The Sea-Quel (8 page)

CHAPTER 1

RUN, ZOMBIE, RUN

Pradeep and I ran down the road toward the school gates.

“Come on, we're gonna be late,” Pradeep shouted over his shoulder. He was way ahead of me. Not because he's a faster runner, but because:

 

a) Frankie, my pet zombie goldfish, was in a plastic bag in my backpack and the water kept sloshing from side to side as I ran, which kinda threw my balance off.

b) I was carrying a big wooden stick under each arm.

c) I was running toward school an hour earlier than I actually had to be there and every cell in my body was telling me that this was just wrong!

 

Frankie was pretty shaken up from all this running and that didn't make him happy. I don't know if any of you have dealt with a pet zombie goldfish that's been brought back to life by battery after he'd been fatally gunked with toxic stuff—but they're not exactly chilled-out pets.

We raced through the gates, up the front steps, and down the corridor into the main hall. By the time we arrived at the auditions for the school play, Pradeep and I were panting. And we weren't even the first ones to get there! There was already a long line that snaked out of the side door and down past the dressing rooms.

“I thought we'd be first here,” Pradeep said, looking around.

“At least there's time for extra breakfast,” I said, unpacking all the snacks we'd brought.

“You're right,” Pradeep said, digging Frankie out of the bag too. “We're gonna need it.”

Frankie glared at me and Pradeep.

“Sorry, Frankie,” I whispered. “We were running late.”

Now, Pradeep eats when he's nervous and I eat when I'm bored, so between us we hoovered up our snack rations pretty fast.

Two granola bars, three apples, and several of Pradeep's mom's samosas later, we were
still
waiting, along with Kevin Bradley (the junior choir champion) outside the hall doors.

Suddenly I noticed that Kevin was mumbling “Swishy little fishy…” and picking out green M&M's from his lunch box. Frankie must have rolled his bag over there and hypnotized Kevin in search of a snack! (Zombie goldfish have a thing about anything green—especially food!)

“I guess Frankie needed a second breakfast too,” I sighed.

After we'd convinced Frankie to un-hypnotize Kevin (but only after making him forget he ever saw a zombie goldfish with hypnotic powers), we gave Frankie some mouldy bits of old samosa that we'd saved for him, then zipped him up tight in the backpack. We couldn't risk him being spotted again.

“I knew you shouldn't have brought Frankie,” Pradeep said as he paced up and down the corridor after Kevin had gone in to do his audition.

“I had to,” I said back. “The first rehearsal is right after school. I couldn't risk Mark being home alone with Frankie until we got back.” Frankie still holds a pretty big grudge against Mark, my Evil Scientist big brother, for trying to murder him with toxic gunk as part of one of his evil experiments.

“Oh, OK.” Pradeep nodded. “But don't you mean
if
we get cast in the show?”

“She'd be crazy not to pick us,” I said. “Where else is she gonna find better stick-fighting, arrow-shooting, rope-swinging Merry Men in this school?”

Pradeep smiled. He knew it was true. We had practiced jumping off things and onto things, swinging from things, fighting with things, shooting at things, and generally being the best Merry Men any Robin Hood could ever want. This year the play was going to be epic.

I peeked through the door into the hall. Kevin was onstage doing his song. It would be our turn next. “Was it this long a wait at the auditions last year, Pradeep?” I asked.

“No, but it wasn't really an audition. They just said yes to everyone that showed up,” he said. “This new drama teacher said she's holding proper auditions this year.”

I hadn't done the school play in a while. Not since kindergarten when we did the Nativity story and I tried to add a little action. The teacher didn't think a ninja donkey would have been at the manger. I disagreed.

After I started kickboxing with a couple of Wise Men, the teacher said maybe I should stick to backstage stuff in the future. And that's what I'd done. But this year was the first time they'd picked a real action play, and it was a musical, too, so I told Pradeep I'd come with him to try out.

He had been in loads of the plays, but he still got nervous.

“You'll be fine, Pradeep,” I said as he took off his glasses to clean them for the twenty-third time that hour. “You always get a part,” I added.

“Yeah, but always as the same thing,” he moaned.

“That's not true. What were you again in that cowboy musical in first grade?”

“A cactus,” he said.

“Oh yeah, and in
Aladdin
the next year?”

“A palm tree,” he answered.

“Um, OK,” I said, biting my lip. “But last year in that eco-musical thing you had a really good part, didn't you?”

“I was a ginkgo,” he sighed.

“A really cool lizard kind of thing, right?” I checked.

“No, that's a gecko,” he groaned. “A ginkgo is a tree!” Pradeep looked down at his feet. “I don't care if I get to be a Merry Man or a guard or whatever this time. I just don't want to be a plant again.”

That was it! We had to get the parts of Merry Men now to prove that I could do an action part (better than the ninja donkey) and that Pradeep could do more than play a tree.

Kevin
finally
came out and it was our turn. As I double-checked that Frankie was still safe in the backpack, I started thinking about the kindergarten Nativity play again. I think I was getting myself back in the ninja zone for the audition. I slipped the backpack over my shoulder as we walked into the school hall.

“Pradeep, what were you in the kindergarten Nativity play?” I wondered.

“I guess it wasn't very memorable.” He paused. “I was the Christmas tree.”

CHAPTER 2

THE PLAY'S THE THING

Pradeep and I walked into the hall, where the first thing we saw was Mrs. Flushcowski, the new drama teacher. Can I just say, if you have a name with a toilet sound
and
a farm animal in it, you should just give up and not become a teacher. There's just no challenge in making up a teacher nickname when you start with that.

“Darlings,” she said. She called everybody “darling.” She leaned back in her director's chair, holding a cup of tea. “Impress me!”

I carefully placed the backpack in the front row, away from Mrs. Flushcowski, and unzipped it a little so Frankie could see us on the stage. I think he deserved to see our big moment. We got out our wooden sticks and started play-fighting with them. We really showed off our jumping and hitting-things skills. Just as we were about to show off our swinging-on-things skills, she stopped us.

“Darlings, you don't have a song? Or a piece prepared?”

“This is our piece,” I said. “We want to be Merry Men. So we wanted to show we could pretend fight.”

“I need to see that you can
ACT
,” she said, but said the word
ACT
in a really weird way like she was saying something important; like the name of the World Computer Games Champion or something. “When I was ‘Woman in Elevator' on
The Days of Our Time
, the director said that my every thought was written on my face. Like that. I need to see true
ACTING
.”

I whispered to Pradeep, “She wants us to act merry, I guess. You know,
Merry
Men would be merry as they fight.”

“How do you do that?” he asked.

“Follow my lead,” I whispered.

I grabbed the big stick and started to fight with Pradeep again.

“Ho, ho, ho,” I said. “I got you!”

“Huh?”

“Ho, ho, ho,” I said again louder, and then whispered, “I'm being merry!”

“Oh, yeah! Ho, ho, ho,” Pradeep said and banged his stick against mine.

“Darlings, darlings,
DARLINGS
!” Mrs. Flushcowski had to shout three times to be heard over the sound of the sticks crashing together and the Santa laughing. “That is
enough
.”

“Do we get the parts, Mrs. Flushcowski?” I asked.

“Do you have nothing prepared that you can recite or sing?” she asked.

Unfortunately, the only song that came into my mind was the Squeaky Clean Toilets advert jingle. I took a deep breath and sang out:
“Ah, so clean and fresh … think your guests … with Squeaky Clean Toilets.”

“Um, thank you, Tom,” Mrs. Flushcowski said, but her look either said, “I have no idea why this young man is here” or “I am in awe at this young man's talent.” The two looks are pretty close.

Then Pradeep opened his mouth and started saying a poem.

 

“I think that I shall never see,

A poem lovely as a tree,

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts its leafy arms to pray.…”

 

And he went on.

By the time he finished, I was standing there with my mouth gaping open, Frankie was looking out from his bag with
his
mouth gaping open and Mrs. Flushcowski was actually crying. She dug in her handbag for tissues and dabbed at her face. Then she ran onstage and hugged Pradeep.

I bet that was
not
the reaction he was going for with that poem.

“I had to memorize it last year when I played the ginkgo. It just stuck in my head,” he mumbled from somewhere underneath Mrs. Flushcowski.

Mrs. Flushcowski pulled back and stood in front of Pradeep. “You moved me,
darling
,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” said Pradeep. “You didn't have to get up.”

“No, you have
moved
me”—she pointed to her heart—“in here.” Then she hugged him again.