The Sea-Quel (13 page)

“I don't need a talent, even though I am pretty sick at rapping. I've got a goldfish that can make the judges
and
the public vote however I want. Starting with Solomon Caldwell.”

He picked up the fire bucket from the side of the stage and showed me Frankie floating on the surface of the water.

“You've killed him!” I shouted, and pulled at my wrist ties.

“Relax, moron. He wouldn't be much good to me dead. At least, not yet,” he said, and laughed again. “I put a couple of drops of the sleeping mixture into the water. He's out like a baby.” He looked at Frankie. “A really ugly baby.”

Mark tied a piece of string to Frankie's tail and carried him over to the front row where Solomon Caldwell was snoring away.

“Wakey, wakey, Solomon,” he said, tapping his face with the wet goldfish.

“Leave Frankie alone!” I shouted. “He needs to go back in the water.”

As Solomon started to come around, Mark swung Frankie back and forth in front of his face like a pendulum. Frankie was still really sleepy-looking, but his eyes fell open as he swung, and in seconds Solomon Caldwell was mumbling, “Swishy fishy!” and staring at the wall and up Mark's left nostril. Once Solomon was hypnotized, if Frankie didn't put a thought in his head and control him … Mark could. Frankie was still too groggy though. His eyes fluttered closed.

Just then I heard a really faint owl call, and this was
definitely
a place where there shouldn't be any owls. Pradeep! I looked around.

Pradeep was backstage. His finger was in front of his mouth. Sami was with him. He motioned for her to
shhh
. Then he looked at me and gave a thumbs-up.

I kept one eye on Mark in the audience as he spoke to Solomon Caldwell. “When you wake up, you will make the first person you see a finalist on
Talent or No Talent
,” he said in a very slow, relaxing voice. “I will hypnotize the other judges with the fish too. And everyone watching TV! I
will
be the winner of the big cash prize.”

I kept the other eye on Pradeep and Sami. That wasn't easy without getting pretty dizzy.

All this time Frankie was still hanging by his tail. He couldn't survive out of water much longer!

Pradeep whispered something to Sami. Then he climbed up on the rigging above the stage. He started unwinding a curtain rope that was wrapped around a pole.

Mark turned back to me. “That was sooo easy,” he said. He looked at his watch. “I've got a minute before the sleeping stuff wears off. I gotta make sure when Solomon Caldwell lays eyes on me, I look like a star.”

He chucked Frankie in the bucket with the sleeping mixture and stomped offstage.

CHAPTER 11

A DRAMATIC SHOWDOWN

As soon as Mark was gone, Sami raced over from where she was hiding at the side of the stage. She was holding a quiver—you know, the bucket thing that holds arrows—which she had filled with water. She scooped up Frankie and dropped him inside. As soon as his gills touched the fresh water, he started to come around. He looked up at Sami and in a second she had the zombie stare again. She leaned the quiver up against my back.

“Swishy fishy snap, snap,” she whispered, and then crawled offstage and hid behind a curtain.

“Snap, snap?” I whispered back, but she was already gone.

Then I heard a splash and felt a wet scratching against the wrist ties around my hands. Then another splash and then the scratching again. It took me a moment to realize that Frankie was jumping up and gnawing at the ties with his jutting, jagged, rotten teeth.

I looked up at Pradeep and shot him a look that said, “I'm nearly ready to do something, are you?” Then Pradeep leaned down and gave me the double thumbs-up sign (which almost made him fall off the rigging). Frankie jumped up one last time and with his final nibble, I could feel the ties fall from my wrists.

Right then Mark came striding out onstage with a hoodie on under his Evil Scientist lab coat, his hair gelled into spikes, and wearing dark sunglasses. He struck a pose.

“I look mega-cool, moron. Just like a winner of
Talent or No Talent
should.” And he laughed a loud Evil Scientist laugh as he walked across the stage back toward Solomon Caldwell.

I was free, but I couldn't let Mark know. While his back was turned, I reached around on the floor and grabbed a couple of suction-cup arrows and a bow that one of the Merry Men had dropped when he fell asleep. I put the arrows in with Frankie and then slipped my hands and the bow behind my back so I still looked tied up, while Mark strode around onstage directly in front of Solomon Caldwell.

Suddenly the audience started to yawn and moan. The kids onstage rolled over and opened their eyes. People looked groggy and confused. While everyone was yawning and stretching, Sami snuck down off the stage and hid under Solomon Caldwell's seat. She was clutching the baker's hat from my old costume.

I shot her a look that said, “What are you doing? Get back!”

She responded with a look that either said, “I'm getting into the prime position for temporarily incapacitating Solomon Caldwell so he can't look at Mark, thereby helping to keep Frankie out of danger” or “Me help swishy fishy go swish!” It was hard to tell which.

Mark smirked and posed right in front of the snoozing
Talent or No Talent
creator. “Now I just gotta do my Evil Scientist rap,” he said with a grin.

I knew I had to act fast. I jumped up, slinging the quiver onto my back and pulling a suction-cup arrow out. I aimed my bow carefully. I hoped all my shooting-arrows practice with Pradeep would pay off. I crossed my fingers for luck, but then I remembered that you can't shoot an arrow with crossed fingers, so I uncrossed them again. Then I let go of the string.

The suction-cup arrow flew right into the back of Mark's hoodie, making him whip around to face me.

I heard a gasp from the audience and looked out. They were mostly awake now and looking confused. Robin Hood was fighting with an Evil Scientist? This was not even in the cartoon version!

“Too late!” Mark laughed as Solomon Caldwell began to open his eyes.

Mark started to rap:

 

“People say I'm bad, they don't know the plan,

I'm worse than bad, I'm well evil, man…”

 

This was
much
worse than I feared.

“Now, Sami!” I yelled, and Sami jumped out from under the seat with the baker's hat in her hands. She leaped onto Solomon's back and pulled the hat down over his head, covering his eyes before he could look at Mark.

“No!” Mark shouted. Then I heard a kind of mash-up between a Tarzan yell and a squeal of terror. It was Pradeep as he swung down from the rigging on a rope. He bashed into Mark and knocked him over.

Then one of the Merry Men shouted, “Robin, you have angered the sheriff!”

I guess he thought the show must go on even if it had completely changed direction since his nap.

Mark looked over at the kid and then at me. “Yeah!” Mark growled. “You shouldn't have done that, morons.” He grabbed a fighting stick from Merry Man Number Three and came at me. He was much too close for me to fire an arrow, and other than those, I was unarmed.

I kinda got the feeling that “unarmed” was what was about to happen to me too.

CHAPTER 12

ZOMBIE'S GOT TALENT

In the audience, Solomon Caldwell was groggily trying to get the baker's hat off his head, but without much luck. The people sitting next to him were looking at him in confusion, probably trying to work out if this was also part of the show.

Pradeep grabbed a fighting stick and threw it to me. Then he grabbed another one from Friar Tuck and we both stepped toward Mark.

Mark's face throbbed red. He swung at both of us. Pradeep and I were quick, but Mark was strong. He swiped at me and knocked my Robin Hood hat clean off my head. That was close!

He swung at me again, knocking my stick out of my hands and into the wings. Then he turned to Pradeep and was pulling back, ready to swing, when I flung the fire bucket of water at him. His foot stomped right into it and he lurched to the side with one foot stuck fast. Water sloshed out all over him and the stage.

“Stupid morons!” he shouted. “You still can't stop me!”

Mrs. Flushcowski was desperately flicking through the play script on her lap. “But none of this is what we rehearsed,” she squeaked. She looked at the stage and then at the audience. She still seemed a bit dazed from the sleeping gas. “And why is Solomon Caldwell playing the baker?” She seemed close to tears.

Just then, Mark grabbed Pradeep's stick and snapped it in two across his leg. He jumped down off the stage with the fire bucket still on his foot and clanked toward Solomon Caldwell, who was sleepily tugging on the baker's hat. I knew what I had to do.

I pulled another suction-cup arrow out of the quiver on my back, but nearly dropped it when I saw that Frankie was clinging to the arrow with his front fins.