Chew Bee or Not Chew Bee

by Martin Chatterton

  ‘Dogs and theatres don’t mix,’ said Olly, wrinkling his nose. ‘They’re always barking at the wrong time, or pooping all over the props, or something.’

  ‘It just followed me from Skellington’s warehouse,’ said Willy. ‘I didn’t ask it to come!’

  ‘Whose warehouse?’ said Elbows.

  ‘Did you say Skellington’s warehouse?’ said Charlie.

  Yorick rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, bruvver,’ he groaned. ‘’Ere we go.’

  Willy hesitated. ‘Um, did I say Skellington’s warehouse?’ he said, his voice trailing off. There was a silence around the table. All eyes rested on Willy.

  ‘Blimey O’Riley, Waggledagger!’ said Yorick.

  Charlie almost choked on his mutton. ‘That’s Sir Anstruther Skellington’s dog?’

  ‘Yes,’ Willy whispered.

  ‘The same Sir Anstruther Skellington who’d like nothing better than to shut us down, ban us from London, and use you for axesharpening practice?’ said Charlie.

  Willy nodded.

  ‘I’ve lost my appetite,’ groaned Charlie. He pushed his plate away.

  ‘Oh, Waggledagger,’ said Walden. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Outstanding,’ chuckled Minimac. ‘Priceless!’

  Yorick shook his shaggy head.

  ‘I never asked him to come here!’ said Willy. ‘He just followed me!’

  ‘Well, he can follow you straight back there this instant!’ Charlie was fluttering his hand over his heart. ‘Are you a total nutcase? What on earth were you doing at Skellington’s warehouse? No, wait, I don’t want to know! Yorick, take Waggledagger and the dog back to the warehouse and leave them both there. Frankly, I don’t care if I never set eyes on the little trouble-causer ever again.’ Charlie scowled and turned to the other Skulls. ‘Olly, Elbows, Minty, you get down to the theatre with Walden and start rehearsals. Mrs McScottish, get me a new flagon of ale.’

  ‘Can’t we keep Willy, Charlie?’ said Yorick. ‘I’m sure ’e never meant any ’arm.’

  ‘No! He’s loony. Get him out of here right now!’ Charlie’s face had gone very red. ‘Skellington could drop in on rehearsals again at any time. We don’t want to give him a bigger excuse to shut us down than he already has! We’ll be performing at children’s parties till we die! That’s if he doesn’t just chop our heads off.’

  ‘Surely he won’t do that to me!’ wailed Olly. ‘I’m an artiste!’

  ‘Oh, stow it, Olly!’ snarled Yorick. He grabbed Willy and Old Feller and dragged them to the door.

  ‘Good riddance!’ screeched Mrs McScottish.

  ‘And make it snappy, Yorick,’ said Charlie. ‘We need you back at the theatre as soon as possible!’

  At the doorway Willy shook free of Yorick’s grasp. He took one look back at his friends and sighed. His plan to discover the truth behind his uncle’s death had failed. Now he’d never have a chance to tell The Ghost what he knew. And he’d lost his place in the Skulls, to boot. It was the end of the road.

  10

  Cruel to be Kind

  It took Willy and Yorick more than an hour to cross the bridge and find the broken doors that led into Skellington’s warehouse. When they eventually found them, a large delivery cart was unloading barrels, and they had to wait another ten minutes before the coast was clear. They were forced to hide in a shadowy doorway opposite the warehouse.

  ‘Poor old pooch,’ said Yorick, who was crouching as much as his belly would allow. ‘Sending ’im back where ’e came from seems jist plain cruel.’

  Willy was wedged in between Yorick and the wall, with Old Feller at his feet. ‘What about me?’ he said. ‘Isn’t sending me back to Stratford just as cruel?’

  ‘What makes you fink yer goin’ back to Stratford?’ said Yorick.

  ‘Charlie said to get rid of me, too.’

  Yorick barked out a short laugh. ‘Never mind, Charlie! I ’aven’t listened to ’ardly anyfink ’e’s said in fifteen years! You leave Charlie ter me, Waggledagger, and concentrate on the matter at ’and.’

  Willy felt a thrill of hope. ‘So I’m not going back to Stratford?’

  ‘I ain’t losin’ a perfickly decent dog and me new gofer all in the same day!’ said Yorick. ‘There are limits, Waggledagger!’

  Across the street, its job completed, the delivery cart rattled away. The doors to the warehouse stood open. The closed trapdoor was just visible inside.

  ‘Right,’ said Yorick gruffly. ‘Let’s get this chap back where ’e belongs.’ He grabbed Old Feller’s collar and started across the lane.

  A ragged man carrying half a sheep over his shoulder growled at Willy. Yorick and Old Feller growled back. The man staggered off down a side alley, cursing as he went.

  ‘Nice neighbourhood,’ said Yorick. ‘I told you to leave Skellington alone. Why in the name of Mother Thames did you fink comin’ down ’ere was a clever idea?’

  Willy patted the bees in his tunic pocket and wondered if he should tell Yorick about what he’d discovered. ‘It was just an idea I had,’ he said. The explanations could wait until later. Willy was in enough trouble with the Skulls without them getting involved in the discoveries he’d made the previous night.

  Yorick looked up at the damp black walls of Skellington’s warehouse. ‘Well this place is givin’ me the flamin’ heebie-jeebies,’ he said. ‘And ole Yorick has been in some pretty rum spots in ’is time, lemme tell you!’

  They were at the delivery doors. Old Feller began to sniff around the edges. The Boy Who Gave Him Honey had brought him back to honey heaven! His tail wagged from side to side.

  ‘Quick, Willy!’ said Yorick. ‘Someone might see us.’

  Willy opened the trapdoor. ‘Goodbye, Old Feller,’ he said.

  ‘Goodbye, pooch,’ said Yorick.

  ‘Woof!’ barked Old Feller and jumped down into the darkness.

  Yorick hauled the trapdoor shut. ‘Come on, Waggledagger,’ he said. ‘Let’s get back to the theatre.’

  11

  Alas, Poor Pooch

  ‘You brought him back, did you, Yorick?’ said Charlie, as Willy and Yorick came into the theatre an hour later. ‘I was rather hoping you’d be alone.’ He glared at Willy.

  ‘I need the lad, Charlie,’ said Yorick. ‘And we got shot of the dog, see?’ Yorick held his hands out as though he might have been hiding Old Feller somewhere. ‘So there’s no need to get rid of the lad, right? Not unless you wants to get rid of me, too.’

  Charlie waved him away. ‘Now, now, Yorick. There’s no need to be hasty.’

  Yorick cupped a hand to his mouth and whispered to Willy, ‘Make yerself useful, Waggledagger. As useful as you’ve ever bin in yer life. ’Opefully Charlie’ll forget about slingin’ you out. Now, skedaddle!’

  Willy skedaddled. He didn’t dare look at Charlie or any of the other Skulls.

  ‘What an idiot I’ve been to get mixed up in all this nonsense,’ he muttered to himself as he hurried backstage. He nervously patted the pots in his tunic pocket. ‘If I get caught with these bees now, I’m history. Maybe I should get rid of them.’

  But then he thought about Uncle Aaron, facedown in a bowl of soup. Willy paused, torn between wanting to hide the bees and wanting to keep them handy in case The Ghost showed up. His eyes scanned the auditorium, and came to rest on the posh theatre boxes along the side walls.

  That’s the perfect hiding place! thought Willy. He trotted out of the auditorium, into the foyer, and around to the stairs leading to the boxes. He opened the door of the box nearest the stage and slipped inside. Willy pulled one of the honey pots from his tunic pocket, and gave it a little shake. An angry buzzing came from inside. The bee was still alive!

  Willy hid the honey pot safely on the floor underneath the chair. He was just about to add the second pot when he thought better of it.

  ‘I’d better keep one in my pocket just in case,’ he said to himself. He got to his feet and hurried out of the box.

  Over the next few hours Willy
threw himself into being as useful as possible. He trotted everywhere, running errands, painting sets, fixing props and fetching drinks.

  By lunchtime, Charlie seemed to have forgotten his threat to get rid of Willy. Partly this was because it was an unusual day, with no tantrums from Olly, no mistakes from Elbows, and no script changes from Walden. Posters were made, interviews were given to the London press, and local security staff were brought in to cope with the expected crowds.

  In short, the Black Skulls London return looked like it was going to be a staggering, swaggering, soar-away success.

  But Willy was too nervous to enjoy himself like he usually would. He glanced nervously at the midday sun streaming through the upper windows. He was shocked at how fast the morning had gone.

  ‘I hope The Ghost comes back soon,’ he said to himself. ‘The sooner I can show him those bees the better!’ He sat down at the side of the stage for his first break of the day. Then he tried to calm his racing brain by watching the Skulls as they worked on their last big scene.

  Suddenly, everything went crazy.

  Sir Anstruther Skellington, with Rosenbloom and Goldstein right behind him, flung open the theatre doors and barrelled his way towards the stage. Skellington’s pig-like features were contorted in fury. He skidded to a halt, climbed onto the stage and flung an object onto the boards. It landed near Olly’s feet.

  When Willy saw what it was, an icy finger of fear crept up his spine.

  Olly and Elbows came to a jangling halt.

  ‘Happy now, murdewer?’ screeched Skellington, pointing a chubby finger at Willy. ‘I thought your uncle might have been the most disgwaceful member of your widiculous welatives but I see now that I was wong, that I was vewwy, vewwy wong!’

  Willy opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no words came out.

  Elbows picked up the object that Skellington had flung onto the stage and looked at it curiously.

  ‘Pwoof of his wepwehensible wongdoing!’ Skellington hissed.

  Willy stood up. ‘Give me that!’ he said. He snatched the object out of Elbows’s hands and looked at it closely. It was a dog collar, coated in honey, with the name ‘Old Feller’ picked out in gold thread.

  Yorick, who’d been making some last-minute adjustments to the fog machine, came out to see what all the fuss was about. ‘Old Feller!’ he cried, recognising the collar. ‘Wot’s happened?’

  Skellington glowered at Yorick. ‘What concern is it of yours, you gweat oaf? You didn’t know the dog. Or did you?’

  ‘Er…no,’ said Yorick. ‘I woz only arskin’ out of…on account of…bein’ a dog-lover. That’s right, jist a concerned dog-lover. Now wot’s ’appened to the dog?’

  ‘Dead,’ said Rosenbloom. To Willy’s confusion, Rosenbloom winked at him. At least Willy thought it was a wink. The great brute might have just had a twitch in his eye. Willy thought it best not to ask.

  ‘As a doornail,’ chimed in Goldstein.

  ‘But that’s impossible!’ said Willy.

  Skellington shook his head, setting off a tidal wave of chin-wobbling. ‘If only it was,’ he said. ‘The dog is dead, you wapscallion, but that is not the weason for my angwy demeanour! We found this collar floating in honey! The beast must have dwowned in my finest vat! The batch is wuined, completely wuined! Do you have any idea how many bees it takes to get that much first-gwade honey? Do you, you dog-murdewer?’

  Willy said nothing. He was too busy picturing the honey vat, the steps leading up to the vat…and the raised lid he hadn’t replaced the night before.

  Skellington was right. Willy was a dogmurderer. Old Feller had drowned because Willy had been careless.

  ‘I didn’t…How did you…?’ he said miserably.

  Skellington held up a ball of parchment. Willy recognised it with a jolt. It was the ball of his rough jottings that he’d used to distract Old Feller.

  ‘The nightwatchman found this on the floor of the warehouse! Unless I’m vewwy much mistaken, they are lines fwom a play!’ Skellington glared at Willy and narrowed his eyes. ‘And the nightwatchman also described a boy wunning away fwom my warehouse. A boy who looked vewwy much like you!’

  Willy blinked. ‘Lots of boys look like me in the dark,’ he said. ‘And a pickpocket must have taken my notes and dropped them in your warehouse.’

  ‘Wubbish! I intend to get the twuth out of you, Waggledagger,’ snarled Skellington. ‘As soon as the nightwatchman told me what you had done, I sent a messenger to my cousin, Sir Victor Vile, at Wichmond Palace. He has agweed to place you in the dungeon there and question you vewwy closely! I imagine he’ll be vewwy pleased to see you. I hear he owes you a thwashing or two!’

  Skellington turned towards Charlie, whose face was now a nasty shade of green. ‘The Theatwical Mowals Board will be attending your performance this evening, Mr Ginnell,’ he said. ‘If, by then, I have weceived word that Waggledagger has confessed to wuining my lovely honey, not only will I have his head chopped off, I’ll shut you down immediately. You and your fwends here will be banned from ever setting foot in London again!’

  Charlie spread his hands wide. ‘I’m quite sure, Your Excellency, that Willy had absolutely nothing to do with the unfortunate incident at your warehouse. And, er, I look forward to seeing you here later tonight.’

  ‘You’d do better to distance yourself from

  this cwiminal now, Ginnell,’ hissed Skellington. ‘Otherwise, you’re finished!’ He jabbed a finger into Willy’s chest to emphasise the point. As he did so, he dislodged the remaining honey pot from Willy’s tunic pocket.

  The pot hit the floor with a dull thud. This was followed by a muffled buzzing noise from the bee inside. Everyone looked at the pot.

  It was not one of Willy’s better moments.

  12

  Willy’s Rising Gorge

  Willy could only have looked guiltier if he had been wearing a large hat with the words ‘Bee Thief’ written on it.

  He licked his lips and glanced around. Everyone was staring at him.

  Then Rosenbloom shot out a gigantic paw and lifted him off his feet by the front of his tunic. ‘Can I eat him now, guv?’ he said in a low growl.

  Skellington looked up at Willy. His face twitched with rage. ‘Possibly later, Wosenbloom,’ he said. ‘For the moment I would pwefer to ask him a few questions. Put him down.’

  Rosenbloom replaced Willy on the stage— quite carefully, Willy thought, considering Rosenbloom was a boy-eating ogre.

  Skellington’s eyes darted in the direction of the honey pot lying near his feet. ‘An admiwer of my pwoducts, I see.’

  Willy nodded and forced a smile onto his face. ‘Th-th-that’s right, Sir Anstruther. Yum. Love that honey.’

  The bee chose that moment to buzz loudly.

  ‘And the pot contains honey?’ sneered Skellington. ‘Because I thought I heard it buzzing just now.’

  ‘No, no,’ spluttered Willy. ‘That was my… stomach. Groaning with hunger. For some honey.’

  A clear buzzing sound came from the honey pot.

  Skellington’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that so?’ With some difficulty, he bent over and picked up the pot. He thrust it under Willy’s nose. ‘It’s lunchtime, Mr Waggledagger,’ he smirked. ‘You must be vewwy hungwy.’

  Willy’s mouth puckered up so tightly he thought he’d swallow his own lips. ‘N-no,’ he eventually managed to spit out. ‘I’m fine, thanks all the same.’

  Skellington smiled nastily. ‘But I insist, Master Waggledagger. I insist.’

  Willy gulped and looked at the pot. Then he reached out and took it from Skellington. A violent vibration fizzed through his fingers. It must have been a very angry bee.

  Willy smiled glassily and lifted the pot to his lips. There was nothing for it. He didn’t want to think what would happen if Skellington discovered the real contents of the pot.

  Goldstein sniggered.

  Skellington nodded encouragement. ‘Whenever you’re weady.’

  Wil
ly lifted the honey pot to his lips, quickly uncorked it, and emptied the bee into his mouth. He snapped his lips shut.

  ‘Tasty?’ asked Skellington.

  Willy nodded. The bee zipped furiously around inside his mouth. He could feel it bouncing off his teeth.

  ‘Why are you moving your lips like that?’ said Skellington.

  Willy shrugged and tried to look as though this was the way people from Stratford always ate honey. He gave Skellington the thumbs-up.

  ‘Enough of this widiculous chawade,’ Skellington snapped.

  The moment Willy was dreading had arrived. He had been able to talk his way out of the evidence that placed him at the warehouse. And, if he ate what was in the pot, Skellington might believe that Willy had simply bought some honey from the market and hadn’t been anywhere near Devil’s Dock. But if he spat out a buzzing bee, he would be in very big trouble, no question about it.

  It came down to one simple choice.

  Chew bee or not chew bee? That was the question.

  Willy’s head bobbled, his eyes watered and his stomach lurched.

  And then, as Skellington’s smirk threatened to take over his whole face, Willy realised there was only one thing a self-respecting Shakespeare could do.

  Chew bee.

  Willy started munching.

  It wasn’t as bad as he’d expected.

  Not at first. There was a soft crunch which could just as easily have been a blackberry as a bee. And then a sharp pain at the very tip of his tongue as the bee struck. It was all Willy could do not to yelp. Instead, he gulped down the contents of his mouth.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Willy. ‘Lovely.’

  Skellington stepped closer to Willy and stared suspiciously at his mouth. ‘There’s something wong with your tongue,’ he said. ‘It looks swollen.’

  ‘I alwayth get that,’ said Willy, forcing himself to smile. ‘I love honey, but it doethn’t love me. Thtill, mutht have honey!’