Just Doomed! Read online

  But how? What can I possibly do?

  A series of graffiti attacks around the school all signed, By JEREMY SMART …

  Dump a bunch of dead rats on the principal’s desk with a gift card signed, With love from JEREMY SMART …

  That’s good but maybe I’m not thinking big enough … maybe I can hire a skywriting plane to write some really rude words in the sky and it could be pulling a banner behind it that says, These rude words were brought to you by JEREMY SMART …

  Then again, maybe I should just forget about Jeremy Smart and concentrate really hard on my salt-shaker spinning and instead of fifty go for a truly amazing number like five hundred …

  Or a thousand …

  Or maybe three thousand …

  Or better still, three thousand and two …

  Yeah, and I’ll attract some really big sponsors and everybody will be so amazed they’ll forget all about this whole unfortunate day and they won’t even remember who Jeremy Smart is … they’ll be like, ‘Jeremy who?’ and parents across the land will be thrusting salt shakers at their kids and saying to them, ‘Why can’t you be more like Andy Griffiths?’

  Yes, that’s the answer …

  I can see it now …

  That’s what I’ll do …

  And I’m going to get right onto it …

  But first I’m just going to lie here for a while until my head stops hurting …

  Because I’m sure it will stop hurting …

  Eventually …

  And then I’ll show them …

  I’ll show them all …

  Just you wait and see.

  LESSON ONE: When riding on a bus it’s important to get the angle of your seat exactly right. Note: it may take a while, but don’t give up … just keep trying.

  LESSON TWO: Being a bus driver is not a good job for somebody who doesn’t like children or the noise they make when trying to get the angle of their seats exactly right.

  LESSON THREE: Being a museum guide is a good job for somebody who does like children and doesn’t mind being asked dumb questions.

  LESSON FOUR: There are lots of buttons to press at the museum.

  LESSON FIVE: It’s fun to play on the escalators but the guards would much prefer you didn’t.

  LESSON SIX: Gold nuggets are much bigger than chicken ones.

  LESSON SEVEN: Apparently we are all pretty much doomed.

  LESSON EIGHT: 3D glasses are not a cool fashion accessory.

  LESSON NINE: The Armagasaurus skeleton is not a coin-operated ride.

  LESSON TEN: My class has a lot to learn about dinosaurs.

  LESSON ELEVEN: Never turn your back on Danny Pickett, especially not when you’re anywhere near coprolite (that’s fossilised dinosaur poo, in case you didn’t know).

  LESSON TWELVE: Butterflies are not made of butter and they don’t have big butts.

  LESSON THIRTEEN: It’s fun to tap on the funnel-web spider’s glass but the guards would much prefer you didn’t.

  LESSON FOURTEEN: No offence to windmills but they are really boring.

  LESSON FIFTEEN: No offence to Sir Donald Bradman, but his bat is even more boring than a windmill.

  LESSON SIXTEEN: Danny can be very immature.

  LESSON SEVENTEEN: Old jokes are the best jokes.

  LESSON EIGHTEEN: Ancient Egyptians must have had really small brains.

  LESSON NINETEEN: Never turn your back on me, especially not if you’re anywhere near a beaker full of vomit.

  LESSON TWENTY: It’s important to take warning signs seriously.

  LESSON TWENTY-ONE: See? I told you it’s important to take warning signs seriously.

  LESSON TWENTY-TWO: The museum shop is a great place to buy rubber dinosaurs that squeak.

  LESSON TWENTY-THREE: If you’re posing for a group photo outside the museum, don’t stand next to Danny Pickett.

  LESSON TWENTY-FOUR: Being a bus driver is not a good job for somebody who doesn’t like the sound of squeaky rubber dinosaurs.

  LESSON TWENTY-FIVE: When riding on a bus that has just been driven off a cliff it’s important that all seats are fully upright and passengers are in the emergency brace position.

  Romeo and Juliet and Danny and Lisa and Me

  A DIARY OF DOOMED LOVE

  WEEK 1

  Monday November 8th

  I just landed the part of Romeo in the school production of Romeo and Juliet. To tell you the truth, I see myself as more of a Hollywood action hero than a Shakespearean actor, but I tried out for the part of Romeo because I knew that Lisa Mackney had already been chosen for the role of Juliet and I figured it was probably the best chance I’m ever going to get to kiss her.

  The best thing about it is that the kissing is actually in the script, so for once in my life there’s no way I can fail. It’s actually in the script … Romeo and Juliet kiss TWICE, and if I have anything to do with it—which I will, of course, because I’m Romeo—then I definitely won’t be getting it right the first time.

  Rehearsals start on Wednesday after school in the auditorium. We have four weeks to practise and then we’re putting it on for a gala one-night only performance. Four weeks isn’t very long but Ms Livingstone doesn’t believe in long rehearsal periods. She reckons it’s better to keep it fresh.

  Tuesday November 9th

  Danny’s mad with me.

  It turns out that he was really hoping to get the part of Romeo but instead he got Romeo’s best friend, Mercutio, who dies halfway through the play. I pointed out to him that it wouldn’t have done any good for him to get the part of Romeo because Lisa is really in love with me and she wouldn’t have wanted to kiss him anyway—at least not on the lips—but he said that if Lisa was so in love with me then why weren’t we officially girlfriend and boyfriend? But I just said, well I’d love to stay and chat with you Danny but oh dear is that the time? I have to go.

  (I didn’t really have to go but he totally believed me when I said I did, which just goes to show what a great actor I am and why I got the part of Romeo and not him.)

  Wednesday November 10th

  At our first rehearsal this afternoon Ms Livingstone explained how Romeo and Juliet is about two young people who meet and fall in love (which is good) but that their families hate each other (which is bad) and they secretly get married and hope that this will bring their families together (which would be very good) but their plan goes horribly wrong when Tybalt—Juliet’s cousin—kills Romeo’s best friend Mercutio (which is very bad) and then Romeo kills Tybalt to get revenge (which is very, VERY bad) and then—to cut a long story short—one misunderstanding leads to another until Romeo and Juliet end up dead (which is VERY, VERY, VERY bad).

  I suggested to Ms Livingstone that it might be better if we change the ending so that Romeo and Juliet don’t die but end up living happily ever after but she said that Shakespeare wrote it as a tragedy and who were we to mess with Shakespeare? I said that I would be happy to take responsibility for it but she just said well I’d love to stay and chat with you Andy but oh dear is that the time? I have to go. Ms Livingstone is very busy at the moment.

  Thursday November 11th

  Danny’s still mad at me.

  I told him I couldn’t help it if I was a better actor than he is but that didn’t seem to make him any less madder. In fact, if anything it seemed to make him more madder than he was before.

  At rehearsal Ms Livingstone said that before we started on the play she was going to get us to do a trust exercise where one person falls backwards and their partner catches them.

  I tried to partner up with Lisa but Ms Livingstone said that because Romeo and Mercutio are best friends it would be better for me and Danny to work together.

  The first time I fell backwards Danny didn’t catch me. He said it was because he wasn’t ready.

  The second time I fell backwards Danny didn’t catch me again. He said it was because he had something in his eye and he didn’t see me coming.

  The third time I fell bac
kwards, guess what? Yep, you guessed it: he didn’t catch me for a third time. He said he tried but that I was too heavy and that maybe I should think about going on a diet.

  I couldn’t wait for my chance to not catch him but we didn’t get to swap places. In light of my three ‘accidents’, Ms Livingstone said that she thought we’d probably done enough trust exercises for one day and that we should get on with rehearsals. I’m glad we did the exercises, though. I feel like I learned a lot—like NEVER to trust Danny ever again in my entire life, for example.

  The good thing is that Ms Livingstone said that tomorrow we would be working on the scene where Romeo and Juliet meet … which is the part where they kiss!

  Friday November 12th

  I was so excited about getting to kiss Lisa today that I hardly slept at all last night. Well, that and the fact that I couldn’t get comfortable given my sore head, bruised back and aching bum. School just dragged on and on and on but it finally ended and I raced to the auditorium—or, to be more accurate, I hobbled to the auditorium—and got ready to kiss the most beautiful girl in the world.

  Of course it wasn’t that simple.

  With Shakespeare it’s never that simple.

  His characters never do anything without making a speech about it first. Or afterwards. Or even during. I reckon if one of his characters went to the toilet they’d make a speech about that as well. To wee, or not to wee, that is the question …

  Anyway, first I had to take Lisa’s hand—her beautiful, soft, warm hand—and say, If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a gentle kiss.

  Don’t ask me what it means because I’ve got no idea, but Ms Livingstone made me say it about one thousand times before she was satisfied that I’d said it correctly. Finally I just said, Do we kiss now? And Lisa said, No, I have to say, Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this; for saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

  I’ve got absolutely no idea what that means either but fortunately Lisa got it right first time and then I leaned in to kiss her and Ms Livingstone said, Andy, what do you think you’re doing? You can’t kiss her yet, you have to say, Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

  So I said it but I still couldn’t kiss Lisa because she had to say some more stuff and then I had to say some more stuff and then she said a bit more and I said a bit more and then I couldn’t believe it because I finally got to the spot in the script where it says kisses her and I looked at Lisa and she looked at me and I leaned towards her and she leaned towards me and our lips were getting closer and closer and closer and then before our lips could even touch the fire alarm went BWAAAAPPPP! BWAAAAPPPP! BWAAAAPPPP! BWAAAAPPPP! and we all had to evacuate the building.

  I wasn’t too happy about it but Danny seemed to find it all pretty hilarious. So hilarious, in fact, that it made me wonder if maybe he had something to do with it.

  By the time the fire brigade had come and checked it out and declared it was a false alarm it was too late to continue, so we all had to go home and I didn’t get to kiss Lisa after all.

  The more I think about it, the surer I am that Danny had something to do with it.

  I’m going to kill him!

  Saturday November 13th

  I couldn’t kill Danny today because it was Saturday.

  Sunday November 14th

  Or today because it was Sunday.

  WEEK 2

  Monday November 15th

  Or today because he was too busy trying to kill me again!

  I was really keen to rehearse the bit where Romeo and Juliet meet, of course, but Ms Livingstone said she thought we’d got it down pretty well on Friday and that it would be better to move on to the balcony scene, which happens soon after. I said I really thought we should do the meeting scene again and especially rehearse the kiss but Ms Livingstone said, We’re doing the balcony scene, Andy, and that’s final.

  The balcony scene happens soon after Romeo and Juliet have met at the party. It’s later that night and Juliet comes out onto her balcony while I’m hiding in the garden and she says, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?—then I climb up the lattice on the outside of the building to her balcony and say, Here I am, let’s get married tomorrow (well, this being Shakespeare it takes a lot more words than that but that’s basically the gist of it) and she says, Yes of course I’ll marry you but I have to go now, parting is such sweet sorrow that I’ll say goodnight until tonight becomes tomorrow blah blah blah.

  It doesn’t actually say we kiss in the script but I figured that a small kiss might be a nice touch—I mean, they’ve just become engaged and all that—but as I climbed high enough to kiss Lisa the latticework that I was holding onto all fell apart and I went crashing down onto the stage, landing on my bruised back, which is still sore from the trust exercise.

  I can’t say for certain if Danny had anything to do with it but he seemed to find it all quite amusing, and the more I think about it, the more I’m pretty sure he probably did.

  Tuesday November 16th

  Okay. It’s official. Danny is definitely trying to kill me.

  Just before rehearsal this afternoon Danny told me he was going to act so well that Ms Livingstone would realise what a big mistake she’d made casting me as Romeo and not him and that she would then fire me and cast him as Romeo and I said, Dream on, Danny, and he said, No, you dream on, Andy, because I’m going to act you right off the stage!

  And he wasn’t joking.

  We were rehearsing the scene where Danny—as Mercutio—gets stabbed by Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt. He’s meant just to get stabbed, make a speech (of course!) and then leave the stage, but instead Danny took at least ten—yes, ten—minutes to die. He was staggering from one side of the stage to the other holding his stomach and going Oh, oh, Romeo, I am stabbed, I am stabbed, a plague on both your houses and all this other stuff that I’m not sure was even in the script and then he bumped into me so hard that he really did ‘act’ me off the stage! If I hadn’t managed to grab onto one of the curtains on the side of the stage I would have fallen off and really been hurt or maybe even killed, which I’m sure was exactly what Danny wanted.

  Danny’s death scene was pretty much the worst acting I’ve ever seen—as well as the most dangerous—but Ms Livingstone said it was really amazing and even Lisa seemed impressed. Obviously they were just trying to encourage him, because really, it was really, really terrible. I’m considering replacing Tybalt’s fake sword with a real sword—then Tybalt could stab Danny for real, which would help to speed things up a bit as well as save me the trouble of doing it myself!

  Wednesday November 17th

  Lisa wasn’t at school today. I expect she was probably upset at seeing me almost get knocked off the stage yesterday. She’s probably also upset about us not getting to kiss yet. Maybe almost as upset as me. Probably more.

  I went to see Ms Livingstone at lunchtime and told her how I suspected that Danny had tried to bump me off the stage on purpose and also that I suspected him of having something to do with the fire alarm going off and the collapsing latticework but she just said that playing Romeo was a challenging role and that acting Shakespeare stirs up big emotions and I was probably just feeling a bit stressed and should try some relaxation exercises.

  I tried to tell her that the only challenging thing about the role was the challenge of staying alive with Danny trying to kill me all the time so that he could play Romeo but she just said to try the relaxation exercises and well I’d love to stay and chat with you Andy but oh dear is that the time? I have to go. As I think I have already mentioned, Ms Livingstone is very busy.

  Thursday November 18th

  Lisa wasn’t at school again today. I’m really worried about her.

  And about me too.

  How are we supposed to make our kiss convincing if we can�
��t rehearse it?

  I’ve tried practising with a mirror but as hard as I try to imagine Lisa’s face I can only see my own face kissing back at me and it’s kind of off-putting.

  Maybe Lisa is staying away because she finds my kissing face off-putting as well but can’t bring herself to tell me. Wow. I guess Shakespeare really wasn’t kidding around when he wrote the course of true love never did run smooth. I’d better go practise my kissing face.

  Friday November 19th

  It’s official.

  This is officially the worst day of my entire life and that’s really saying something because I’ve had a lot of days that were officially the worst days of my life up until now, but this really beats them all.

  At rehearsal Ms Livingstone got us all together and said that she had some bad news.

  I wondered if the news was that she’d realised what a terrible actor Danny was and that she’d decided to kick him out of the production, but it wasn’t that. It was that Lisa had come down with measles and had to pull out of the play!!!

  I said it didn’t matter to me what she had and that I would still be prepared to kiss her—measles or no measles—but Ms Livingstone said that while it was very brave and heroic of me, it would be going beyond the call of duty for me to consider such a thing. I assured her that it wouldn’t be, but she just said that Lisa was out of the play and that she would be considering a replacement for her over the weekend.