Weirdest Show on Earth

by Barry Hutchison

  “No, I’m going to sell it to the telly people.”

  Jodie and I exchanged a look. Working from home by himself all day, Dad sometimes goes off on strange flights of fancy that, to the casual observer, could appear to be full-blown insanity. It was possible he’d convinced himself that not only did little people live inside our TV, but that they were willing to pay him lots of money for a song about dogs.

  “What telly people?” Jodie asked, smiling kindly.

  “Oh, wait, I should have started with that, shouldn’t I?” said Dad. “We’re going to be on the telly! Well, you are, Dylan. You and Destructo.”

  I frowned. “What? Why?”

  “Because Destructo has been chosen for – wait for it – TV’s Most Talented Dogs!”

  My heart stopped and my blood ran cold.

  “Do you mean TV’s Most Talented Pets?” I asked.

  Dad blinked. “What? No. It’s dogs, isn’t it?”

  He picked up a letter from the coffee table and read it. Jodie and I both watched him deflate before our eyes.

  “Argh! It is. It’s pets. They’re never going to want my dog song now. I thought it could be their new theme tune. It feels a bit sort of, I don’t know, racist to other animals now.” He looked thoughtful. “Can animals be racist, do you think?”

  “Theo used to have a cat that looked like Hitler,” I said, snatching the letter from Dad’s hands. “I reckon it was probably a bit racist.”

  I quickly scanned the letter. “Oh no,” I whispered. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”

  “What? I thought you’d be happy,” said Dad.

  “This is a disaster!” I cried, then I raced out into the hall and up the stairs before anyone could quiz me further.

  Annoyingly, Jodie decided to follow me.

  “Ugh. What’s that smell?” she asked, covering her mouth and nose with both hands as she stepped into my room.

  “Farts, mostly,” I said. I pointed over to the corner. “And that pile of dirty pants and socks.”

  Jodie visibly recoiled from the mound of washing. It was almost up to my waist, and the only reason Mum hadn’t gone mental about it was that she kept mistaking it for a beanbag.

  Shaking her head in disgust, Jodie glared at me. “What’s the problem?”

  “I can’t be bothered taking it to the washing machine,” I admitted. “And I quite like the smell.”

  “Ew, you’re a freak,” she said. “And speaking of freaks, I meant why the big freak-out over the telly thing?”

  The letter from the production company was still clutched in my hand. I looked down at it again. “I entered Destructo into TV’s Most Talented Pets,” I said.

  “Why? Destructo hasn’t got any talents,” said Jodie. “Beyond eating everything and being huge. What did you…?”

  Her eyes widened. “Wait. Did you enter him before or after the truth-telling machine?”

  I smiled weakly. “Before.”

  Jodie groaned. “Oh no. And what did you tell them he could do?”

  “You’ve got to understand, I thought it’d be funny!” I yelped, but Jodie held up a hand to silence me.

  “What. Did. You tell them. He could do?”

  I swallowed. “Ride a bike.”

  Jodie’s face remained completely impassive. After a little while, I began to wonder if she’d even heard me. I was about to say it again, when she finally reacted.

  “Ride a bike?” she spluttered. “You told them Destructo could ride a bike!”

  “Well, I didn’t think they were going to take me seriously, did I?” I protested.

  Jodie looked up to the ceiling, then took a deep breath. “What else does the letter say?” she asked.

  I glanced down at the page. “Just that they’re coming to town to film him in action.”

  “Oh God. When?”

  “Next Thursday.”

  Jodie flinched. “Next Thursday!”

  I nodded. “That’s fine, isn’t it? We can teach Destructo to ride a bike by then.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?” Jodie snapped. “And you’re kidding, right? It took us two years to teach him not to poo on the table.”

  “Yes, but he hardly ever does that now,” I pointed out. “And riding a bike is easier.”

  Jodie scowled. “In what world is riding a bike easier than not doing a poo on the table?” She shook her head. “You’ll just have to tell them he can’t do it.”

  “But they’ll be angry,” I protested. “They’ll say I wasted their time.”

  “You did waste their time,” Jodie pointed out, heading for the door. “You made this mess, you can clean it up.”

  “Wait! There’s a prize!”

  Jodie stopped in the doorway but didn’t turn round. “What kind of prize?”

  “The most talented pet in each episode gets five thousand quid,” I said. “The overall series winner gets twenty thousand and gets patted by the queen. The pet gets patted by the queen, I mean, not the owner. At least, I assume it’s the pet.”

  Jodie didn’t say anything at first. She just loomed in the doorway, tapping her foot.

  “Twenty-five thousand pounds?” she said eventually.

  “If he wins the whole show,” I said.

  Jodie clicked her tongue. “Nope, still not interested. You’re on your own.”

  “Wait!” I yelped.

  Jodie rolled her eyes. “I told you, I’m not doing it.”

  “No, not that,” I said, pointing to my watch. “Leon!”

  “Who’s Leon?”

  Over on my desk, half buried under crisp bags and yet more pants, a ringing sound was coming from my laptop. A photo of the caller appeared in the Skype window. He had curly blond hair, a chiselled jaw, and piercing blue eyes that made Jodie let out a little yelp of surprise.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  “That’s Leon. That’s the guy who emailed me about Madame Shirley,” I said, scrabbling for the laptop.

  Jodie got there before I did. Her face bunched up in disgust as she tipped the laptop sideways, chucking the pants on to my bed. She ran a hand through her hair and wiped the flecks of mud off her face while simultaneously clicking the webcam icon.

  For a moment there was nothing but a black screen, then Leon was revealed. He was standing in what must have been his bedroom, jogging on the spot. His knees were going very high and just watching him made me instantly exhausted.

  “Leon, I presume?” said Jodie.

  “That sounded a bit creepy,” I told her. She elbowed me in the ribs by way of a reply.

  On screen, Leon stopped running and gave us a wave. “Beaky? And you must be Jodie,” Leon said in a lilting Scottish accent. “I’ve read all about you.”

  “Ahahahaha!” laughed Jodie. It made her sound like a maniac. “I wouldn’t pay attention to any of that. So, uh, hi.”

  “Hi yourself,” said Leon. He smiled, and I swear Jodie’s eyes practically turned into love hearts.

  “Aaaaanyway,” I said, angling the laptop towards me. “So … you can’t tell a lie, either?”

  “Oh, no, sorry,” said Leon, his face falling. “I can lie just fine.”

  “What?” I said, my heart sinking. “I thought you said you’d been in Madame Shirley’s machine?”

  “I have,” said Leon. “But it didn’t make me tell the truth.”

  Jodie and I looked at each other. “Oh?” Jodie said. “So what did it do to you?”

  “Well…” began Leon. And with that, he started to explain.

  It turns out that Leon was never a liar. I mean, no worse than anyone else and nowhere near my league. No, Leon’s problem was laziness.

  He slumped out of bed every morning, rolled into his creased uniform and slouched his way to school after guzzling a Mars Bar for breakfast.

  At weekends he’d sleep until one, play his Xbox till three, then spend the rest of the day eating junk food, watching movies and loudly complaining whenever he was asked to empty the dishwasher.

 
; “Didn’t your parents mind?” Jodie asked.

  “Of course. They hated it! They were always trying to encourage me outside, or dreaming up ways to punish me for leaving a mess everywhere,” Leon said. “And that’s why, when my mum saw that sign in Madame Shirley’s shop window, she dragged me inside.”

  Jodie and I both leaned closer. “What sign?” asked Jodie.

  “‘World’s Only Anti-Laziness Machine’,” Leon whispered. “It was a machine to stop people being lazy,” he explained. A bit unnecessarily, I thought.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Leon shrugged. “It worked. I came out running. I raced straight home and tidied my room.”

  “Wow,” said Jodie.

  “And then I tidied my parents’ room, then cleaned all the windows.”

  I whistled softly through my teeth.

  “And then I cut the grass, washed the car and redecorated the kitchen,” said Leon. “That was day one.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “Two years ago,” said Leon.

  “Two years?” I spluttered. “You’ve been affected for two years?”

  “Aye,” said Leon, but then he hesitated. “I mean, I think so, anyway.”

  “You’ve been doing star jumps for the past thirty seconds,” I said. “You’re definitely still affected.”

  Leon laughed, looked down and stopped jumping. “What I mean is, I’m not sure if it’s the machine any more or if it’s just me,” he said. “I like the fact I’m not lazy now. I feel great.”

  “You look amazing,” said Jodie. She bit her lip. “Wait, did I say that out loud?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “You did.”

  “I spent the first few weeks trying to track Madame Shirley down, just like you,” Leon said. “I hated her for what she’d done to me but after a while … I dunno. I’m a better person for having been in that machine. She changed my life. I suppose if she walked in here now I’d thank her.”

  “I’d rugby-tackle her to the ground and tie her up,” I said. I blew out my cheeks and shrugged. “Well, this was completely pointless, wasn’t it?”

  “Beaky!” said Jodie.

  “Well, it was!” I insisted. “He doesn’t know where Madame Shirley is – you don’t, do you?”

  “Sorry,” said Leon, shaking his head.

  “And, as far as he knows, the effect never wears off. So, basically, I’m doomed, and I’ll never be able to tell a lie again,” I said.

  Leon shrugged. “I suppose I just wanted to say … it gets better, you know? What you’re feeling now, I felt that, too. All the time. Twenty-hours a day, since I only sleep for four hours a night now.”

  “How?” asked Jodie. “You look so … fresh.”

  “Thanks,” said Leon. He flashed her that winning smile again, then turned back to me. “But it gets better, honest. You might not think it now, but maybe someday you’ll want to thank her, too.”

  “I find that very hard to believe,” I said.

  Leon smiled. “Yeah. I know. But someday.”

  He gestured with a thumb to his door. “Anyway, I have to go. I’ve got a sponsored run later and I want to quickly cut the grass and tar the drive first. If you ever want to talk, just call me.”

  “I definitely will,” said Jodie.

  “I think he was talking to me,” I said.

  Jodie blushed. “Oh, yes. I mean he will. Not me. Ahahaha. Yes.”

  I closed the laptop before she could say anything else. “I did that for your own good,” I told her, then I sighed. “What a total waste of time.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Jodie. From her face, I could tell she was already in the process of removing one of the existing Top 5 Boys from her list and replacing his name with Leon’s. “It wasn’t all bad.”

  “Help me teach Destructo how to ride a bike, and I’ll give you his Skype username,” I said.

  Jodie thumped me on the leg. It hurt quite a lot.

  “Or you can just beat me up and take it,” I said. “Whichever you prefer.”

  I was just wrestling my bike out of the shed when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Mum was standing behind me, smiling in a way that immediately made me think she was up to something.

  “Going on a bike ride?” she asked.

  “No, it’s for Destructo,” I said.

  “Destructo? He can’t ride a bike.”

  “Well, not yet,” I said. “I’m going to teach him so he can win TV’s Most Talented Pets.”

  “That’s nice,” she said, not really listening. “Anyway, I need you to do me a small favour.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nothing major. Just a little thing,” said Mum.

  “Which is…?”

  “Seriously, it’s tiny. It’s barely even a favour at all,” she insisted.

  “Just tell me,” I said, getting suspicious.

  “I need you to come campaigning with me,” said Mum. “Door to door.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “Not this again.”

  Mum had been a member of the school’s Parent Teacher Association for the past three years, and had put herself forward to be the new chairperson after the last one had either dropped out or dropped dead. I could never remember which.

  The trouble was, Mrs Green, one of the other parents – and Evie’s mum – had also put herself forward for the position, and now she and Mum were locked in a ridiculous battle for the job.

  Jodie and I kept finding ourselves caught in the middle of it. If she wasn’t getting us to help her print out leaflets, Mum was testing her speeches on us, forcing us to brainstorm “issues” and generally making us work as an unpaid political campaign team.

  Going door-to-door campaigning, though? That was too far.

  “No,” I said. “No way.”

  “Why not?” Mum asked.

  “Because I don’t want to,” I said bluntly. “Also, because it’s insane – you’re trying to be the head of the PTA, not the Prime Minister. And because I’ll end up looking like an idiot.”

  “No, you won’t!” Mum insisted. “You just helped the school win the Winston and … whatever-it’s-called Cup for the first time ever. They won’t think you’re an idiot, they’ll think you’re a hero!”

  “I still don’t want to,” I said. “I want to teach Destructo how to ride a bike.”

  Mum, sensibly, chose to completely ignore this.

  “I’ll give all your chores to Jodie for a whole day,” she said. “No emptying the dishwasher, no picking up the dog poo from the garden … or off the table.”

  “He hardly ever does that any more,” I pointed out. “And no, I still don’t want to do it.”

  “OK, I’ll give Jodie all your chores for a week.”

  I almost caved then. A week without having to lift a finger around the house was sorely tempting but I could tell Mum was desperate.

  “A month,” I said.

  “Ha! No way!” Mum said, then she tutted below her breath. “A fortnight. Final offer.”

  “Deal!” I said.

  Mum nodded. “Good.” She dumped one of my old school bags into my arms and I almost collapsed under the weight of it. “You can carry the leaflets.”

  One hour later I was regretting letting Mum talk me into it. She’d made a list of the parents she considered to be the most influential in the school, and so far we’d visited about a dozen different houses, where she’d paraded me like a trophy and made me tell the story about winning the WAWWCOCC for the school.

  She had tried to get me to tell the parents how proud I was of both her and the PTA in general, but after the third time of me changing “proud” to “deeply ashamed”, she knocked that idea on the head and just made me focus on the cup-winning stuff.

  “This is going quite well, isn’t it?” she trilled, leading me away from the twelfth bewildered parent of the evening.

  “Not really,” I said. “I’m cold and hungry, and everyone we’ve spoken to thinks you’re a lunatic.”<
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  “Hahahahahahaha!” Mum laughed, the sound going on for far too long and becoming increasingly high-pitched. “No, they don’t! They think I’m invested in the success of the PTA. They think I’m enthusiastic!”

  “Enthusiastically insane, maybe,” I said. “Can we please go home now?”

  “Not quite,” said Mum. “There’s just one last house left to go to. Mr Lawson’s.”

  “Mr Lawson’s?” I gasped. “As in, the head teacher Mr Lawson? Why are we going there? He can’t vote for the PTA head, can he?”

  “No, but he’s very influential in the school,” said Mum. “If I get him on side, he could help me beat that awful Green woman.”

  “Why do you keep calling her that?” I sighed. “You used to be friends.”

  “Yes. Used to be,” said Mum, her lips going all puckered and thin. “Before she decided to trample all over our friendship by standing against me for the PTA position.”

  “Seems like a silly thing to throw away a friendship for,” I said. “You know, considering no one even cares about the PTA.”

  “Oh, Dylan,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder and smiling at me in that way grown-ups do when they’re about to say something really patronizing. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  She ruffled my hair, then crisply about-turned and hurried along the street. “Now come on, Mr Lawson’s house is just…”

  Mum stopped as she rounded a bend in the road. Her eyes went very wide, then very narrow.

  There, standing at the other end of the street, staring back, was Mrs Green. Evie stood beside her, a shopping bag slung over her shoulder. Even from this distance, I could tell it was filled with campaign leaflets.