5th August.
57 more days ‘til October.
My family and I had a big meeting in the kitchen today. Chilli banged a big spoon on the table to get everyone’s attention, as we were all talking and such. All of us were here - me, Luke, Resus, Cleo, Luella, Six, Bluey, Bingo, Muffin, Socks, Mike, Sue, Alston, Bella, Niles, Eefa, Dr F, Bandit, Chilli, Uncle Stripe, Aunt Trixie and Nana. “Now then, everyone, Halloween is in two months, and that means more Scream Street. Which means, due to circumstances untold, CBBC can only air this brilliantly animated yet tragically fallen show on Halloween.” “That’s our show!” said Cleo, “CBBC can’t just take our show and make it go downhill!” “I know,” said Chilli, “This is why we are organising a Hallowistmas plan.” “What’s Hallowistmas?” I asked. “It’s like Halloween mixed in with Christmas mixed in with nuclear war.” responded Chilli. “I’m not one for nuclear war,” said Mr Watson. “Me neither,” said Mrs Watson. “Well we all have to help each other in times of crisis. When Bandit was young his father on our behalf held a copy of Protect & Survive. Lots of people were scared of this now because of the public service announcements that aired in the ‘70s.” “Yeah, loads of people were scared out of their wits!” boomed Niles, “No wonder it ended up on a Channel 4 poll.” Chilli held up a copy of the Protect & Survive manual and placed it in the middle of the table. It looked a little dusty. Chilli managed to find it in the attic scrolling through the equipment she needed to survive times like this.
“We are going to recreate this manual to theme it around the awful new series of Scream Street,” said Chilli. “If anyone, and I mean anyone, in this family, manages to watch new episodes when they air on CBBC this October, then we’re going to be in the very worst kind of distress - if you know what I mean.” Everyone gasped, and Bella fainted! Luckily, Nana caught her. “Well caught, daddy!” cried Muffin, clapping her paws. Socks howled. Chilli once again banged her spoon on the table to quiet the little ones down. “Thank you, Muffin, we needed this. Now, we have a fallout shelter outside in the yard, and this shelter is big enough to fit anyone. Now, who has watched the Bluey episode ‘Hairdressers’ this morning?” All of us raised our hands and paws. “Good! Bluey is much better than an awful second series of a falling stop motion series.” Luella, Luke, Resus, Cleo and Six all looked at their hands in confusion. They were stop motion, while the dogs in the family were 2D animated. I was stop motion too, and I was only six years old! “We’d better start preparing straight away, or Scream Street will fall!”
Later, Bandit was watching ‘Hairdressers’ on iPlayer, when he spotted something which made his jaw drop. CBeebies had made a peculiar edit to Hairdressers. They cut out the scene where Bluey and Bingo were flourbombing Bandit! “Hey! Sweetheart! Come and look at this!” Chilli ran into the room and saw the edit right before her eyes. “Well, wackadoo! I think CBeebies has made a good job of telling kids not to waste flour.” “That’s what the health and safety organisation says,” said Bandit, “Thank god they didn’t show my nightmare of a torture experience on CBeebies, it might be fooling viewers into wasting flour as if it were a sackload of asbestos.” Chilli facepalmed. “Ever since I married you, you always thought flour was asbestos. Flour is flour wherever you are. Bluey and Bingo are just playing.” “You know what? We should take the whole family to the BBC studios to explain our situation to the British republic.”
Upstairs, Luke, Resus, Cleo, Luella, Six, Bluey, Bingo, Muffin, Socks and I are writing a list for Hallowistmas. We only had two things on our list: the Scream Street Petrifying Puzzle Book and the Scream Street Terrifying Trivia Book. “These will be the best books ever!” I cried. “I can’t wait to learn the real truth behind our fallen street!” said Luke. “I’ll learn about real wolves.” Socks howled. “We already have a wolf,” I laughed. Socks barked as if to say yes. “You have two,” said Luke. “Me AND Socks.” Luke picked up Socks and scruffled her head. “Scwu-fal-lees!” he said in a cutesy voice. Seeing this cute moment, Resus and Cleo began to tickle my tummy. I was screaming with laughter. Luella began to tickle Bluey. Bingo tickled Six, and Muffin was left out. Eefa came in and saw all of us laughing as we were tickling each other. “Oh, so one of us is left out, eh?” said Eefa, and she leapt onto Muffin, tickling her. Muffin was screaming loudly with laughter. Then Chilli entered. “Kids! Time for the drill!” “Already?” I asked at last, as we looked up.
We all lined up in the living room as Chilli got the TV ready. “Okay, now I’m going to put on an episode of the awful new Scream Street series, and we all have to run into our fallout shelter at once. I’m going to put on last year’s ‘Bones Of Destiny’ episode. Ready?” “Yep,” we all said. Chilli put on the episode, and we all ran outside into the garden and leapt into the fallout shelter immediately. It was full of toys, games and spoiled food. The smell of spoilt milk filled the air, and we all had to hold our noses. “See? What did I tell you? We’re all safe in here.” “But it smells like a cow did an enormous poo and died, then someone cut it open and took out its milk and intestines,” said Resus. “Be quiet, Resus, you’re frightening the little ones,” whispered Alston. “Good job we have some air freshener,” said Chilli, and got out some strawberry-scented air freshener. She sprayed it, and the sweet smell of strawberry blossoms filled the air raid shelter like lily pads had appeared in spoilt milk to grow and make it smell wonderful. We all enjoyed the smell so much. “It’s like we were in a flowery rainforest,” I smiled, and lay back to enjoy the smell.
Rainforest flowers for you and me,
Protect the planet peacefully
Make our passings heavenly,
And then say, come and play with me!
Just as I was enjoying it in our shelter, I realised Chilli was gone, and Bluey was calling, “Mum? MUM!” We all looked around, calling for Chilli, but then the shelter door opened and Chilli looked in. “TV’s off!” she called. “Everyone back into the house now!” We got out of our shelter and back into the house. Gratefully, the screen was black, and we all cheered and jumped up and down. Us kids had to hug each other and jump up and down. “No more awful Scream Street!” we shouted. “No more cannibalism!” cried Luella.
Later, we went altogether to the BBC studios in Salford. When we got in, there was so much to see. Catchphrases from shows like Teletubbies were plastered on the walls, and TVs were showing what was on the BBC channels. Channel logos were put up on the wall. “All we have to do now is convince the public to watch Season 1 of Scream Street.” said Chilli to all of us. People were everywhere, chatting and filming programmes and everything. We crept into a huge hallway, where various studios were filming programmes. “Sssssshhhh,” said Chilli, and we giggled under our breaths, saying “Sssshh.” to each other. Then we stood outside the CBBC room and waited. And waited. And waited. For all this time, we were silent. Then, it was suddenly broken when Bandit peered into the room where they were airing CBeebies programmes and yelled, during an episode of Go Jetters, “Some idiot cut out the scene where I was flourbombed!” That was when the chaos started.
“Where’s my baby? Where’s Socks?!” cried Aunt Trixie, and we all looked around for Socks, until Bingo gave a shout. “There she is! Look!” Everyone looked, and saw Socks greenscreened in front of an episode of Arthur, barking and trying to tear at the episode. We were all delighted, and the door was open! “Oh yes!” cried Bandit! “That’s my girl, tear down that bespectacled yellow-jumpered aardvark!” cried Uncle Stripe. Bandit and Uncle Stripe crashed through the door, while we all sat down on a plush sofa and watched the chaos unfold. Bandit was greenscreened in front of the episode, and Uncle Stripe was cheering from offscreen, like when he was watching a State Of Origin match on the telly. This is what Bandit yelled to millions of TV viewers:
“The BBC is trying to americanise CBBC! They’re now airing cartoons to attract a working class audience! That’s bad news for our children! Use your common sense and watch Season 1 of Scream Street! This is better than any other show on iPlayer! Join the revolution! Save the street and watch Season 1! I will be proud of you if you do!”
We were all screaming for Bandit and cheering for him as he strutted out of the room with Uncle Stripe and Socks. Aunt Trixie swept up Socks and cuddled her. “We want Dad! We want Dad!” we all chanted, until we got spotted by a TV executive. “You’re spoiling our programmes!” she squealed, “Clear off now!” And with that, she kicked us out of the studios, and we all had to drive home.
“The BBC is trying to americanise CBBC!” Bandit’s roaring speech was repeated on BBC News, as the newscasters were talking about Bandit and Socks’ invasion on CBBC and CBeebies earlier that day. “No need to thank me,” Bandit said to the telly, “We always adore a piece of dad.” “I like when you save the day, dad, you wrecked Elwood City like a reptile wrecking havoc in the city!” We all laughed. “Oh my god, that was hilarious,” breathed Chilli. “I can’t believe we did a great job on invading CBBC today!” “You’re right, if it hadn’t been for Socks, I would’ve left her at the studio forever!” “Then go and get her a bone immediately!” mocked Uncle Stripe, and we laughed even louder as Chilli turned off the telly.
The sun was setting outside, and the sky was getting dark. Everyone’s laughter turned to yawning. “I think we should all go to bed now,” I said. “No, we can’t go into our separate beds, we need to train for when Scream Street airs on CBBC. We have to sleep altogether in one bed.” So we did our usual bedtime routine, then we went into Bandit and Chilli’s bedroom and snuggled altogether into the huge bed, me next to Six and Luke. I snuggled into the pile of family members as Chilli recited Psalm 121 softly, and we were all quiet as we settled to sleep in the dark. As for me, I snuggle down and dreamed of our rainforest fantasy we thought of as we smelled the beautiful air freshener in the fallout shelter.
Sometimes we shall live to find
We never leave our friends behind
And when we embrace inclusivity
You know you are inviting me!
TO BE CONTINUED…
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