Rubella’s mouth moved so fast, Neville could barely keep up. The words poured out like water from one of the old sewer pipes.
‘IT’S-THE-AUDITIONS-FOR-THE-TOWN-PAN-TROLL-MIME-TOMORROW-AND-I-NEED-NEVTO-HELP-ME-GET-GOOD-SO-I-CAN-BE-BETTER-THAN-GRUNTILDA!’ she screeched, barely stopping to breathe. ‘WHAT-ELSE-WAS-I-SUPPOSED-TO-DO?’
Pong burst out laughing. Everyone else just stared at the red-faced, panting troll-girl. No one spoke.
‘WELL?’ Rubella sobbed. She kicked at a pile of food scrapings on the floor. A mealy old teabag flew across the room and bounced off the side of Neville’s head with a dull slap. ‘WELL?’
‘I can’t understand you,’ said Neville.
‘Ugh!’ Rubella grunted. She reached into her dress pocket and pulled out a large piece of folded paper.
‘Wassat?’ said Malaria.
Rubella threw the paper on to the table and Clod unfolded it. It was a brightly coloured poster, painted on the back of an old newspaper.
‘Read it, Nev,’ said Malaria.
Neville clambered down from his mooma’s arms and walked to the table. He squinted through his glasses for a second, then read aloud …
‘Right,’ Malaria said. ‘I think you need to take a big bungly breath and explain so we can all understand, Belly. I’ll put on a pot of shrimp-scale tea and we’ll ’ave a nice long chattywag.’
Clod pulled out a barrel seat for Neville, lifted him on to it and then sat himself down on the opposite side of the kitchen table.
‘Wha’s all this then?’ Clod said, putting a hand on Rubella’s. ‘Tell ole Dooda what’s up.’
‘It’s the auditions for the town pan-troll-mime tomorrow, and I need Nev to help me get good so I can be better than Gruntilda,’ Rubella mumbled pathetically. ‘She always gets the best parts.’
‘Pan-troll-mime? Is it that time of yearly already?’ said Clod.
‘Oh, Belly,’ Malaria said, lifting a rusted kettle on to the stove. ‘You’re a right nogginknocker sometimes!’
‘Pan-troll-mime?’ said Neville. Rage exploded inside him like a lit stick of dynamite and, for a split second, he forgot how afraid of Rubella he was. ‘You woke me up in the middle of the night, dragged me down here and worried me half to death because you want to audition for a stupid panto?’
‘IT’S NOT STUPID!’ Rubella growled.
‘You said it was an emergency.’ Neville flinched away from the growling hippopotamus. ‘AND WHY DID YOU ASK ME? I CAN’T HELP!’
‘Well, I couldn’t ask anyone else, you rottler,’ said Rubella, ‘otherwise Gruntilda would find out I’m going to audition.’
‘But how am I supposed to help you? I don’t know anything about auditioning or acting or stuff.’
‘You know all about that acty-dancy-jiggedy stuff, you grubberlumper,’ Rubella said, pointing an accusing sausage-finger at Neville. ‘I saw the picture on the shelf last time we all came to stay at your house.’
Neville opened his mouth to protest, but stopped himself. He knew exactly which picture Rubella was talking about. It was a photograph above the mantelpiece of him and his classmates in the school play.
‘It was only the school nativity,’ Neville said. ‘I don’t know –’
‘Exactly!’ interrupted Rubella, clapping her hands together. ‘You know all about it … aaand … no one else talks to YOU, so I’ll surprise them all.’
‘But I only played a sheep!’ Neville insisted. ‘And I wasn’t even a very good sheep.’ His tummy gurgled at the memory of wearing his scratchy costume and trying to remember all the words to ‘Away in a Manger’, and all those mums and dads staring. ‘I’m not a performer, Rubella.’
‘SHUT UP!’ Rubella shouted. ‘You know more than anyone else I could ask and you’re goin’ to tell me everythin’ you know, or … or … I’LL YANK YOUR EARS OFF!’
‘Ha ha!’ Clod beamed. ‘Our Belly wantin’ to be a star! How exciterous. What show is it?’
‘Whingerella,’ said Rubella.
‘OH, I LOVE THAT ONE!’ shouted Clod.
‘Whingerella? Like Cinderella?’ Neville was getting more and more angry. ‘But you said it was an emergency.’
‘It is,’ Rubella cried, smacking her hand dramatically across her forehead. ‘Gruntilda … You remember her?’
Neville racked his brains … She was Rubella’s bony friend that he’d met the very first time he’d journeyed down the toilet to the Underneath.
He nodded.
‘Gruntilda’s mum is in charge of the pan-troll-mime,’ Rubella said, leaning in like she was sharing a deep dark secret. ‘If I’m not extra good, Gruntilda will get the best part in the show … BUT I WANT TO PLAY IT!’
‘You want to play Whingerella?’ Neville asked.
‘UGH! NO!’ Rubella barked. ‘No one likes Whingerella. I want to be the grumptious stepsister that wears the grass slipper and marries the prince.’
‘I thought there were two stepsisters,’ said Neville. He was starting to get confused.
‘Not in Whingerella,’ said Rubella. ‘Everyone knows that the grumptious stepsister is far too grumptious for there to be more than one … I’m grumptious and I want to get all smoochery with the prince.’
‘Oh!’ said Clod. His grey-green cheeks started to blush. ‘I … erm …’
‘Who’s playin’ old princey-poo?’ asked Malaria, trying not to laugh. She handed out a tray full of mugs of steaming tea.
‘Thicket!’ Rubella said. ‘He plays it every yearly.’ She turned an odd shade of pink and almost swooned off her seat. ‘He’s the thorniest boy in the whole town.’
Neville thought he might throw up. Yuck! The thought of having to kiss Rubella was enough to make someone sick for a whole week. Poor Thicket! Neville had never seen his troll-sister like this. Normally she was smashing things or bursting through walls or getting into fights. He’d never seen her act so … well … girly!
‘In that case,’ Clod said, rubbing his hands together excitedly, ‘we’d better make sure you’re tippy-top and the best beauty-beamer up on that stage, Belly.’
‘That sounds just squibbly, it does,’ Malaria joined in. ‘Our Belly, a princess.’
Rubella turned to Neville. ‘What d’ya say, Nev?’ she said, smiling through gritted teeth. Neville was still angry and wanted to say no, but he noticed his troll-sister’s club-like hands balled up into fists. He nodded slowly.
‘Right then,’ said Clod. ‘What’s first?’
Everyone looked at Neville expectantly. He didn’t know what to say.
‘Well, um …’ Neville tried to remember the pantomime his friend Archie’s mum had taken them to. ‘I suppose –’
‘Don’t suppose, Nev,’ snapped Rubella. She mimed pulling his ears off across the table.
‘DANCING!’ Neville said with a gulp. ‘You should practise some dancing.’
‘EASY!’ Rubella barked and darted up the stairs, mumbling to herself. ‘I’ll just get my …’
Neville wrinkled his brow. He hadn’t quite caught the end of Rubella’s sentence, but … a twinge of fear crept up his spine. Surely he was going mad? Neville could have sworn he just heard Rubella say, ‘I’ll just get my … TUTU!’