World's Greatest Liar

by Hutchinson Barry

  “Good. Then you can help us figure out how to fix him,” Jodie said. “Before he completely ruins my life once and for all, if he hasn’t done already.”

  We took another step up and arrived at the top of the stairs. Jodie’s face fell as she spotted the staff member in charge. It was Daniel Tallon, the current number two in her top-five list of boys she’d most like to smooch.

  “Hey, Jodes,” he said, brushing back his long, flowing hair and showing off some almost-flawless teeth. “What are you doing here?”

  Jodie tore her eyes from him long enough to shoot me a sideways look. I smiled broadly back at her and winked.

  Jodie’s jaw flapped open and closed as she turned back to Daniel. “Yes,” she said, a little too loudly.

  A frown flickered briefly across Daniel’s nearly-but-not-quite perfect forehead. “OK, then,” he said. He held up a harness. “Who’s going first?”

  “Yes,” Jodie said again. “I mean, um, Beaky. You can go first.”

  Jodie shot me one of her Looks. Her face was a shade of red I’d never seen before, like a traffic cone with sunburn. Having already suffered one beating at her hands today, I wasn’t in a hurry to receive a second one. As Daniel fastened the harness round my legs, I smiled at Jodie and mimed zipping my mouth shut.

  “OK, step up to the edge,” Daniel said. He held out another harness to Jodie. “Put your leg in there, Jodes,” he said.

  It was clear to see that Jodie was getting in a real flap, thanks largely to Daniel’s dazzling smile. She stared at the harness in confusion for several seconds, then lifted the wrong leg.

  “Other one,” he said. He took her leg and guided it into the harness. “Here, let me help.”

  Jodie’s eyes widened. Her mouth began to break dance, unable to decide whether to smile, frown, gasp or do all three at once. In the end she pulled a sort of grimace which made her look like she was having a particularly tricky bowel movement.

  While Theo was getting into his harness, I made the mistake of looking down. We’d been so caught up in our conversation that I hadn’t noticed how high we were. The platform we stood on was right up among the treetops, and the ground was a dizzyingly long way away.

  As I looked, the forest floor seemed to move in and out like the slider of a trombone. It rolled like waves. It spun like a top. It did other things I can’t even describe, but which were really quite unpleasant to look at and made my insides turn to jelly.

  “There’s a very good chance I’m going to soil myself,” I whispered.

  Daniel grinned and slapped me on the back. “There’s nothing to it,” he said. “On this first obstacle you just step off and swing to the next platform. Simple.”

  “Oh, I just step off, do I? Into empty space?” I replied, suddenly finding it tricky to breathe. “That’s easy for you to say. This is scarier than kittens.”

  Daniel glanced over to Jodie. She smiled awkwardly. “Don’t worry about him. He’s got this thing going on where he tells the truth all the time. It’s pretty funny, actually.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, me telling the truth’s funny, is it?” I said, turning to Daniel. “Here’s one for you then, Daniel. This’ll make you laugh. Jodie has this list in her diary—”

  With one big shove, Jodie pushed me off the platform. My stomach shot up to my ears as my feet left the solid wood and dropped into empty space. Flapping my arms, I desperately tried to fly, but without much success.

  The rope went tight, jerking me violently. I clung to it with both hands and looked up. The rope was making a worryingly high-pitched sound as it swung me across the gap. At first, I thought it was going to snap, then I realized the high-pitched sound was actually me, screaming as I hurtled through the air like an out-of-control Tarzan.

  The net on the other side took me by surprise. I hit it with an oof, then scrabbled frantically to grab hold. With a final gasp, I hauled myself up on to the next platform.

  Shaking, I turned back to the others. I could see Jodie laughing on the other side of the gap. Theo gave me a thumbs up, but even he was grinning a bit too broadly for my liking.

  “I didn’t soil myself, but I did come dangerously close,” I shouted across the gap, which made everyone on the platform – including complete strangers – crease up. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” I added, which just made them laugh even harder.

  This was torture! Everyone was laughing at me, and if I didn’t find a way to start lying again, people would be laughing at me forever.

  Turning away, I folded my arms and scowled. Enough was enough. I had to put an end to this truth-telling nonsense once and for all, and desperate times called for desperate measures.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” said Theo.

  We had finished the high wire, and were now sneaking through the indoor staff-only section of the centre, searching for the manager’s office.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I’ve got a plan.”

  “But is it a good plan?” Jodie asked.

  I shook my head. “Not really,” I admitted. “But it’s all I could come up with, and since you two couldn’t think of anything, it’s the only plan we’ve got.”

  The plan was pretty simple. I was going to humiliate myself into lying. In order for me to embarrass myself on a big enough scale, though, there was one thing I needed.

  “There,” I said, as we found the manager’s office. We ducked round a corner, keeping out of sight.

  “Now what?” asked Theo.

  “Now one of you has to go and convince–” I glanced at the door – “Tim Hughes, to leave his office.”

  Theo and Jodie exchanged a puzzled look.

  “Why us?” Jodie asked.

  “Well, I can’t very well do it, can I?” I reminded her. “I’d march up there, knock on the door and tell him the entire plan.”

  “So, you really can’t lie?” said Theo.

  I tutted. “Theo, you’re my best friend and I like you a lot but, wow, you’re slow sometimes. No, I can’t lie. Now, someone get the manager out of his office.”

  “Fine. I’ll do it,” huffed Jodie.

  Theo and I hung back. We listened to her shuffle nervously up to the door, then knock.

  The door opened. A surprised voice said, “Yes? What are you doing here? It’s staff only.”

  “It’s … there’s… I mean, the thing is…” Jodie fumbled. I rolled my eyes. What an amateur.

  “There’s a woman demanding to see the manager,” she finally blurted. “I think she’s from Environmental Health. Daniel Tallon asked me to come and get you.”

  “Oh no, not Environmental Health again,” the manager groaned. “They’ve never forgiven us for that baby getting stuck up the tree.”

  Theo and I ducked back as the manager rushed past our hiding place on his way to the main centre. When he was out of sight, we darted into the office with Jodie and closed the door behind us.

  I scanned the room. There were dirty cups and chocolate wrappers on every surface. The desk groaned under stacks of paperwork, boxes of tickets and a plastic tub containing the congealed remains of what looked like a chicken tikka masala. Where was it? Where was it?

  Aha!

  “Theo, lock the door,” I said, lowering myself into the manager’s chair. I pushed the papers and old curry aside and moved a little upright microphone into position in front of me.

  There was no key in the lock, so Theo wedged the back of a wooden chair under the handle to stop anyone opening it.

  “Now what?” Jodie asked.

  “Simple,” I said, pointing to the microphone. “This is the tannoy system. Anything I say into this will be amplified through dozens of speakers all over the centre. Everyone here – hundreds of people – will hear every word I say.”

  “So?” said Theo.

  “So, you two are going to ask me the most embarrassingly cringe-worthy questions you can think of, and I’m going to answer them.”

  “Why would you deliberately h
umiliate yourself?” said Jodie.

  “I wouldn’t! That’s the beauty of it. There’s no way I’d deliberately broadcast embarrassing stuff about myself for everyone to hear,” I said. “I’m sure my lying muscles will kick in to save me. They’ve got to.”

  Theo shuffled from foot to foot. “Sounds risky.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “That’s why it’s going to work.”

  “This? This is your plan?” Jodie scowled.

  “It is. And like I said, it’s the only one we’ve got, so if you’re both ready, let’s begin.”

  And with that, I twiddled the button to turn on the tannoy system. Then, using a letter opener from the manager’s desk tidy, I broke off the button and pinged it to the other side of the room.

  “Attention, everyone. My name is Dylan Malone,” I announced. “Although most people call me Beaky on account of my nose being massive.”

  “Finally, he admits it,” Jodie muttered.

  “Please listen to the following announcement,” I continued. I could just hear my voice echoing through the speakers out in the park, and imagined everyone stopping to listen. I looked at Theo and Jodie and gave them an encouraging nod.

  They glanced at each other, then at me, then at the floor, searching for something to say.

  “Well, come on,” I urged. “Ask me something.”

  “Can’t think of anything,” whispered Theo. Great. Some help he was.

  I turned to Jodie, but her expression was as blank as Theo’s. “Come on, you had plenty to ask me this morning. Now’s your chance!”

  Jodie shrugged slowly. “Um … tell us your most embarrassing secrets.”

  Technically, that wasn’t even a question, but it was enough to do the trick. I could feel my brain stirring, the words lining up to blurt themselves into the microphone and shame me forever.

  How many people in the park would know me? How many kids from my school would be there? Ten? Twenty? There was no way my brain would let me completely humiliate myself. No way.

  “I like to pull bits of hard skin off my feet and chew them,” I said.

  My whole body tensed. No!

  “It’s delicious,” I added.

  No, no, no, no, no!

  Frantically, I scrabbled to turn off the tannoy, but without the button it was stuck on. I bit my lip, trying to stop the words coming out, but it was pointless. What had I been thinking? This was the worst plan in the history of mankind.

  “Sometimes, I like to fart on my own hand then smell it,” I babbled.

  Theo and Jodie were just staring at me now, their eyes like saucers. I tried to stand up, but my Madame-Shirley-scrambled-brain was having none of it.

  I gritted my teeth and felt my face turn red with the effort of keeping the words from escaping. My fingertips gripped the edge of the desk until my knuckles turned white.

  “He’s going to burst! We have to help him,” Theo gasped. He shot a look at my sister, then sidestepped out of her reach. “Beaky! What are Jodie’s biggest secrets?”

  “What?” Jodie yelped.

  Yes! Thank you, Theo!

  “She got her bellybutton pierced even though Mum told her not to. She’s got a top-five list of boys she fancies, including Daniel who works here. She drew a picture of them all mashed together like Frankenstein’s monster. It was disturbing on a number of levels…”

  “Tell me embarrassing stuff about Theo,” Jodie barked. I shot my friend an apologetic look as my mouth started moving all on its own.

  “He picks his nose and eats it. His mum once bought him girls’ pants by mistake, but he wore them anyway.”

  “They were very comfortable!” Theo protested. “Tell us something else. Anything. Tell us a secret about someone you know.”

  “Not us,” Jodie said.

  A jumble of words swirled around in my head. There was no point resisting. My mouth opened.

  “Last night, Steve kept talking about another woman in his sleep, not Aunt Jas.”

  Jodie gasped. Even Theo looked shocked.

  With a single tug, Jodie pulled the wire out of the back of the microphone, and a brief screech of feedback echoed across the park.

  The words stopped swirling in my head. I flopped back in the manager’s chair and smiled weakly at Jodie and Theo. “So…” I began. “Do you think anyone heard any of that?”

  Unsurprisingly, it turned out that everyone had heard everything I’d said, thanks to the wonders of tannoy technology.

  We’d ducked out of the room just seconds before the manager had come storming back in, and – despite my better judgement – had gone to find Mum, Dad and the others.

  We finally tracked them down in the café. Mum and Dad were sitting across a table from an ashen-faced Steve. Aunt Jas and the kids were nowhere to be seen.

  Mum’s face darkened as she saw us approaching. “Get here now,” she said, pointing to a space on the bench beside her.

  Cautiously, I sat down. “And you,” Mum said to Jodie. Jodie joined me on the bench. Steve still hadn’t looked up from the table.

  “Nice to see you, Theo,” said Dad. “Probably best you shoot off, eh?”

  Theo almost cheered with relief. “Great!” he said. “Um, I mean… I’ll see you at school, Beaky.”

  With a supportive glance my way, Theo made a mad dash for freedom.

  “What were you thinking?” Dad demanded.

  “Dan, please. Let me handle this,” said Mum. She turned to me. “What were you thinking?”

  “I just… I just wanted to be able to lie,” I said. “That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

  Mum shook her head. “Not this nonsense again. Obviously you can lie just fine. You’re doing it now.”

  “I’m not!” I protested. “There really was a magic box or … something. It’s the truth. I really can’t lie.”

  “He is telling the truth,” Jodie said, but a look from Mum stopped her saying any more.

  Steve looked up at me. For a change, he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, and I could see his tired-looking eyes. “I wouldn’t talk about another woman in my sleep,” he said.

  “But … but you did,” I insisted. “You kept saying you loved her, and that you wanted to be with her forever and some other romantic guff!”

  Steve looked taken aback. “I did? What was her name?”

  Everyone watched me expectantly. I felt myself wilt beneath their gaze. “I … can’t remember,” I admitted. “It was an unusual name, though. Definitely not Jas.”

  “Where is Jas?” Jodie asked, looking around.

  “She and the kids went back to the house after Dylan’s little announcement,” Mum said. “To pack.”

  “Pack?” I said. “You don’t mean…?”

  Steve nodded and put his sunglasses back on, hiding his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, his voice cracking. “She broke up with me.”

  Jodie stood up. “This is all that machine’s fault,” she said. “That shop. I dragged Beaky into that shop.” She gasped. “It’s my fault!”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Dad.

  Jodie caught me by the arm. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m going to sort it. We’ll meet you at home, OK?”

  “Get back here,” said Mum, as Jodie pulled me away from the table. “I’m not finished with you two yet.”

  “Sorry, Mum,” said Jodie, pushing me out of the café. “I need to fix Beaky before he does any more damage!”

  As we dashed out of the café, we almost ran straight into Daniel. He smiled his runner-up smile.

  “Hey, Jodes. So … Frankenstein’s monster, eh? What part was I?” he asked, but Jodie barged past him, shoving him aside.

  “Not now,” she snapped.

  “The hair and one of the eyes,” I called back over my shoulder, as my sister dragged me towards the bus stop out front. “And three of the fingers on the left hand.”

  A short bus ride and a long walk later, we were standing on the spot we both agreed Madame Shirley’s Marvel
lous Emporium of Peculiarities should be. Across the street was the same furniture shop we’d passed several times the day before, only this time it was closed.

  Madame Shirley’s shop wasn’t closed, though, it was just … gone. There was a dusty To Let sign in the window, and a pile of mail scattered on the mat inside the door. From the look of the envelopes, it had all been there for a while.

  I would have said there was no way this could possibly have been the same shop, were it not for one tiny detail. There, right in the middle of the bare wooden floor, was a single packet of pickled onion crisps.

  “It’s not here,” I said.

  “How can it not be here?” Jodie wondered. “She can’t have moved out overnight.”

  “I don’t think she did,” I said. “I think she moved out yesterday, right after we left. That’s why we couldn’t find the shop.”

  Jodie snorted. “That’s impossible.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “As impossible as a metal box that makes people tell the truth.”

  “Fair point,” Jodie conceded. “I wish we’d never seen that stupid shop.”

  I blinked. “Jasmine,” I muttered.

  Jodie frowned. “What?”

  “Jasmine,” I said, a memory flickering at the back of my mind. “You said you wished we hadn’t seen the shop.”

  “So?”

  “So… You wished. Wishes. Genie. Magic lamp. Aladdin,” I said.

  Jodie looked me up and down. “Are you having some sort of breakdown?”