One Man Show
Authors: John J. Bonk
Text copyright © 2005 by John J. Bonk
All rights reserved.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First published in hardcover in September 2005 by Little, Brown and Company
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental
and not intended by the author.
First eBook Edition: December 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-08671-4
Contents
Chapter 1: If You Can See Them, They Can See You
Chapter 2: Drills, Chills, and Spills
Chapter 7: The Castle of the Crooked Crowns
Chapter 9: You Can Have Your Cake arid Edith Too!
Chapter 14: Yankee Doodle Dilemma
Chapter 16: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
Chapter 19: A Chip Off the ol’ Tortilla Chip
Chapter 21: Most Valuable Player
For all the friends, family, teachers, and classmates
who’ve made me smile, laugh, gasp, or holler,
and have (in some way or another)
wriggled their way into the pages of this book
(As Heard on Televisions across the Nation)
You’ll crack a rib laughing at today’s encore episode of
Double Take,
starring Jeremy Jason Wilder! Stay tuned for America’s zaniest,
insaniest
sitcom twins, Buddy and Bailey Bickford,
as
they butt their way into Laugh-Pest Saturday Morning!
Double Take
is brought to you by Keggler’s Crustacean Crunch cereal—fortified with the forty-five essential vitamins and minerals found
in seafood. Dive into a bowlful today! But no channel surfing, kids, ‘cause we’re coming right back.
If You Can See Them, They Can See You
“TODAY, SIXTH GRADE - TOMORROW, THE UNIVERSE!”
was splashed across the hall bulletin board outside our classroom. Below it were index cards saying what we wanted to be
when we grew up. If things worked out as planned, Room 2C would crank out two doctors, one dentist, three teachers, a pet
hypnotist (don’t ask), five baseball players, three football players, four basketball players, two stay-at-home moms, and
one actor. Guess who?
Dustin Grubbs. Age 11. Actor.
I hope to change the world through my meaningful performance in movies, on television, and on the Broadway Stage.
My dad used to be a stand-up comic. Probably still is, for all I know. So I guess show-biz is in my blood. Still, putting
actor
on that card took guts. It was like writing
wizard
or
superhero
- something impossible to become. And it looked totally lame next to:
Elizabeth T. Snodd. Age
10 ½
Neurosurgeon.
I hope To change The world by conTribuTing To
advancemenTs in brain research and saving lives.
With that in mind, a good place to start my story is backstage at Buttermilk Falls Elementary, where I was getting ready to
make my theatrical debut in about -
“Fifteen minutes to showtime, people!”
- in about fifteen minutes. That was our principal, Mr. Futterman, disappearing through the red velvet curtain with a “what
the heck are we in for?” look on his face. Futterman used to be a gym teacher, once upon a time. He’d traded in his whistle
and sneakers for a suit and tie, but inside he was still a big jock. To him, putting on
The Castle of the Crooked Crowns
was nothing but a royal pain. To me it was everything.
“Betty Batter bought some butter…” I was channeling my nervous energy into a killer tongue twister, worrying myself sick about
my best friend, Wally, who’d never made it back from lunch. “But, said she, this butter’s bitter….” I had the starring role
of Jingle Jangles the Jester. Wally “the Walrus”
Dorkin was playing the King. “If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter.” You’re gonna like Wally - everyone
does. When he doesn’t screw things up, that is.
Backstage looked like a loony bin. Our teacher/goddess, Miss Honeywell, was busy gluing mustaches on the girls who were playing
men. The rest of the girls were testing out the twirl factor of their long medieval dresses - all except for my leading lady,
Pepper. She was on her knees, with three-inch nails sticking out of her mouth, hammering the castle wall. Pepper Pew had a
lot more grit in her than most girls. With a name like that slapped on her from birth, I guess she didn’t have much of a choice.
“Hey, Pep, have you seen Wally?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“For cryin’ out loud, where’s the Walrus?”
“Shhh, Miss Honeywell’ll hear,” Pepper said. “You don’t want to get him in trouble, do ya?”
“Well, she’s gonna find out eventually. We can’t do the play without the King!”
“Oh, right,” she said, looking up at me, brushing her red bangs out of her eyes. “Shouldn’t you get changed?”
“I can’t. Wally’s bringing my costume.”
“Oh,” Pepper said, giving the scenery another whack.
“You should wrap that up,” I told her. “The audience is coming in.”
“You got it, chief.”
I ran to Felix Plunket, who was tugging on his tights and rehearsing his Prince lines to a potted plant. I swear his face
was nearly as green as the ficus. Felix was the fidgety type, but he was the only other boy who’d agreed to do the play besides
Wally and me. (And only after I bribed him with a brand-new NBA all-surface basketball.) He hadn’t seen Wally either.
I was about to start banging my head on a piece of scenery when Wally rushed in, all blotchy faced. He was lugging a load
of costumes over his shoulder and carrying his bassoon case. Oh, in case you don’t know, a bassoon is a woodwind instrument
that looks like an old stovepipe and sounds like a strangled duck. Wally’s head turned purple and inflated to three times
its normal size when he blew into it. That can’t be healthy.
“Finally!” I said.
“Sorry, Dust -,” Wally said, gasping for air like a drowning man. “Ran home for lunch… to pick up the costumes. My ma was
just finishing the last one…. I was halfway back to school when I realized… I forgot my bassoon!”
“So?”
“I have a lesson right after school.”
“How many costumes do you need, anyway? The King is only in, like, three scenes.”
Mrs. Dorkin must’ve cleaned out Sew What?, the local fabric
store. Wally wasn’t exactly petite. Then again, I was a stick. Together we formed the number 10.
“They’re not
all
mine,” Wally said, holding out the pile of costumes. “The striped one on top is yours. Take it.”
I grabbed the first hanger and ripped through the clear plastic that was covering my costume.
“I took that shortcut through the park and made it back in, like, twelve minutes - carrying all this stuff,” Wally said, checking
his watch. “That’s got to be a personal best.”
“Uh-huh. Oh, that reminds me.” I turned to the rest of the cast. “Take off your watches, everybody,” I announced. “They didn’t
exist in the Middle Ages.”
Believe it or not, Buttermilk Falls Elementary hadn’t put on a play since around the Middle Ages. Okay, the mideighties. We
had a basketball team, cheerleaders, our own mini-Olympics - but no plays. What started out as a class project was about to
be performed for the whole school, thanks to Miss Honeywell. She said the play was just too good not to share with the world.
I owed her big time. Not only did she cast me in the lead, she made me her AD. That’s short for
assistant director.
In a secluded spot behind the back curtain, I wriggled into what were probably a pair of Mrs. Dorkin’s yellow panty hose and
a stained pillowcase with armholes. I’d made my own jester’s shoes out of my aunt Birdie’s pointy house slippers, and braided
three of my dad’s old ties into a nifty belt. I’d
found them in the attic, in a box marked
Destroy!
They were left over from when he used to work at Apex Plastics - usually referred to by my father as “the job that’s slowly
sucking the life out of me.”
“Dustin, how darling you look!” Miss Honeywell said in her Southern twang when I stepped out from the shadows.
“Darling” wasn’t exactly the look I was going for.
“I really should check on our class,” she said, standing at the prop table, looking frazzled. “They’re just sitting out there
unattended. Do you think you could finish this prop check for me?”
“Sure thing.”
She handed me a clipboard, and I held it up against myself (where - if I were a statue - a fig leaf would be). Nothing was
showing, but I still felt exposed.
“Oh, and be a sweetheart and make sure Leonard has his cues?”
One “sweetheart” from her and my legs got all noodley. She was prettier than any teacher should be, but she still had a lot
of “spit and vinegar” in her, as Granny Grubbs would say.
“One rubber chicken - check. Six juggling balls - check. One paper scroll -”
Darlene Deluca, who was doing leaps across the stage, did one leap too many and rammed into me. My clipboard went flying.
“Oww!”
“Sorry,” she said, handing the clipboard back to me. She leaned in close with her eyes shut, and I thought she was going to
give me a good-luck kiss. You never knew with Darlene.
“Do I need more Passion Plum?” she asked.
“What?”
“Eye shadow!”
“I don’t think so,” I said. She had enough goop on her face for ten Halloweens. “But Pepper could use a little help with her
makeup. One plastic rose - check.”
Darlene gave me a look like I’d asked her to clean up after queasy elephants.
“I still don’t know why Pepper Pee-U is the Princess,” she said. “She should’ve been the Minstrel, instead of Cynthia. She’s
practically a boy anyway.”
“Not this again,” I said.
“She’s supposed to be royalty, and she’s wearing a bedsheet!”
“Well, at least it’s queen-size.”
“Puh-lease. Check out my gown. It’s the haute couture bridesmaid’s dress I wore to my cousin Trish’s wedding,” Darlene said,
doing a runway-model pose. “Definitely something a princess would wear.”
“Yeah, but it’s all wrong for your character,” I said. “Lady Pickerel is supposed to be, like, sixty. Maybe you and Pepper
should switch costumes.”
“No way, José,” Darlene snarled. “I ain’t getting her cooties on it.”
“Okay, just help her with her makeup, then. She really needs your expert advice. One jester’s stick - check”
“Well, I do have an extra pair of false eyelashes. They might draw attention away from her unibrow.”
One con job - check!
I headed toward Leonard Shempski, the techie, to go over his cues. That’s when I noticed a small peephole in the right side
of the curtain. I stuck my face up to it and closed one eye. I could see the whole audience.
The first-graders were in the front row, jumpy as grasshoppers on a grill. Futterman was blabbing at Miss Honeywell, next
to my class, somewhere in the middle seats. The eighth-graders were filing in at the back, looking too cool for school.
“Hey, it’s a full house!” I said, grabbing Wally, who was lost in the lime green getup he was pulling over his head.
“Well, it’s a school assembly - they
had
to come,” he said. “It’s not like they
paid
for tickets or anything.”