Day 280: This is Tommy Liar

This is Tommy Liar
by
Matt Zurbo

 

This is Tommy Liar.
“I tell the truth!”
(Kid sticking thumb into puffed out chest.)

What’s that, Tommy?
“A cat!”
(Tommy looking at a cow.)

And this?
“A fridge!”
(Tommy being licked by a big St Bernard)

I don’t think you’re being honest…
“HE did it!”
(Tommy farting, holding his nose, and pointing to other, confused kid.)

“A square!” 
(A circle.)
“A rectangle!” 
(A star.)
“A frog!”
(A frypan.)
My sister!
(A carnival strongman, with moustache.)
Blue!
(Red.)

So tell us about yourself…
“I’m from Africa.”
“I’m super tall!”
(Tommy as a tall, black man.)

“I fight African dragons!”
“They’re just too fast for you to see them…”
(Tommy swishing arms, as if fighting air, above him, dragon’s tail swooshing past.)

“See! I just fought another one!”
“And don’t come back!”
(Tommy, striking angry pose, shaking fist at something off page.)

No you didn’t.
”Look out! Crocodiles!”
(Tommy on knees, bashing down as if fighting something in drain.)

There are no crocodiles in-
“Gah! Terradactyls!”
(Tommy holding rope that goes over a branch, dangling on its other end is a bored dog with fake wings, Tommy is ‘fighting’)

“Shield your eyes! It’s the moon!”
(Acts as if fighting/being burnt by the sun.)

“You know the Man in the Moon and I had a chat the other day…”
(Tommy Talking to Man in the Moon, who is sitting on a ten foot high rock ledge.)

“We were riding the ghost train…The one with real ghosts.”
(Tommy and Man in the Moon standing in front of ghost train carriage, looking up at ghosts rising out of it.)

“He told me about a wombat that rowed to the moon!”
(Both of them looking at a wombat rowing through the air past them in an apple crate.)

“The three of us are going to form a band, with Georgie the skipping girl!”
(As described. Tommy on keyboards.)

“We’re going to play to giants!”
(Band rocking on a very small but high stage, giants dancing wildly around them, reaching up, like fans do.)

Sure, Tommy Liar. Hey, why don’t you play sport?
“I’d get sick of winning!”
(Tommy trying to kick a ball and totally missing.)

No, really…
  “I do! I’m the world champion at blind ping pong!”
(Tommy, with blindfold on, standing on the shoulders of someone with blindfold on,, who is also standing on the shoulders of someone with blindfold on. Tommy is wildly swinging his bat, hitting a ping pong ball.)

What’s going on there?
“That’s Georgie. I told you all about her. She wants to go steady with me.”
(Girl behind Tommy, bitterly leaning forward, to poke her tongue out at him.)

“Help! I forgot to pay my gravity tax! I don’t want to fall up!”
(Tommy desperately clinging to a pole, feet in the air.)

Why not?
“Every time I do I end up fighting aliens!”
(Tommy falling up, into a cloud. Dozens of armed aliens waiting around on top side of cloud.)

You’re exhausting, Tommy Liar.
“Don’t blame me, I was raised by pixies.”
(Tommy, as a baby, being pushed in a pram by tiny, huffing and puffing pixies.)

“My real name is Betty. I’m a dancer!”
(Tommy in tutu, dancing.)

Stop it.
“I swear, by the God of Lightening! (Who I’m actually good friends with!) It’s all true!”
(Tommy playing checkers, and winning easily, against giant storm god, who is angry, throwing lightening down through clouds.)

“We actually met when I was working as a wrestler…”
(Tommy, wrestling the Perculator. Big, fat, orange wrestling suit with red love heart on chest. God of Lightening in Tommy’s corner, barracking.)

“I’m real good at math, too!”
(Tommy at school chalkboard, solving impossibly hard maths problem, that includes chalk drawing on him and a rocket ship and planets.)

“Last night I saw Saturn and Jupiter collide.”
NO MORE LIES!
(Tommy bowling through the air from the force of all the characters from the book shouting angrily at him.)

“Hee, hee. Just a misunderstanding…”
(Tommy dusting himself off.)

Tell us, Tommy, is there ANYTHING you can say that isn’t a lie?
“Life would be much more boring without me.”
(Tommy walking away from reader.)

 

 

The End.