or anyone else.

  At least, that was the theory. The reality was that whenever I put the gobstopper in my mouth I ended up dribbling all down my chin, which was fairly humiliating.

  “Suit yourself,” said Theo. “But I’m totally taking that as a yes.”

  When we reached the door to the hall I stopped to spit the gobstopper back into its bag, and shoved it in my pocket.

  As we stepped inside, we were met with a one-woman standing ovation. “There they are! Our final players have arrived!” crowed Ms Brannan, leaping up from her Director’s chair, her rainbow-coloured scarf flapping behind her.

  “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?” she said, pointing right in my face. “Oh, look! Found him!”

  She laughed like a startled horse, winked at Theo, then gestured up to the stage where a dozen or so other kids were waiting. Evie smiled at me and waved. I nodded and waved back, but only briefly, because I spotted Theo smirking at me from the corner of my eye.

  “Wait, ‘Romeo’?” I said.

  “Yes! We’re doing Romeo and Juliet!” announced the drama teacher, her eyes enormous behind the lenses of her chunky red glasses.

  “Theo said you’d written the play,” I said.

  “He’s right, I did!”

  I think I actually heard Theo frown behind me. “What? You wrote Romeo and Juliet?” he said. “I thought it was Shakespeare.”

  Ms Brannan let out another braying
laugh. “Quite so, quite so, he did!” she agreed. “But I’ve brought it bang up to date.”

  “Oh,” said Theo.

  “And then continued well beyond the current date and into the distant future!” the teacher explained, pointing towards the end of the hall with a flourish, as if the distant future was somewhere in that direction. “It’s Romeo and Juliet … but with aliens!”

  “Riiiight,” I said. “OK. And what are you calling it?”

  “Romeo and Juliet … But With Aliens!” Ms Brannan announced.

  Theo puffed out his cheeks. “Well, it’s certainly descriptive.”

  “Does what it says on the tin,” I agreed.

  “I’m glad you approve,” the teacher said.

  She spun on the spot and gestured grandly at the gathered Year Sevens. I knew most of them – Evie, obviously, plus her friend, Chloe, who was currently pouting at her phone. Wayne, my former arch-nemesis, was there, too, probably so he could get close to Chloe.

  Duncan, the tiny new boy, was standing at the side of the group, keeping a safe distance from Wayne, and between them stood eight or nine other kids who weren’t really in my social circle. Although, to be fair, my social circle was basically a straight line between me and Theo.

  “Friends, Romans, Year Sevens, lend me your ears!” said Ms Brannan. “You have all signed up for this year’s ‘Play in a Week’ scheme, in which we will be producing a brand-new play, before performing it on Friday evening.”

  She gestured to a pile of scripts on the stage. “I’ve written something I think is absolutely brilliant, quite frankly, and have assigned everyone a role. Some are theatrical, others technical, but all vitally important to…”

  She stopped talking when she realized no one was paying attention. Everyone had grabbed a script and flicked to the first page where all our names were listed.

  Sure enough, my name was right at the top. ‘Romeonulan: Dylan Malone.’

  “Lighting engineer!” said Theo. “Get in.”

  “Wardrobe assistant?” said Chloe. She wrinkled her nose. “Does that mean, like, costume designer?”

  “Not really,” said Ms Brannan.

  Chloe sniffed and took out a pen. “I’ll put ‘costume designer’,” she said, scribbling on her script.

  Beside me Theo gave a snort. “Have you checked out the rest of the cast?” he asked, looking at me and then at his script.

  I frowned. “What?” It took me a moment to notice but then my blood ran cold.

  ‘Julietraxis: Evie Green.’

  Oh no!

  “Stage hand?” said Wayne. “What does that mean?”

  Ms Brannan waved vaguely. “It means you’ll be building the props, designing the sets. Uh, carrying things. You know? I got the impression you were good with your hands.”

  “I am,” Wayne replied, nodding proudly. He shot Chloe a sideways look. “I once strangled a rat.”

  Chloe’s face contorted in horror. “Ew.”

  “No,” said Wayne, flapping in panic. “By accident, I meant.”

  “You strangled a rat by accident?” I said.

  Wayne glared at me. He and I had been arch-enemies for years, but after our recent victory at the Winston and Watson Wagstaffe Cup of Competitive Chummery (or the WAWWCOCC for short) an uneasy truce had developed between us. At least, he hadn’t attempted to punch my face through a wall in the past few days, which was about as close to a truce as I was likely to get.

  “Yes, Beaky,” he hissed. “By accident.”

  He was saved by Ms Brannan, who announced that she was putting us through some drama warm-ups. This involved running around to various parts of the hall, pulling faces at one another and shouting out random words in funny accents. Most of us joined in, except Chloe, who spent most of the time either looking at her phone or rolling her eyes at us, and Wayne, who stood near Chloe, shaking his head in our general direction.

  Once the warm-up was finished, we all got up on stage.

  Evie sidled over to me. “Hey, co-star,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear and smiling.

  “Uh, hi. Hello. Evie. Yes,” I fumbled. I smiled awkwardly, caught Theo smirking at me, then pointed to the script. “I don’t think I can do it,” I said.

  “What?” said Ms Brannan, in something not far off a shriek. “Why?”

  “It’s like I keep telling everyone, I can’t lie.”

  “Not this again,” tutted Wayne.

  “Even if you couldn’t lie, why would that matter?” said Evie, looking puzzled – and a little disappointed. “Why would that stop you being in the play?”

  “Well, I’m not Romeo, am I? Or Alien Romeo or whoever. If I pretend I am, then I’m lying,” I explained. I stopped on a page with one of my lines on it. “I can’t just stand up and say, ‘Forsooth, I have been trapped in hyper-sleep without food for months,’ can I? It’s not true.”

  I blinked. “Wait. Did I just say that?”

  Evie nodded. Wayne nodded. Even Theo nodded, although he looked a bit confused.

  “Theo! Ask me if I’ve been in hyper-sleep without food for months,” I said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Just do it!”

  “Have you been in hyper-sleep without food for months?” Theo asked.

  I tried to say “Yes” but the word refused to budge past my lips. “Yyyyy-no.”

  It was no use. I couldn’t lie. And yet…

  “Forsooth, I have been trapped in hyper-sleep without food for months,” I said, reading the line again.

  “Looks like you can read it just fine,” said Ms Brannan.

  “I can read it just fine,” I mumbled. Then the enormity of it hit me. “I can read a script. I can read a script!” I cried. “This changes everything!”

  Nothing much really happened in the first rehearsal. The technical people went off to talk about … technical things, while the actors did a group reading of the script. To say it was one of the top-five most embarrassing experiences of my life would be an accurate way to describe it, with Evie and I having to confess our undying love for each other, while a boy called Duggie – who, appropriately enough, was playing a space-dog – woofed and barked in the background.

  When I finally got home, I was barged aside at the gate by my big sister, Jodie, who must have been walking behind me the whole time. Her face was flecked with mud.

  “Hey, watch it,” I protested as she pushed in front of me.

  “Where have you been?” she asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

  “I had a bit of drama,” I said.

  “What do you mean? What happened? Did you get into trouble again?” Her eyes became slits. “Did you get me into trouble again?”

  “No, I mean I had drama. I’m in the school play.”

  Jodie tutted. “I thought you meant something happened to you.”

  “Something did happen to me,” I said. “I can read a script.”

  I explained to Jodie about how I’d been able to deliver the lines without any problems. I’d even been able to stand in the middle of the stage and loudly announce, “My name is Romeonulan of Glauxus IV,” when clearly that wasn’t the case.

  “Yeah, but that’s not lying, is it?” Jodie said, once I’d finished. “It’s acting.”

  “Same thing,” I argued.

  “No, it isn’t!” said Jodie. “People don’t win ‘Best Liar’ at the Oscars, do they?”

  I shoulder-barged her aside and raced to get into the house before her. She lunged for me at the door and, as we both stumbled in, we saw Dad standing behind a xylophone in the middle of the living room. He was wearing his dressing gown, slippers, and a pair of imitation designer sunglasses he’d bought for a pound at the market, and which he – wrongly – thought made him look cool.

  Destructo, our dog, was sprawled across the entire length of the couch. As we entered, he raised a head and shot us a long-suffering look that seemed to say, “Run, while you still have the chance.”

  “There you a
re!” Dad said. “Where have you been?”

  “Drama,” I said.

  “Hockey practice,” said Jodie.

  “Right, good,” said Dad, vaguely waving the xylophone beaters around. “I need your opinion on something. What do you reckon to this?”

  He began gently tapping the same two notes and then broke into song.

  “Dogs. Dogs, dogs, dogs,

  D-d-d-dogs. Dogs, dogs,

  Dogs,

  Not cats,

  Dogs, dogs, d-dogs,

  D-d-dogs,

  Dogs!”

  He stopped playing, took a bow, then grinned at us. “Well?”

  “Well what?” asked Jodie.

  “It’s my new song,” said Dad. “What do you think?”

  “What’s it about?” I asked.

  Dad tutted. “What do you mean, ‘What’s it about?’ It’s about dogs, isn’t it?”

  “I get that,” I said. “I just wondered if maybe I was missing something. You know, if there was a deeper meaning or…?” I saw the confused look on Dad’s face. “Apparently not. So it’s mostly just you saying ‘dogs’ over and over again, then?”

  “While bashing a xylophone,” added Jodie.

  “It’s a work in progress,” said Dad tetchily.

  Dad’s job – although, I use that term loosely – is writing jingles for radio adverts. If you’ve ever heard a song on the radio about spot cream, sink unblockers or adult nappies, chances are my dad wrote it.

  Dad realized he was still wearing his sunglasses and whipped them off. “I reckon that song could make us rich!”

  “How?” I asked. “Are you going to get people to pay you to never sing it again?”