Chew Bee or Not Chew Bee

by Martin Chatterton

  ‘Which wapscallion is in charge of this gang of wevolting wotters?’ he squealed in a high-pitched voice, once his chins had stopped quivering. ‘I have heard on the gwapevine that you are nothing but a collection of ordinawy stwolling players. And it is me you must impwess if you are to perform under the Woyal Seal of Appwoval!’

  Yorick snorted.

  The man peered up at him suspiciously. ‘Something amusing you?’ he squeaked.

  Yorick shook his head. ‘No, jist a bit of a cough, squire.’

  Charlie stepped towards the edge of the stage and held out his hand. ‘Charlie Ginnell at your service,’ he said. ‘Now what can I do for you, Mr…?’

  The man inspected Charlie’s hand as if it were something revolting. ‘Skellington,’ he said. ‘Sir Anstwuther Skellington.’

  ‘Sir Anstruther Skellington?’ said Charlie, turning pale. ‘Sir Victor Vile’s cousin?’

  Willy was jolted out of his misery at the mention of his old enemy. Sir Victor had never forgiven Willy for sneaking into his theatre in Stratford and tickling the Queen’s bum with a false beard.

  ‘Yes!’ squeaked Skellington. ‘Sir Anstwuther Skellington, new chairman of the Theatwical Mowals Board. Otherwise known as——’

  ‘You’re not the new King of Denmark Lane?’ gasped Willy. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse. Not only had Willy lost his only uncle, this dangerous-looking buffoon had taken over Uncle Aaron’s job.

  ‘I have that honour,’ said Skellington, a smug smile on his face. He waved a pudgy hand. ‘That oaf Ardent was useless, quite useless. He allowed the theatres to become nothing more than places of entertainment. People enjoying themselves all over the place. It wasn’t wight! So I set up the Theatwical Mowals Board in order to stop such madness! People can’t be allowed to have fun whenever they feel like it!’ He broke off and eyed Willy. ‘And who might you be, impudent youth?’

  ‘William Shake…I mean, Willy Waggledagger,’ stammered Willy.

  ‘Well, which is it? William Shake or Willy Waggledagger?’ snorted Skellington. He leaned close and prodded Willy with a fat finger. ‘Are you such a wevolting little wotter that you don’t know your own name?’

  ‘Welax—I mean, relax,’ said Yorick. ‘The boy’s jist ’ad some bad news.’ He put a spadelike hand on Skellington’s arm and gently pulled him away.

  The two goons behind Skellington growled and lumbered forward. They were so big that, for a moment, Willy thought two of the pillars holding up the theatre roof had moved. Olly ducked behind a curtain. Yorick didn’t blink, but he did take his hand off Skellington’s arm.

  ‘A death in the family,’ Charlie said quickly. ‘His uncle died. Ardent, as it happens.’

  Skellington took a step back, his eyebrows raised. ‘Ardent was your uncle?’ he said to Willy. Then he tittered. A repulsive smirk shivered across his face.

  He turned to his goons. ‘Did you hear that, Wosenbloom, Goldstein? Oh that is too, too funny!’

  He turned back to Willy. ‘You know that it was me who found the wetched cweature dead, don’t you?’

  Willy shook his head.

  ‘Dwowned, he was,’ continued Skellington. ‘In a bowl of Pig’s Ear soup. Is that a wespectable way for a gwown man to go? Pathetic!’

  At the mention of the soup, Willy frowned. There was something about that story that didn’t feel right, some detail that was just wrong. But Willy couldn’t think what that was.

  He glared at Skellington. ‘Don’t call my uncle pathetic!’ he cried. ‘If anyone’s pathetic it’s——’

  Willy found himself being dragged backwards into the wings by Yorick. The big man’s hand was clamped firmly over his mouth.

  Sir Anstruther Skellington climbed the few steps onto the stage and waddled across to Charlie. The effort made him short of breath and his face turned even redder. He motioned to his goons and pointed at his mouth. Goldstein lumbered onstage and produced a small pot of honey and a silver spoon. Skellington pulled the cork out of the pot and scooped out a big spoonful of golden honey, which he wolfed down greedily. He handed the spoon back to Goldstein and tossed the pot over his shoulder. It hit the boards and rolled backstage.

  Refreshed, Skellington turned back to Charlie. ‘I’d muzzle that yapping pup, if I were you, Mr Ginnell. Before I get Goldstein here to do it for me. Understood?’

  Willy was doing his best to wriggle free from Yorick’s grasp. ‘I’m not a pup!’ he managed to yell, before Yorick clamped a hand over his mouth again.

  Charlie bowed to Sir Anstruther Skellington. ‘You’ll have no more problems from that direction, you have my word as a man of the theatre.’

  Willy struggled harder to get away from Yorick. He was dying to kick Sir Anstruther Skellington squarely in his ample rear end.

  Skellington pursed his wet lips doubtfully. ‘Yes, well, I’ll be popping back in an hour or so to see how your little pwoduction is coming along. And, of course, I will attend the opening-night performance, in order to decide if your play is borwing enough to go ahead. We don’t want the London public to get too excited and have a wiot on our hands, do we?’

  Then, with a final glare at Willy, he trotted out of the theatre as fast as his little legs could carry him.

  3

  To Bee or Not to Bee

  Willy tore himself away from Yorick’s grip and scrambled through a maze of boxes and corridors until he found a dark, deserted corner. He needed somewhere to think. He sat down on a dusty packing case, let out a long sigh and slumped forward, his head in his hands.

  What a lousy day this was turning out to be.

  Not many people find a good-hearted uncle and then lose him all over again in the same morning.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Carrot-crunching Uncle Aaron hadn’t deserved what happened. The disgusting Sir Anstruther Skellington was right about that. Drowning in a bowl of Pig’s Ear soup was a horrible way for anyone to go.

  Something about that soup business was still nagging at Willy. And it wasn’t just the sad fact of his uncle’s death. There was an important detail wrong with the whole scene, like a bum note in a sad tune. The answer lay tantalisingly just out of Willy’s grasp.

  Skellington’s great fat face swam back into Willy’s mind. He was laughing his awful high-pitched laugh and saying insulting things about Uncle Aaron.

  Willy wished he could have shut the heartless old goat up, but it would only have meant trouble for the Skulls.

  He slammed his fist down on the packing case.

  ‘Ow!’ he said, and looked closely at the packing case. A single nail stuck out of the top. A tiny patch of Willy’s skin was caught on it.

  He leaned back against the wall, pulled off his glove and inspected his hand. A drop of blood splashed onto his tunic. Willy put the side of his hand to his mouth.

  ‘Bloody business, Master Shakespeare,’ said a low voice, rumbling from the shadows behind another stack of packing cases.

  Willy pulled on his glove and jumped to his feet. He looked around wildly and realised that he’d ended up in a pretty spooky part of the theatre. ‘Who’s there?’ he gasped. ‘And my name’s Waggledagger,’ he added.

  A tall grey shape slowly disengaged itself from a patch of shadow and came gliding forward. It loomed above Willy like an upright coffin.

  Willy staggered backwards and banged into the packing case he’d been sitting on. ‘Wh-wh-who are you?’ he said. His voice sounded panicky, even to himself.

  The figure glided further forward. It wore a hooded cape. If it had a face, it was lost somewhere deep inside the hood. ‘Waggledagger, eh? Most amusing,’ it said. ‘Clever, really; Shakespeare, Waggledagger.’

  ‘How do you know who I am?’

  ‘That’s not important, Master… Waggledagger.’

  ‘Are you…a ghost?’ Willy said, looking around for an escape route.

  ‘It doesn’t matter who I am,’ said the figure. ‘For now. You may as well call me “The Ghost”. But I’m not
here to hurt you.’

  ‘I’d better be going,’ said Willy, edging sideways. ‘Yorick will be wondering where I am.’

  ‘Never mind Yorick,’ said The Ghost. ‘It’s your uncle you should be worrying about.’

  ‘Uncle Aaron?’ said Willy, suddenly interested, despite himself. ‘What about him? How do you know who my uncle was? He’s dead, I already know that.’

  ‘All who live must die,’ murmured The Ghost. ‘The big question is: who killed him?’

  Willy blinked. ‘What do you mean, “who”? It was an accident. He drowned in a bowl of soup.’

  The Ghost paused for a moment before speaking. ‘Pig’s Ear soup,’ he said softly. ‘Strange choice of meal for someone who didn’t eat meat.’

  Willy blinked. An image of Uncle Aaron eating a great plateful of carrots came into his head. ‘That’s right!’ he exclaimed. ‘Uncle Aaron was a vegetarian! So why would he be eating Pig’s Ear soup?’

  ‘That is the kind of question that needs to be asked, young man,’ The Ghost continued. ‘And you are the person to ask them.’

  ‘Why me?’ said Willy.

  The Ghost paused. ‘You said it yourself, I am nothing but a ghost. I cannot start asking questions all over London. You must do it. You loved your uncle, didn’t you?’

  Willy nodded.

  ‘Then it’s settled,’ said The Ghost. ‘You must discover the truth behind his death.’

  ‘How?’ said Willy.

  ‘You must ask questions such as: who would want Ardent dead? Who would know where to find him every day at lunchtime? And why did he end up in the soup? Have you asked yourself that question?’

  ‘Heart attack?’ said Willy.

  ‘Your uncle was as strong as an ox,’ said The Ghost. ‘And vegetarians usually have very healthy hearts.’

  Willy didn’t know if that was true. Uncle Aaron was the only vegetarian he’d ever met. But The Ghost sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

  ‘Something strange was found in your dead uncle’s ear,’ The Ghost said. ‘You must find out who put it there. Then you must discover if that person is linked to your uncle’s death.’

  ‘What?’ said Willy.

  The Ghost leaned closer and drew a closed fist from the pocket of his robe. ‘Hold out your hand,’ he said.

  Willy did as he was told. The Ghost dropped a small yellow-and-black object onto Willy’s palm.

  It was a dead bee.

  ‘Uncle Aaron died with a bee in his ear?’ said Willy.

  The Ghost ignored him. ‘It is dangerous for me to stay in this theatre much longer,’ he said, gliding back into the darkness. ‘I will be back to see you as soon as I can.’

  ‘Wait!’ cried Willy. ‘Why should I believe anything you say?’

  There was a silence. The silence grew into a longer silence.

  The Ghost had gone.

  4

  A Noble Mind is Overthrown

  Yorick looked at the bee as if it might explode.

  ‘A ghost gave you this?’ he said. ‘No offence, old cock, but that don’t sound likely, if you arsks me. Ghosts generally don’t go around givin’ blokes dead bees.’

  ‘Now I think about it, I’m not sure he was an actual ghost,’ said Willy. ‘But he did call himself “The Ghost”. And he was pretty scary.’

  ‘Well, it still don’t seem right to me, Waggledagger,’ said Yorick. ‘Meddlin’ wiv fings you don’t know nuffink about.’

  ‘Bees?’ said Willy. ‘I know plenty about bees. This one’s got something very strange going on with its stripes.’ He held the bee closer to Yorick. ‘Look, the stripes run down the body, not around it.’

  ‘Never mind the bee!’ snapped Yorick. He climbed under his fog machine and began banging bits of wood with his hammer. ‘Ghost or no ghost, this bloke sounds like trouble. And trouble is one fing we don’t need! That Skellington bloke ’as already got ’is eye on you. If you go around spoutin’ crazy talk about ghosts, Charlie will ’ave you out of the Black Skulls and on yer way back to Stratford before you know wot’s wot. So give it a rest, and pass me that ’ose.’

  Willy lifted the canvas hose and thought about what Yorick had just said. If The Ghost wasn’t a ghost, then who was he? And how could Willy know if anything The Ghost had said was true? Maybe Yorick was right. Perhaps he should just forget about the whole thing and get on with trying to keep his job in the Skulls.

  Yorick passed Willy a hammer and pointed to the top of the machine. ‘Make yerself useful, Waggledagger,’ he said. ‘Fasten that ’ose to the top end. Nice and tight. We don’t want any of the smoke escapin’.’

  Willy clambered up onto a small set of stepladders and grabbed a box of nails. ‘Smoke?’ he said.

  ‘That’s wot makes the fog, Waggledagger,’ Yorick said. His voice trembled with pride. ‘She’s a beauty, ain’t she?’

  Willy wouldn’t have said the fog machine was beautiful, but it did look complicated. And the Skulls play The Sheeted Dead used a lot of smoke. Until now, they’d used Yorick’s smelly smoke pots, which had meant a lot of work for Willy.

  ‘What about Uncle Aaron being a vegetarian?’ said Willy as he banged the first nail home. ‘Why would he be eating Pig’s Ear soup if he was a vegetarian?’

  ‘A veggie wot?’ said Yorick from underneath the fog machine.

  ‘A vegetarian. Someone who doesn’t eat meat.’

  Yorick slid out from beneath the machine and sat up. ‘Now I know yer pullin’ ole Yorick’s leg! Not eatin’ meat! The very idea! That’s some imagination you got there, Waggledagger! But you ought to keep loopy notions like that to yerself, or people really will fink you’ve gone off yer rocker.’

  Yorick shook his shaggy head, dislodging a mouse that had temporarily set up home in his hair, and picked up a saw. Not eating meat! Whatever next?

  Willy banged home a couple more nails, giving the hammer an extra bit of biff. Sometimes Yorick could be so irritating. ‘Just because you’ve never heard of something, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose so,’ grunted Yorick. ‘And I s’pose it is a bit weird for a bloke who didn’t eat meat to die eatin’ Pig’s Ear soup. I’m partial to a bit of Pig’s Ear soup meself. Nice an’ chunky! Jist like ole Yorick, eh?’

  Willy finished attaching the hose and climbed down. As he stepped off the ladder, his toe knocked into something half-hidden under a coil of rope. He stooped and picked it up.

  It was the empty honey pot that Skellington had chucked away earlier. There was a handwritten label pasted on one side.

  London’s Finest Honey, it read.

  And then, in smaller letters: Manufactured at Devil’s Dock, London, by A. Skellington & Co.

  Willy dropped the hammer. It bounced off Yorick’s head.

  ‘Oi!’ Yorick said. He scrambled to his feet, rubbing his head with one hand, and holding the saw in the other. ‘Careful!’ he muttered.

  ‘Sorry, Yorick,’ said Willy. He held out the honey pot, his eyes shining. ‘But look! Skellington! He makes honey! Perhaps he knows something about the bee that was in Uncle Aaron’s ear when he died.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ Yorick put a grimy finger to his lips and looked around. ‘That’s dangerous talk, young feller,’ he said, lowering his voice and waggling the saw for emphasis. It made a funny wobbling sound. ‘And more than a bit loopy if you arsks me. There’s gotta be a fousand honey manufacturers in London. That bee coulda come from any one of ’em. You steer clear of Skellington, see? ’Im and those two great pet trolls could make life very difficult if you go around arskin’ crazy questions all over the place. My advice is ter give yer thoughts no tongue.’

  ‘I’m not crazy!’ cried Willy.

  ‘If you goes pokin’ yer nose in where it’s not wanted it could all get very nasty, very quickly,’ said Yorick. ‘You ’eard wot Charlie said to Skellington. ’E promised there’d be no problems. If you start runnin’ yer mouth off it could mean trouble fer us. Morty Coil told m
e not ten minutes ago that, last week, Skellington took a dislike to a bunch of actors who went around arskin’ questions about fings. ’E’s banned ’em from hever working in a theatre again. Guess wot they’re doin’ now?’ He glared at Willy for effect, before adding, ‘Children’s bleedin’ birthday parties!’

  Yorick turned back to the fog machine and began furiously fiddling with various cogs and levers. ‘Now attach that uvver end and we’ll speak no more about it,’ he said.

  Willy stared at the empty honey pot.

  Maybe Yorick was right. He really shouldn’t be poking his nose into his uncle’s death.

  It wasn’t the sensible thing to do.

  It wasn’t the safest thing to do.

  It wasn’t the thing to do at all if he didn’t want trouble.

  The problem was, with every minute that passed, Willy’s curiosity was getting the better of him. He couldn’t help wondering if The Ghost had been telling him the truth. Perhaps Uncle Aaron’s death really wasn’t an accident.

  He stuffed the honey pot into his breeches pocket next to the dead bee and crept towards the stage. He needed some time on his own to think things through.

  ‘’Ere!’ yelled Yorick. ‘Where do you fink yer goin’, Waggledagger?’

  ‘Er, to get some more nails,’ Willy said over his shoulder.

  5

  Willy Sets it Down

  Willy crawled into the darkness under the stage for a much-needed spot of thinking. He lifted Skellington’s empty honey pot and the dead bee out of his pocket and stared at them.

  There was a connection in there somewhere if only he could find it. At least, he thought there might be a connection.

  But Yorick was right, Skellington could hardly be the only person in the whole of London who had access to bees and honey.

  Willy wasn’t sure what to do next. ‘I’m useless as well as stupid,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I should never have agreed to help The Ghost. I’ve hit a dead end already, and now Yorick thinks I’m crazy.’