“This is boring,” said Mitchell, “All we ever get to do is sell popcorn and admire our promotional images or cardboard cutouts of ourselves.” Templeton was already talking to himself - or rather, his cardboard cutout self. “Hello, you must be Templeton. I’m Templeton.” Becky groaned. “Yes, popcorn is boring. They taste of cardboard.” “Wait!” cried Mitchell, “Throughout this whole Strange Hill High sneak peek day, in one of the clips I asked for popcorn.” “That was when we were trapped inside that health and safety video,” reprimanded Becky, “If it were all Dora The Explorer then we wouldn’t have a narrator talking to us.” “Tell me about it. You should see what happened next door on CBeebies. Thousands of mums called in to say that Waybuloo had a wisecracking narrator that ruined the charm of the show!”
Becky wasn’t listening. She was thinking about all the moments when she shone in the series, such as when she sung about knowing if people were stuck in a dream. At once the first thought that came into her head was blurted aloud. “Ice cream head!” she cried, and all the cinemagoers stopped and stared at her. Becky immediately felt guilty. “Okay, maybe I should just…go,” she said, and she dashed under a white cloth laiden over something hard. She began to feel worried that what she said might get her into trouble, fire her from the cinema and even get her banned from CBBC for good.
Suddenly, Becky smelt something. A delicious, chocolatey smell. Becky peered out from under the table, and looked up. Something brown and melty was standing in pride of place in the middle of the table. She crawled out, got onto her feet and investigated what it was. It was a whole table, laiden with cakes and chocolates and sausage rolls and drinks. And in the middle of it was the most glamorous chocolate fountain you’ve ever seen. Becky drooled! “I’m in chocolate heaven!” she cried, and dashed over to the fountain to get a better look. She dipped her finger into the luxurious melty chocolate and tasted it. Mmmmm, not bad, she thought. She then rolled up her sleeve, dipped her hand into the chocolate and licked like mad. At once, just like a rat who tried a strawberry and a piece of cheese together, thoughts of excitement filled Becky’s head.
Fireworks going off in the night sky. Bubbles popping. A teddy bear exploding, sending stuffing everywhere. Then Becky snapped out of it, noticing a chocolate cake by the fountain. Using a plastic pink knife, she cut a big slice out of the cake and dipped it into the chocolate fountain. She tasted it. “Mmmmmmm!!” she cried. It tasted even better when dipped in chocolate fondue! She shuffled under the table and began to eat the slice by herself, while sounds of Mitchell calling “Popcorn! Popcorn! Come and get your popcorn in time for the - ooh, a chocolate fountain!” Wait, what?!
Mitchell went to inspect the chocolate fountain. Oh boy, did it look great. And when Mitchell tasted it, boy did it taste this luxurious! Mitchell took a sausage roll from the plate and dipped it into the fondue. “Ooh, yum!” he cried as he tasted it. It was the most funnest combination ever.
“Funnest isn’t even a word! Where did you get it from anyway?”
Er…Brother Bear: The PC Game?
“I’ll let you off.”
Mitchell took three more sausage rolls and ate them all up as he made his way back to the special Strange Hill High popcorn kiosk.
A few seconds later, Templeton inspected the chocolate fountain. He was very curious about the fountain, and took out some chips that were still left freshly cooked. He dipped them into the fountain one by one and ate them. They were yummy. So yummy in fact that Templeton took a straw and sucked a little bit of chocolate fondue out of the fountain, then burped! UUUUUURRRRRP! “Excuse me,” said Templeton, “Got a bit of indigestion trouble. Got to go and take my pills!” So Templeton went off to take his indigestion pills, because we all know what happens when Templeton eats potatoes and chocolate together, don’t we?!
Mr Abercrombie was coming out of the cinema after going to the toilet and into the lobby, when he saw the chocolate fountain up ahead. “Oooh yes!” he shouted and he dashed towards it. He took a packet of chocolate biscuits from his pocket and dipped one into the fountain. CRUNCH! Mr Abercrombie had never felt a biscuit taste this good before. “I could use one of these on a day off from school. The way I talked to Mitchell about his old school in episode 3 was quite boring.”
“WHAT?!” Mitchell overheard and stormed up to Mr Abercrombie in disgust. “Did you say my old school?” he said in a low voice. Mr Abercrombie dropped his packet of biscuits onto the floor. “Er…no!” he whimpered. “You did! I heard you!” And with that, Mitchell tackled Mr Abercrombie to the ground, wrestling with him and fighting with him like he joined WWE or something. A crowd of onlookers gathered to see what all the commotion was about, and began chanting “Mitchell Tanner! Mitchell Tanner!” as Mitchell fought for his right like never before.
Under the table, Becky heard the loud noises and lay down, huddled in a little heap on the floor. “Mitchell knew I’ve been to the chocolate fountain,” she whimpered, “And now he wants to fight people as a result! What will become of Mitchell now?” Becky began to cry hard. Her tears soaked into the chocolate stains all around her mouth as she tried to lick off the mess all around her mouth. Becky began to feel gullible - what if the chocolate fountain causes fights at the lobby? What if it causes disruptive violence? What if…it causes the end of Strange Hill High?
A theatre employee saw Mitchell fighting with Mr Abercrombie and tried to break them up. Upon seeing this, the crowd booed and blew raspberries at the manager. “No booing in this cinema, please, everyone out for causing disruptive behaviour. Now, Mitchell, get your friends and leave. This is no place to be broadcasting Strange Hill High now. From now on, screenings of the series are banned. All banned!” So Mitchell gathered Templeton and Becky and went off down the road to the park, where they sat together as it started to rain. The rain washed away the chocolate mess round Becky’s mouth and caused it to flow in a little river towards the drain.
It eventually made its way into the sewer, past one of those creepy giant worms and towards a hissing, spitting alligator monster, who saw the chocolatey mess and grumbled, “I was going to think it was chocolate, but now I think it might be runny poo. I give up.” It then made its way out into the water treatment plant, where it was cleaned to make richer, cleaner drinking water for human consumption. The water treatment plant forces chemicals out of the water so that it can be clean and efficient enough for people’s homes, baths and sink taps.
Meanwhile, back at the park, Mitchell took out his phone and went to Youtube to search up some funny videos to take his mind off of his brawl with his headmaster. When he looked around the recommendations page, he saw a video titled ‘Main Star Of Upcoming TV Show Fights With Co-Star!’. He dared himself not to click on the video, but he did, and the cheers of the crowd and Mitchell’s screams filled his head as he felt guilty over what he had done to upset everyone at the cinema. He dropped his phone into the drain and he began crying too.
The phone made its way along the sewer, past rats and giant worms and the hissing, spitting alligator who once again said, “I don’t believe it, first chocolate that turns into poo and now a bloody phone! I knew I should’ve stayed in the swamp.” It ended up at the water treatment plant, where some workers found the phone and fished it out with a net. They tried to turn it on, but it electrocuted and shut down. “We should call somebody,” said one worker.
“Mitchell, I’m so sorry,” said Becky back at the park, “I only wanted a taste of that chocolate fountain. Now look at me - a pink-haired wreck!” “You’re not!” said Mitchell, “You’re still the same cute girly genius everyone will know and adore.” “No I’m not!” whined Becky, “I ate the chocolate from the chocolate fountain and now I’m on the verge of getting tooth decay and bad grades and then I won’t end up on CBBC at all.” “BECKS!” cried Mitchell, and Becky stopped. “Think about what you’re doing to hurt yourself. You are not sharing with anyone, making the cinema a brutal place of war and savage fights. Next time, you have to share, or else you’ll never make any friends in your life.”
Becky thought for a moment. Then, as the rain stopped and the sun broke through the clouds, she calmly said, “I understand, Mitchell,” and hugged him like she never hugged him before. Templeton joined in the hug too, and later at home Becky wrote an apology letter to the cinema asking for forgiveness for eating the chocolate fountain that was used to promote the Strange Hill High screening. She wrote:
“Dear sir/madam,
I am writing to explain that I am really sorry for all the violence and disruption I caused over eating from a chocolate fountain. I understand that once again, I have to share with my friends, and I feel that what I did was wrong. So, can you make the screening happen again? Only if we promise to share. Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Becky Butters.”
The screening did go as plan, and Mitchell, Becky and Templeton went back to selling popcorn. Mr Abercrombie went up to them, his arm in a sling and with a black eye too, and he apologised to Mitchell for mentioning his old school. “That’s okay, Abs,” said Mitchell, “We all have a tragic past sometimes, but now, we can forget it.” “Hey, how’s about we ignore the chocolate fountain and instead have some sausage rolls?” “Yeah!” said Mitchell and Templeton together, and so they shared sausage rolls together as a way of their new look on sharing.
Meanwhile, at the water treatment plant, the workers had made Mitchell’s phone into a huge robotic monster, who boomed “All sentient beings will phone their friends and cause violence among the world.” “Good,” said one of the workers, “Now go forth and cause chaos!”
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