A Readers’ Theater Adaptation of Gary Paulsen’s Mudshark By Dixie Allen
Used with permission of Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House, ©2009.
Characters: Narrator 1 The Principal Markie Narrator 2 Mudshark Parrot Narrator 3 Billy Crisper
Narrator 1: This script comes from the novel, Mudshark by Gary Paulsen.
The Principal: This is the principal. Would the custodian please report to the faculty restroom with a plunger…no, wait…a shovel and a plunger? And has anybody seen the gerbil from room two oh six?
Narrator 2: The Mudshark was cool. Not because he said he was cool, or knew he was, or thought it. Not because he tried or even cared. He just was.
Narrator 3: His real name was Lyle Williams and for most of his twelve-year life people had just called him Lyle.
Narrator 2: But one day, when he’d been playing Death Ball—a kind of soccer mixed with football and wrestling and rugby and mudfighting—he’d been tripped.
Narrator 1: Everyone thought he was down for the count, flat on his back, covered in mud.
Narrator 2: Just then, a runner-kicker-wrestler-mudfighter came to close to him, streaking down-field with the ball, and one of Lyle’s hands snaked out and caught the runner by an ankle.
Billy Crisper: So fast it was like a mudshark.
Narrator 3: Billy always watched the animal channel.
Billy Crisper: Mudsharks lie in the mud and when something comes by, they grab it so fast that even high-speed cameras can’t catch it. I didn’t see his hand move, I didn’t see so much as a blur.
Narrator 1: After that game, no one called him Lyle.
Mudshark: But that’s not why I am so cool. I think…all the time…and I observe. I watch what others are doing and what’s going on around me. And when people ask for my help, I give it. Markie: Hey Mudshark. I lost my homework!
Mudshark: I remembered seeing Markie sitting on the steps in front of the school, and while talking to Todd DeClouet about the new tires on his bicycle, another kid accidentally kicked his ball toward where Markie’s homework lay on a bench and knocked the papers in to the bushes.
Markie: I ran all the way to the front bushes and there it was. Exactly where Mudhsark said it would be.
Narrator 2: This happened over and over throughout the school day until one day Mudshark noticed a sign had been placed on his locker…
Narrator 1: The Mudshark Detective Agency…
Narrator 3: Problems solved and items found
The Principal: This is the principal. Would the custodian please report to the faculty restroom with a large stick, safety goggles and a respirator mask? Also, while it is loose, and in spite of what I said in the last announcement, the gerbil is not, per se, a wild animal and will not, repeat, will not attack. So please refrain from screaming or otherwise panicking should you see said gerbil.
Narrator 3: Then came the day when Betty Crimper came in to the library and cried…
Betty Crimper: Has anyone seen my lard recipe?
Billy Crisper: Why don’t you ask Mud---
Parrot: Check the window ledge in the girls’ restroom.
Narrator 2: Mudshark turned to look at the parrot, frowned and then said to Betty…
Mudshark: He’s right, you should go look.”
Narrator 1: It happened again when Clyde whispered he’d lost a book.
Parrot: On the bench by the coach’s office.
Markie: All of a sudden, it seemed that the library parrot was psychic…
Billy Crisper: And the parrot could out-think Mudshark.
Mudshark: How does that parrot know so much when she is locked up in a cage all day? Where in the world is the gerbil? And what is with the restroom in the teacher’s lounge? Narrator 3: You’ll just have to read Mudshark by Gary Paulsen to find out.