by John Michael
I decided to try one last time. I closed my eyes and concentrated so hard that there were wrinkles on my brow. This time two images appeared: some brussels sprouts and some kid picking his nose.
I must admit, not the best material but at least this kind of stuff was up Barney’s alley.
“Barn! What’s the difference between a plate of brussels sprouts and a booger?”
“Ah... let me think Howie. Is it that they are both green?”
“I said ‘difference!’ Try again.”
“Um... one is round and the other is... um... not round?”
“No. Think harder Barney.”
“Okay... I think I’ve figured it out. Is it that brussels sprouts grow in the garden and boogers grow in your nose?”
“Ha ha... not too bad Barney but the answer is ‘a kid won’t eat brussels sprouts,’ get it?”
At first, Barney chortled but then just stared blankly at me so I had to repeat the joke and I even had to explain why it was funny. After a couple of minutes, he did start to chuckle again and in no time he was laughing away, the down side was that he sounded like a hyena having an asthma attack. That’s what I loved about Barney, he could enjoy the same joke three times, once when it was told, once when it was explained, and then again when he finally got it.
“It’s funny... ha ha... because it’s true! That’s... ha ha... a good one Howie... ha ha... do you think... that it will... ha ha –”
I exploded midway through Barney’s laughter and it wasn’t pretty. I sneezed like a diseased camel and sounded as loud as a longbarrelled blunderbuss. Barney jumped out of his skin and to make matters worse, most of the slobber made contact with him.
“Eeew... thanks a lot Howie!”
“Oh... I’m so sorry Barney,” I said as I wiped my nose with one of the leftover serviettes which had been in my pocket.
“You better not be gettin’ sick,” huffed Barney.
“Ah... I don’t think so... hopefully I’m just allergic to Savani!” I tried to laugh it off but to be honest, I was feeling a little feverish... maybe the pressure was getting to me.
Barney and I quickly went up to the registration table and enquired about signing up. “Oh you made it just in time sonny,” exclaimed the old lady behind the desk as she checked her wrist watch. She looked frail, like you could blow her over with a whisper, and had more wrinkles than a sack of walnuts and smelled like a bag of mothballs. “Another minute and you would have missed the party!”
“Party?!” queried Barney.
“Shush,” I muttered.
“I think she’s being sarcastic.”
I then turned to the old lady. “Ha ha... lucky us!
“Yeah... lucky as a worm in a chicken coop!” mumbled Barney.
“There you go sonny,” the old lady said as she handed over our registration papers. “You’re team number six, I’ll get them to set up your table... good luck!”
The rules for the Great Quiz were quite simple − each pair of contestants were asked a question. If you got three questions wrong, you would be eliminated. The last two teams would then go into the finals and battle it out until one of the teams provided an incorrect answer.
The organisers set up the six tables on the stage at the front of the Royal Pavilion. Principal Ditherington stepped up onto the podium and the old lady with the thousand wrinkles handed him the microphone.
“To be certain, it is a most marvellous day for our Great Quiz challenge today, and when I say marvellous I am referring to this glorious spring day. Look around, the cherry trees are in blossom and note the scent of freshly cut grass lofting in the air. C'esl la vie de château. Most certainly, spring is here, offering new beginnings, rebirth, inspiration. Let me share a poem that I wrote, it is called Spring has Sprung:
We lived a white lie in a little blue cottage,
The snow piled itself into a corner
And Old Man Winter died like a mouldy pumpkin.
He croaked his last breath near the cabbage patch.
Yes he did.
Heed! Ostara’s rays of joyful light glimmer from yonder,
There I see the bud of a yellow daffodil,
Suddenly it was spring in my garden.
The unicorn would stop and eat the periwinkles,
While the shepherd chased the sheep into the valley.”
There was a round of polite applause from the audience and then the principal just stood there with a confused look on his face. “Now onto the... ah... what was I about to say” he muttered as he scratched his chin. The wrinkled old lady quickly stepped up to the principal’s side and whispered in his ear.
“Ah yes, most certainly. Thank you. I was talking about the Great Quiz. The Great Quiz challenge which has now been running for over a century and as day is day, night is night and time is time, it will endure as a legacy of this town’s history. We have six most worthy teams ready to go head to head. The winners, of course, will have their names forever immortalised on the Quockingpoll Flats Great Quiz trophy.”
At this moment, the old lady moved in again and whispered into the principal’s ear.
“Ah yes, of course, the Quockingpoll Flats Great Quiz trophy has been stolen... it is no longer with us, it has been filched, pilfered, most peculiarly, most certainly. Not to worry, not to worry.”
Mr Ditherington was overcome with emotion and took off his glasses, pulled out his poker dotted handkerchief and dabbed his eye with it.
“Now... where was I?”
Once more, the old lady whispered into the principal’s ear.
“Ah yes, most certainly, as I was saying, here we are about to start the Great Quiz.” He then looked over to the old lady. “Do I need to cut a ribbon?” She shook her head.
“Well then,” responded Mr Ditherington. “Let the games begin!”
The two players in each team quickly readied themselves... no doubt there would have been more participants but many were fearful of going up against Savani. Perhaps these bunch of misfits were either very brave or just plain foolhardy... I felt like I definitely belonged in the latter category. Some potential opponents had probably seen her in action during the rap battle and decided that they didn’t need to be ridiculed and mocked in public... undoubtedly a wise decision and, at this moment, I too was wishing that I had declined Savani’s personal invitation... my imagined hobo life was looking more and more enticing.
I glanced around at each contestant’s face, some appeared perplexed, others excited, a few seemed to be anxious, one of the team members was even looking a bit cross-eyed but I was going to put that down to genetics. Amongst all the contestants, nobody came across as confident as Savani. She had a steely gaze and it was obvious that her eye was on the prize, with that prize being the Quockingpoll Trophy. Not literally of course, as Mr Ditherington had pointed out, the trophy was long gone. Savani definitely wanted to win... she looked hungrier than a toothless dachshund in a sausage factory.
Principal Ditherington started the proceedings by reading from his list of questions and although he delivered each one in his trademark dithering style, the initial proceedings were surprisingly quick paced. My brain was cooperating and we managed to get the opening questions correct without any fuss, the first one was about ‘playgrounds,’ it was a walk in the park, and then the second question was a piece of cake, something about ‘apple strudel,’ the third question was like taking candy from a baby, it was about ‘lollipops.’ Although Barney did make me promise that I wouldn’t expect him to answer any questions, that didn’t stop him from volunteering a few responses.
“I was born in Austria in 1756 and am a famous composer who goes by the name of Wolfgang Amadeus what?” asked Mr Ditherington
“Schnitzel!” offered Barney.
“Wolfgang Amadeus Schnitzel? I’m not so sure, we might go with Mozart on that one.”
“The Classical Greek sculptures which are on display in the British Museum are known as the what Marbles?” asked the principal.
>
“That’s easy!” Barney whispered in my ear.
“It’s souvlaki.”
“The Souvlaki Marbles? Good try Barney but I think we’ll go with Elgin.”
“What is the Latin scientific name for the common pig?” asked Mr Ditherington.
“Bacon,” mumbled Barney as he licked his lips.
“Not bad but I reckon the answer might be Sus scrofa domesticus.”
We were hitting our stride and I started to develop some confidence, perhaps it was the warm spring weather, perhaps it was the adrenalin, perhaps we were still on a high from our lunchtime feast? Who knew? While the first few questions were rather tame, after the first couple of rounds things started to heat up, all of a sudden the principal was asking us about thaumaturgy, panpygoptosis, nephelococcygia, zwitterions and hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. Luckily, my concentration was much better than it was during the rap battle and my brain clicked into action when necessary − the cogs were whirring and turning right on cue, and I actually felt like we were in with a chance.
Before we knew it, the other teams had started to fall by the wayside and there we were, in the finals. Just like that! The two of us against Savani and Penelope. While a part of me was content to have gotten this far, another part of me wanted to go all the way and to exact some revenge against Savani. A voice echoed in my brain: Don’t call checkmate ‘til it’s over! It was Savani’s whiny little voice ringing in my ear. I’ll show her! Perhaps I was letting my emotions get the better of me? Plus, I wasn’t even sure how one exacts revenge as I had never had the opportunity to do so. Wasn’t revenge a dish best served cold, or was it something about revenge being sweet, or was it along the lines of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth makes the whole world toothless?
I looked over at Savani’s ‘eye on the prize’ stare and knew that she was going to do whatever it takes to claim victory. She was the Wicked Witch of the West to my Dorothy, the Evil Queen to my Snow White, the Cruella de Vil to my 101 Dalmatians. To make matters worse, Savani seemed to be in great form... in fact she was shooting out the answers before the principal could even finish the questions. I then looked over at Penelope, poor thing, every time she suggested a response, Savani shrugged her off or just talked over the top of her. Savani was definitely one of those limelight hoggers, you know the ones, everything had to be about her, she was the centre of the universe and always had to be the big cheese, the king pin, the head honcho.
“So what are we up to now?” asked Mr Ditherington.
The old lady once again sidled up to the principal to fill him in regarding what was what. However, this time things went a little askew. As she walked up towards him, the principal stepped on her foot and she let out a high-pitched wail and stumbled back a metre to the edge of the stage. Mr Ditherington instinctively tried to reach out to grasp the woman but instead of grabbing her hand, he missed altogether and accidently cuffed her in the shoulder, sending her stumbling back even further. At this moment, she was teetering at the very edge of the stage like some frail wrinkled sparrow on a perch, flapping her arms madly in order to restore her balance.
In contrast, the principal just stood there frozen, like some ice sculpture, unsure of what to do next. Seeing that Mr Ditherington was dithering as to his next course of action, the woman decided to take matters into her own hands, as she was probably seeing her life flash before her eyes. Her bony arms reached out and desperately clutched at the principal. At this point Mr Ditherington arched backwards, his survival instincts were telling him that he didn’t want to join the old woman as she tumbled over the side. And that was that. It looked like she was going to do a solo dive into the turf and break a few bones. She had a look of fear and dread etched on her wrinkled face and, as she was going over the side, the old woman instinctively lunged at the principal with one last frantic lurch.
Mr Ditherington did seem to be a safe distance away but, alas, not safe enough as her bony fingers were able to reach his tie. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The principal’s centre of balance was disrupted as she grasped him tightly around his tie and instead of Mr Ditherington pulling the old woman to safety, she dragged him over the edge.
There they were. On the grass. Two jumbled bodies, a tangle of legs, arms, elbows and knees. The poor old lady ended up having quite a few injuries, including some fractured ribs and a displaced hip. She probably regretted grabbing Mr Ditherington by his tie and taking him with her, she definitely would have sustained less injuries had he not landed on top of her. The first-aid staff plied her full of strong pain killers which put a stop to her wailing and had her singing some song about a happy place where rainbow skies are blue and how the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true, as she was bustled away in an ambulance. Luckily for the principal, the old woman broke his fall and, although somewhat winded and dishevelled, he came away from it with nothing more than a bruised ego, oh, and a ripped tie.
With the impromptu slapstick pantomime out of the way, Mr Ditherington recommenced with the quiz. “My apologies regarding the series of unfortunate events which have befallen us today, this conflation of ill-fated calamity to which you have had to bear witness. These are trying times and it is with a heavy heart that I say that the show must go ahead, time and tide wait for no man, nor woman. Poor old Maude, who’s off to the infirmary now, would have wanted it that way... to be certain... oh Maude! La vie est dure!”
At this stage, the principal became choked up with tears, and once again took off his glasses and dabbed his eye with his handkerchief before continuing. “When sorrows inflict us, they come in multitudes, but nevertheless, all that aside...” he stuttered as he cleared his throat and regained his composure. “To be certain, here we are and life goes on, like an eternal clock ticking away without regret and without remorse, and right now time is ebbing away and we need to get back to the task at hand.”
Mr Ditherington then looked around in a confused manner. “Now, where was I?” he mumbled to himself as he scratched his chin. Savani’s pursed lips and furrowed brow suggested that her patience was wearing thin. Penelope, however, seeing that the principal was in a spot of bother, walked over to him and discreetly whispered in his direction, while at the same time keeping a safe distance so that he didn’t accidently step on her foot as well.
“Ah yes, the final round, most certainly! Thank you my dear,” responded Mr Ditherington as he patted Penelope on the shoulder. She smiled and quickly resumed her place next to Savani while the principal turned to face the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. We are now in the final round of the Great Quiz. There can only be one victorious team. The first team to get an answer incorrect will be eliminated. Let the finals begin!” The crowd responded with a raucous cheer.
After the less than gallant incident with the wrinkled old lady, Mr Ditherington was once again in charge of the proceedings and he didn’t hold back, the barrage of questions came at us thick and fast. Both Barney and Penelope took a back seat while Savani and I battled it out. We were twelve questions into the final and it was neck and neck, there wasn’t a hair’s breadth between us. The questions ranged from biotechnology to linguistics to anatomy to Shakespeare to philosophy to quantum mechanics but neither one of us wavered or faltered. One by one, we fired the answers back at Mr Ditherington with conviction and gusto.
“Lactic acid fermentation!”
“Dialectology!”
“Calcaneal apophysitis!”
“Troilus and Cressida!”
“Thus spoke Zarathustra!”
“Werner Heisenberg!”
This was a battle for the ages, we were like two bloodied warriors slogging it out, who would be the first to succumb? Every correct answer received an enthusiastic round of applause from the audience, who were enthralled and captivated by this most fascinating of spectacles.
I looked across at the crowd, all the seats were full and it was standing room only and, much to my surprise,
right there sitting in the front row were my parents. Dad was swatting a bee which had taken a liking to his yellow hat, while Mum was proudly grinning from ear to ear and frantically waving at me. How did my parents find out that I was in the quiz? Seriously, my mum was like the Eye of Sauron and Big Brother rolled into one. Was there anything I could keep secret from her?
As I reluctantly waved back, I was distracted by a lone figure moving amongst the crowd. It was groundskeeper Red and he was picking up the litter which had been discarded on the lawn. He was scurrying around like an annoyed raccoon and every time he looked up at the stage, I could see a big snarl on his face − it was obvious that he wasn’t a fan of the Great Quiz.
The audience cheered as Savani answered yet another question correctly and the principal took to the microphone again. “Looks like we will be here for a while folks. To be certain, this is the most tenacious display of fortitude since Custer fell to the Indians at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.” He then turned to me to ask the next question. “Originally published in 1869, this novel is –”
I exploded in one almighty sneeze as I sprayed Barney and interrupted the principal mid-sentence.
“Oh my gracious! Bless you my young man, and À tes souhaits with a dash of gesundheit for good measure,” offered Mr Ditherington.
“Not again!” grumbled Barney as he wiped his face with his sleeve. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure Barney but I’m feeling somewhat dizzy and my head is spinning.”
“Now, if you’re ready I will finish the question,” stated the principal.
I slowly nodded but my head felt like a bloated pumpkin.
“Originally published in 1869, this book is over 1000 pages long and is considered by many critics to be the greatest novel ever written. The story focuses on the personal lives of a group of aristocratic families during the Napoleonic era. What is the title of this novel?”
I attempted to answer the question but my mind completely zonked out. Bummer! My brain felt as listless as a big fat slug in a tub of lard.
