This surprised me. Mr Taggart would be willing to help me be a rival to Merit Radio? Couldn’t he get into trouble for that?
‘Really?’ I said. ‘He wants to help me set up … my own radio show?’
‘Really, Spike. He believes in you, and I do too. The next bit is up to you. He can only do so much. No one you admire got where they are because it was easy. They never gave up. Do you really want this?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Yes!’
‘OK, Spike. You doing it alone?’
‘NO! I need Artie and Holly to help. I can’t do this ALONE.’ I would need a support team and I couldn’t think of anyone else. Maybe because there wasn’t anyone else.
‘Call them then. No time like the present.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes. Now. Get them to come here right away.’
‘Um … OK,’ I said.
‘While you do that, I’ll stick the kettle on and make another cuppa.’
We both went back to the house and I excitedly called Artie and Holly. I kept the conversation brief and just told them something amazing was happening round at mine. ‘Get here as quick as you can – something amazing is happening,’ I said.
Both wanted to know what, but I said what I’d heard characters say in movies when they are worried the phone’s being bugged and someone is snooping on them.
‘Not over the phone, it’s not safe.’
Plus, I wouldn’t put it past my mum to bug our own line.
Artie and Holly were there as fast as their BMXs could carry them.
Once they were assembled in the front room, I brought them up to speed with Dad’s plan and Mr Taggart.
‘I can’t do this without you two,’ I said. ‘I’m excited but … it’s kind of scary too.’
‘Scary why? You worried about your mum stopping you?’ asked Holly.
‘Well, not just that. More that no one will listen and I’ll be an even bigger laughing stock than the kid who wore his sister’s karate pants.’
‘But you love radio, this is perfect for you,’ said Artie.
‘Yeah,’ said Holly. ‘It’s all you’ve ever wanted to do. My dad always says, ‘It’s better to regret doing something you did than not do anything.’ This is an opportunity, Spike. You’ve got to seize it.’
Holly was the most confident out of all of us. She was in the Army Cadets and stronger and more fearless than most of the boys. She joined after getting the idea from when I was briefly in the Air Cadets (remember?). Only, unlike me, she actually stuck at it.
Holly was Chief Telecommunications Officer. This meant she knew how the walkie-talkies worked when her ‘unit’ went on manoeuvres in the local woods. Don’t get too excited: it meant a few out-of-breath kids with a compass shouting at each other and getting lost in an area the size of my bathroom. Apart from Holly.
I took them down to the shed and Dad walked behind us, casually sipping his tea. He nodded to us as if to say ‘well done’.
As Artie and Holly entered the now-pristine shed, I could see they were taking it all in. We’d been friends long enough for them to know what a dump the place usually was.
Dad closed the shed door behind us.
‘Welcome to your own radio station and show,’ he said excitedly. His brown supermarket work tie wasn’t hanging straight and was slung over one shoulder, giving us all another reminder that he was verging on insanity.
‘I’m going to say something, and afterwards I want you all to think long and hard about it. Spike will have got you up to speed just now. You have two choices. To leave right away or stay. If you stay, then the biggest adventure of your lives will begin right here.’ You could have heard a pin drop in the shed. Sorry, studio. Even Sherlock was paying attention to this important briefing. Me, Artie and Holly exchanged looks.
‘Look around you,’ encouraged Dad. We did, our eyes scanning the freshly painted shed, my microphone and headphones. The startling image of my dad with his trousers pulled up a little too high.
‘This is your rebel base, from which you can take on the world – well, Merit Radio anyway,’ continued Dad.
Holly interrupted. ‘This is really exciting, Mr Hughes, and forgive me for slowing this all down a bit, but how exactly are we, a bunch of kids, going to do it all? I mean, the technical side of it? It’s very clean in here, but it’s still … a shed.’
‘Your Mr Taggart told me that you, Holly, are the brains of this outfit, and will know how to do it. From what he told me, from my understanding … it’s very simple and … I’ve got some sort of instructions here …’
This was going to be interesting. In my experience, explaining anything to do with computers and modern technology to my dad is like trying to tell a gibbering monkey how to land a plane.
Dad pulled what looked like a shopping list out of his pocket. On the other side was a series of diagrams apparently drawn by a caveman. Mr Taggart had given my dad a list of items we would need, and explained how to use them. He’d drawn pictures of it all. This information was now going to be passed on to us by my dad.
So this is how the Supermarket Professor broke down how to run an internet radio station to us.
You might want to make notes.
Dad LanguageCorrect Terminology
‘Some black box with buttons’ A mixing desk
‘Has those pushed into it’ Microphones
‘It all goes into a lapthingy’ A laptop
‘That speaks to her’ A Wi-Fi router
‘That is beamed into your mates’ cloth ears’ Broadcast to our audience
‘Like magic really’ Modern science
I was actually impressed Dad had even understood that much.
Holly chimed in. ‘I can do that, thank you, Mr Hughes. So the XLR cables, I’m guessing, must be standard 3.5mm, go into the mixer, then it’s into the laptop and streamed to the world. We’ll need better Wi-Fi and quicker streaming rates, Mr Hughes, though,’ she reasoned as if discussing a route into town.
‘Yes, yes, that’s what I thought, Holly!’ lied Dad.
In his mind, he still thinks magic pixies help download movies to our TV. He’s not totally clueless though. His only punishment that really works on me and my sister is the threat of turning off the Wi-Fi.
My sister starts yelling, ‘YOU CAN’T DO THAT! IT’S A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT TO HAVE WI-FI. THIS ISN’T CHINA, DAD, YOU KNOW!’
I just keep quiet as I know the router password anyway.
Dad pulled his trousers up even higher. This was a sign he meant business. If the house was on fire, the first thing my dad would do before leading us to safety would be to hike his pants up a bit higher. Anyway, now his trousers were at the required height he could continue his big speech.
‘Leave aside the technical stuff for now. This show is serious business.’ He fixed Artie and Holly with a trademark Dad stare. ‘Spike’s angry. He should be. He’s been ignored and treated very unfairly. You’re good friends if you join him in this, but have a think if it’s really for you. And then think about the upsides too. This, right here, is where dreams can become reality.’ He indicated the small shed. ‘I know what that’s like. Yeah, you may see me as some old guy who runs the town’s most cost-effective supermarket, but not so long ago I was on the verge of the big time. I’m not sure if Spike has told you about my band, The Pirates?’
Of course I hadn’t! Why would I?
‘No? Really? Not a mention? Well, let me tell you, we were going to be the next big thing – record companies trying to sign us up. Stars on the verge of greatness. Well, it never happened. We broke up and then less talented bands took our spot. I was angry, invisible again, but do you know what the worst thing I did was?’
Dad was staring very intensely at the three of us. Sherlock was now dozing, the suspense obviously lost on him.
‘Go and work in a supermarket?’ offered Holly.
‘No! The pension plan is fantastic, as is the health scheme. No, the worst thing was I DID NOTHING!
’ shouted Dad, banging his fist down to make the point. His DIY table really shook. Any more of this and my studio would be in pieces. Easy, big guy.
‘Regret is a very strong thing,’ he continued. ‘It eats away at you. I beg you, don’t get mad. Get even! Get funny. Use all this as a fire; don’t let it burn inside you. Use it to fuel this … this new adventure. This here is a brand-new radio station. You are its stars. You run it. You are in charge.’
Dad dramatically indicated the microphone. That last bit really struck a chord with us. We would be in charge. Cool.
‘It sounds fun,’ said Artie. ‘But I don’t get it. I mean, why are you helping us, Mr Hughes?’
‘Good question, Artie. Spike is my son, and I don’t want to let him make the mistake I did, Artie, of giving up. I want him to follow his dream. And he can’t do that alone. But at the end of the day the choice … is yours. Do you really want to do this? Start your own show right here? Do you want to show Mr Harris and that mutant kid of his how wrong they were? Do you want to try and give the kids of St Brenda’s an alternative radio station? A real one. Artie, do you want to play your records to kids around the country? Holly, do you want to put all that cadet training into practice? In short: are you all in?’
And with those words he turned his back on us dramatically. There was silence in the shed.
‘I’m in,’ I said. ‘I need to do this.’ Part of me smiled as I said those words. Like I had awoken a deep desire sleeping within me.
‘We have to do this,’ Artie and Holly hissed behind my dad’s turned back.
‘I can do the music,’ said Artie.
‘I can do the tech stuff,’ said Holly.
They were both grinning with the excitement of it all. However, I’ve no idea why they were whispering, given that, due to the size of the shed, Dad was standing less than a metre away.
Dad turned back to face us.
‘So you’re in?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and meant it.
‘YES!’ said Artie and Holly.
‘Great!’ announced Dad while rubbing his hands together, as if summoning some ancient spirits to help guide us. ‘But keep your voices down. See, the only thing is …’ He paused. ‘Spike’s mum can’t know.’
‘Actually …’ I said. ‘No one can know.’
‘What?’ said Artie. ‘Why? What’s the point of being radio stars if no one knows?’
‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘Mr Harris won’t like it, will he? I mean, we’ll be competing with Merit Radio. And if anyone ever finds out about this radio show coming from this shed, or about how Mr Taggart advised us on how to make it, he could get in trouble. Plus, if Mum finds out, she’ll just say no.’
‘No sense in upsetting her just yet,’ agreed Dad. ‘Let’s tell her soon, once we see how it all goes. She might … come round then.’ He seemed to be trying to convince himself more than us.
‘So we’re agreed?’ I said. ‘We won’t tell another soul?’
‘Um, OK,’ said Holly.
‘I guess,’ said Artie.
‘OK,’ said Dad. ‘A secret club. A secret radio club. Your mum, Spike, and all your mums for that matter, are this town’s biggest gossips. They are the best mums in the world, mind you, but if they find out you might as well broadcast it on Merit Radio.’
Dad made a good point there. We all nodded in agreement.
‘When are we going to do the show?’ I chipped in.
‘Well, that took me and Mr Taggart a while. He’s a smart one, believes in you all. He came up with the idea. The time of the AV Club will move a bit. Only you won’t be there, you’ll be here. Mr Taggart will cover and sign you in.’
My mind was racing, joining all the dots of how we could do it.
‘We then sneak in here. By the back gate?’
‘Smart thinking, son! You get that from your dad. So you’ll need this, Spike …’
Dad threw me an old key.
‘I didn’t even know you had a back gate,’ said Holly as I pocketed the rusty key. If the gate had escaped her military-trained eyes, then it must have been well hidden.
‘Not many do, so it’s perfect,’ said Dad. ‘You sneak in here and do the show, sneak back out and head home as if you’ve done another fun-filled AV Club. Tell your parents if anyone asks that you’re all working on a special project for AV Club. Smart, eh? Your mum normally works late on a Wednesday, Spike, so I’ll keep guard in the house while you all work your magic in here.’
This was really happening now.
‘Right, you lot carry on,’ said Dad. ‘You don’t need me for this bit. You gotta work out what you’re going to do – your first show is next Wednesday. Merit Radio starts Monday so you’re giving them a few days’ head start!’
‘Mr Hughes,’ said Holly. ‘Just a small point. Erm … where are we going to get all the equipment from?’
‘Yes, right, good question. You’ll need these,’ he said as he proudly handed us a load of egg boxes.
‘What are these for?’ I asked.
Holly had this one. ‘Soundproofing! Good call, Mr H.’
‘Exactly, Holly! See, you really are the brains here. And then, you go through this. Look for what you need.’ Dad dropped on to the DIY table my mum’s catalogue, SHOP-O-RAMA, which was around nine thousand pages thick and filled with cheap clothes, furniture and very basic electrical gear. ‘Spike, I’m going to trust you with my credit card. Get the bare minimum. Don’t go crazy.’
Dad left again, maybe off to make us a radio transmitter out of coat hangers.
We looked at each other, open-mouthed with excitement and a little bit scared. Don’t all great adventures begin like that?
We flicked through the catalogue. Holly found the electrical page. Page. Not pages. Page. Which contained amazing items such as:
A flimsy-looking set of walkie-talkies for kids that looked less reliable than yoghurt pots and string for chatting to your mate.
A portable CD player called a ‘Discman’ for playing CDs on. Despite the fact that the world stopped using CDs like that two hundred years ago.
A very basic ‘home computer’, which was the size of a small family car. The couple advertising it were very old and laughing for no obvious reason while using the computer.
Looking at the catalogue was like being a time traveller and going back twenty years. Who even uses catalogues any more? Well, my mum. Old school.
‘Right. We need a laptop for starters,’ sighed Holly, closing the catalogue.
‘I’ve got one,’ said the person who of course would have a laptop. Artie, thanks to his rich parents. Probably powered by cream. He patted his giant backpack.
‘Great,’ said Holly. ‘But we still need speakers, extra microphones, a Wi-Fi booster of some kind and, most important, a mixing desk.’
‘Look, let’s ditch the book of antique artefacts tat and really kit this place out as a radio studio,’ I said.
‘Car boot sale?’ said Holly.
‘Charity shop?’ offered Artie.
‘No! Let’s look on eBay. You can get everything on there.’
‘Hang on, Spike. Your dad never said anything about going on eBay!’ said Artie.
‘You saw how he wants us to crack on and make this happen. He gave me his credit card to get some gear. That’s what we’re doing. It’ll save him money too – he’ll thank me.’
‘OK, open up your laptop, Artie, and let’s go shopping,’ said Holly.
And so we went on my favourite-ever shopping trip. Over the next hour we found what we were searching for. Our shopping list was looking good.
The thing that was proving tricky was the mixing desk. You probably won’t know what this is, unless you’re a member of your school Audio Visual Club (AV Club), so I’d better explain a bit here. Imagine any studio where you see musicians and bands recording songs. There is always a big desk with loads of things called faders on it that slide up and down. Well, that’s a mixing desk. Microphones, speakers and equipment
all get plugged into it and you can adjust the volume of each. Turn the microphone down and the music up, for instance. It’s the mother ship of the whole radio show. Lesson over.
Anyway. They were way out of my dad’s budget, and on the only one we could afford on eBay, this kept happening.
We were in a furious bidding battle with a person going by the username eatmycat58.
Every time we made a bid, seconds later, Mr/Mrs/Miss eatmycat58 would raise their bid by ONE POUND!
Who was this idiot? Martin Harris?
This went on for too long. We were being held to ransom.
Time for me to take action.
‘Right, enough with eatmycat58. Let’s have a quiet word with Mr Taggart tomorrow at school to see if he can lend us a mixing desk.’
‘Just so you understand, without one the show really isn’t going to happen,’ Holly stated.
‘I get it,’ I said.
That night I could hardly sleep with the excitement. As well as the worry about whether we’d obtain this last, crucial piece of equipment. Oh, and also the eBay parcels that would be arriving in Dad’s name. I reminded myself to tell him about that. Soon.
We had Mr Taggart for geography the next day. Like many teachers, he teaches two subjects. I always think that’s funny. I mean our PE teacher also teaches French. It’s a bit like a doctor running a sandwich shop in their spare time. At the end of the lesson – a very interesting one about tectonic plates and volcanoes – we hung back after class emptied out. Well, I did, as apparently, according to Artie and Holly, I’m his favourite.
‘Everything OK, Spike?’ Mr Taggart enquired.
‘Well, yes. Erm …’ I looked around to check no one could hear us. ‘Thanks for helping us do our own show.’
Mr Taggart went over and closed the door, peering through the glass window to double-check no one could hear us.
‘Carry on, Spike,’ he said quietly. We were like two spies exchanging information behind enemy lines.
‘We’ve managed to get all the stuff we need for the studio, apart from the mixing desk …’
Radio Boy Page 5
