Weirdest Show on Earth

by Barry Hutchison

  The whole place was a clutter of boxes, bits of old set, disused props, lighting rigs, and what could generously be described as “stuff”, but more accurately described as “junk”. The only light in the place came from the doorway I’d just dived through, and everything more than a metre away was shrouded in shadow.

  “Right, costumes. Costumes. Where would they keep the costumes?” I wondered.

  There was a large cardboard box near the back wall that looked as good a place to start as any. I picked my way across to it, clambering over old stage curtains, a couple of dusty speakers and a paper-mâché chicken wearing a bowler hat.

  The further I got from the door, the darker it became. I was busy trying not to think about spiders leaping out of the shadows when I heard a rush of footsteps right behind me.

  “Wah!” I yelped, spinning on the spot. “H-hello?” I whispered into the gloom.

  Then the footsteps came again, louder this time. A flurry of dust fell from the ceiling, and I realized the sound I’d heard was someone walking across the stage.

  Sighing with relief, I turned back to the box, only for a monstrously ugly figure to explode from inside, waving its arms above its head and roaring like a wild animal.

  My scream was so high-pitched I’m surprised the glass in the lighting rigs didn’t shatter. I stumbled back, tripped on the model chicken, and flattened it as I fell.

  “Oh man, your face!” said Wayne, pulling off a monster mask to reveal his gleeful grin. “You should have seen your face!”

  “You nearly gave me a heart attack!” I gasped.

  “Sorry,” Wayne said. “No, wait… I’m not. That was brilliant.”

  “What are you doing down here?” I asked, struggling to my feet.

  “Waiting to jump out on whoever Brannan sent down for the costumes,” Wayne said.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Not long,” said Wayne, tossing the mask over his shoulder. “Just since second period.”

  “Second period? That’s before break!” I spluttered. “You’ve been hiding in that box for nearly three hours! That’s insane.”

  “It was totally worth it,” said Wayne. “Your face!”

  He chuckled for a few more seconds, then jabbed a thumb in the direction of an ancient wardrobe. “It’s in there,” he said.

  “What is?” I asked. “Narnia?”

  “The costume stuff,” Wayne said. He pulled open the door and there, hanging in front of us, was a costume.

  A dog costume.

  A big grey dog costume.

  Although I didn’t fully realize it at the time, somewhere, at the back of my mind, an idea began to form.

  The first half of the rehearsal was spent strutting up and down the stage in a variety of weird outfits, while Chloe criticized everything about us.

  The way Evie walked was a problem. One of my arms looked longer than the other. The girl who was playing my mum had – and I quote – “a face like a human foot”.

  Chloe didn’t stop there, either. Duncan had fat knees. A girl called Jenna apparently looked like she was choking on a hamster, although I couldn’t see it myself.

  Even when she was being complimentary, Chloe still somehow managed to sound mean. She told one guy that he had the “perfect body” for his role. Unfortunately his role was an alien slime monster with a giant zit for a head. He left the hall in tears.

  With the costumes finally chosen, Chloe set to work to make them look more space-age. This basically seemed to involve gluing little silver moons and stars to them, from what I could gather. While she was busy doing that (with Wayne helping) we were finally able to squeeze in some rehearsing.

  As soon as we finished, I raced home to fit in an hour of bike training with Destructo. I tried to convince Theo to help me but he had a dentist appointment. Or so he said.

  The bike practice went pretty much exactly the same way the morning session had done, except this time Destructo chewed the back tyre rather than the front, and it took me longer to prise it from his massive jaws.

  During dinner, Dad unveiled his new theme song for TV’s Most Talented Pets. He didn’t have his xylophone so he tapped the beat on the salt cellar with his knife and fork instead.

  “Pets. Pets, pets, pets,

  P-p-p-pets. Pets, pets,

  Pets,

  Including cats,

  Pets, pets, d-pets,

  P-p-pets,

  Pets!”

  He gave a little bow at the end. “Well?”

  “So, instead of singing the word ‘dogs’ over and over again, you sing ‘pets’ over and over again?” said Jodie.

  “The ‘including cats’ bit doesn’t really fit the rhythm very well,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, it does,” he said.

  Jodie and I both shook our heads.

  “They’re right, it doesn’t,” Mum agreed.

  Dad sniffed. “Well, I’m the only professional musician in the family, so I think I know best.” He spent the next few minutes pushing a chunk of courgette around his plate in silence … which left a gap for Mum to jump in.

  “So?” she said, raising her eyebrows at me. “How was school?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  Jodie shrugged. “All right.”

  “Speak to anyone?” Mum asked.

  “Lots of people,” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” said Mum. “Good. Good.” She picked up a baby carrot and bit the end off it. “Anyone in particular?”

  I sighed and set my cutlery down on the table. “Do you mean, was I speaking to Evie?”

  “Were you?” asked Mum, her eyes narrowing.

  “Yes!” I said. “We held hands and I told her I loved her!”

  Mum’s jaw flopped open. Dad stopped pushing his dinner around. Even Jodie looked up from her plate in surprise.

  “And then a spaceship crashed and Tomulax, the High Emperor of Artribius IV, tried to shoot us both with a ray gun.”

  “What?” said Dad. “Seriously? Why wasn’t it on the news?”

  “Because it was in the play! We’re doing the school play together,” I said. “Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Oh,” said Dad. He frowned. “Are there ray guns in Romeo and Juliet?”

  “There are since Ms Brannan got her hands on it,” I said. “But yes, Mum, in answer to your question, I did speak to Evie today.”

  “I see. I see,” said Mum. “Do you know another of Shakespeare’s plays?” she said. “It’s… Well, I forget the name, but it’s about Julius Caesar. You know what happens in it?”

  “Something boring no one understands?” I guessed.

  “He gets stabbed in the back. Right in the back,” said Mum. “Betrayed by those closest to him. Ring any bells, Dylan? Know anyone else who has betrayed the trust of those closest to them recently? Hmm? Someone sitting at this table, maybe? Someone sitting in your seat right now?”

  “Is it me?” I asked.

  “Yes, it’s you!” said Mum. “I ask you to do one thing – one little thing…”

  “Stop talking to my friend because you and her mum have fallen out over the stupid PTA,” I said.

  “Exactly! One little… And it’s not stupid, Dylan. One little thing and you won’t do it.”

  “That’s not really fair, Mum,” said Jodie, coming to my defence. “They’re in the play together. And she’s kind of his girlfriend.”

  “What!” Mum spluttered, almost choking on a piece of potato.

  “She is not!” I protested.

  “She totally is,” Jodie sniggered. “Beaky’s got a girlfriend, Beaky’s got a girlfriend…”

  “At least I didn’t get caught kissing Bradley Wells in the science corridor at break time!” I blurted, then immediately clamped my hand over my mouth.

  It was true. Jodie had been caught kissing a boy from her year in the science corridor at break time the day before. She must have thought I didn’t know or she wouldn’t have dared to start teasing me about Evie.

 
“And he’s not even in her creepy Top Five Boys list,” I added, although it was a bit muffled by my hand.

  Mum and Dad both turned to Jodie. “Is that true, Jodie?” Mum asked.

  “No!” said Jodie.

  “Yes!” I insisted. “Bradley’s mate Cyril saw them, and he told Theo’s cousin Suzanne, who told Theo’s other cousin Julian, who told Theo, who told me.”

  “Any or all of those people could have been lying,” babbled Jodie. “And they definitely were. Probably Cyril. I’ve never trusted him. He’s shifty, if you ask me.” She got up from the table. “Anyway, I’ve got a lot of homework. Thanks for a lovely meal!”

  We all watched her dart out of the room. Three seconds later, her bedroom door slammed shut.

  “Who’s Bradley Wells?” asked Dad.

  I reached across and patted his hand. “Trust me. You don’t want to know.”

  “Fine,” said Mum.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Fine?”

  “You can talk to Evie Green. I didn’t realize she was your girlfriend.”

  “She isn’t!”

  Mum smiled in a really patronizing sort of way. “Well, whatever. Just promise you won’t reveal any of my campaign strategies.”

  “OK, first of all, I don’t know or care what any of your campaign strategies are,” I said. “And secondly, I was going to talk to her anyway, even though she’s not – I repeat, not – my girlfriend.” I stood up and flashed Mum a grin. “But thanks all the same.”

  And then, before anyone suggested it should be my turn to do the dishes, I left the room, took the stairs two at a time and darted into my bedroom, only for something to thwack me across the head from behind.

  I ducked, covering my head with my hands, then turned to find Jodie standing behind me, clutching one of my trainers.

  “Ow! Did you just hit me with a shoe?”

  “Yes,” she seethed, closing the door to block my exit. “You’re lucky I couldn’t find your baseball bat.”

  “It’s under the bed,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Jodie glanced down at the space beneath the bed but luckily there was a force field of dirty pants on the floor right in front of it.

  “For your information, I did not kiss Bradley Wells in the science corridor,” she told me. “It was Dawn.”

  “You kissed Dawn in the science corridor?”

  “No! Dawn kissed Bradley Wells in the science corridor!”

  “Oh. Right,” I said. “So who did you kiss, then?”

  “No one!”

  I sat down at my desk. “But if it’s not true, how could I say it?” I asked.

  Jodie shrugged. “How should I know? Did you think it was true?”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding.

  “Well, that must be it, then. You thought it was true, so you could say it. Try now. Now that you know it definitely is not true and that I wouldn’t kiss Bradley Wells if you paid me and gave me fake lips.”

  “You k-k-k…” I stammered. “You k-k-k… You’re right, I can’t say it. But wait, let’s try an experiment.”

  “Does it involve cutting you open like a frog?” Jodie asked. “If so, I’m in.”

  “No, not that sort of experiment.”

  I tore a page from a notebook, then hurriedly wrote a few lines. Jumping up, I stood next to Jodie and angled the paper so she could see it. Her name was on the top with a line of text below it. Beneath that was my name, then another line.

  “What’s this?” Jodie asked.

  “It’s a script. Read your line.”

  “What? I’m not reading…” She tutted and rolled her eyes. “Fine. I did not kiss Bradley Wells in the science corridor.”

  I took a deep breath. This was it – the next words out of my mouth might well determine the entire course of my life from that moment on.

  “Yes, Jodie, you did.”

  The paper slipped from my fingers and fluttered to the floor. I turned to Jodie, my eyes wide. “I told a lie! Jodie, I told a lie!”

  Jodie looked down at the paper in surprise. “What? But … I mean… How?”

  “Because I can read a script!”

  “But that’s not a script. That’s real stuff,” Jodie pointed out.

  “I know, but I turned it into a script and then I could say it! This is amazing!”

  I spent a few seconds dancing round the room, then stopped. “Wait,” I said. “Let’s test something.”

  I picked up the paper and memorized my line, word for word. “OK, say it again.”

  Jodie sighed. “I did not kiss Bradley Wells in the science corridor.”

  “No, Jodie, you did not!” I agreed.

  I punched the air in triumph.

  A moment later, I froze. “Wait, that’s not right. I was supposed to say you did.”

  “Looks like you can only lie if you’re reading the script,” Jodie said.

  I flopped down on to my chair again. “I really hoped that was going to work.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” Jodie said. “Maybe you can still use it.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  I turned away to hide my misery and tapped the touchpad of my laptop. It was an old one of Dad’s, and complained noisily about being woken up.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” said Jodie.

  “Yeah, you probably should,” I said glumly. “I’m about to do a massive fart.”

  Jodie left.

  I did a massive fart.

  The laptop’s screen flickered into life and the speakers gave a tinny-sounding ping as an email arrived in my inbox. It was from TV’s Most Talented Pets.

  I clicked the subject line, hoping the email was going to tell me the whole thing had been called off. But nope. It was a follow-up confirmation of the date, time and location for the filming – 5 p.m. next Thursday in our manky local church hall (it didn’t actually say “manky” in the email) – and some details about the people and pets taking part.

  My name was there, of course, along with the name of my school. A little blurb below my name read:

  Pet name – Destructo

  Pet type – Dog

  Pet talent – Bike Riding

  The next name was Sebastian Farrinton, who I’d never heard of. He was from Foxley Hill, the school we’d beaten in the Winston and Watson cup. His pet details were:

  Pet name – Gavin

  Pet type – Wasp

  Pet talent – Tying knots

  “Wasp?” I said out loud. “What kind of weirdo has a pet wasp?”

  It was the last name on the list that really took me by surprise, though.

  Evie Green.

  “Seriously?” I said, out loud. First the PTA thing, then the play, and now this. It was as if the whole world was trying to force us together.

  Apparently Evie had a cat called Gizmo who could play the drums. Between that, the knot-tying wasp and Destructo’s promised bike antics, the producers must have been feeling pretty good about their upcoming episode.

  Little did they know, of course, that Destructo couldn’t even get on a bike, let alone ride one. But that was about to change. I closed my laptop and jumped to my feet.

  That dog was going to learn to ride a bike.

  Tonight.

  Even if it killed me.

  Destructo didn’t learn to ride a bike that night. Fortunately it didn’t kill me, although at times I almost wished it would.

  After he’d chewed through another tyre, I’d come to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to happen. That meant I could either admit to the show’s producer that I’d made the whole thing up or try to come up with a Plan B. Luckily I already had the beginnings of a Plan B at the back of my mind. But I was going to need some help.

  Wayne sat across the table from me in the school dinner hall, a Roast Beef flavour Monster Munch halfway to his mouth. We’d been given the day off lessons for a play rehearsal and had spent most of the morning running through it over and over again, scripts in hand.

 
After lunch we were supposed to be doing it without the script, which was going to be a problem.

  Right now, though, the TV show was the biggest of my many worries.

  “You want me to what?” said Wayne.

  “Dress up as a dog and ride a bike,” I said.

  Wayne looked to my left, where Theo was sitting. Theo nodded and smiled, which only made Wayne’s scowl deepen.

  “Why?”

  “For the TV.”

  “Wait… Are you on this talented pet show thing, too? With Evie?” said Wayne.

  I quickly reached for my gobstopper in case Wayne asked me about my feelings for Evie but fortunately he was still too puzzled by the whole dog/bike situation to ask me about her.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I told them my dog could ride a bike.”

  “And can it?”

  “Of course he can’t!” I said. “That’s why I need you to dress up.”

  “Why can’t he do it?” Wayne asked, nodding at Theo.

  “He’s already got a job to do,” I said.

  “What about your sister? Ask her.”

  “I asked her on the way to school this morning,” I said. “But she punched me in the stomach and pushed me into a hedge.”

  Wayne nodded appreciatively. “I like her style.” He shoved the Monster Munch in his mouth and leaned back in his chair. “What’s in it for me?”

  “You get to be on telly.”

  “Dressed as a dog, so no one knows it’s me,” Wayne said. “Nice try. Next.”

  “Think of it as repaying a favour,” I said. “Remember when I climbed that tree so you wouldn’t humiliate yourself in front of Chloe?”